Solastagia and the spiritual

Fall 2022

 For the second morning in a row, I woke from a dream about the end of the world. In the dream I was still trying to ease out from, the old River Road house we were living in was crumbling in the incessant winds; drifts of white grit appeared on the floors inside and bricks blew off the outside.

In the dream, I knew it was time to go somewhere safer. In actual fact, that house in Ladner, right across the street from the Fraser River, was decades in the past, and the husband I’d worrying aloud to, had been dead for almost three years.

It was still dark out. I closed my bedroom window, turned on the lights and greeted my shining little house on Pender Island; it still smelled faintly and comfortingly of the zucchini fritters I’d made for supper the night before. I fed Kira, my dog, put on the kettle for tea, unloaded the dishwasher, and tidied the kitchen. The feeling of fear still niggled, dread that the world we knew was ending. I’d read a book recently where the writer said each generation in the world has felt they were living in a time of unique peril: wars, famines, catastrophic fires, plagues, and hurricanes will do that. What I felt was solastagia, distress caused by environmental change.

Where I live on Pender Island, which is dry and getting drier, my end of the world fear is out of control fire. The fire hazard was sitting at “extreme.” In the fifteen years I’ve been here, I’ve never seen salal, a tough, almost indestructible evergreen shrub, get yellow leaves. On my previous day’s walk, I’d noticed a quarter of the salal leaves were yellow.

 When my tea was ready, I took it into the living room and sat looking out. The house was built facing due south; I couldn’t yet see the garden or the park below.  On her last visit, my daughter told me I should buy a new couch, “You’ve had that one since I was in high school.” I smiled and said, “At some point.” This summer I bought new covers for the toss cushions; they’re bright turquoise with pink accents, patchwork squares from cut up pieces of old saris. They look charming against the burgundy of the couch. Outside the east windows, the sky was starting to show up as grey; I could make out the shapes of firs. I do love seeing firs stamped inky against the sky.

 Cut to the chase, I told myself. How could I believe in the existence of Good and yet allow myself to be terrified by world news? Well, acknowledging that spirit is what I rest on doesn’t mean that I have to deny what my intelligence is screaming at me: our planet’s in trouble and we, its people, are as well.

“All is well and all manner of things shall be well,” the 11^th century mystic, Julian of Norwich said. I’ve often used this as a moment-by-moment assertion to calm myself down when things seem more than I can handle. I don’t know the day and time when I’ll step off the wheel. I do know if I listen, if I reach out and ask, “Okay, what’s light and bright in this situation? What am I supposed to do right now?” I’ll be guided. Call it intuition if you want, prayer, or magic.

 At the moment I don’t have a master plan. Maybe it will come to me tomorrow, maybe it’ll gradually appear over a course of months. Or not. Like Julian of Norwich, I’ll have to wing it, trust that all will be well. As I hold an open heart, step by step, I’ll be led to take the right actions.

What did I know for certain I’d be doing this very day? First, I’d take the dog for a walk. Then I’d make a quick breakfast and meet with my spiritual group on Zoom. After that, I’d text my part-time neighbour, here for a couple of days from Calgary, about getting together for a glass of wine. For sure I’d freeze zucchini fritters; I’d made a big batch. There was a lot of white space between all that. Who knew what was going to feel light and clean for the rest of the day?

What word, phrase or actions do you use to assist you to go about your life in these troubling times with some form of grace?