Fire is once more ravaging California, creating apocalyptic scenes of destruction that leave us stunned and speechless. For many, the news leaves us wondering how any of this can be real. It’s easy for some to point fingers and not see the bigger picture, particularly for those materially invested in the root causes.
Each year, we see destruction on a bigger scale. Months ago, storm systems invaded the so-called southern Bible Belt: Hurricanes left inland mountain towns underwater. Last year, fires ravaged Canada, releasing more carbon than several countries combined. If it continues, will any place be safe? Or will the oligarchs all have to go underground?
Trials By Fire
In a few days, men who strangely planned to do away with organizations like the National Weather Service will be part of a new “administration.” It’s not hard to imagine why they have this intention when their guy asked Big Oil for a billion. Following the fires, he asked his supporters to buy some strange “truths.” As he decided to frame it, escalating fires in California are due to things like diverting water to save endangered smelt fish, not climate change caused by fossil fuel burning.
God’s Worthless Fish Under Fire
Aside from adding fuel to the fire with misinformation, it’s interesting to note that, to Trump, this fish is “worthless.” Once abundant, the now nearly extinct delta smelt lives only in one place in the world: the San Francisco estuary. And it’s one of many native species that are in trouble. Are they worthless, too?
“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
Certainly, it’s adding to the irony that a guy who sells Bibles is saying one of ‘God’s’ creatures is worthless. As shared previously, the fish is one of the earliest symbols of Christianity. But it predates Christianity by thousands of years, such as in the Egyptian Trinity, which is the logo for this site; a symbol of the generation of life and the beginnings of creation and connected consciousness and web of life – Just a worthless fish to the man chosen by evangelicals.
Not Playing God with Extinction
As anyone with basic education knows, each species is irreplaceable and part of the connected and fragile food chain. This is taught in every school, at least until the Department of Education is abolished. As we know, ‘God’ is not going to prevent species from going extinct, although that was a prevailing thought until the 18th century.
In modern times, scientists attempt to bring back extinct species, but in reality, it’s not the same animal as before. In the case of the disappearing smelt, they are still alive in captivity, but their home won’t support them anymore, like the people who can’t return to their houses.
As one species vanishes, like this Delta fish, it affects entire ecosystems. That’s why people have been working tirelessly to bring back other keystone species like the American Bison or Buffalo, driven to near extinction in large part by our government. Doing so is bringing a “green wave” as the Buffalo resume their ancient roles in the ecosystem. It’s an extraordinarily complex design which evolved over incomprehensible eons of time. Yet we are driving a mass extinction event, and greedy men prefer to drive harder.
Video about Smelt by ABC10:
Lighting a Fire in Human Understanding
What’s going to turn this around? It will take a paradigm shift.
Thousand of years ago, ancient beliefs included the idea that the web of life is interconnected not only in the food chain but in consciousness itself. In ancient Egypt, the cosmic laws of nature, the Neters, emanated from one ultimate undefined source. Today, philosophers are coming to realize that there is more to Pantheism and Panpsychism than our modern commercialized world will allow itself to appreciate, lest it ignite a fire of change.
Nature As More Than the Sum of its Parts
As fewer of us have the luxury to avoid challenges like massive fires and record storms, it will push us, lighting a fire that shifts understanding. Surely, it will require understanding basic science, but it goes much further than that. For example, what would happen if everyone were to believe that nature is more than the sum of its physical parts?
For example, consider the quote by French Canadian astrophysicist and cosmologist Hubert Reeves. He called the laws of nature Necessity and said the dance between chance and necessity shapes the universe, like the ancient understanding. Within the laws of nature is the ‘God’ that he’s destroying so carelessly.
“Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.”
― Hubert Reeves
Every Sunday, people worship a personified God who they credit with creating it all, even if the Bible and shoe salesman they voted for decided some species are worthless. Others believe strictly in the scientific view with nothing spiritual behind it. Atheists know it’s on us to protect nature, not shrugging it off responsibility to an invisible being.
Still others, like myself, eventually arrive at the ancient belief that the concept of ‘God’ is not definable but the hidden force behind all of nature. Rather than being distant and separate, this force permeates everything and is never at any time separated from any of us. This force manifests in every possible way.
It’s compatible with science, and actually bearing out more with the realization that our world of spooky quantum physics requires an observing consciousness. Such a mystical view is found in the earliest Gnostic Christian beliefs, as well as in Islamic Sufism and Jewish Kabbalism.
Choose Your Own Adventure: Green or Grey Planet?
Before he passed in 2023 at age 91, people often asked Reeves his thoughts on humanity’s future and the meaning of the universe. To him, life’s meaning, as he discovered on his own, is about helping others. It’s about taking action. As to the future, he was neither pessimistic nor optimistic. But the two main threats are the fires of nuclear war and the sixth extinction event.
In this dilemma, we may not be at all unique, as he believed other inhabited planets in the universe eventually face the same exam or great filter: to remain green inhabitable planets or to fail and become a planet of grey, lifeless ruins. What is our collective will? We have to choose our own adventure carefully. As always, it’s up to us to be the change we want to see in the world.
“When we look at a very distant star, what would we say if we went there? Would we see a green planet or a grey planet? And this can apply to the Earth: What will it be?” he said. (paraphrased)
Thus, our future depends on which fire or wolf we feed: the power of deterioration or the power of restoration. Rather than being hopeless, the world needs more people to be part of restoration, putting collective health above corporate profits and greed.
Each day, taking part in positive restoration is more and more a Necessity. And that will continue for as long as we’re still enjoying our time here.
“It is true that the dangers are great. I will summarize the situation as I see it. There are two different powers. One, power of deterioration; and one, power of restoration… and (they) are becoming more and more powerful… So it is like a fight with two fighters, which are gaining power. No one knows who will win.” Reeves said.
In simpler terms, the better choice is love and empathy for everything around us. Then, we need action to protect and nurture it. Tellingly, the powers of deterioration call it “woke.” And we’re going to continue awakening out of necessity and because love, the higher power, wins.
Video by France 24 English:
Featured image: Delta Smelt – Hypomesus transpacificus via Wikimedia Commons