Apocalypse Now?

Much has been made, as always happens when many natural events pile up on us, of whether the flurry of hurricanes, earthquakes and torrential rains where I live in New England, are signs that the end of time is near. Careful studies show that this is by no means the most catastrophic time humans have lived through, but it is certainly wild.

I don't happen to be moved by the predictions of end time. Never have. But I do think we humans have a weird built-in sense of the finitude, not only of our own lives, but of everything else. We understand in some queasy and usually ignored part of ourselves, that nothing is forever. Everything, at least everything we know about, has a beginning and an end.

And we don't much like it. Or more particularly, we don't like it that we have an end. All the dreams of what life after death might be like are ego storms that refuse to imagine that human and geologic history might go on without us.

We can say that, just as no energy (or matter) is lost or gained in any exchange, that whatever it is that we are made of, goes on. But clearly not organized as it has been during our lifetime. We are entranced by consciousness, by knowing that we know. But who is to say that consciousness is the zenith?

I have long been attracted to the Zen notion of learning to pay attention to and trust reality. One of these storms may rearrange my reality forever. And one day this earth will either implode or explode.

In the meantime there is life to be lived.