Category Archives: Musings

Did you hear about the Red Alert in this week’s news?

Probably not. Most of us didn’t.

World Meteorological Organization is “sounding the Red Alert to the world.”

In his newsletter for Canada’s National Observer, climate correspondent Chris Hatch quotes the World Meteorological Organization (WMO): “The state of the climate in 2023 gave ominous new significance to the phrase ‘off the charts.’ He said the WMO officially certified last year as the hottest on record by a freakishly wide margin.

Hatch continues. “If you didn’t hear about the WMO “sounding the ‘Red Alert'” it’s probably because it barely made the news. The weekend weather forecast gets more coverage than a global red alert from the world’s meteorologists. Instead, we are inundated with articles and commentary gloating over the plight of carbon pricing or counselling strategic retreat on that policy.”

What is the main-stream media’s role in our apparent apathy, or even ignorance on the climate crisis? That so many of us are blissfully unaware of the consequences of climate chaos is at least partly because main-steam media outlets aren’t giving us the whole truth. Stories of flooding and wildfires are covered, the words ‘climate change’ are suggested as a possible reasons for these catastrophes, but there’s no sense of urgency, no suggestion that world leaders are talking too much and not acting nearly fast enough. If we don’t actively search out information (ie. the facts (not cliches) about the carbon tax) we won’t get accurate information and may believe that someone else is going to fix the climate emergency.

I’ve recently turned to Canada’s National Observer, The Guardian and The Tyee for more in-depth reporting. Highly recommended.

Words to live by

It was the end of a weekend-long conference for librarians and they were enjoying a celebratory awards banquet. Their spouses were included as were some authors who were seated at random tables and encouraged to chat with the librarians. Being an author, that’s how I found myself waiting for a meal, surrounded by strangers.

This event goes back fifteen years. For dinner we’d been given a choice of salmon or beef. I’d chosen salmon but had noted that there wasn’t a vegetarian option which would have been my preference.

When the meals arrived I was surprised to see that the man beside me received a plate of pasta, and it looked delicious.

“I didn’t know pasta was an option,” I said, trying to mask my plate envy.

“I requested a vegetarian meal,” he said, which I thought bold as he was simply the guest of his wife, a librarian. Being the cowardly person that I am, and being a guest, I wouldn’t have wanted to rock the boat so if I’d been served a meat other than fish, as had happened in the past, I would have given it to someone else and filled up on bread.

In those days I was always delighted to meet another vegetarian, we were so few in number, so I asked this man how long he’d been eating plant-based. I’d noted that his wife had chosen the beef option.

“Just a couple of months.”

“Really! What inspired you to take the leap?” I asked, truly curious about why some people adopt a plant-based diet even when their partners don’t. I know from experience that it makes meal planning more complicated.

“One day,” he said, “I just decided that enough was enough.” He didn’t elaborate, just tucked into his meal which I must say smelled as good as it looked. He gave me the impression that he didn’t want to discuss the topic further so I began to eat my own meal, wishing I’d also been brave enough to ask for a vegetarian option.

Enough is enough.

That’s all he said, but his words have stayed with me over the years. I didn’t ask, but clearly he’d seen and heard the literature that promotes plant-based diets. He’d likely learned about the horrors of factory farming and the significant contribution of beef agriculture to global warming. So why don’t more of us say that – enough is enough – when we realize that our behaviour and lifestyle choices are incongruent with the health of the planet?

If it were only so simple. Life is complex. Systematic change is difficult. We don’t think that our individual actions will make a difference.

But that quiet man, that lone vegetarian at the long banquet table, he decided that he was no longer going to stick with the status quo. His individual action impressed me. Our actions speak louder than words. He didn’t feel the need to explain his choice, except to say those three words. And because of people like him, vegetarian and even vegan options have now become mainstream.

Enough is enough.

Words to live by.

Breaking up

Dear Fast Fashion,

It’s over. We’re done. I’m breaking up with you.

Oh I know, I’ve said it before, but then you’d cast your spell over me with a new fashion trend, bargain basement price or targeted marketing that infested my newsfeeds. Yes, on many occasions you tempted me back when I forgot what matters; who made those garments, the damage you cause to the environment and the contribution you make to the climate crisis.

No, fast fashion, I truly am on to you and your corrupt ways now, the true cost that it takes to get your cheap clothing into my hands. You failed to tell me that your industry is responsible for 10% of the global carbon emissions, more than aviation and shipping combined, or that your synthetic materials, like polyester, require millions of barrels of oil every year. And how about the poisonous chemical dyes you pour into rivers? Shameful. And speaking of water, I now know your dirty little secret; one pair of jeans uses 9,000 bottles of water to produce!

And then there’s your contribution to swelling landfills! Your clothes don’t last beyond a few washes and then they’re tossed by the duped consumer. Like me.

Good grief, Fast Fashion. Does your industry lack a soul? Are the products you’d have me consume made under conditions that any decent person would consider humane? No! Those factory workers in Bangladesh are suffering, they work extremely long hours for below living wages. They are just cogs in a profit making machine, and your industry is doing extremely well in the profit making department.

I’m leaving you Fast Fashion, for something with integrity: Conscious Fashion. It’s been calling me for some time and I’m finally ready to move on.

Goodbye Fast Fashion. Please clean up your act.

*image from greenmatch.co.uk

Zooming In

My view is vast. Infinite. It’s the entire cosmos, all the solar systems, galaxies, stars, planets, asteroids, satellites and black holes.

Time is irrelevant here, but change is constant. Stars flicker out or explode as supernovas. Dark matter and energy pulse and there are hefty rocks careening through space, colliding with planets and other celestial objects. Planets circle stars and moons circle planets. There is chaos and there is order. The universe is All.

I rest my sights on the Milky Way which is but one of billions of galaxies in the universe. Each star in the milky way is teeming with planets. I focus on one of those stars, known as the Sun and see the nine planets that orbit it. Looking even closer I note the third planet from the sun, a blue dot in the black vastness. Zooming in I see that the planet is mostly covered in water, hence the blue tinge but great mountain ranges zig zag across the land and there’s lush vegetation, trees being the most notable feature.

Drawing my gaze even closer I recall that this blue dot in the universe is also home to billions of beings, from single cell organisms to birds that soar and larger two and four-legged creatures. Last time I cast a glance this way there were significantly more varieties but now the two-legged ones, the humans, have grown in number, skewing the fine balance. Time will sort out this problem. Time, eternal time, restores balance to all aspects of the cosmos.

Earth has existed for 3.8 billion years but humans have been around for only a few hundred thousand. In other words, they just got there.

And perhaps they are already on their way out?

I’d watched the evolution of life on this planet and when I first noticed the transition from hominid to human I was curious. What will they do with their developing brains? With their compassionate hearts?

Not what I’d expected, as it turns out.

Earth, that tiny, fragile exception in this particular solar system was an anomaly. It had life. It had potential. Humans did not rely solely on instinct to guide them as unicellular beings do. They are capable of great emotion and wondrous imagination. Continue reading →

Mind-blowing Science

Every time I watch a jumbo jet hurtle down a runway and then lift skyward I’m awed by the science that made that feat possible. How many pounds of aircraft, people and luggage are being propelled into the atmosphere? Who ever dreamed it could be done? I’m constantly humbled by how little I know.

A mere 66 years separate the Wright brothers’ first flight and Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon. It’s miraculous that science could achieve so much in that time frame. And now with the advent of AI new developments in science will likely speed “advancement” even faster although we don’t yet know how these ‘advancements’ will play out. Will they solve many of our man-made problems or only add to them? Perhaps in another 66 years we really will be living in settlements somewhere in outer space.

What really amazes me though (and not in a good way) is how we can make these huge advances in certain sciences, like aviation, yet we still can’t learn the basics, like how to get along. War continues to be waged around the world. As well, it has been suggested that if everyone on the planet consumed resources as fast as the average Canadian, five Earths would be needed to sustain us. As a species we can be so brilliant, yet we can also behave as daft as that ostrich with its head buried in the sand.

In the early days of the Covid pandemic we were all forced to slow down. You could almost feel the planet sigh with relief. The air cleared almost immediately as most of the planes were grounded and people who could worked from home, sparing the atmosphere all those carbon emissions. Wildlife began to appear where it dared not tread just weeks before. People returned to the humble Craft; baking, knitting, gardening. Wouldn’t it have been nice if this grand pause could have taught us to slow down permanently, breathe more deeply and appreciate simple pleasures? But life has ramped back up. It’s what keeps the economy going.

But let’s return to science, that miraculous body of knowledge that created vaccines and medicines that extend our lives. That changed our means of communication. That continually evolves. Biologists. Physicists. Geologists. They are all working on discoveries to further enlighten and improve the human condition.

Right now climate scientists are working particularly hard and are sounding an alarm loud and clear. They have the knowledge to teach us how to save ourselves and yet we’re still too preoccupied with our rampant consumerism, fast fashion and celebrity culture to hear it. Like that airplane hurtling down the runway, it can feel as though planet earth is careening toward disaster. But writer George Monbiot reminds us that political systems were made by people, and they can be changed by people. And we’re not ostriches. As Dr. Seuess says, “We have brains in our heads. We have feet in our shoes. We can steer ourselves in any direction we choose.” If we can blast airplanes into the sky and rockets into outer space surely science can help rejig our trajectory, moving us toward the creation of a kinder, gentler and greener world.

Spiritual Longing on a Sunday Afternoon

Written on a glorious fall day.

High above the towering forest the sky is a brilliant, summertime blue but the air on the ground is cool and fresh. Fallen leaves crunch beneath my feet as I stomp along the wooded trail. Through shafts of light that slice through the overhead branches I see that the the air is not actually clear but full of minuscule debris, bits of the forest, dancing in the breeze.

A sense of the sublime hits me as I absorb this perfect moment. Forgotten are the to-do lists, the chores that are waiting to be tackled and the many sorrows of the greater world. My mood, which seconds earlier had been dark as I rehashed the worries of the day, has lifted. I lean against a statuesque tree and look up, the green tree foliage juxtaposed against the cloudless sky and I let the beauty soak through me…

And then a crow squawks, breaking the stillness of the afternoon. I sigh, check my watch, and continue to plod along. The spiritual longing that is my constant companion settles over me again.

C.S. Lewis describes the feeling as “an inconsolable longing for we know not what”. How true. No matter how even-keeled my life is on any given day I can always feel that pang, that need to understand the meaning of it all. Why are we here? What is our purpose? Is there even a purpose?

Around the world people turn to organized religion to find the answers and yet we’re the one species who regularly rages war on one another (often in the name of religion) and we’re also the one species who (supposedly) has the greatest intelligence yet ignores what we know and continues to destroy our one and only planet with our wasteful, polluting ways. There’s such a disconnect between what we know and what we do. How can a person reconcile bliss (ie. a walk on a perfect fall day) while also knowing that our lifestyles are such that people only a few generations from now may not be able to experience this same beauty? Indigenous people from every corner of the world seem to have a more balanced relationship with the planet, recognizing the interconnectedness between all living things, and yet we don’t listen.

So what do we do with this?

We can only do our best, living in a manner that treads as lightly as possible. We can pursue knowledge. The sublime may be beyond our grasp but we can live generously and with kindness. And we can pay greater attention to those simple pleasures that stimulate the sense of wonder, that dew-covered, extraordinarily intricate spider web sparkling in the morning sunlight. That smell of decomposing leaves beneath our feet. That deep, unexpected connection with a stranger or the warmth we feel in our beloved communities. Perhaps if we do pay attention, much closer attention to these many simple joys the sense of the sublime will push aside the spiritual longing for longer and longer moments and we’ll “find the sacred in the midst of the mundane.” (John Robbins)

And we can hope, deeply hope that our elected leaders will take the necessary actions that begin to resolve the many problems in the world.

The Day The Music Died

It was Friday March 13, 2020 when I first heard that the NHL had cancelled their hockey season indefinitely. What the…?? That’s when the truth finally sank in. The coronavirus – as we were calling it then – was deadly serious.

That’s also when I began watching the news incessantly. Global. CBC. CNN. I watched it 24-7. I couldn’t get enough. Like most everyone else I became frightened, neurotic and slightly unhinged. (Though not enough to stock-pile toilet paper.) I would have been less shocked If a world war had been declared. It had never occurred to me that – outside science-fiction – a worldwide pandemic could shut down the entire planet so rapidly.

In those early days I couldn’t read, write or listen to music. I couldn’t focus. I could only consume news. I watched the daily covid numbers in BC, in Canada and around the world. In utter shock I saw the horrific scenes coming out of Italy and Spain. I hung onto BC’s Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry’s every word. Yes Dr. Henry, I will behave responsibly. I’ll stay home. I’ll wear a mask. Hand washing? I’m surprised there’s any skin left on my hands.

And then my beloved dentist died of the f’n virus. It was no longer ‘out there’. If it could take him, it could take anyone in my family or community.

Months passed. I began to read again. But still I watched news. Read news. Listened to news on podcasts as I walked. And walked. As we moved into the third wave our hearts collectively grew heavier and heavier.

But then the vaccines began to roll out and ever so slowly the daily new cases began to decline. I received my first dose of vaccine. Relief! Without realizing it I began to wean myself from news. I quit keeping tabs on daily numbers. I began to socialize again, albeit safely.

The second dose of vaccine created havoc in my body, but it was short-lived pain. Hallelujah! I’ve been fully vaccinated!

Soon after that I turned on my Daily Spotify Mix – currated just for me – and suddenly everything changed just as quickly as it had on March 13, 2020. Beautiful music filled my home again and I found myself dancing around the kitchen as I made dinner. It felt like the music was resurrecting my soul. Throughout those many months when I’d been so anxious I couldn’t allow myself the abandon of giving myself over to it. Now that I have there is such relief. When I silenced the music, I also silenced that link to the vast array of emotions that makes us human and connected to a vibrant life. And with the return of music I’m finding new ideas for stories have come rushing back in too.

I’d like to think that I’ve learned from this experience, but I doubt it. When I’m in fight or flight mode, facing an enemy like Covid, I can’t open myself up to the pleasures of music or much else.

For now, though, that has changed. Bring on the Spotify Daily mixes. Soon I’ll be attending live theatre. And concerts. May the music never die again.

“Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.” Kahlil Gilbran

Simple Pleasures

To distract ourselves during Covid, my walking partner and I challenged each other to pay attention to the simple pleasures in our lives. We noted how satisfying it is to slice into a perfectly ripe avocado or to slip between freshly laundered sheets on a well-made bed. It’s these little things that can get us through difficult times.

In his book titled The Book of Delights poet Ross Gay challenged himself to write one short essay per day on something he’d observed that delighted him. In the intro he says, “It didn’t take me long to learn that the discipline of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight there is to study. A month or two into this project delights were calling to me: Write about me! Write about me! I also learned this year that my delight grows – much like love and joy – when I share it.”

In other words, ‘what you focus on grows.’

So that’s what I’m going to do ~ share my simple pleasures (and delights!) and hope that more and more of them call to me.

In no particular order, here are a few:

Nuzzling a kitten to my face and breathing it in.
Hearing the laughter of children playing outside on summer evenings.
Puppies. The full-body wiggle when they’re greeting you.
Being notified by the library that a long awaited book has finally arrived.
Cracking open a new book and sinking in for the evening.
Hanging laundry out to dry on a breezy spring day.
Chatting with cheery strangers when we’re both out walking.
Discovering a gem of a book at a Little Free Library, or leaving a treasured book there and finding it gone the next time I’m checking out the selection.
Seeing items get repurposed.
Participating in discussions that dive deep.
Discovering new products that tread lightly on the planet, or that eliminate plastic waste.
Long, ambling beach walks.
Breathing in the earthy smell of forest trails.
Viewing wildlife photography – especially of bears and apes.
Watching the assertive little hummingbirds that fight for space at the bird feeder.

What are your simple pleasures?

Shelley Hrdlitschka

Category Archives: Musings

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