Today is overcast and cold, one of those rare days the thermometer will likely not rise above freezing. There is snow on the ground and trees following the weekend storm that brought most human movement here to a temporary halt.
So much has happened during the past few weeks, and so little. Winter greatly slows the natural world even as human politics speed up. There are many birds in mixed flocks at the feeders, just trying to get through the cold season. They are a subtle reminder of the disjunction between us and the ecosystems that support us. We tend to forget that we depend more on the generosity of Pachamama more than the birds depend on our remembering to fill the feeders.
We are not cyborgs, at least not yet, as much as we collectively might wish this were not so, The stories we tell ourselves about independence and immortality may soothe our fears even as we are increasingly vulnerable to systems collapse. Our dreaming of a greatly extended lifespan through technology threatens to redefine how we understand being human as it encourages the delusion that we can destroy the world in our quest for immortality and survive. It is the logical extension of the colonial-capitalist project; this dream would turn us all into Windigo-like robots without connection to our kinship with one another and all beings.
This unfolding dystopian story is fed by the widely held belief, at least here in the Sates, that the world is only 5,000 years old, a convenient number that erases Indigenous claims to the land and evolution’s insistence on the red thread of shared genes extending back to the vastly distant beginning of life on our small, blue-green planet. It also extinguishes the knowledges of the heart and spirit, leading inevitably to the frozen hearts and insatiable hunger of the Windigo.
I believe we are being invited by Spirit to choose what we will individually and collectively become. We are always given the freedom to dream and act, to co-create the kind of world we want. I find comfort in the teachings that should our group decision be human extinction, there will be another world; there have been four or five already. Still, I hope we choose a more spirit filled path and avoid the great suffering that will befall all species should we continue on our present course.
Dreaming the World 
‘Windigo’ came up on a quiz on TV here in the UK last night. How often do we encounter that word over here in the space of a year? I love both coincidences and connections like that.
Me, too!
Perhaps believing the world is so young is also a way of denying how small we are in the scheme of history – despite the impact we’ve made.
Andrea, I imagine you are correct. Strangely, I often find life in an immense universe comforting. I like feeling connected to all that is.
We’re not being invited we are being called… this crises of Biodiversity Collapse and Climate Change are upon us… we have already lost 68 percent of the planet’s non human species( except for cows) and we are doing our best to slaughter the remainder..