’Tis the season…

TTUTA

ONCE AGAIN, the Earth is faithfully making the annual elliptical orbit around the sun while maintaining her daily rotation into the various seasons and festivals in December that the human species celebrate such as Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah and Gita Jayanti, as well as the many celebrations of the Indigenous people during the time known as the winter solstice. Each wisdom tradition has its own unique practice, but they all illuminate the world with the light of love, liberation, blessings, rededication, heritage, unity, culture, giving, sharing, honour and remembrance.

For all of Earth’s creatures, nothing is as essential as the length of daylight and the sun is the definitive source of all light and warmth on Earth radiating solar energy, which makes it possible for life to exist on Earth. Plants need sunlight to grow. Animals, including humans, need plants for food and the oxygen they produce. Without heat from the sun, Earth would freeze.

As NASA satellites continuously monitor the populations of plant life on land and in the oceans, it can be seen that the planet has changed over the last two decades. According to Gene Carl Feldman, an oceanographer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the Earth is “breathing every single day, changing with the seasons, responding to the sun, to the changing winds, ocean currents and temperatures." One only has to go on “the University of YouTube” to actually witness this incredible natural phenomenon of “Earth breathing.”

Let it be known, however, that we the people of TT, teachers, parents and especially our nation’s children, cannot breathe and are stifled because of the plethora of issues in Education that are literally “breathing” down our backs and necks as we are being hoodwinked into believing that sustainable changes are being made.

For too long debate continues in this country with truly little advancement towards improvement. The “blow hot blow cold” approach occurs without failure when the issue is current and then we drop the issue as unresolved as before. This is evident in the wide spectrum of societal problems that are not being addressed and that are repetitive year after year.

Where is our “sun?” How can we receive the warmth of love and unity when we remain divided and fragmented individually and collectively? Where is our hope for a meaningful and peaceful existence when economic disparities exist and unjust practices in education reinforce suffering? In what manner can the Earth breathe if many of the citizens of this nation are suffocated daily by systems firmly entrenched in capitalism that widens the gulf between the rich and the poor?

We are frozen in time and doomed to vicious cycles of violence and a dastardly legacy of poverty if we choose to be silent. This is a clarion call that we cannot allow this tumultuous year to end without a renewed resolve towards the struggle for fairness and justice in the way people are treated, particularly the children. When will we say enough is enough? The proponents of archaic systems continue to benefit themselves and not the wider population.

For too long, the adults of this land have made decisions and committed actions that have done harm to us and, even more dreadfully, to our children. Extreme delays of progress within the legal, social and education systems for relieving their distress is the norm. Compassion and care are often non-existent. Have we become so heartless and selfish, individualistic and passive that we turn a blind eye to the pains of others to avoid looking into the mirror of our own depravity? We cannot be neutral. Dire consequences await us all and the effects will echo in every home.

As the various seasons are here, consider that for many of our citizens, grave sorrow, economic hardships and abuse in all its forms have devastated their hope. In our quiet contemplative times, this must be the basis for the famous New Year’s resolution: to move toward a more inclusive and humanitarian society. We can only be a strong and courageous people if we carry on the legacy of freedom and change that will then honour the lives of our ancestors who with inestimable difficulty endured oppression and atrocities.

’Tis the season to transform and revolutionise our most outdated structures. We cannot accept the horror movie that our people live in. Let there be new plot twists and adventures as we stay informed, flexible, and proactive.

Blessings and peace to all!