Grappling and Grieving

Would that this peaceful scene represents my mood right now. It's idyllic, yes - the lake surface is smooth, the spent leaves are resting on the ground, and the trees are standing immobile in the sunshine,

... but I'm struggling to see the world in the same way after the devastating election results this week. Inner turmoil. I'm having trouble reconciling with, and understanding, how morals and principles are no longer desirable attributes in a human being and leader. My attempts at 'carrying on' aren't working, because the world looks bleaker to me than it did earlier this week. I don't feel as if I'm part of the same tribe. I'm lost and unmotivated, listless.

Why do I regard regime changes as impactful when we humans are truly insignificant specks of dust in the cosmos, a tiny part of the workings of this planet? Yet I'm reacting as if this election is earth shattering. Am I attributing too much weight and importance to humans, because I'm part of it, a natural anthropocentrism? And yet I know that what we do, how we act and behave (accelerated climate change, anyone?) DOES have an impact on our planet's functioning and future. In the grand scheme of things though, we are miniscule actors on the stage, imagining we are grander and more influential than we actually are.

Somehow, nature manages to soldier on, no matter what havoc or devastation we've wrought, no matter the unforeseen changes. Growth returns each year, without fail, after the loss of leaves, and the months of snowpack. Different organisms colonize the space we create when we destroy habitats. Nature is about change, about adaptation to what-is; stasis dooms it to extinction. Can I too, find a way to grow from this, and forge onward after grieving for what could have been? I don't mean I ought to give in, lie down and submit, rather that I need to find a way to actively live my beliefs in a bolder, more influential way.

But before I take a page from Nature's book and adapt to things in the past I cannot change, I'm going to indulge myself, stamp my feet and have a satisfying tantrum!