Search for Balance

     

“It was the Equinox on Wednesday,” Mark commented this weekend. “And we didn’t even notice.”

“I did,” I pointed out. “I changed the mantel and table. We just didn’t do much because…” I sighed. Wednesday night was, after all, the night I came close to a full on panic attack.

This transition from summer to fall is always difficult. School begins. The harvest pours in. My work with City Council keeps on going for at least a few weeks at summer speed. OSU students are back, bringing increased traffic, parking problems, and loud party complaints. I am pulled between mountain hikes and papers to grade, the desire to sit still in the sun and the need to keep on working. Knowing this, we have created several rituals that require slowing down, watching the world change, and breathing. We climb to the top of Chip Ross Park to watch the harvest moon rise. We travel to the other side of the mountains to camp by the Metolius river for a few nights.  We have backyard fires and eat s’mores.  Without these pauses, I have a tendency to spin into chaos.

This year, smoke from wildfires hid the full moon for several nights; we drove through the results of the huge fires two years ago on our way east to the river. Even considering the amazing rejuvenation that we could see from the side of the road, we were stunned by the devastation—and the community’s desire to rebuild ever larger and more expensive houses. When I came home, I listened to Sunrise Corvallis students talk to City Council about the emotional toll Climate Change is having on them and their entire community.  Merged with our growing awareness of the intersections between climate change, homelessness and climate refugees, and growing inequality,  I feel the same deep and abiding dread of the future myself.

Where do we go from here? I know what I need to do to root myself in the earth, to feel grounded as I move forward in the fight. But, when our places to ground ourselves are destroyed, what do we do? How do we keep on? How do we work to heal the earth when we are losing the places where we heal ourselves? How do we engage more people so that so a few are not carrying the burden?

Rosh Hashanah is beginning tonight. I am not Jewish, but the rituals of the faith are lodged in me.  I will bake a round loaf of challah and toss the crumbs upon moving water, as I hope for a sweet year to come, for my sins to be forgiven, to see a way through.