What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire

I love everything
So don’t it make you feel sad

The Vancouver screening makes eight in a row, the last of a long string of pearls. After that, a whole day off, to rest and recuperate, to soak in the Wet coast rain and bask in the cold, to hang out a bit more with Vivienne and Nic, and to catch our breath before our final Canada screening and our journey back south.

We awoke slowly, taking our time, knowing that we could, with no place to travel toward today. Vivienne made us tea and eggs and toast and we heard their tales of life on the river, of local folk and local events and local problems and local actions. We heard more of their stories and watched through their huge windows as herons and cormorants and gulls and swans floated and flew and dived for fish there beyond the glass. We watched as bald eagles flew above the water just across the river. It’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen one of these US national emblems in the wild in the US. Maybe we in the US need to change our national emblem to the sparrow? Or maybe the Tyson’s chicken?

We packed up and cleaned up and headed up to Vancouver in the afternoon, where we stopped in at the Canadian Memorial Church and Center for Peace to set up the projector and figure out the sound. We made our way to Stanley Park and Prospect Point and took a nice walk in the wet and cold through the fabulous forest that remains there. A rare and freakish storm had leveled whole swaths of the woods last winter, and we saw the remnants of that, hiking at one point over a huge mountain of wood chips. The massive old cedars were treasures to behold. We were glad that they had not all been toppled.

After our walk we drove back into the city, meeting Phil and his wife Meg at a restaurant for dinner before the Vancouver screening. Sated with black bean soup and crab cakes and a Belgian white that rivaled a Hoegaarden, I made my way most happily and sleepily back to the church, carrying flowers from Cathy’s garden and the remaining DVDs we had for sale. We’ve sold so many more in Canada than we had anticipated that we were running low. Good reviews keep coming in and momentum is building. We hoped to see that momentum in Vancouver.

We were not disappointed. We had about one hundred and twenty there in that beautiful church, many of whom biked through the rain and cold to get there. Nic and Gordon and Russ and others got the sound and mics and projector all set to go, while Meg and Vivienne and Sally and Jane and others and myself set up tables and moved chairs and put out baskets and signs. The audience filed in. Andy sang his great song again. Phil introduced us and we introduced the film and we were off. See you on the other end…

We spoke with Joseph for a while, the publisher of Common Ground, out in the foyer while the movie played, sharing stories and making connections and speaking of spirit and action and love. Joseph and his magazine seem to be widely read and highly regarded in this corner of the world. He’s doing good work for the planet. We wish him the best with that.

I made my way back into the sanctuary to watch the second half of the movie, sitting on the carpeted floor by the heater and doing a bit of yoga. The credits began to roll and we made our way to the front for thank yous and announcements and all of that. People lined up to buy DVDs and Sally set up a word document, to create a backup plan in case we ran out. We almost did.

Joseph played an aching tune on the piano as we set up chairs, creating an oblong circle with the pews at the front. Thirty five of us sat in circle, and that same quiet sober feeling we’ve been noting was in the room as we spoke. Great sadness was there. A bit of shame. A touch of anger and frustration. And a good deal of hope and gladness and powerful energy and appreciation. To be talking about these things, to be speaking out from the tangle of lies and secrets and delusions in which we are so often caught, to sit in circle with others and be allowed to feel what we feel, to know we are not alone, not crazy, to walk through this present predicament together, to face into the world as it is and not be undone by that, this is truly a remarkable experience for many who sit in these circles. There is more than sadness and fear and anger here, and people begin to feel that for themselves… that maybe our present predicament, maybe this thing that looks like a scary problem, is actually the good news, for it heralds an end to the insanity in which we live.

We spoke of many things in Vancouver, of hopes and plans and dreams, of hopelessness and planlessness and dreamlessness. We spoke of responses to make and paths to walk. We spoke of our own lives. And at the end, as we Boomers moved into packing up and heading out mode, in order to get our tired selves back into our warm beds, we noticed that a sweet circle of young people had formed in the front, connecting and planning their next step…

We drove back to Nic and Vivienne’s for a cup of hot tea and a cookie or three, again unwinding from the event’s energy. We scratched the cat and spoke of the coming storm and then retired for our night’s rest.

I sit now in this floating home, looking out the windows upstairs as the rain falls. A Great Blue Heron flew right at us a moment ago, veering up before it reached the house. I notice, as I write this, that I am in that place of which Mr. Stevens sings. I’m in love with everything right now, with the life all around me, with the people I am encountering, and it makes me feel sad, that love… that love. Underneath the anger and frustration and disgust with my fellow clever monkeys, there lies a deep love for them, and for the this beautiful world, and I’m finding that love just as the world itself is unraveling, as those clever monkeys, many of them, most of them, descend further into delusion and desperate destruction. Deep sadness fills my broken heart, to find love in this time of loss…

Thank you, Vancouver. Thank you Vivienne and Nic and Phil and the many others who helped make this part of our journey such a success. We wish you all the very best as the present moment slides into the future.

It’s my day off.

I think I smell coffee down on the first floor.

I’ll be back in a few…

Tim

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Travel Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.