Reflection 78: Making a Difference

(Copyright © 2009)

 

For seven years now, Iraq and Afghanistan have occupied privileged positions among my conscious concerns. Before 9/11, I seldom thought about either; afterwards, I came to think of them every day. I have consulted maps, looked at photos, read news articles and books, watched videos and movies—all dealing with two countries I have never been anywhere near and have absolutely no immediate experience with.

 

Then there are the countries I have actually visited at one time or another: Canada, England, Holland, France, Italy, Austria, and Germany. I can summon memories of each into my consciousness as if I had been there yesterday. City blocks in Frankfurt heaped into piles of rubble ten years after the war; cars draped with garlands of daffodils outside Amsterdam; Alpine cliffs in Innsbruck; cold winds sweeping off the Adriatic through Piazza San Marco; Les Halles; Stonehenge; Dark Harbour on Grand Manan.

 

In the U.S. I have lived in Sarasota, FL; Seattle, WA; Ames, IA; Hamilton, Manhattan, Brooklyn in NY; Cambridge, Belmont, Billerica in MA; Franklin, Northeast Harbor, and Bar Harbor in ME; Fort Ord, CA; and Long Branch, NJ. My mind floods with images when I think of any one of these places—fields of cornstalks spiking through snow, Lake 22 in its cirque in the Cascades, orange brick water towers like castles on surrounding hills, the Queen Mary II in the harbor, that stone-hard infiltration course, houses, streets, people, pets, and all the rest.

 

I’ve lived in Maine since 1986, as have the neurons in my brain that enable my consciousness. They remind me of legislative hearings in Augusta, a boat trip out of Boothbay Harbor, my clutch giving out near Belfast, the moon rising over North Traveler as seen from a canoe on Lower South Branch Pond. Maine is now my native habitat, seat of every aspect of my consciousness. My feelings are Maine feelings; my thoughts, Maine thoughts; my concerns, judgments, and actions all products of Maine. And more particularly, since 1993, products of the region east and south of Ellsworth in Hancock County along the coast, including the towns of Franklin and Bar Harbor. When I write a post for my blog, this is where it comes from.

 

Right now it is raining in Bar Harbor; I know because I can hear drops plunking on the icy sidewalk. Along with the hum of my humidifier, the chatter of my fingers pressing keys on my laptop, and the ringing in my ears. I can smell the bacon my neighbor fried for breakfast. I can feel my feet bracing against the floor, my butt pressing into the boat cushion I sit on. I am surrounded by the detritus of my living in the same apartment for twelve years—the books, magazines, piles of papers, CDs, photographs, maps, notebooks, slides, tools, mugs, and all the rest of the essentials I need to live the life I have made for myself.

 

And there is that last layer unknown to anyone but me—my existential consciousness on the big screen inside my head. When I think of my life experience, that’s where it is in full Sense-Surround. My claim to fame is that I am the world’s leading expert on what’s playing in my mind, which is where the I of me is situated at this moment.

 

I am an onion, with Afghanistan and Iraq far out on the skin, my mind at the center, and everything else spread across layers in between.

 

When my mind prompts me to act, I make my move in Bar Harbor, Maine, my current residence, turf, bailiwick, and domain. Here is my place on Earth, the one I know best. Here, exactly at the center of the onion of my little world, is where my actions can be most effective in having an immediate impact. Here I can reach out and affect the world that I live in because I am most closely connected to that world. I know because that same world reaches into my consciousness through the feedback it gives me whenever I move about or do something. To live in a place is to be part of that place, subject to the ebb and flow of its goings-on. I give myself to this particular place, it gives itself to me. We are inseparable because of this ongoing interaction—our mutual engagement.

 

Everything stems from being where we are—on Earth and in our lives. This is where the action is. Right here. At this moment.

 

For me to be effective in the world means acting effectively in this particular place. I can have only an indirect impact on Afghanistan and Iraq. I have had some slight personal impact on France and Germany when I was there. I have left small traces of myself in Ames, Sarasota, and Seattle. That was then; this is now. To live means to act now, where I am, as my consciousness—in its current state of development—directs me.

 

When I blog, I can only contribute to the blogosphere from where I am. This is the real me in Bar Harbor, the center of my onion calling to the world. Are there any other conscious onions out there? Hello, hello?

 

If the world situation is to improve, it’s the collective onions of the world who will do the heavy lifting. That’s us. All of us, for it will take every one. To improve life in Afghanistan and Iraq, Canada and Holland, Long Branch and Billerica—in every village, state, and nation—it will take conscious effort by every onion on Earth. Not bent on competing to win all, but on cooperating so all can win for the common good of our planet. World leaders and governments cannot do it for us. Right where we are, in our local onion patches, we are the prime movers. Collectively, we can raise the level of planetary consciousness. And, collectively, it is up to us to improve the lot of our fellow onions everywhere on Earth.

 

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