The Wind Cries Mary
The wailing of the wind this morning determined my day
This morning I woke with the winter wind wailing, that eerie whistling sound low then high, silent then full gale, shaking the glass, as cold as my emotions drawn tight under the covers. It roared at the predawn gray, threatening the rise of the sun with its anger, and menacing everything in its path, warning it wishes to take away the last bit of normal. Life hasn’t been normal in years of course, since Covid, Trump, and the inescapable reality of climate change, not being dealt with adequately. Jimi Hendrix wasn’t on my mind initially, but the wind made me think of his song, The Wind Cried Mary. Strangely, his lyrics fit our moment in many ways.
After the jacks are all in their boxes
And the clowns have all gone to bed
You can hear happiness staggering down the street
Footprints dressed in red
And the wind whispers Mary
Do we not live in fear of jacks and clowns these days? Are there not bloody footprints everywhere we look? Is our happiness not staggering?
I’ve lived in the cold wind for as long as I can remember, a realist not afraid of the truth and knowing bullshit when I see it. Living this way, there came a point where I lost fear. Or, perhaps scar tissue numbed me, enabling courage. Numbness certainly has a role these days. For many, the truths we see are too terrible to face, the feelings of helplessness paralyzing. We choose not to act, leaving fate in other hands. That is not my way. In 2019, I had a mass removed from my brain. I had to fight a mindless, faceless insurance system to save my life, documenting every conversation in detail in case a lawsuit became necessary. I woke with vigor at 3 a.m. every morning for six months to do battle. They would have sent me to a marginal facility. Fighting for the best outcome became my full-time job. As I was wheeled into surgery, I was calm. I had found the best surgeon and medical facility available to me. I didn’t have regret or fear from leaving my fate in other hands. Had I done so, it’s unlikely I would be writing to you today.
Sometimes I have felt loathing for those who can’t or won’t see the truth, or worse, see it, but not act. The first two I can forgive, but not acting when informed is more difficult for me to accept. The stakes of the climate emergency are simply too high not to become involved. It’s not just saving our skins, it’s an obligation to the people and creatures on this planet that are innocent of creating this situation, and an opportunity for humanity to evolve into something wiser and better. Our predicament requires we do that. While we scramble for new technology, we need to address our behavior, our core values. Consumption doesn’t fill our souls, anyhow.
It’s ironic to stay sane by writing about insanity. It’s patently insane to destroy our life support system. Reality is variable. Elon Musk’s idea of reality is delusional and narcissistic, far different from mine or yours living in the real world. But do you and I live in the real world? That’s questionable. Reality for the victims of empire is far different, an experience of brutality. Perhaps that’s the reality we need to embrace.
Sanity is relative. Reality is relative. Justice is rare and must constantly be fought for. Any empire or fiefdom has beneficiaries and victims. My privilege is evidenced by my freedom to write these words and share them. Yours is demonstrated in your freedom to read them. These privileges are unequal and endangered. By next January, we may have lost them.
America, the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet, is built on the preceding models of European empire. Violence, enslavement, and environmental destruction are necessary to create such beasts, and every empire falls in a violent thrash. It’s a failed model.
As I write, shells fall from the sky in Ukraine and Gaza, and civil wars rage in Africa and Myanmar. We ignore some conflicts and side with bullies in others. Once again, we’re destabilizing the Middle East. The body parts of children and babies litter landscapes akin to those depicted by Hieronymus Bosch. Hell on Earth sustains our privilege. We are violent apes. These conflicts will only grow with the climate emergency, as water and food are fought over. In the rainforest, the last frog sings its last song. In our south and west, the trees and grass curl in pain, anticipating becoming this spring’s tinder. This year will be hotter than last year, the hottest in human history. The seemingly most indestructible of creatures, the rhinoceros, is nearly extinct. We can kill anything. And do.
A broom is drearily sweeping
Up the broken pieces of yesterday’s life
Somewhere a queen is weeping
Somewhere a king has no wife
And the wind whispers Mary
Soon my neighbors will awaken and sweep with their dreary brooms. We’re all forced to sweep with them. They’ll drive on the gray pavement with their gray thoughts, to their gray jobs, gray they don’t know why, because the gray fog enveloped them from the start in their mothers’ wombs. Although not settled in the scientific community, there is evidence that trauma results in genetic mutation, new traits passed to directly to our children. It appears our trauma shapes them before they’re even born. That’s the nature of the relationship of environment, mutation, and evolution. We react to succeed in our environment. It shapes us. And we’re all walking trauma now.
In a meat processing plant, an immigrant watches lines of cows draining on hooks, as he slips in their blood. He fires bolts into their brains for a living and sends the money to his family in Mexico. The animals are terrified as they’re forced down narrow chutes, smelling the blood. They’re shrieking. If injured, he has to go to the company doctor, because he’s an illegal. The doctor slaps a bandage on his deep cut, and tells him to get back to work. We hate him for being brown and having poor English, failing to identify the real enemy, the conglomerate monopoly that fattens the billionaire. We point out Mexico is a violent country, while watching our own children mass murdered here. Hell, we watch them mass murder each other.
We pretend he’s taking our jobs away because it’s an easier narrative than the truth, in a world with a shrinking future. We eat the terrified cows and ignore their impacts on global warming from deforestation and methane because we’ve been told, “Beef, it’s what’s for dinner.” We think it’s our god given right. We ignore the fact that the grain we feed cows could feed many times more people compared to the cow, people made by, gasp, the same god. Every bite is a bit more CO2 and methane in the air, a little more death for you, me, those we love, and those we’re taught to despise. Try telling a Texan to eat less beef, but be cautious. He or she will be armed while watching desperate immigrants drown in Greg Abbott’s razor wired Rio Grande.
We abuse children, too. Just days ago in Mississippi, a teenager was killed in the deboning area of a poultry plant, sucked into a machine and mangled. Fortunately, he was from Guatemala, an expendable. You may see him in your next Chick-fil-A chicken burger. In many states, yes, sorry Republicans, red states, the working age is being lowered, and legal hours for teenage work greatly increased because the overlords want their cheap labor. Longer hours mean less education, too. An educated populace is a dangerous populace. Keep them dumb, I say.
Hey, they do have our safety in mind, though. In test facilities, “researchers” still pour laundry detergent into a rabbit’s eyes as if we don’t know the outcome, to keep us safe. Then that detergent is sold in plastic containers that fill our oceans, marine animals stomachs, and our bodies with microplastics. Plastic rains on us from the clouds now. New slogan. “Plastic, it’s what’s for dinner.” Just don’t put laundry detergent in your eyes, dope.
The traffic lights they turn blue tomorrow
And shine their emptiness down on my bed
The tiny island sags downstream
‘Cause the life they lived is dead
And the wind whispers Mary
Are you blue? Do you feel empty at times? Have you noticed islands are going underwater? Don’t worry.
Fortunately, when we get home from our jobs, we can have joy. In Everywhere, USA, the Amazon truck pulls up with a harvest of goods made from the body of Mother Earth for our pleasure. Don’t worry, it will all go back into her, that’s what land fills are for. The driver has to pee in a bottle to stay on schedule or lose his job. It’s claimed that workers in Amazon warehouses don’t have to resort to such measures, but they do have to ask for permission to go to the bathroom. Sometimes they have to wait. A long time. And they’re injured at twice the rate of workers in other warehouses, forced to pull orders and pack boxes as if machines themselves. No worries though, soon machines will replace their jobs, and they’ll be sorry for complaining. Say “hi” to Alexa for me. She’s listening. So is every other “smart” device in your house.
And remember, every purchase is for a good cause, Jeff Bezos. Mega yachts and mansions are costly. He’s only the third-richest person in the world. Let’s start a GoFundMe. Forget those losers who can’t pay their medical bills.
Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past?
And with its crutch, its old age and its wisdom
It whispers, no this will be the last
And the wind whispers Mary
So whose names should we remember? Whose names from the past? Whose names should we care about today? Whose names will be on our tongues tomorrow? Those destroying the planet and what it means to be human, or those being shot and jailed to protect it?
This morning I woke with my mind on a hook. The wind whispered, no, howled at me. It told me I must keep fighting. Please join the fight.
Thank you for reading my difficult article, and thank you for commenting. When I started a few years ago, I was gentler, but the clock is ticking. Try not to be overwhelmed. You can pick one thing and focus on that, which may lead to others. Inhumane treatment of animals is tough for anyone with a heart. Any of us who has pets know they have thoughts, preferences and emotions, and those who raise livestock humanely will tell you the same about a pig or a cow.
I stopped eating fast food 30 years ago when I learned McDonald's was the biggest cause of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest from slash and burn practices to graze cows and grow feed. I also learned that during the ice age, such places were the only ones where temperate areas remained. When the ice receded, those pockets of life grew back together, which accounts in part for the remarkable diversity of life in the rainforests. Scientists theorize these pockets could have been as small as five square miles, independent areas evolving unique species in each one. So leveling and burning the forests means likely losing species we've never even discovered.
I quit beef entirely ten years ago, and pork shortly after, and don't miss them. Dairy unfortunately is problematic as well in terms of emissions and animal treatment, so I limit that. I eat vegetarian a few days a week, but I can do better.
The problems, including the dehumanization you mention, are largely hidden from us. I started writing because I am aware of this and how short main stream media falls, particularly the gravity of the climate emergency and the 6th extinction. When I'm out, I try to plant little seeds in my conversations, and it's stunning how uniformed or misinformed people are. So I write, have improved my diet, and try to educate when I have a chance, mostly easy stuff (the writing not always so much)!
Many say you and I can't have the impact needed to make the difference needed. I wonder when the words conservation and boycott were eliminated from our vocabulary? Where we put our money is powerful. Bill McKibben and ThirdAct have been advocating putting pressure on banks that sponsor fossil fuel projects. Moving accounts isn't terribly difficult and could make a difference if enough of us take action. Here's a good list of the baddies. https://www.fossilbanks.org/fossil-banks
Thank you, glad the article had some meaning for you. The enormity of our situation can indeed be overwhelming. The lack of unified world leadership is disheartening. We need profound societal changes no one has the courage to talk about. Just read this on the Guardian about AMOC, perhaps good for your chronicle. We're running out of time. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/feb/09/atlantic-ocean-circulation-nearing-devastating-tipping-point-study-finds