Sylvia's Journal

The ants continue to show up in my life. If they are messengers, something I like to believe, then I have to work on my patience. This morning I nearly ate one. It had joined my thyroid pill in the tiny Chinese cup that sits on my bedstand. I take the pill before I have my glasses on. That’s how it landed in my mouth. I spit it out and it scrambled – we had the exact same intent. I squished it and I won. Life is a power struggle.

David Attenborough’s must-see documentary (available on YouTube and Netflix) has a scene in it from a floor of tropical forest that shows how the larger ecosystem keeps populations that get too dominant in check. The scenes are rather gruesome and hard to describe dispassionately (but Attenborough does). Two remarkable quotes, spoken in his soft soothing voice: “The more numerous a species is, the more likely it is to fall victim to the killer fungus.” And: “Checks and balances like these mean no one species can dominate.” Replace fungus with virus, and there we are.

There are also checks and balances in my own head: the daily news headlines and our president’s desperate attempts to dominate the narrative of life amidst Covid-19 drag me down. I feel it in my insides, a knot in my stomach. My body’s telling me something is not going well. But then I am lifted up by the new connections I am making with people from all over the world who I meet in various conferences I have been and still am participating in: The Gaia journey that culminated in the 2 day Global Forum of the Presencing Institute, The Wise Democracy group that my daughter Sita introduced me to, and the UpCreate! Journey that has just started me on 7 months gathering that will take place every month on the day of the new moon. Three overlapping cohorts (Europe, Americas and Far East) are playing on a virtual field (powered by Miro), thinking together, encouraging each other, learning how we can best take advantage and bend the course of history away from greed and selfishness towards caring, nurturing and creating environments in which all can thrive.

I am turning the short breakout conversations with interesting people into more lasting and deeper conversations. Yesterday Maty, from Senegal, and I spoke for an entire hour about our lives, our hopes, our tests and tribulations, and most of all our resolve to make something of this moment in time. We agreed to talk every first Tuesday of the month. On Friday I am meeting with Ying from China – we discovered we do similar work in a short breakout session during the Global Forum. I am so very excited about all of these encounters. Paradoxically, the familiar parental phrase (“go to your room!”) has liberated us and connected us in ways unimaginable even half a year ago. 

True, a stable internet connection and electricity are critical ingredients, and thus make us vulnerable to serious isolation if these ingredients disappear (or, as for some, were never there in the first place). But these are technology problems (complicated but not complex) and I suspect that somewhere, someplace, there are smart people trying to figure out new technology constellations that do not harm the earth and bring us together. On a human level (complex certainly), all these thousands and thousands of people who are connecting with each other, are weaving the great web of life. Those who dominated will be caught in the web or consumed by a fungus. If you don’t believe that, watch the Attenborough clip.