You Say You Want a Revolution...

4/14/09
Ah, yes, the smell of “green” revolution is in the air like Spring; so pungent and bittersweet as to be palpable. Evidence of its proliferation is all around me; in conversation, in newspapers and books and magazines, it’s heroes and proponents scattered across the web, and across the globe, like stars in a deep country night sky – too numerous and brilliant to even comprehend. Al Gore, Paul Hawken, Michael Pollan, Van Jones, Majora Carter, CEO’s like Ray Anderson of Interface and Gary Hirschberg of Stonyfield Farms – just to name a few proud trailblazers of the domestic brand, each representing a different aspect (or multiple aspects) of the way before us: clean energy, resource conservation, protection and valuation, healthy food systems, green jobs, innovative manufacturing and product design,rebuilding of our urban landscapes to reflect hope and balance rather than ugliness and despair, and so much more...
And behind each of these many luminous individuals march thousands, perhaps millions, of warriors and footsoldiers for sustainability whose names never arrive in the cultural mainstream, toiling tirelessly in the trenches of social apathy, conditioning, ignorance, skepticism and even blatant resistance to sow new seeds of consciousness, to create new laws and policies or protect those under siege by Titans of the old paradigm and corporate emissaries seeking to preserve their kingdoms of wealth and comfort, built at great cost to Mother Earth. Their voices all too often dominate the political dialogue that - as Prez Obama continues to deeply and gracefully remind us - is SUPPOSED to be about “we the people”.
Yet, even with millions of us (esp. here in the capital of the industrialized world) “getting it”, closing loops, changing habits and lifestyles, embracing a “new” (and very, very old) way of being that returns us to a saner sense of our place in the great natural scheme of things and reminds us that we MUST honor and respect this miraculous, mysterious, ever unfolding gift of life on planet Earth - or neglect to do so at our own peril… even with the messages of this shift in cultural consciousness being shouted from every proverbial hill and dale, THE CHALLENGE HAS JUST BEGUN!! Revolution is not an undertaking for the faint of heart, and once begun, quitting is never, ever an option. Let the games begin.