Looking out at a world covered in an ice-encrusted blanket of about a foot-and-a-half of snow, it’s hard to imagine Spring is actually happening somewhere under there.
But it is. Under there. Very slowly and quietly.
If we personify the Earth, call the Material Principle Gaia and the Active Principle Green Man, it can help us identify signs of change sooner rather than later, and possibly help keep us from going bat guano crazy while the snow continues to fall and refuses to melt.
Let’s think about what we “know” of these two anthropomorphic people. Gaia is our Mother, and she has many aspects. In the Spring she is sweet and playful, soft and swift, gentle and warm – with the occasional tornado thrown in to keep us on our toes; in Summer, she can be sultry and languorous, or impatient and cruel with dangerous heat and fierce storms; in Autumn, she is nostalgic and thoughtful, wise and forgiving, tender as she begins to slip toward the Long Sleep; in Winter, she becomes the Hag of the North but also the Winter Queen, terrible yet beautiful, the white-haired grandmother who can take life, but ultimately brings renewal, because without Winter there can be no Spring, just as there can be no rebirth without death.
Green Man is a trickster king, Lord of the Forest and the Animals, Jack in the Green. In Spring he is Robin Hood, who robs from the rich (the established order) and gives to the poor (the grassroots, the upstarts), living in the loving woods, reveling in his freedom and his joy with the beautiful Spring Maiden, Maid Marian, and the jolly Merrie Men; in Summer he becomes John Barleycorn, the indwelling spirit of Life and Growth in all vegetative things, and the foliate face hidden in churches and temples, presiding over doorways, our protector and friend; in Autumn he is the wise shaman and Lord of the Beasts, stewarding his flocks, knowing which to kill and which can survive the harsh winter to come; in Winter he becomes the Lord of the Wild Hunt with his antlers and his long cloak of animal skins, both a terror and a protector as he is invoked to assist the hunters in finding food for the tribe.
So here we are in the Upper Midwest United States, stuck on pause between Winter and Spring, with another Polar Vortex screaming in like a really pissed-off lioness who doesn’t like how you are lookin’ at her babies.
Green Man! Where are you? HELP!
Let’s now think about what happens when you stress a person beyond their limits. So far past their boundaries that you can’t even see ’em anymore. What happens when you stretch a rubber band to its limit? If it doesn’t break, and you let it go – OUCH [enter dirty words of your choice here]. Somebody is gonna get hurt. Sometimes it’s the hand that holds the rubber band. Sometimes it’s the innocent person across the room that you weren’t actually aiming at.
Why should Gaia and Green Man be any different? They both have aspects that we can relate to enough to personify them, so let’s do it. Let’s say we are Wise Elders who have been drug to the very end of our patience by a system or situation which is needlessly unfair, by people who are the opposite of thoughtful, who act out of total self-interest with no regard for our well-being whatsoever. Some of us will shrivel up and die, like the rubber band breaking. Some of us will lash out and fight back and bring the full wrath of the ACLU and the AARP down upon those self-important, materially obsessed, cruel and conscienceless asshats.
In many of our national parks we have ecosystems that are literally failing, many thousands of animals dying of starvation and cold. In other places we have rivers swelling wildly, getting ready to unleash watery hell upon cities and farms once things finally start to melt. Icy death and violent destruction stalk the land, killing flora and fauna alike. We won’t know for a couple months yet whether some of our local trees have survived. I have my doubts about some.
We have cities where small businesses are forced to close their doors because it’s simply not safe to be out on the roads. Many local business owners are down on average 60% from their projections for the months of January and February 2019, causing them to question whether their businesses will survive the year, even if things do get better. This weather has caused hundreds of car accidents on our major highways, causing loss of life and serious injury – so yes, closing the shop for the day was absolutely the right thing to do, but damn, that is gonna leave a mark. This weather is disrupting everything we civilized humans consider to be natural, meaning our rigidly imposed timelines, our artificially constructed highways and our concrete-and-steel cities.
So where do we find the Green Man now? Gaia is snowed in, wrapping up under her blankets and hitting infinite snooze. We know that. But Green Man?
He’s gotta be out there somewhere, tending to his beloved animals, mourning the loss of so many. He will be thinking of Spring, dreaming of it, longing for it, but rampant abuses of his energies have left him without the strength to shift the weight of the ice and snow that imprison us. He lacks the will to break through the Ice Queen’s ice castle to bring her a very large coffee and an order of Waffle House hash browns. Things are . . . off. The Wheel of the Year might need an alignment. Winter started early, then changed its mind and had a really long smoke break before coming down on us like a ton of . . . snow. Green Man has been run ragged, is in a state of confusion and has a case of hiraeth that is driving him to drink.
But the birds are back and singing their hearts out, trying desperately to cheer him up. The days are getting longer, and the Sun has definitely rounded the bend and picked up speed on His journey north. Just because we’re frozen in suspended animation doesn’t mean Gaia isn’t dancing to that 5 billion year-old rhythm; she could dance it in her sleep, and she probably is.
If we can allow our World View to expand past our own trauma a little bit, we will see that our siblings in Australia have been suffering record breaking heat while we’ve been stuck in the record breaking cold. Does that make you go, “Hmmm?” It should. Do it now. Go “Hmm.” Do it again.
Alright, now we’ve found him, and we see why he’s in such distress. What can we do to help him regain his strength? Do you love the planet enough to make some changes in order to help return this system to a state of balance? So, remember that Star Trek where Spock sacrificed his life because the many lives he would save were more important than his one life? We gotta get our Spock on, people. We have to start thinking about how to minimize our impact on the planet, make changes in the way we live, get smarter about the way we consume.
Would you do anything for your mom or dad? For your kids? For your sisters or your brothers? Well guess what – Gaia is Mom and Green Man is Dad, and every child on this planet, human and otherwise – yes even disgusting fishy and buggy things – are my children and your children and their children, too, and every grown up being on this planet, human and otherwise, are my siblings and your siblings and also their children. Every. One.
Get on the love train. Internalize this. Life is sacred. We have to start living as though the collective whole is more important than our individual self. The ego is not gonna like that, so look out. But once you start to focus on how to be of service in a loving way to Humanity and to all planetary life, how to start showing Gaia and Green Man that you revere, honor and love them, ego will settle down and you will find so many ways to help make things better.