And the conscious response to addiction is to learn somehow, to bear witness, to be present to, our suffering; to be with the wild, awful agony, rather than denying, refusing, masking, or projecting in a vain attempt to not experience our very real horror.

In this unprecedented era of possible planetary and species extinction, who is not in pain? We permaculturists like to try to “fix it” by offering real solutions. But is not our human task  to first surrender to inconsolable grief? That grief simmers there, deep underground, swelling, dishonored, and unrecognized, at the bottom of our collective and individual souls. In an era of forced, compartmentalized, distracted, alienated separation, what we have in common is the vulnerability of our unacknowledged suffering.

Let us dive directly into our grief, the ongoing loss of our beautiful planetary home; let’s allow the river of our pain, our grief, to carry us where it wants us to go, rather than just trying like hell to reach, as usual, and ad nauseam, for one more whatever! — in a vain attempt to keep what’s vaguely bothering us at bay for one more minute, one more hour, one more day.