What Does “Going Green” Really Mean? (Part 5)

I recently finished reading Bruce Grierson’s U-Turn: What If You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You Were Living the Wrong Life?, a very open-hearted, well-researched, and insightful exploration of that moment (that process, really) in which the realization eventually occurs: I must change my life. The book does get a little unnecessarily repetitive with aforementioned facts and ideas towards the last third of the book, but it returns to form by the end. On the whole, it is a book that could be, for someone who has cultivated enough receptivity, enough to spark a u-turn itself.

One of the several contexts in which Grierson illustrates a u-turn is that of the environment, specifically that of someone who feels suddenly attuned to the needs of the earth. (Of course, as Grierson points out periodically, those “sudden” changes may not seem so sudden once you take a deeper, longer look at the history of the person experiencing the u-turn. ) This sense of attunement to the earth, according to Apollo astronaut Ed Mitchell, whom Grierson interviews, allows one to receive “distress signals” from the planet. These signals, when received and embraced, are apt to jumpstart a u-turn in the life of a human being. As the planet’s condition worsens, the rate and intensity of these signals of distress will increase, and we’re likely to see, in turn, an increase in the number of people making u-turns in their lives.

Since human beings are inextricably part of nature, no matter how much we try to dominate the earth, what the planet communicates to us has always been available. It’s much like spacing off for much of your life and then suddenly, hopefully, returning to the conversation (perhaps even for the first time). Whether or not you hear what the earth is telling you is a matter of your receptivity, of your ability to attune to the message being offered. Some people started to listen to the earth a long time ago, some yesterday. Some will today, and some will tomorrow. What about you?

It’s uncertain if a u-turn inspired by an attunement to the earth will automatically lead a person to commit his or her life to pro-environment action, like it did for Julia Butterfly Hill, but my gut tells me that that is the direction in which the u-turn would lean — if not in a professional capacity then at least in day-to-day life. But take it a big step further: Isn’t the day-to-day stuff, our daily actions regardless of profession, a monumental context for change?

If you make a positive u-turn in your relationship to the earth, you make possible a duality of consequence: 1. You are doing what you can to help nurture the earth to a healthier state. 2. You are doing the groundwork for positive change in the other aspects of your own life, professional or otherwise; in other words, you are able to prepare your life for a more comprehensive u-turn.

When we speak of “going green,” it’s important that we not wait for the earth to keep screaming until its lungs collapse to make positive changes in what we do in our daily lives.

To continue to Part 6 of “What Does ‘Going Green’ Really Mean?” click here.