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b"h Dear friends, Yesterday was Yom HaShoah; today is Earth Day. Not like any other Earth Day that's been since first that holiday was called, in 1970. I remember the poster that appeared then, with a picture of Earth as seen from space, in black and white, and underneath, the words "Your mother needs you." That was exactly fifty years ago. Since then, that image of the earth from space has served quite different purposes, as logo for many a global enterprise -- was used by some, to symbolize a mode of living (if you can call it that) that knew no borders and held, except for profit, nothing sacred, that had both nature and the human soul under its fist. This year, all that is checked somewhat. The planes stand idle on the runways, the roads are clear of traffic between cities, the people are enclosed in their own houses, some with their families, some with their thoughts. And at the same time, everyone is conscious that all around the globe, the Family of Man are huddled in their personal spaces beneath the shadow of the selfsame wing, and perhaps thoughts are traveling between minds by paths that are not only electronic. It is an hour of danger, and of hope. Yes, in this state of isolated mind that holds the fate of Earth in thought, there is hope, if we can cling to the awareness that only in one's mind and soul resides the power of taking thought for the whole world. Of course, the isolate mind lacks power to act. To act it has to join with other minds and hands -- and that is where the trouble starts. For where folk join together you get Groups, and where there is a Group, there you get Groupthink, some half-baked ideology set in stone or woven into a flag to rally round and fight with other groups, so nothing much that's to the purpose of the isolate mind gets done. And yet perhaps there is a way to bypass this unfortunate mechanism and link the thinking of our isolate minds into a consciouness that's truly global. Perhaps this is a moment when that way could be discerned and taken. That is what my epic poem, The Consciousness of Earth, attempts to show, and in commemoration of Earth Day, I am posting it online, here. This work has had a long gestation. and many things that happened not by chance contrived to prompt me to it. That first Earth Day -- two days before, a soul that I was bound to through poetry, had taken leave of life, and a year later, in his memory, I wrote a poem called "Earthwake," having in mind some poems of his in which the image of the distant Earth appears. (You can still find that poem, with its sources, upon the site "Point and Circumference.") In time, the path on which he started me led to Jerusalem. There, in the '80's, a member of a group that met to think about his poems, handed me a copy of The Fate of the Earth, by Jonathan Schell, a short time after I had given a paper on our friend's "planetary vision." That conjunction struck the spark, and the beginning was written. But to finish what I'd started, I had to read up on a lot of subjects pertinent to our nature and condition which we must understand to skirt the pitfalls upon the road to our full stature as those co-responsible for the Creation -- read and digest all that, and formulate a plan of action based upon a way of thought, that could connect the truth of isolate heart and mind with the world's need. It took some time to write, and has gone through several revisions, and for all the attention it has received, it might still be unwritten, although available on Amazon! For of its birthpangs not the least has been, and is, the erosion of attention-span which is our worst environmental danger. Everyone understands that to invent some gadget that will take us one step further away from the soul's knowledge of itself, method and concentration are required; but for the purposes of social action... slogans and statements of intent and words not backed by pledges of our sacred honor will do. That doubtful tzaddik, Paul Celan, in our one conversation in real time, stated: "In poetry there is no cheating," and then repeated those same words so I would write them down. And I believe I have not cheated. Now: it is an hour of hope and of great danger too. For as the world comes out from its forced spiritual retreat, it will emerge upon a world where many have lost their livelihoods, especially those who had kept a little independence from the great corporations whose dominion is a far greater plague than any virus. These corporations now will rake in bailouts for which inflation soon will bill the people, while the relief to those not hired by them (and the hired will be fewer than before since every pause gives opportunity for automation) will not be much more than mockery of the weak. If those who cherish the spirit's freedom have not taken thought within this interval to make a start toward restoration of control to Man made in G-d's image, not in the machine's, then--let me me complete that thought, but hope that some who read this will set foot upon the way of thought that I have tried to show. It is long, yes. But Hasidism teaches that the short way is long, the long way, short. You who have come at least this far with me, pray with me that now it may be so.
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