the great thinning.

sometimes i think there is no light; but sometimes i think there is.
for we have the losses, the losses which are now so extensive and ruinous
they are coming to define the natural world, the losses
which are wrecking the earth and its biosphere to an extent hitherto
unimaginable, the losses which are making us seem, as a species,
like a curse, like a blight upon the fragile, exquisite, isolated planet
which is our only home; but we also have the bond.
our bond with nature may be hidden for much if not most of the time,
it may be a signal engulphed by the noise, it may lie buried under
five generations' worth of urban living, but it is stronger than those experiences,
for it was forged by fifty thousand generations of living in the natural world
before the farmers broke the sod and hacked down the forest
and imposed a new order on humankind; and underneath everything,
it endures. it is unbreakable. nor does it belong to just him, or to her;
it s the inheritance of every single one of us, it is part of what it means 
to be human, and it can be found within us- not always easily- and it can be 
understood, and it can be made the basis of our defence of the natural world
in the terrible century to come. so let us leave them behind, the unbearable
losses, and go where the bond can be found: let us journey into joy.


michael mccarthy 
the moth snowstorm
nature and joy