THE 2ND DAY OF XMAS: MOTHER NIGHT/ST. JOHN'S DAY

[Cue the music of "The Twelve Days of Christmas"]...On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me--a Mother on a dogsled and some kids!...?

"A mother on a..."--?!

Well, the Second Day of Christmas (don't you dare toss that tree to the curb yet!) is called St. John's Day/Mother Night, and it has its own particular mythologies and observances. But on any of the Twelve Days, keep an eye out for the Wild Hunt, a bunch of fairies (nature spirits, that is) led by King Arthur, or the Norse father-god Odin, or Arawn (a Celtic god):

 

 

 

 

--OR a tall woman dressed in white riding a sleigh pulled by dogs, with a train of children running and laughing alongside (only image I could find lacks both sleigh and children):

 

 

 

 

 

...This last is Mother Christmas, and although she and her hounds, and kids, might show up any of the Days, the Second day is her Day. If you leave your door open, and she sends in one of her dogs, don't turn it away! Very bad luck for you (Maybe it's a good day to visit the Humane Society, I don't know. Or to be "givin' a dog a bone".). 

 

↑ "Rocky," ↑ current resident at the Champaign County Humane Society

Mother Christmas is simply a version of the Mother Goddess, here representing fertility, abundance, and justice--and blasphemy, if your religious views are rigidly penis-oriented. It might be a good day to truck out a very voluptuous Great Mother statue from some bygone culture, or of your own making.  After all, Christmas is a celebration of the incarnation of Spirit on and of Earth, and She IS Earth.

By the way, if you are going to entertain motherhood as a theme for the Second Day, then you have to consider why there is so little mention of Mary in Christmas carols.  I'd never thought about it before myself, perhaps accepting that Christmas is about the baby Jesus more than anything, while the angels, shepherds, wise men--and his mother--are arranged around his shining self like furniture, and no big deal.  But turns out that the relative exclusion of Mary from Christmas music is not by accident:

So why is Mary largely AWOL in our Christmas songs? My guess is that the answer is pretty simple. Our carols are primarily nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Protestant inventions (although the musical-tune part dates from all the way back in the Renaissance, the medieval-sounding text “What Child Is This” was written in 1865), not a time that’s known for its deep Roman Catholic/Protestant cooperation and mutual affection. Although Mother Mary can’t be excised from the Christmas story completely, in Protestant-penned Christmas carols she’s mentioned as little as possible, for fear of turning her into an object of cultic devotion--something most Protestants have accused Roman Catholics of doing for a fairly long time. So Mary merits only passing mention in a few carols or--even better--no mention at all in most.

--“Looking for Mary in Christmas Carols” by Michael Linton 6 . 18 . 08 https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2008/06/looking-for-mary-in-christmas       

 

 ...In this day and age, a deliberate exclusion of Mary from any Christmas lore seems, well, just wrong.  One can't help but wonder if it was a trend that began what continues today.  The modern assault on motherhood includes forcing women to have babies they don't want and can't provide for, making contraception unavailable, excluding nursing mothers from doing so publicly, encouraging mothers not to nurse but feed their babies formula, allowing mothers (and fathers) little if any maternity leave, and leaving women in financial straits that force them to abandon their babies to daycare in order to keep a roof over everyone's heads.  Can you imagine the Christ Child in daycare?  YOU CAN BET YOUR BOOBIES THAT THE BABY JESUS WAS BREASTFED FOR A SOLID THREE YEARS, AT LEAST!

 
Since the whole point of the birth of the Savior is the incarnation, the Word or Spirit's becoming flesh, coming down to earth to spend time as "one of us," then a natural extension of that is attention paid to the earthly world of the Savior--including his mother.  There is no more immediate intermediary to the earthy and the carnal than to the mother--the womb, the umbilical cord, the nourishing breasts, the skin-to-skin contact.  By cutting out mention of such closeness, we cheapen the blessing that God was wishing to bestow on our humanity, on all of Creation.  And I can't think of any reason to do so other than patriarchy, and a spirituality that sought to exclude or exploit the body and the Earth rather than bless and cooperate with them. 

Chew on that while you throw away Christmas wrappings and boxes.

The Second Day is also known as "St. John's Day".  I'm not sure what St. John has to do with the day, other than to try to hog attention from the distastefully feminist Mother Night--or, less cynically, to provide some masculine-feminine balance.  

However, I do know that wine is another symbolic connection between Heaven and Earth, and the Second Day is a good day to have your clergy-person bless your wine, making it very lucky and healing, and giving it the name "St. John's wine".

 

 

....I suppose, if you are alcoholic, you'd best not drink this blessed wine hoping it will cure your alcoholism, although I know some would surely try. If you're "sober," just enjoy the "wine" of whatever turns you on/gets you "high" on life--just don't always expect a priest to bless it. 

 

 

Wine is a symbol, but spiritually minded teetotalers understand that you don’t have to drink it to gain its symbolic benefits.  Wine is a “spirit,” and therefore represents the spiritual, however its strong association with blood, and thus the flow of spiritual life through a person, bring it down to earth in a very vivid (think blood-red) way.  In fact, wine is a perfect symbol for this melding of the spiritual and the earthly--spirit and blood--that I was discussing in the context of motherhood, above.  Instead of drinking wine, and possibly getting drunk, it might be even more valuable to meditate on the Matter-Spirit connection symbolized by wine, and by the birth of a divine Wonder Child through the womb of an earthly mother (the word matter comes from the Latin word mater, meaning "mother"). 

This is the whole point of the Christian Incarnation, or for that matter any incarnation, any interaction between the gods and the people of Earth, in myth: spiritual and earthly reality become one.  Spiritual ideals and energies become matter, flesh and bone here on Earth.  And so Christians talk of Christmas, the holy birth in which the very Son of God appears in an "earthy" stable (i.e., one that smells like donkey crap).  The Buddhists talk of the Buddha Nature’s inhabiting every being (and the Boddhisatvas’ rejecting pure nirvana to stay here on Earth and teach until every being is enlightened).  All other religions have their own versions of this insight, and no one “owns” it.  

 

 

Ritual, the studying of sacred texts, prayer and meditation, mindfulness, spontaneity, the arts, and the telling of poetry and myth are activities that make the “wine” of Spirit flow through our very veins and SEE the Divine mush everywhere at once like a supernatural dog team.  My advice to you is to be eclectic and find the versions of these activities that make it flow best for you—but commit to the process, and savor the wine that only those who combine Earth and Spirit can drink.

A minor Christmas miracle involving wine actually happened to me one 2nd Day of Christmas, although at the time I was 18 years sober.  I wrote a true-story poem to capture it:

 

A MIRACLE ON THE SECOND DAY OF CHRISTMAS, 2005 

I laughed when Mary hinted to Jesus,

"They're out of wine."

He testily replies,

"What do I have to do with you, woman? 

My time is not yet come!"

But she glibly commands the servants:

"Do what he tells you."  

Did he throw His arms up,

bursting through the roof?

Or roll His eyes across the Arc of the Firmament?

"Get me six stone water jugs,"

He sighs. 

This first miracle

He did for his mother!

Six jugs of wine, Mother said so!

I turn to tell my sweetheart

What I am laughing about—

Instead, I catch the smell of wine from nowhere. 

My vines are shaken,

The grapes all drop to the ground.

 

 

...By the way, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, authoress of Women Who Run With the Wolves, has an audiobook called Mother Night: Myths, Stories, And Teachings For Learning To See In The Dark.  I thought I'd mention it, 'cause it seemed so perfect for the Second Day. 

https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Night-audiobook/dp/B0037MA84G/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3TR8OYJRAAS5U&keywords=mother+night+clarissa+pinkola+estes+book&qid=1672158735&s=audible&sprefix=mother+night+cla%2Caudible%2C103&sr=1-1 

Kurt Vonnegut has a novel called Mother Night, a story about an American playwright turned Nazi propagandist. In 2022, this work is relevant to those who believe that the US war machine is as we speak whitewashing the nationalistic brutality of the Ukrainian Azov movement.  It was made into a mixed-reviews movie of the same name starring Nick Nolte.

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/mother-night-by-kurt-vonnegut--/252693/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYo5y0vbRvc 

MUSICAL CHOICES (available as a playlist on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez8eINC7N_E&list=PLdartdqjh56DnX9KMsrVKretIQ9oOImg1 : 

WINE: "Spill the Wine" by War, "Elderberry Wine" by Elton John, "White Lightning and Wine" and "Just the Wine" by Heart, "Pass the Wine (Sophia Loren)" by the Rolling Stones, "Old Red Wine" by The Who, "Red, Red Wine" by UB40, "Bottle of Wine" by the Fireballs

MOTHERHOOD: "Mother Earth Blues" by Heart, "Mother Earth" by Eric Burdon and War/Memphis Slim,  "Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby (Standing in the Shadows) by the Stones,  "Your Mother Should Know" and "Mother Nature's Son" by the Beatles, "Mother Freedom" by Bread, " Motherless Child" by Eric Clapton, "Mother Goose" by Jethro Tull, "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child" by Odetta, "Mother Says" by Joe Walsh, "Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth" by Neko Case, "Mother Rose" by Patti Smith, "Mother" by The Police, and another song of the same name by John Lennon (these two only if you like to be DARK on Christmas), "Every Mother's Son" by The Pretenders, or the different song by the same name by Traffic, or the different song by the same name by Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Mother Beautiful" by Sly and the Family Stone and "Mother Earth" by Walela or the other song by the same name by Memphis Slim, "Old Mother Reagan" by The Violent Femmes, "There Come Our Mothers" by Ladysmith Black Mambazo, "Mother Earth" by Government Mule, "Mother of Earth" by The Gun Club, "Ruler of My Heart" by Mother Earth, "Earth Blues" by Jimi Hendryxx and the song of the same name by Three Hypnotics, Black Madonna by Cage the Elephant

 

CHRISTMAS CAROLS THAT FEATURE MARY: "Angel Gabriel" (an old Basque carol lauding Mary); "Mary, Did You Know?; "From Lands that See the Sun Arise"; "A Great and Mighty Wonder"; "Of the Father's Love Begotten"; "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"

DOGS: "Dog"  and "Underdog" by Sly and the Family Stone,  "Love Is a Doggone Good Thing" by Eddie Floyd, "Black Dog" by Led Zeppelin, "Two Dogs and a Bone" by Los Lobos, "I'm Walkin' the Dog" by Webb Pierce or "Walkin' the Dog" by Rufus Turner, and the different song of the same name by Aerosmith, "The Dog Song" by Nellie McKay, "By-tor and the Snow Dog" by Rush, "Little Brown Dog" by Taj Mahal, and anything by Three Dog Night, especially "Mama Told Me Not to Come" and "Joy to the World" (just because); "Dogs" by Pink Floyd

...Don't pack it up! Enjoy your Second Day of Christmas!

THE 1st DAY OF CHRISTMAS: BOXING DAY/THE FEAST OF STEPHEN

On the feast of St. Stephen, my true love gave to me/A partridge in a pear tree!

 Happy Christmas, all! But know that Christmas Eve is not the First Day of Christmas--nor is Christmas Day, itself.  "The First Day of Christmas" is Boxing Day/The Feast of Stephen, a holiday traditionally celebrated the 26th of December. 

Boxing Day has nothing to do with pugilism, rather it was a day when servants and tradespeople would receive gifts, known as a "Christmas box", from their bosses or employers.  That's according to one story.  According to the other, people collected money throughout the year in clay "boxes," like altruistic piggy banks, which they would break on Boxing Day to distribute the cash inside to the poor.  Either or both of these occurred in the various countries associated with the British Empire, plus Norway, Sweden, and South Africa. Today, Boxing Day is the bank (public) holiday that takes place on this day in Britain, but in the spirit of giving the whole world can certainly celebrate it by clearing out unwanted (but still usable) items and donating them to those who could use them, or by simply donating to charity.  

 

So far, so simple.  But the traditions associated with Saint Stephen are...rich, let's say.  On the one hand, the "Stephen" associated with St. Stephen's Day is most famously the first martyr (besides Jesus himself) killed for defending his Christian faith.  In this glorious bloodbath he preceded even the Apostles.  He had smoked the Pharisees and Saducees in a debate--which prompted them to stove his head in, an atrocity for which Stephen forgave them in advance (in another version, Stephen, the Jew, had simply had a vision of the risen Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father--which was already blasphemy enough).  So Stephen, and St. Stephen's Day, are associated with steadfast faith, with forgiveness, with telling the truth and with headaches (and these last two go together)--and with Israel.

However, this same Stephen is, by strength of legend, inextricably linked with horses.  And SWEDEN....Say what?


Let me explain:  he was, by legend, the first to spread the gospel in Sweden and did so making extensive journeys with five horses (two red, two white, and one dappled), rotating his ridership between them so as not to tire them out.  Presumably he'd arrived on horseback--from Israel--but, alas and halleluiah,  some forest thugs killed him, and his holy martyred body was strapped to the back of an "unbroken" colt (I love that detail!).  The colt carried him all the way back (without stopping) to the Holy Land--or just to his Swedish hometown of Norrala, Sweden, depending on the version....Huh?  Meet Stephen, the first Swedish Jew--I mean, Christian?  You know, the one from Jerusalem--I mean Norrala?  Let's just say that legends are not known for keeping their story straight.

So, dead or alive, from Sweden to Israel, St. Stephen was a man who could stick to his guns and stay on his horse! And so he is also the patron saint of Wild West rodeo.  Ahem.

You see, there was St. Stephen the very first martyr, who lived and got stoned--in the very worst possible way--in Jerusalem, Israel; and there was St. Stephen, the man who'd spread the gospel of Christ and humane horse treatment--in Sweden.  These two were almost certainly not the same fella.  History and legend have bled these two men together (much like they did with Santa Claus, a pole climbing Lapland shaman figure; and St. Nicholas, a Turkish bishop).

 

 

They conflated this man, Stephen Martyr:

 

 

 

...with this one, Stephen the evangelist & horse lord:

 

Furthering the horsiness of the latter, a 10th-century poem told the story of Stephen's
"seeing the light" when the risen Jesus miraculously healed his horse, and thus made him St. Stephen, patron saint of horses and the first born-again Christian.

It may be that all this horsing around with history had to do with the Germanic folks' habit of sacrificing equines at Yuletide time, and/or (and this is nicer) the giving to draft animals a time of rest starting around the Solstice.  ("Ja, fee vill eizer kill you, or giff you a niiiiice rest, Gustave, mein Pferd!")  Later on, horses came to be blessed at the church (sometimes the riders even entered and circled its perimeter a few times) on the Feast of Stephen, or simply ridden around to the tune of folk songs and the promise of beer when a village was reached.  Alternatively/additionally, the people rode them in races.

 

At home, we will festoon our "altar" (wash-stand table) with toy horses in honor of St. Stephen, the horseman.  But we have yet to become martyrs, ineffective rebels that we are.  No matter--we can still celebrate Stephen's sacrifice and the blessings thereof by tossing oats or walnuts at each other (this is a Polish custom), as symbolic of both the stoning and blessings.

This begs the question of whether the Polish would see throwing grain at a wedding as an act of aggression. 

By the way, praying for someone you resent is a very effective way to remove the resentment, although studies show that if your cranium has been caved in by a rock, it will then become difficult to pray at all.  If you can manage to avoid that fate, though, just pray, as ardently as you can, that the person you are now hating receive everything that you would dearly love to receive.  Turn self-centeredness on its head in this fashion daily for two whole weeks, and watch your ego squirm while the resentment itself relaxes.  Ahhh!

 
Skipping across Europe, and the English Channel, we come to the wren boys of Ireland.  There, legend has it that Stephen was hiding out from the stoners--and by that I don't mean the boys in black smoking weed on the heating grate behind the school.  Stephen was about to get his head smashed in, if they could but find him.  Well, his hiding place was given away by a wren, which perched above him and sang, undoubtedly using that extra-loud wren trill that sounds way too loud to be coming out of that tiny bird body.  And the rest of St. Stephen, as they say, was history.  Thus, in the Emerald Isle, "...In retribution for this the Wren is traditionally hunted in Ireland  (and some other Celtic countries) on St Stephen’s Day – December 26th, and groups of Wrenboys carry the bird from door to door – slung from a pole or interred in a small wooden coffin: there was a time when the poor Wren himself would have been stoned to death." (https://roaringwaterjournal.com/tag/st-stephens-day/).  From Wiki: "Wren Day (Irish: Lá an Dreoilín) is celebrated...in a number of countries across Europe. The tradition consists of "hunting" a fake wren and putting it on top of a decorated pole. Then the crowds of mummers, or strawboys, celebrate the wren (also pronounced wran) by dressing up in masks, straw suits, and colourful motley clothing. They form music bands and parade through towns and villages. These crowds are sometimes called wrenboys."

 

Further traditions involve folk plays acted by all-male casts of rhymers, or local amateur actors.  Roaringwater Journal comments: "When I was a boy we went out every Boxing Day morning to Crookham in Hampshire to watch King George slaying Bold Slasher, who was miraculously brought back to life by the quack Doctor, after which the young fertility figure Trim Tram Jolly Jack ‘…wife and family on my back…’ killed Old Father Christmas – something which must have seemed odd to a child, who might not have understood the symbolism of the  old, dark winter giving way to the new life of spring. Danny tells me that when he was growing up in Limerick he saw the Strawboys or Rhymers performing the same play on the streets."

 

Roaringwater continues:  "Troglodytidae (cave dweller--the taxonomic name of the wren family) is such a small bird: here at Nead an Iolair we occasionally catch sight of him darting out from thick, seemingly impenetrable bushes close to the bird feeder – his movements seem more like a mouse. Small, yet in mythology he’s a giant – King of the Birds in several traditions: Koning Vogel in German, Konije in Dutch, Reytelet in French, Bren in Welsh – all mean King or Little King. When the birds were electing their king they decided that whoever could fly the highest would win the contest; the Eagle easily outflew everyone else but the Wren was hiding in his wings until the Eagle had exhausted himself and then flew on up to claim the title. But there’s more: the Wren is forever associated with that turning point of the year when everything goes topsy turvy: the Twelve Days of Christmas. At this time the Lord of Misrule presides and traditional roles are reversed; it’s not surprising, then, that the tiniest of the birds should become the most important. But, like all kings, his reign is finite – and he is sacrificed at the dark year’s end to ensure that the sun will rise again."

This is wonderful:  the smallest humbles the greatest by way of a trick, and is then sacrificed, whereupon death becomes new life--humility and joy all around.   And that, perhaps, sums up this St. Stephen's Day ramble about horses and wrens, boxes and stones, walnuts and oats, wrenboys and rhymers.

Enjoy your Boxing Day, my friends.  But stick to your guns, no matter what sticks and stones may come your way.  If you're lucky, King Wren will choose YOU to rat out, and you will join the dance of life and death, humility and greatness.

To sum up Boxing Day celebration, we can:
1. Give to those who need it; give away unused but usable stuff
2. Pray for someone you hate
3. Celebrate all things horse--for example, put a toy horse or two in your nativity scene
4. Put suet and mealworms out for the wrens
5. Sing "Good King Wenceslaus" together after eating a nice minced meat pie (or the reasonable equivalent)
6. Sweetly throw oats, or savagely throw walnuts at each other (from my boyhood I can tell you that a walnut, whipped at your victim, causes quite a sting, or knock to the head, with minimal actual damage)

8. No songs of traveling while dead on a young horse, but there are plenty of horse songs, and a couple about Boxing Day, and a bunch about martyrs and saints.  So we can listen to and/or sing and/or dance the following selections:

MUSICAL CHOICES (playlist on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKVU8BoKLMQ&list=PLdartdqjh56AqAo2O8Qymeigl4rY8TJdE :

THE FEAST OF STEPHEN: "Good King Wenceslaus"  (I really enjoy Loreena McKennitt's version); "Boxing Day" by blink-182;  "St. Stephen's Day Murders" by Elvis Costello (there is a version with The Chieftains!); "St. Stephen's Day" by The Tossers;

MARTYRDOM/SAINTHOOD: "Even Unto Death" by Audrey Assad, "I Would Die For You" by Prince, "When the Saints Go Marchin' In" by Louis Armstrong, "The Martyr Song" by Susie Yaraei, "The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide Is Press Coverage" by Panic! at the Disco, "A Martyr For My Love For You" by The White Stripes, "Martyr" by Rusted Root, "The Martyr" by Cursive, "Sympathy For the Martyr" by Straylight Run, "Martyr" by Estrella, "The Martyr" by John Paul White, and "Accidentally Like a Martyr" by Warren Zevon, "It's So Hard to Be a Saint in the City" by Bruce Springstein/David Bowie,

HORSES: "Horse With No Name" by America; "Old Paint" (American folk song); "Wildfire" by Michael Martin Murphy; "Bring On The Dancing Horses" by Echo & The Bunnymen (featuring--a cow); "Horses" by Patti Smith; "Dead Horse" by Guns 'n' Roses; "One Horse Town" by The Thrills;  "High Horse" by Jim Jones Revue; "Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?" by U2; "Back in the Saddle Again" by Aerosmith; "Wild Horses" by The Stones; "Run For the Roses" by Dan Fogelberg, RIP; "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" by KT Tunstall; "Chestnut Mare" by The Byrds; "Heavy horses" by Jethro Tull; "Tennessee stud" by Johnny Cash; "Three Horses" by Joan Baez; "All the Pretty Little Horses" by Odetta; "All the Pretty Little Ponies" by Kenny Loggins.

WRENS: The Wren, The Wren - Lisa O'Neill (wonderful Irish fiddling here)

THOUGHTS ON IGUALA

A Mexican drug cartel massacred 43 student compatriate protestors and cremated them in a garbage dump.  They used old tires as fuel.  The students had been loudly and publicly accusing the mayor of Iguala and his wife of corruption through bribery by the cartel.  The fact that cartel thugs carried out the mass assassination bears out the accusation.

When I consider this gruesome slaughter from my vantage point over here in the U.S. of A., I also think about how we and Mexico are so tied together: with ropes of drug hunger and greed; the binding, corporation-friendly provisions of NAFTA which has deprived so many Mexicans of their livelihood and presented them instead with the options of wage slavery, the drug trade, and/or emigration; the sacrifice of citizens to advance profitable agendas (oil wars, 9/11, drone strikes, Guantanemo, and now Iguala); the US banks that have taken their cut of Mexican drug money; the rooftop-screaming corruption that has rich folk with vested interests in that which is regulated, 'serving' in positions of governmental 'oversight'.  I can go on and on.

This border we share is not just geographical, we are not just north-south neighbors.  Though I'm sitting here reading about this tragedy eating a chocolate yoghurt, and the street outside is calm as  pine needles on soil, this Mexican violence shares roots with our own.  They interact and feed each other.  The fight for justice here is the fight for justice there. 

I am sick for Mexico, and for us, the U.S.  I see it as a call to action, but frankly, I am scared that if I speak out, I might someday share the fate of those students. 

Though really, since they died on behalf of their principles and their service, they are heros and should be celebrated as such.  It is grimly ironic that their trash-fueled funeral pyre has shined a light on a very dark place, and this may lead to change for the better, as it did in the Civil Rights Era here.  Let us hope, and pray--and love, and fight.

PEACE

Peace is not just a negative—an absence of war or discord.  It is not inactivity.  It is a positive force unto itself that one can feel and express.  It is nothing less than the life force freed from pathological polarization and rigid infighting.  When peace reigns, one opposite does not dominate or tyrannize the other.  For example, action does not make receptiveness its slave, nor receptiveness action.  Rather, each pair of opposites rotates and interchanges, cycling in and out of each other in balanced fashion.  We hear a hum to this ongoing motion, a music, a harmony.  We feel life flowing within ourselves and around us.  Peace is both the harmonizing drive that begets this harmonized force, and the force itself.  In other words, Peace births and seeks and expands itself, and if we invite ourselves to feel this deep and wide ranging process going on in every corner of our self and world, then we have begun a partnership with peace, a collaboration, an expansion.

ALL BETS ARE OFF

[In response to images of devasted tar sands land versus a huge field of neat looking solar panels]

No matter what we do or how we do it, with 7+ billion people clamoring for 'power' we are going to compromise what is left of the Earth's viable biosphere--which is exactly what we can't afford to do.  Any action we do take in these numbers amounts to smoking in the cancer ward.  With about 6.5 billion fewer people, none of this would be much of a problem, but projections run to the population's topping out at anywhere from 20-50 billion before we're done exploding, population-wise.

--But oh yeah, that's coming, one way or the other.  Pursuing a global and unsustainable agenda means that at some point vast numbers of people have to die of starvation, war, plague and poison.  Either we limit our own population, or Mother Nature, the Unforgiving One, will do it for us.  I can’t tell you how sad this makes me, for my son, for all of our children. 

The dirty deals have been made in board rooms as a matter of course, and we all are suffering the consequences.   Not only that, but those who have incurred Nature's wrath the most are precisely those who suffer the fewest consequences--the profits they've made by conveniently ignoring the health of the Ecosystem allow them to claim, and proclaim themselves lords of, the land furthest from the the damage.

Here's me wondering what the plan is for the ultra-rich to escape the hellscape, now that they've played the ultra-largest role in creating it.  I have a friend who claims that the billionaires are in fact concerned about all this, and want to do something about it, but I can't believe they won't be following an escape-the-consequences action plan as a default.  This is what spoiled children and adults do, and the corporate economy has been ultra-protected from the consequences of its own actions for a long time, buying in exchange for cash the illusion of creating lasting wealth for their countries. 

The dark sci-fi author in me is picturing an orbiting space colony from which the ultra-rich can watch the rest of us perish from a biologically engineered anti-human microbe (in my book, they don't enjoy this, but do see it as a necessary evil) .  Unlike the Black Plague, this microbe goes away as soon as the last earth-walking human does.  Then the obscenely 'rich' return in triumph to inhabit the few islands of purity left.   

But wait—even in this scenario, radical reversal of the damage done would be necessary.  If no man is an island, then no island is an island, either--if you follow.  Islands are intimately connected to the rest of the ecosphere.  'Escape' would just be buying time and nothing more.  At some point we all have to clean up our mess and, what’s more and what’s crucial, rebuild the Earth's original fertility--not commandeer even more of it to produce energy, even if labeled 'green' energy.  On some level, some of even the ultra-rich have to know that, even though they (and many of us) have defined 'success' and 'wealth' in certain specific ways that utterly exclude the most basic and necessary consideration--the long-term health of the Ecosystem. 

In other words, for a global economy based on replacing Nature (the Life that makes possible our lives)  with resource extraction and artificial construction, all bets are off—but almost everybody still wants to keep gambling.  Though we may be doing so more soberly, kindly or gently—all bets are off.  All bets are off.  We must not only return to Nature, but return Nature to ourselves, first.  A huge job.  A global job.  But not one we can do with the same tools that got us in this mess in the first place.   

One last thought: the Ecosystem is the biggest problem in the world, because it IS the world.