Lili Zohar's blog

In the span of my lifetime, the rate of upheaval in populations and weather is staggering. It is hard for me to imagine how the planet can take this continuing abuse and still sustain life as we know it. This week I feel discouraged by the lack of any real progress at the International Conference on Climate Change in Cancun, Mexico, after a similarly unproductive conference in Copenhagen last year. To ask individuals, nations and conglomerates to sacrifice profits and lifestyle and to invest in more progressive technologies that could limit emissions and dependence on oil may be too much during rough economic times. It is hard to understand how losing species and habitat, rising temperatures and coastal waters, melting ice caps and dying deserts and oceans make a difference when one is just trying to get by. How can we ask those not immediately affected by climate change to care? At times I find being human beyond overwhelming!

“What will happen to all the souls when the Earth is destroyed by the dying Sun?”
My son Eli and I were having one of our late night cuddles in his bed and his question, although strange, was not that surprising. Of late, Eli had been speaking of visitations by his grandpa who had died a quarter century before. When I asked Eli how he recognized my father whom I seldom spoke of, Eli responded: “It wasn’t really Grandpa Henry. It was his soul. He gave me magic slippers then he put all the colors of the rainbow into my heart.” I responded to Eli’s question before I thought much about it. “Don’t worry Eli. Souls are resourceful and the Universe is vast. If they really want to take form, surely the wise old souls will find a way.”

During the retreat day last week at the recent All School Meeting of ASOS, we signed up to take turns practicing in designated places for the whole community, so that others could run and return. This assured that the space of practice would be held by some for the good of all, acknowledging our interconnectedness as a community committed to living consciously. It felt good to hold space and to know it was being held by others, when I chose to take a walk in the gloriously lush deciduous woods of Connecticut or to rest.

When my daughter Rosa was 4, she found a young bird in our yard whom a cat had injured. Excitedly, she came to find me and together we emptied an old crayon-filled shoe box, lined it with shredded paper and placed a small pan of water in its corner. Through glaring eyes she peered at me as I came closer to help, wanting to flee, but immobilized by injury and fear. As I lifted the small starling, its pounding heartbeat, so rapid and strong, filled me with the bird’s fear from head to toe. It was as if I were holding not a bird but the very heart of terror in my palm. When the bird we named Lacey, did not improve, we found a shelter to receive her, never knowing if she made her way to freedom, or more likely, died in her box.

There are hot springs outside of Buena Vista Colorado, that bubble up from deep in the earth. One can find pools along the edge of the Arkansas River, surrounded by the Majestic Collegiate Range, the valleys and the winter trees waiting for their spring. In these eddies, the healing mineral waters, deliciously hot, bubble up from deep in the earth, as the river washes over, cool from the melting snows. The sky is strikingly blue and the burbling music of river over rock recalls the spirit of the Ute and their horses, on their Winter sojourn over the hundreds of years they lived in these lands. And others before them, who knew the healing powers that lay deep in the earth. When I get too hot and sleepy, I brave a trip to the center of the river, over slippery rock, where the water is icy cold. Relaxation then Exhilaration. What a blast!