I am beginning to understand why humans have the urge to harm one another. Especially when you consider the kind of violence that comes from an internal explosive power that surges through the embodied system in response to a violation so great that anger bursts into violent action in an attempt to stop the madness-this is instinct. I am not referring to the disturbed reasons why some humans find pleasure in causing or witnessing pain in other living beings. And no, I am not endorsing violence, but I am wrestling with my instincts.
We are conditioned to disconnect from our instinctive nature, to control our anger, to tolerate abuse, to swallow our pain, to suffer in silence, and to ‘give it to God’. The rings of the UFC are perhaps the only ‘safe’ spaces in which violence is encouraged, and celebrated. As a woman, I am not about to take up MMA fighting but I have considered it. Childbirth is the closest experience I can connect to that describes the kind of instinctive power that is explosive in nature - the same raw intrinsic intensity can take a life or bring forth life. A paradox, I say.
My anger has been dormant for years, however, something about the obvious attack on the sun and the sky is waking my sleeping dragon. This dragon is ferocious and she scares me. I must find an outlet for this raging wildfire within, and so, I write. Sometimes, I drink to dull the sensations. Other times, I shake like a madwoman in an attempt to ‘safely’ discharge the energy so as to prevent it from being trapped in an internal pressure cooker. I know this dragon is huffing and puffing, waiting for the moment when she can exhale incineration like an atomic bomb to halt the chaos. When will that time come? I do not know. So until then, I am learning to live with my dragon.
My friends and family are perplexed by my exasperated cold anger that results in me religiously blurting frustrated words towards the sky, daily, as the sun systematically gets covered by a chemical bath. I wish it were different - both their perplexity to my irritation and the chemical sunshield.
Why is it that I feel so alone in my anger? What am I seeing, or not seeing, that results in the mundane dismissal of a blatant attack on our atmosphere? I can hear the voices of those who have come before, those who have been walking these lands for sometime now, warning us about the impending doom. I managed until 2020 to compartmentalize the magnitude of destruction. Like many, I knew that things were bad. Yet, not so bad that my comfortably numb life wasn’t disrupted yet. Most of what I knew came from books, documentaries, and podcasts that pointed to the destruction ‘out there’. All of which was far enough away for me to remain asleep.
Asleep to what, you might ask? Sleepwalking through civilization, too preoccupied with monetary survival stress; hyperfocused on ‘me’ and ‘I’. There is nothing wrong with being focused on the self per se, especially when in a trauma or survival stress response. The brain biases to the negative under these circumstances and becomes narrowly focused on the immediate surroundings in a self preserving manner. So I don’t shame myself for having been under the spell of trauma for so many years; nor do I shun others. However, I can no longer sleepwalk past all the trees that no longer lose their leaves each fall because chemical technology has been fucking with our atmosphere.
#
Perched on a weathered flag pole sits a bald eagle overlooking the vast Okanagan Lake, situated in the Canadian desert region known as wine country. I can’t help but wonder what this apex bird is observing and experiencing. Does it see what I see? Feel what I feel? Is it too, trying to escape the encroaching calamity or are they bound to their ‘post’ regardless of what comes their way? Will they surrender to their death without resistance? Do they have something to teach us? I wondered if the Eagle-being had seen what I had seen that morning?
I have a special relationship with Eagles. Well, at least I tell myself that I do. I can’t say if the Eagle feels the same way. I do feel very supported by these grand birds. Prior to relocating to this valley, I sat in meditative states during a healing crisis, and would often be transported on the back of an Eagle. Soaring throughout the grand lake valley, I felt supported and alive. This experience was always followed by tears of gratitude and awe. My mind interpreted these vision states as indicators that moving to the Okanagan was on-path. And so it goes, after a year of back and forth to visit with my adult children, my husband and I packed up our belongings, sold our home, and headed West.
Soon thereafter, upon arrival, standing in the waters on a hot dry summer day with my daughter, celebrating our move, an Eagle circled above. My daughter noted this sight and I nodded and smiled. Sending my gratitude to this Being who carried me through some turbulent times, I was blessed with a feather. There, floating above our heads, was the gift. My daughter was in disbelief, as was I. Although, I should not have been. We turned to the rest of our crew to celebrate with them, and when we looked up, the Eagle was nowhere to be seen. It was as if it had appeared and disappeared-not of this world. When I saw the bird-being perched on the flag pole, I wondered if this was that eagle. I prayed, well not really prayed but had hoped, that perhaps it was bearing a message. If only I could speak Eagle, I thought to myself, maybe they could help me make sense out of what I can’t unsee. There is a saying that goes something like: Once you have seen it, you can’t unsee it.
I have come to call that which horrifies my senses but keeps me sober with reality: The Sky War. The Sky War is how I describe what is known as geoengineering, weather modification, cloud seeding, and more recently, solar management. It’s a chemical attack on the sky, the air, the waters, and the sun. In other words, on Life itself.
One narrative is that it is the non-consensual assault on our atmosphere using toxic chemicals in an attempt to address the climate crisis by manipulating cloud coverage, and seeding it with more chemicals, to induce artificial precipitation. And to desperately cool the planet by ‘dimming’ the sun with aerosol sprays that manufacture a solar shield that reflects the rays of the sun and in turn, dirties the sky.
I mean, we are facing a massive climate crisis, right? So of course, this sounds like a great idea-no? Technology, innovation, and chemicals are always the best way out of the mess we’ve created, aren’t they? No harm in innovation and dosing our atmosphere (and food and all living beings) with a few extra chemicals for the salvation of our precious earth (oops, I meant, for the salvation of human consumption and corporatocracy), right? Because those in positions of power and control have the best interest of the earth, and Life, and you and me, and as well, the Eagles-right? I hope you picked up my sarcasm, if not, it’s okay, I have been told I need to deliver it better. I often joke that I wish I was a comedian because I could say what I want with a dose of humor and satire, and draw an audience, without losing my day job. However, if you haven’t noticed, comedians are under attack these days too, so I guess there is no hiding anymore (and no avenue to push back on Global Capitalism), just trigger warnings and gag orders. Okay, I digressed.
Another vantage point pertaining to this hideous toxic attack on our atmosphere (the air all living beings breathe) that is more cynical is that the geoengineering is power hungry attempt to destroy Life and control the masses with fear, from a death urge, in the name of economic growth. This death urge is driven by an addiction to consumption until there is nothing left to eat (literally and metaphorically)-gluttony. Sound familiar?
Another perspective on the sky war is that there is nothing happening and I am making it all up (what I am witnessing is delusional and I am spreading conspiracy theories). In other words, the shit in the sky that I observe nearly daily is just condensation from airplanes-contrails not chemtrails. This lens is the one I seem to bump up against the most regardless of the fact that geoengineering and solar management programs are being reported about in the mainstream news.
There is also the belief that there is no climate crisis and that the narrative is a hoax driven by an evil Cabal of power hungry, baby-eating maniacs, in an attempt to pull the wool over citizens eyes and control the masses with fear-porn and propaganda.
Another vantage point is that the attack on the sky is a war tactic, as pointed out in the Documentary called The Dimming: ‘he who controls the weather controls the world’. Indeed, driven by modern-day Goliath and Global Capitalism (GlobalCap), in an attempt to own and dominant Earth, and all living beings (human and non-human), as a resource to be extracted to fuel the Dominant Culture’s drive to profit and gorge at the cost of Life itself.
Lastly, let us not forget, we are living in a simulacrum (a copy of the real thing) so why care, none of this is real-Neo is the answer. The real earth is yet to come; does this sound familiar? I liken this as a form of spiritual bypassing and cognitive dissonance that can result in nihilism and perpetuate hedonistic behaviours. within this vein of thinking, lives the new age concept that we created this reality and so we can transurf to another reality because we are multidimensional beings, living in a multiverse, and this reality is only one of many. So, if we don’t like it we can jump to another one timeline.
Are you dizzy yet? I am starting to spin as I try to unravel all the potential ways in which the sky war can be interpreted. Of course, it does include some of the above. In what order, I don’t know. All I know is that I am subjectively seeing something and that something has a cause and effect-personally and collectively. And that collateral damage includes all of Life. Nothing can escape the toxic mess without consequence. The sky war reminds me that human civilization is terribly out of balance, no longer living in harmony with Life but rather, actively destroying Life in the pursuit of ‘happiness’. There is no ‘happiness’ when the entire system is in a state of incoherence; this includes your embodied system and our collective system. Incoherence gives rise to dissonance and in turn, dis-ease and demise. We cannot thrive as a species, nor as a planet, in a state of disharmony. There are chemicals in the waters we drink, chemicals in the foods we eat, chemicals in our bodies, and chemicals in the atmosphere-we are flooded by chemicals. This toxic chemical watershed is unsustainable to all of Life. Adding more chemicals to an already overloaded living system, in an attempt to fix ‘the problem’, is indeed adding fuel to the fire. For this reason, my dragon is furious.
We have been fed a lie.
The lie is as follows:
a. We need to keep the Machine of industrial civilization going, at all costs, for the survival of the human species; b. As long as we follow the rules of the civilized Western Culture, we will be rewarded with money that can buy us things, and those things will fulfill our existence with pleasure and meaning; c. The advancement of technology and chemicals (drugs) will prevent us from aging and dying, thus we can continue to consume more things; d. We cannot stop the Machine of industrial civilization because our existence depends on it (we will die without it); e. The pursuit of money (at all costs) is the purpose of our existence as a species; f. Humans are the supreme species and have dominion over all other non-human beings including nature; g. Grotesquely rich humans, often white men of a certain class from European descendants, are actually the supreme species and have dominion over humans and non-humans; h. As long as we follow the leader of the pack (those from point g), follow their rules, adopt their mindset, live without conscience, believe the lie without question, surrender our lands, our spirituality, our culture, our children, our bodies, our minds, and our hearts without pushback, we will be ‘saved’ from slavery, harm, torture, and death-we will be ‘allowed’ to participate in the Machine culture; i. The Machine culture (a.k.a. Western Dominant Culture) will take care of us.
#
When I first witnessed the grid formation that covered the clear blue sky, I refused to believe that chemtrails were indeed real. I, too, didn’t buy into that conspiracy at the time. However, not only did I see the grid formation, spread over hours into a white haze that eventually lumped together and created a dense and dirty layer of debris that I can’t call a cloud, but this eerie sky cover resulted in the black hazy streaked rain that fell from above. After which I could no longer believe that the notion of chemtrails was all a conspiracy.
I became obsessed with the sky and the experiment taking place in plane sight. Regularly, the pattern unfolds in this way: streaks fill a clear blue sky in a grid-like way, some shoot straight up, others take an arch like pattern, this is followed by a spreading of these streaks across the sky and near the sun covering the atmosphere with a white layer of slim that remind me of large paint brush strokes in the sky. This white layer is what author, Elizabeth Kolbert, wrote about in the book Under A White Sky. I worry that there will be a generation of humans and non-humans, who may not know what a blue sky looks and feels like. This white layer is not a typical cloud and it looks like it came out of a sci-fi doomsday movie. These ‘clouds’ have a different hue to them and I can see colours that look like gasoline spills in rain water puddles on the side of the road. As a child I was always mesmerized by the rainbow expanding rings in the water after a spring rain. I don’t feel the same awe when I look at the ‘rainbow’ ring in the sky at the edges of some of these chemical clouds. I love the sky. Something about the sky, both day and night, has captivated me for as long as I can remember. The thought of Life being destroyed by nuclear warfare terrified me growing up; I never would have imagined that the ‘nuclear war’ would one day become the ‘sky war’.
#
Obsessed, I have been tracking the sky war everyday for the past three years. It is like peering into a car wreck-you can’t take your eyes off the tragedy. Remember the movie Don’t Look Up? Well, I daydream about bulletin boards that say Don’t Look Up with toxic grid like images all over it that say: Did You Consent to This? Not that this would do anything about the mess we are in, nor will it settle my inner dragon, but I think on one hand I just want to be in a shared experience with others. I want to know that others, too, are horrified; even the Eagle. Mostly, I tell myself that people are either ignorant to what is happening or they deny it all together, and call it a conspiracy. I know that some just can’t swallow and metabolize the pain, so they refuse to notice or place attention on the abuse. A form of survival denial.
Did I mention that the leaves don’t fall off the trees anymore? This also pains me. When I point it out to friends and family, they observe, and shift the conversation. It just doesn’t land for them as heavy as it lands for me. I joke (but not really joke) that the sky war is my ticket to spiritual awakening and liberation. Truthfully though, although I like the idea of transcending this mess through spiritual ascension, I am actually rooting for a collective transformation.
You could say the sky war is my tipping point. What is yours? Have you hit one yet? I know things are bad, like real bad, climate crisis wise. I know that people are feuding about the climate narrative. I know that our natural world has been under attack since the dawn of civilization. I know that chemicals are destroying the soil, the air, the water, and the trees; and our bodies. As well as, all the creatures that live on this earth. I have known this for some time now. I know that this wasteland is one of trauma, and beauty. Oh the fucken paradox. I know that the colonizing culture of the West uses force, fear, domination, and torture to shove a lie down our throats. Those that swallow the lie might have a brief moment in time in which they are spared the horrors. The horrors still exist, however, maybe just not front row and center (unless of course, you are staring at your phone).
Something about the sky war and the oppressive, trapped, all encompassing felt experience that I have been battling under the canopy of gray sludge almost did me in psychologically. I felt like I was being consumed by it and around the corner, there might be no return. Thankfully, my dragon woke up preventing me from harming myself, or others, by tapping me into the sacred power of instinctive anger.
All of this has illuminated what I have always known to be true-Life is under attack and I/we can’t escape it, not in this 3D reality that is for sure. I am reminded that freedom is an illusion, at least under these conditions. I might be free to think as I wish or free to access consciousness, however, I am not physically free under these conditions; nor are you. We are trapped animals, along with all the other trapped species. That entrapment is what fires up my dragon. I often feel helpless and collapsed by the magnitude and scale of the collective calamity. I find refuge in authors such as: Charles Eisenstein, Derrick Jensen, and Jem Bendell. Those who are not afraid to call a kettle black so to speak.
I don’t have any answers as to how to escape the culture of madness, and I am not sure anyone has the answers. I am left with the same felt sense that haunts me as I recognize the severity of the trauma, and the length of the trauma, that all of Life (not just humans) has been enduring as a result of a culture of consumption and separation. I am tired. I imagine you are too, if you are feeling into the magnitude of it all. I keep hanging on. Is it because my biology is designed to seek Life and thrive, not just survive? Or is it because my son said to me that he wants children, even in the face of this shitshow, because he wants to share my legacy and stories (this notion still catches my breath)? Or is it because I love Life so much and see the gorgeous beauty that exists simultaneous to the degredation? Or is it because I believe in a new story? Does the Eagle know all of this? Do they see a way through? Can they fly above the shield?