Happy equinox everyone. For us in the southern hemisphere, it is Ostara, the spring equinox, celebration of babies of every species (and rabbits and eggs). Celebration that life renews over and over, generation begatting generation into not just the 7th generation but forever – a good moment to reflect on how wonderous and astonishing it is that this little blue green planet on the outskirts of an obscure galaxy has life. And so much life, in such magnificent diversity. Even in the big scheme of things, if you believe anything is sacred it has to be this.
Since “470” I’ve been immersed in climate science, and sometimes the blithe nonchalence about the threat that a messed up atmosphere poses to life feels so overwhelming I want to join in the frantic alarm bell ringing of people attending to it. Or join in the staunch and determined eyes shut “lah lah lah” getting on with life of those detemined not to attend to it.
But I’ve been reading lately about the Blue Zones, and what struck me is that all the things that people put their long and healthy and satisfying lives down to, are the very same things we need to do to rebalance the physics of this miracle planet. Eat fresh, local, whole foods, enjoy using your muscles for working, travelling, dancing, be useful and not greedy, love and be loved.
So that is my reflection on this equinox: make my place on the earth an expanding, bursting at its seams, Blue Zone. Find purpose and meaning in helping make the whole planet a Blue Zone, because who doesn’t want to live in a Blue Zone? And we are, of course, not powerless to make it how we want. We are just too used to thinking of ourselves as individuals – individual wealth, individual rights, individual power – and ignoring our collective agency, the power in solidarity, the wealth of the commons. It is just a tiny mind switch, but oh how hard it is to see something alien, and how impossible to unsee it once its seen.
