Waking Up?

Every now and then, as I'm sure you'd agree, we each experience life-changing moments.

For me, one such moment took place in my twenties.
It was a beautiful spring morning.  I was driving along a Somerset lane, enjoying the signs of regrowth in the hedgerows, and watching the young lambs gamboling in the fields.  All was well with the world.

It was then that it happened.  All at once, I found it impossible to disassociate the carefree lambs from the lamb chop I'd enjoyed for lunch the previous day.

Until then I'd been completely successful in mentally separating the meat on my plate from its source in the fields . . . from that moment on it was impossible.  Reality had struck home.  I could, of course, have accepted the reality and continued to enjoy eating meat.  But I didn't.  Since that moment I've been a vegetarian.

Wouldn't you agree that we're living at a time of facing such realities . . .  a time of coming to terms with what we've successfully ignored for far too long?

Plastic pollution is a prime example.
Ever since 'Blue Planet II' we've woken up to the reality of the vast quantity of plastic that's choking the world.  It was there before, but we'd chosen not to see it.

Now plastic confronts us everywhere, from the pen on the desk to the wrapping round our sandwich.  In finally recognising the situation, we've acknowledged our need to find a solution.

Quite recently we were faced by another reality when scientists published the warning that the sixth mass extinction is under way.

Since that announcement you've probably found, as I have, that evidence is constantly presenting itself.
How many butterflies did you see last summer?  Are there any thrushes nesting in your garden?  And what of the hedgehogs that were once regularly flattened on our roads?

Other emerging realities are hitting the headlines, including that of the gender pay-gap, historic and current sexual abuse, and regional inequalities . . . I'm sure you could add to the list.

But perhaps the most powerful wake-up call is the undeniable reality of man-induced climate change.  Weather patterns have altered worldwide, the Arctic is melting at an alarming rate, whilst a lack of rainfall in parts of Africa is making farming  in those areas impossible.

We have finally recognised that, unless we accept and deal with this reality, our planet will be robbed of the essential components for life.

Do these enlightened moments mean that we are emerging from what Christopher Fry called 'a sleep of prisoners'?

Could this be our time of waking up . . .  our moment to throw off the captivity of illusion?

Click here, and let's answer that question with the wisdom of Fry's own words.