Even In A Dying World, There Is Joy
I recently heard someone refer to the times we are living in as the age of the Great Dying.
I feel this in my bones to be true. (Warning, this paragraph may feel dark, but we won’t stay there...) Global warming will continue to cause greater environmental instability. Modern human systems will follow, collapsing under the impossibility to function in such an unstable environment. The loss of life, of all kinds, will grow and grow as the 6th mass extinction continues. Much psychological suffering lies ahead.
And still… I am in love with life.
I carry on doing things that will likely be in vain one, five, twenty years down the line. I do what I can to bring forward the changes I would like to see, even if it changes nothing. I continue to make exciting plans for a future that may not exist in the way I envision it, if it gets to exist at all. I beautify the smaller sphere of the world I walk in day by day. I acknowledge that no matter how certain or uncertain I feel about the future, it will happen as it happens.
It’s easy and understandable to despair, but I want you to know that there is joy and peace and beauty to be found, even in a dying world.
The work to be done is to move through doom and despair, not stay there. Consider the facts, take in what’s happening, do what you believe can be done, then make peace with the truth that life was never ours to control.
Mourn and cry for lost futures and possibilities. When your pain has exhausted itself, come back to find new hope in whatever time is given, be it minutes, days or decades.
The despairing mind would have us believe that existence is only worth experiencing if the future looks long, safe and happy.
The mind beyond despair knows that the only promise Life ever gave was, “I am always here.” And she’s never broken that promise.
The only work she’s ever done is to build and tear down. She is an organism of orderly anarchy, leaving beautiful chaos in her wake. We can take her promise and her work and know there is always more to experience. More creation to celebrate, more destruction to grieve, continuing on and on in different forms, and so the heart of existence never dies.
Find your way back to the heart and you will find it all has a place. You and your fears and your hopes have a place. You belong to the world and the world belongs to you and you both belong to Life.
Knowing this is how I can say that there is joy and peace and beauty to be found, even in a dying world.
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To help find your way back to the heart, allow me to take you on an interactive journey toward peace and clarity.
Brianne Grebil is a transformation coach, writer, and story teller. She is a Pacific Northwesterner who veered to California for over a decade and recently relocated to Nashville, TN. She is the author of Love Doesn’t Care If You Forget — Lessons of love from Alzheimer’s and dementia.
