I am so sorry

I am so sorry

Last night, my partner said to me. “It is us, Christine, the human race. We are destroying the planet. Without us, Earth and all her creatures would thrive.” 

And he is right, for the most part.

It is us, the greedy, rapacious Western neoliberal capitalist machine of which we are all a part now, even against our desire.

Yet cultures lived and thrived on our home planet for thousands of years, without the absolute destruction we are experiencing now. Their relationship with Nature is one we’ from the Western mindset, still fail to grasp. A deep and respectful partnership, rather than the predatory, land-grabbing, accumulative, extractive culture.

Yet we somehow think we are the superior ones. 

I feel shame in my bones for who we are. 

I am writing this from Wategos Beach, Byron Bay. Waves breaking, whales breaching. The word beauty is inadequate on days like this. We chose to come away for the weekend, as a balm from the heartbreaking news cycle. 

I could not stomach the media this morning. I could not stomach the political righteousness of those who will gloat that a simple request to give our First Nations People recognition and Voice was so soundly rejected by the Australian people. I am heartbroken by the cruelty and fear of my fellow Australians.

I could not stomach the horrid situation in the Middle East. Thousands of years of killing amping up. Despicable, murderous people killing innocents like cheap plastic toys.

I could not stomach the ethnic cleansing and hatred towards the ‘other’. Worldwide. 

We are the other. Every bullet, every cut, every no to dignity wounds us. 

I needed to soak in the ocean. To witness the sunrise. To listen to the whales, and watch them breach. 

I have to find something to cling to that gives me hope for humanity. 

I weep, oh I weep. I am so sorry. For the people we negate as worth anything. For the creatures we cage in factory farms. 

I am so sorry. 

I am so sorry for the racism and white supremacy I see all around me. The cruelty of politicians. For people so trapped in fear that they will lose what colonialism has given them a free pass too to the degree they will deny simple dignity to the colonised.

I am so sorry. 

Photo Taken October 15th  2023