Walking from Despair to Hope

Back in 2015 world leaders in Paris came together and agreed that we would limit our carbon emissions and achieve net zero. That we would remain within 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels. 1.5 degrees became the magic number. If we kept global temperatures beneath this level we would be safe; if not, millions would die.

I had been involved in the climate movement for years. But, when in 2018 the chief scientific officer made a public call: “we have only 5 years to turn this round,” and make the reductions in carbon emissions necessary to stay within the limit where the harm would not be catastrophic, I became very active. I started a lobbying organisation in my district; I became a trustee of my local environmental organisation; I joined every protest in London, Bristol, Cornwall, Glasgow; and I talked endlessly to family, friends and whoever I met.

But emissions did not go down enough. Though we all knew what was happening, world leaders continued as before and the earth became hotter. Earlier this year the average temperature on the planet reached 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial level for 12 months in succession.

I felt we….I… had failed.

Then I got sick in May, and three months later I was still sick. I was in despair. Race riots had broken out in England. The world was becoming increasingly divisive and riven by conflict; the future looked terrible. I lost all hope.

I knew that I needed a spiritual perspective. I needed to go on retreat, and have support to face this. Then into my inbox came an email from the Spanish sangha announcing a retreat walking the Camino Portugues with three monastics from Plum Village.

I signed up; and spent the next three weeks doing everything that I could to get well enough to walk. I really wanted to go but I was not getting better. In despair on the day when I was supposed to travel, I texted the organiser and said that I was not well enough to walk. She replied: “if you really want to come, just come. We have a back up van, and you can travel in that”.

This was my first lesson: TRUST. So I left my comfort zone, walked off the cliff of my familiar life, and was held.

The Camino de Santiago is said to provide a metaphor for life….and for me it was. There were so many teachings in it, both from the monastics and from life.

The biggest one was LET GO. First, as the retreat started, and I found that I was able to walk and keep up with others, I had to let go of my ideas about my health.

Then I was to practise letting go of the ‘thinking mind’, and within this my views and opinions of how things should be. These opinions were what filled my mind as I walked.

I had ideas about how I should meditate; as I dropped these my mind became more spacious. 

Then how retreats should be run. The monastics said we should be silent; but then they talked the whole time. So I was upset, until I dropped it.

Then my ideas about how we should walk the camino. I have done it before and found I had fixed views about how we should be doing it. We should start early, walk quickly and arrive early in the hostel, so that we can rest and wash our clothes ready for the next day. We started late, and then after walking for a couple of hours stopped for a coffee. We always arrived “late”. But dinner was prepared for us and there was a washing machine with a drier.

Finally, I had ideas about how I liked to walk. My pace is fast, and I am only comfortable at that pace. So I walked at the front, and the group got stretched out over a mile, and I felt impatient. Then one day I decided to walk with the slowest person in the group. I felt so much more joyful walking at this new pace, and the group was spread out over 100 yards, and felt much more harmonious.

With each of my ideas that I let go of, I felt my heart expand with joy and gratitude. My ideas about how things should be were what was causing my suffering.

And what about the despair, my thoughts about what was happening to the climate, the environment and the increased divisiveness of society?

As I walked, and looked and felt, I left my thoughts and took in the world around me. I saw that I was part of an endless stream of pilgrims walking the same path, and we were a succession of pilgrims who have been walking this path for a thousand years. And, as we walked, there were the granite hills of Galicia watching over us that have been there for a million years.

It is difficult to put this into words; but I felt held by the land. As a native American once said: “The difference between you whites and us is that you think that the soul is in the body; but we know that the body is in the soul”. As I rest in the soul of Mother Earth the feeling is joy and love and gratitude.

Yes there is environmental destruction, there is an increase in temperature, there is, and will be great destruction of both human and non human life; but do I know what will come after? Only my ideas, and as Thay said; “Am I sure?”

And I can’t change it anyway.

But what I can change is how I am as I live now in this impermanent world. I have a choice of whether to live in fear and anger, or to relax back into the greater love and holding that I feel from mother earth. And, in feeling that love, I can pass it on in how I relate to each precious moment and each precious person I meet. Thay said that this is what is needed to save ourselves and the planet. It sounds far fetched…. But “am I sure?”