By Dawn M. Sanders
The countdown is on – at least for me, an observer of the seasons. One month ‘til equinox as the sun is lowering in the sky and night creeps in sooner with every cooling evening.
This year, with such a searing sizzling summer as the perils of global warming are all around us, the entering of lady autumn has more relief and significance, at least that is, if you have underlying health conditions such as my dear lad. He sat outside and in here yesterday just feeling the cool breath of the breeze through the house and through his hair when he sat out in the garden with his music in the shade, but with a less aggressive sun still warming for company.
At the time of writing, it’s a Saturday afternoon, late August and, outside it is eerily still. No breeze at all and I haven’t heard a single bird, not even a sea gull for something like ten minutes.
A low-flying plane just passed over, oblivious to what might be going on atmospherically.
Upstairs, my son is just sitting still on the edge of his bed, perplexed and possibly feeling the cosmic activity.
Last night and the night before, he didn’t sleep well, just lay tossing and turning in his bed.
Likewise, I had to give up completely on sleep last night. I was so tired I fell asleep in my living room chair, but once I went up to bed – I slept for an hour maybe two, but once I awoke there was just no going back.
The other night when in a deep sleep, I dreamt there was a big fire really near to our house.
It was so close, everyone was told to stay inside and close their doors and windows – there was smoke everywhere and you couldn’t breathe outside.
I woke up with a start, and I was safe in my bed, the house was quiet and the air outside was cool.
We have the nearly total solar eclipse the other week along with meteor showers, someone just told me six of the planets, including the earth, were perfectly aligned on that night.
Something is happening – I fully intend to stay on alert, aware and present with my loved one and those who mean a lot to me.
In the jungle of modernity, most people are so removed from nature and the cosmos – not allowing for natural occurrences or manoeuvres in response to our shifting world or the way in which our earth answers to her reckless and destructive nature of her human inhabitants.
With the violence of war, the barbarism of genocides and the desperation of displaced people – when, when is the tipping point, what will it look and feel like?
I’m nothing close to religious; who can say the accuracy of what was prophesised thousands of years ago – who can say?
In my busy, washing machine mind, every day feels more precious than the last.
What I can’t ignore is the thought and feeling which seems to grow louder in my ears by the day – this has to be ‘the beginning of the end; the end of things as we know it, the end of our precious time here.
Has humanity blown its chance for some kind of living nirvana?
I’m sure no utopian, far from it as I wanna know, “who the hell drunk half of my glass of water?” rather than it’s half full or empty; but maybe I should stop trying to make sense of a world which makes no sense anymore.
One can sit here and philosophise and pull up frilly adjectives to describe an ever-perplexing existence, but really, I just think we need to live as conscientiously and mentally/physically wide-eyed and woke as possible – in an increasing demand for dulling of the senses, keeping your eye on that computer screen or the next thing capitalism tells you, you must have!
We need to ‘keep it lit’ for our own survival, for generation Z that is, if they can withstand what is to come.
Some say it’ll be the 6th extinction; others envisage an apocalyptic super-bomb from the all-prevailing axis power in Washington DC.
The Christian bible makes all kinds of revelations including a raptured night where all first borns disappear – safe somewhere out in the ether while the rest of us starve, go underground to get food and burn in Armageddon…
Fucking crazy! But, for now the sun is still shining while true safety and trust is an ever-precious commodity – enjoy the rest of the ride…
© 2026