Pinky Promise

My family watched the Netflix documentary Life on Our Planet. With stunning visual effects, the history of the Earth unfolds over 4 billion years, covering 5 mass extinctions and the evolutions that followed. The final episode introduces the evolution of humans as the most intelligent, but also the most dangerous. A brief look at how, in a very short span of time, we have shaped the earth and broken with nature through agriculture. Cultures changed and human populations grew. Society became more complex and civilisations were born. Eventually we found ourselves in the Industrial Revolution. Hearing Morgan Freeman’s deep voice say “Man broke from nature and rose above it”, I felt a visceral reaction to this common misconception. We are nature and we can’t live without it. To paraphrase – our history is now written on the surface of the earth and what was once wild has been tamed or lost. We are too successful for our own good and that of the planet. And we are now causing the next mass extinction. Feeding the population takes up ½ of all land mass, the carbon dioxide we release is heating our planet faster than at any time in the last 500,000 million years. The oceans are acidifying and warming, leading to extreme weather events. Wildlife populations have declined by 70%. And it’s not that we’re doing any one of these things, we’re doing all of them, at a meteoric rate. We haven’t had a mass extinction for 66 million years, but we’re on course for the 6th. 

Finally, a glimmer of hope is offered by reminding us that we are the first to understand what is happening to our world. That is, we are the first conscious beings. Where is this awareness taking us? Are we conscious? Or are we safely ensconced in denial? Will we rise above or suffer in our arrogance? Our future is not yet written. Our actions now will determine the next chapter. Either way, no matter how we humans write our story. Life on Earth will evolve, the question is, will it be with or without us?

My eldest was clearly affected by the last episode. In my attempt to calm his stress, I denied the truth inside me and kept telling him that everything was going to be all right and asking him not to be sad. Then I realised that I was asking him to suppress his feelings, a common but extremely unhealthy request. Children need to learn to process emotions in order to learn from them. As I put him to bed, I apologised and told him that I recognised his sadness and that he could express his feelings as he wished.  And with that, the floodgates opened, and I held my sobbing 8 year old in my arms, saying nothing and feeling everything. That evening will forever be etched in my psyche. Kai, who usually demands equal tuck-in time, told me I could stay with Ian and comfort him. After Ian fell asleep, I thanked Kai and kissed him good night. He said, “Momma, you want to change the world, don’t you?” I nodded in agreement. We talked about the challenges of finding the strength within ourselves to be the change we want to see in the world. He made me pinkie promise that I would inspire ½ of the world in the time I had left on this earth and that when he grows up, he will inspire (his words) the whole world. I try to get the boys to understand the reasoning behind my work, especially my regenerative project in the mountain, and often feel like a failure when I see the look of boredom on their faces when I talk about the importance of nature versus materialism. Until that night. For the first time, Kai asked me when we could go to the mountain again.

The Latin origin of passion is “pati”, which means to suffer. And perhaps this is where my passion comes from. It pains me that we are so short-sighted that we can’t see the truth right in front of us, and if we don’t pull together as a collective, the future may not include us. We all have a part to play. I am at times more sensitive to the natural world than I am to my own self. This sensitivity seems to be in my DNA, as I now see it in my children. I will try not to suppress their sensitivity and I hope it will be what motivates them – the flame that burns within them to continue trying to heal this amazing planet that we are so fortunate to call home. 

But until they are old enough to do so, I have a pinky promise to fulfil.