A Hundred Billion Suns
Dear friend,
We have a wisteria growing over our kitchen door. We bought it on sale from a garden centre that we’ve stopped visiting. At first we were taken by the place, especially because every year at the end of the summer they have a big sale. But over time we couldn’t help noticing how unhappy the staff seemed. The young people on the tills were cheerful enough—how you can be in a holiday job—but the staff working the greenhouses seemed… weighed down somehow.
Chiara and me both felt it.
We came away with the sense the staff were being exploited. So we stopped going.
And then more recently we found out the CEO of Spotify, the streaming platform, is investing hundreds of millions in military drone tech.
We cancelled our subscription. It’s a drop in the ocean, but imagine if that drop were to become a rainstorm and millions of accounts closed in the blink of an eye?
This morning the sun was casting a shadow of the wisteria’s leaves trembling in the wind.
There were three plants in the pot when we bought it—but only one survived. The one that went in the ground. That’s the one we’re hoping, one day, will cover the back of the house.
There’s a wisteria in Japan that’s over 140 years old. One of the oaks in our local park is more than 300.
That puts a life span in perspective.
A hundred and forty years from now—will the Earth still be here?
I think it will.
Some high-profile voices talk about how we’ve wrecked the planet and need to find an alternative. But they don’t talk much about balance. About restoring harmony here.
I don’t go for the “planet is doomed” narrative.
A hundred and forty years from now I believe people will be living with a consciousness that knows the unity of all life. When you feel connected to life, you don’t need more stuff. There’s no one to compete against. It just feels good to belong.
If your mind stops at the edges of capitalist thought, then yes—you’ll see collapse, apocalypse, the end. But the end of capitalism as a belief system isn’t the end of the world.
It’s just the end of a tiny worldview. A worldview that’s running out of energy.
The human mind isn’t great at grasping eternity.
Our sun is one star. There aren’t just a hundred suns in our galaxy—there are over a hundred billion. And that’s just our galaxy. There are more than a hundred billion galaxies in the universe.
We are one with that.
With the Earth.
With each other.
With all life.
It’s been really dry for weeks now. The river is running low. Plants in pots need watering every other day.
Sunlight. Water. Roots.
Sometimes it’s that simple.
Breath.
Friendship.
One step at a time.
Yesterday I met a guy walking his dog by the river. He pointed to the fruit growing in the trees overhead and said:
“I’ve been coming here for years—I never noticed the fruit before. It’s like I’ve been walking around with my eyes closed.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know what you mean.”
We stood there for a while watching the sunlight on the water.
His dog barrelled after Enzo, who loves nothing more than a good chase.
It’s easy to stay awake to what’s wrong.
Let’s stay awake to beauty too.
Till tomorrow
Love
Mikey