In the U.S. our debt is owed to the Chinese, the Japanese, the Brits, and our next-door-neighbors. Our debt is big enough so that if we put dollar bills end to end, they could reach to the moon and back about three thousand times.
This though is not in any way the full extent our debt. As humans, we owe a debt to the planet earth for having harmed the forests, the oceans, the air, the animals, the plants, the mountains, the climate, and then so many of the peoples of the earth, indigenous peoples who are now long gone or, more or less, hanging on by a thread, who once had languages, art, histories, sacred places, and culture.
Our existence on the planet has not been a blessing to everyone else who lives here.
Over the past few months, we have watched escalating turmoil or transformation (depending on one’s perspective) afoot on the four corners of the earth, and this may end well or badly—or both – again, depending on which side of the fence we are on.
The state of our global pocket book is part of this wild ride.
Imagine for a moment that all economic activity has ground to a halt, then after a while, a short time or a long time, there will be no more rings of space debris encircling the earth, no more plastic trash clogging the oceans and the streets, no more slaughterhouses, no more research labs, no more pollution draining into streams and rivers, no more of the black rider of death who gallops across the earth doing away with all in his path.
What will there be then? No one knows. There may be great swathes of burned continents left behind in the wake of this rider of death. But maybe there will be flowers that emerge to dance in the meadows, striped fish that play among the river rocks, or chickens that once again can spread their wings in the jungle. Maybe.
So, as we watch the stock markets of world teetering across our television screen, if we catch flashes before our eyes of our diminishing lifestyle and the prospect of standing on a street corner, tin cup in hand, there is a reason not to be overcome with fear and doom, but to be joyful. A reason that we may not instantly welcome —a reason that we may find alarming in the night – but a reason all the same.
Because with the end of this skeletal rider will come release and freedom for the earth—for the cows, the deer, the turtles in the sea, for the eagles that would like to breathe pure air and fly through white clouds, for the dandelions that would like to peek out through the snow, for the moon that would like to shine bright in the clear night sky. And whether all these events take place on an earth reborn and re-awakened, or whether they happen on different worlds, in other dimensions, or in the landscapes of heaven, somewhere they will happen.
There is one option left yet to try—and that is an economy based on the restoration of the earth, rather than on trampling it under foot. And whether one wins or loses in this endeavor is not the question; as it says in the Hindu scriptures, one is not to be attached to the fruit of one’s actions. Walking on the path that gives life, rather than death, is the way to go.
Is it possible that people may play a part in a magical new beginning, may walk by the sea listening to the waves fall on the shore without envisioning recreating Miami Beach or live again in the forests with the birds and the animals, without harming the trees and without taking over more land than is their share?
One way or another, the consciousness that has worshipped the radiance of the tumbling waters, the shining sunlight, and the beings of the heavens will do so again—on one earth or another, on one level or another. Those who have hands will offer a drink to the thirsty fawn, and those who see the spirit world will give the gifts of peace and beauty and a link to the worlds of the stars.
In the meantime there is the debt that will be paid, the great cosmic ocean that will be churned again, the great unsettling of the world as we have known it, and the dismantling of the armies of iron riders that have plundered the earth.
Photo: Sharon St. Joan