A while ago I was cooking dinner in the kitchen and the TV was on in the living room. There was a documentary on about climate change in the arctic, and I was occasionally paying attention while chopping and peeling. Now I wish I could remember the name of the show, but that's lost now. At one point I heard an older man come on and the way he spoke really struck me, so I set the knife down and walked out and stood facing the TV while he spoke. This is what I heard.
Arctic Change
Vacantly obsessing over nothing at all on the TV...
I saw icebergs floes and fields beckon,
And I was drawn in - I pay attention to ice, (It’s a bellwether)...
Eyebrow up, I lend an ear and hear...
Wisdom and Truth
Truth and teaching about that which the situation
REALLY
is all about.
I had to write it down because face it...
"Once in a while you get shown
the light in the strangest of places
if you look at it right."
The Inuit elder...
Ancient North American Arctic Native
But hip, in a guardian-of-his-culture kind of way,
In clipped sentences told everyone about...
...that which everything actually, ACTUALLY, is:
~~~~~~
For thousands of years, (The arctic elder said),
we've lived here in the arctic.
We are the only ones who have been
RIGHT HERE
during all that time
And RIGHT NOW
we’re telling YOU...
that things are changing.
~~~~~~
"For thousands of years, we’ve lived here in the arctic.
We’re the only ones who have been right here during all that time.
And RIGHT NOW, we’re telling you that things are changing."
Notes
- Bellwether: n 2. A predictor of change
- Quote: "Once in a while, you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right"
Lyrics from Scarlet Begonias by Robert Hunter, music by Jerry Garcia, played by The Grateful Dead
Version below, Grateful Dead, March 22, 1990, at Copps Coliseum, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
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