I am well aware that back in the 1950’s, I might be a candidate for being put away in a sanitarium. I left my husband of 26 years, moved to a little hippie town in the Blue Ridge mountains, starting smoking pot, flew out to Oregon to adopt a dog, left 90% of my worldly possessions and moved to Arizona to be with my daughter who was pregnant, spent all my money and worried constantly about making more, being attracted to men years younger than myself, becoming a yoga teacher and vegetarian, authoring an inspirational, spiritually-oriented website daring people to dream and live their dreams, doing it myself.

Yep, I might have been committed. Perhaps it is this town in particular but I believe that it is happening everywhere. People are waking up to what has happened to our world under our watch. We are leaving a legacy of crooked politicians, corporations, wars fought for fabricated reasons to achieve a goal of ultimate power. People who have behaved badly. We let them, if we were not one of them.

So now what to do? Do we stand by and shake our heads as oil spews into the Gulf. It is too sad to go into all the ramifications. Who are we to mess with another beings habitat? To not ensure the greatest safeguards to keep their home safe. I read an article that said that during the Bush administration a decision was made not to enforce that upon our offshore oil rigs. It saved the companies several million dollars, and this disaster will cost them many billion, along with the deep guilt and despair. I hope the people of those oil companies and those who enabled them, oh which might include us who fill up our cars with $3 a gallon gasoline and enjoy the freedom that provides.

Where have our voices been? Why have we been so silent to let it get so out of hand? Please wake up. Please. Those of us who have been need you to come along too. We need greater numbers of people who are willing to be considered crazy to go against the norm. The norm is ridding our planet of one species at a time, one ecosystem at a time.

Are you thinking “what can I do about it”? It seems an awesome task to turn this ship around. The Renaissance was only 1000 people. We turned the world around then. We can turn it around now. Please join me and, I’m hoping, millions of others around the planet. Wake up and smell the smothering, burning oil in the Gulf, the blood on the battlefields in cities, towns , villages and neighborhoods all over the world. We are killing each other and those that get in the way of that intention.

So what can we do as individuals? We can speak out. Talk about this with your friends and your neighbors. Start a conversation. What you bought at the mall conversation can wait another day. It’s time to ensure there will be another day for someone somewhere. People are starving and we go to McDonalds and eat food kills our bodies[1].

What stops you? I think about what has stopped me and that is fear of rejection. Fear that my children will think I am insane. Fear that others will consider me someone to fear. A general nature of fear, which I have been shedding over this lifetime. I have held a fear of being found out to be the person I have been trying to hide. No one hides for real, only creates a feeling of distrust for a person who doesn’t seem congruent. Something is off. We are the last ones to see ourselves, which is a pity. Enjoy who you are. Be who you are. It is oh so much more than enough.

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[1] Watch Food, Inc. or Jamie Oliver’s program or Supersize Me to find where I get that assumption.