Friday, May 22, 2009

Villagers


Statistics tell us that the population of our planet grows daily, and I suppose it would be easy for each of us, individually, to feel small and insignificant, as if our personal actions matter little in the face of so much humanity.

I was in Seattle yesterday, part of a crowd of several hundred folks. My friend Joelle, who works for an organization called Climate Solutions, had asked if I’d photograph a rally she and many others had organized near the site where the Environmental Protection Agency was holding hearings about the measures our country might undertake to combat global warming.

You might remember Hillary Clinton’s famous slogan: “It takes a village.” Those words popped into my head as I looked out over Seattle’s waterfront. I’d made my way to the rooftop of a building and was able to view both the city’s skyline and the crowd gathered below me, hundreds of people rallying for action on climate change.

“That’s one big village, I mused.”

Still, I realized that the crowd was made up of individuals. Joelle was there, and I knew she and many others had worked like crazy to help make the rally happen. An older man was also there with a sign making a statement about the future, and a young woman with a flag of planet earth. The rally was made up of this person and that, scores of singular beings, villagers all.

What an amazing village.