Today is Earth Day - a national celebration of the planet which sustains the only publicly accepted acknowledgement of life, our home. How many people actually gave their attention, their energy, even a spare moment to this treasure? Probably a fraction of any reasonable portion of humanity because we’re actively working towards complete separation from nature in every fundamental way. We think differently now, with assimilation to technology the forefront of this change; we eat nutrients built for us by genetic farmers; we work for the accumulation of worthless sums; and we shelter ourselves away from the messy, chaotic world of reality outside our doors. Gorget waiting for the sun to fry us in an electromagnetic storm, or a super volcano destabilizing the ability to survive, or asteroids, plagues, or worldwide drought -- the growing inability to connect with reality is leading us to our own self-sustaining apocalypse.
As a witch any chance I get to justify extra time outdoors is quickly grasped. I embrace my hippy ways and greet the earth barefoot and wander aimlessly, allowing the Flow to guide me. While at work this morning I enticed my enjoyment of each moment knowing I would be celebrating Earth Day outdoors with our dog, Chloe. Alas, a surprise awaited my entrance into my home: two brand new cell phones intended to save us money month-to-month. I had to start saving money now!
I immediately danced in the kitchen once I revealed the new toys to my boyfriend and the Rock-N-Roll Hippy Priestess. The box couldn’t be slower to open, the instructions more cumbersome to disregard, nor the wrapping more tight! Then the real process began: activating the phones, porting over our numbers, trying to attach the accounts together, setting up payment, and waiting the insufferable fifteen minutes to finally process the transaction to unlock the phones’ services! After a mere two hours I could finally enjoy creating space within nothingness: a whole world of realities in the palm of my hand. How remarkably convenient! Before I realized it, my e-mails were set up, each of my myriad of weather apps were installed, selected news sources followed, the random assortment of media hidden into folders in order to de-clutter the home screen, and the sun was pouring into our jungle living room, streaming through the giant monstera leaves, arcing in bright beams past countless books, and striking the table at which I worked.
My day had disappeared into the creation of a technological tool supposedly assisting my enjoyment of the life I let slip away over the past four hours! My Earth Day had been sacrificed, I realized, to a phone I know will end up resented in a few month’s because it steals my attention away from the present, pulling me farther away from enlightenment.
Slowly but surely, and much faster than the universe could predict (and yet assuredly foresaw), humanity will be irrevocably linked with the technology we wrought upon ourselves. Cell phones -- nay, “smart” phones begin stitching the fabric of our consciousness to that frequency. I fell to it today, a day I could have spent in magic and solitude with our Mother. Instead my impulses found it more important and opportune to set up my new iPhone... How did you spend your Earth Day?
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