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

Home. And still unhomed. Unloosed from place and culture and expectations. Cat Stevens has come and gone and I’m as many miles from nowhere now as I have ever been. It’s all path now. No destination. And it will likely be that way for the rest of my life in this body.

The plane landed without incident in Durham and Andy and Stacy picked us up at the door. We stopped at the market for some groceries. We drove home. Such ordinary activities, and so grounding, and so ephemeral now. How much longer will there be groceries to buy? How much longer will we be driving? Stay tuned for next week’s exciting conclusion…

I’ve gone through my notes and calculated that Sally and I have now personally shown What a Way to Go to 2861 people, at our screenings in North Carolina this past summer, on the Northeast tour in July and August, and on the West coast tour we’ve now just completed, with stops there and back along the way. We’ve sat in circle with 1055 souls. We’ve had audiences ranging from 8 to 300, and circles as large as 80. And we’ve been in some beautiful corners of the continent, with some wise and aware souls, awake now from the nightmare, and looking at the world around them, and wondering where to go, and what to do, and who to be, and whom to be with.

What a Way to Go has served as a huge calling card for us, as we have sought to find others who see what we see. And it has served - can serve - will serve - does serve as a means for calling together those who see our present predicament, wherever they are. More than one place has found some new level of community and connection as a result of our coming there. The most gratifying response we get is when somebody comes up to us and thanks us and says “I thought I was crazy. I thought I was all alone.” And how much more gratifying, to see them find others in their communities who are thinking the same thing. Back in May I wrote of us as mutants, we who have awakened to the world situation. How wonderful, to have helped some mutants find their own kind. That has made the whole trip worth it.

Sally did find an older Amish gentleman to speak with, on the train from Lawrence to Chicago. He listened politely and with interest, she says, as she told him about climate change and peak oil and the economic meltdown now hitting “the English”. She gave him a copy of Richard Heinberg’s new book, Peak Everything, and he accepted it, startled and confused in the face of Sally’s concern for his people. But after a while he found us on the train and gave the book back, saying that maybe he’d get a copy on his own, but that he’s not much of a reader.

So it goes, as my old friend Kurt might have said. So it goes.

We’re home now. Sitting by the woodstove with a cup of coffee. Sally just made some eggs and toast. The house is a mess. Jenny the dog is having more trouble than ever just walking. I’ve got a stack of bills to pay. And so many emails to write. Beyond that, we’re not quite sure what to do next.

We’ve been approached by a couple of distributors, looking to maybe put What a Way to Go into theaters in other countries. We’ve got a US distributor we want to approach on our own. There are requests from wholesalers. And from people who’d like us to come do a screening in their community. There’s a film festival we want to attend in January. And there’s that Bonus Disc to get ready.

We have to get quiet now, and find our center, our vision, and listen to the living planet, and ask for guidance. We have to get clear about what calls to us, and move forward from there, rather than as a reaction to the many requests and needs and demands that impinge from outside. We may do long-form dialogues with communities, three days or five days or more. We may develop a curriculum and find some place to teach. We may make What a Way to Go into some sort of book. We’re pretty sure we’ll never do another tour like the two we did this year. We know we have to leave the Southeast and get back to the North. We have a house to fix up and sell, inside of a collapsing housing bubble, and a collapsing economy, with the dollar plummeting in a reverse triple-somersault with a 3.5 degree of difficulty. That’ll be interesting, to say the very least.

We just don’t know. We work for the planet now, for the living Earth. So we’ll take what steps we can, make those decisions and plans that we can see to make. But we’ll do it all knowing that there are huge forces in motion that will have more say about how our future goes than we can ever pretend to have. We may get some new marching orders from the land itself, from the sky, from the water, from the community of life. Having placed our picket pin, as Derrick Jensen so eloquently asks us to do, we find that we’re in it now no matter what… until we’re dead, until we’re relieved by another Dog Soldier, or until the battle is over and everyone is safe.

The world-spanning culture of industrial civilization is now in a slow-motion free fall. That collapse cannot be averted. But perhaps it can be navigated. And it may be possible to help this dying beast to die a more dignified, and less destructive, death.

You passed us from hand-to-hand, house-to-house, car to train to ferry to bus to plane, city-to-city and state-to-state and country-to-country. You fed us real food, lovingly prepared, and sat with us as we ranted and cried and laughed. You told us your stories, and opened your homes, and your hearts, and your lives. You called your people together and introduced these two loud-mouthed introverts with an overwhelming message about the world situation. You trusted us with your people, to come and shake them awake, or to offer what comfort we had as we sat with them in their grief and anger and shame and fear and relief and joy. You showed up in response to these invitations, willing to watch a film about the collapse of civilization, willing to show up and share your reactions and feelings, to share your stories in the sacred circles we convened. You supported us with your donations and purchases, helping us to retire our production debt. Though we have not yet crunched all of the numbers, my guess is that the two tours we did this year have put us back into the black.

You made these tours happen. They would not have happened otherwise. They are your tours. They are your successes. They are something good you have done in the world. To our hosts and organizers, to our drivers our cooks our handlers our helpers, to our audiences, to our circle members, our deepest thanks, and our best wishes, as you navigate the coming times, and as you find your own way to help the beast die with dignity.

I’m going to stop now and go do the dishes. A couple of dear friends are coming to call this afternoon and I want to feel more ready. After that, who knows? Maybe we’ll watch a movie tonight (something OTHER than What a Way to Go!) Or just read and sleep.

I’m so tired…

And so full…

Touching the ground,

Tim

PS: This could not be complete without taking a moment to honor my partner in life, and in business, Sally, who worked long hours over many months to organize and coordinate and communicate and disseminate, who called these screening tours into being as an act of faith and courage. Her unswerving commitment to dialogue and truth-telling, and her impeccable skill at facilitating open, honest, and sacred circles, has been an inspiration to me since I met her. She has put on hats these past few years that she would have never guessed she’d be wearing, and she has done it with style and wit and fierce devotion to the planet, even in the face of old wounds and deep scars left by the insane culture in which we’ve all grown up. What a Way to Go would never have been finished had it not been for Sally. There’s a reason it’s the producer that gets the Academy Award for Best Picture. As far as I’m concerned, Sally has earned that prize.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Travel Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.