In 2023, experience beautiful epiphanies!
THEpiphanyit is the day of the kings, the feast of the Church which celebrates the manifestation of Jesus to the Magi. But with a lowercase letter, epiphany also designates a sudden realization.
Let’s take two examples. When astronauts look at the Earth from the stratosphere, they become aware of its fragility. The words of astronaut Ron Garan sum up this epiphany well: “When we look at Earth from space, we see an incredibly beautiful planet. It looks like a living, breathing organism. But at the same time it looks very fragile.” This astral awareness has even participated in the creation of a laboratory of ideas, the Overview Institute, “dedicated to the idea that seeing the Earth from space causes a kind of spiritual epiphany that changes the perspective on humanity forever”.
Other type of epiphany: in 2006, President Chirac became aware during the private screening of the film “Indigènes”, of the unfair treatment of former colonial combatants. Moved, Jacques Chirac immediately decided to align the pensions of these veterans with those of their French counterparts at the time of the fighting. However, Chirac was not unaware of these inequalities – during the 1995 presidential campaign, he had already promised to settle things, but he was not fully aware of them. It was the movie that changed everything.
The Earth, a president: should we ask Elon Musk to send Emmanuel Macron into the air so that, like an astronaut, he comes back with clear ideas about the ecological crisis once his feet are on the ground?
The president seems however informed of the environmental crisis
Informed is the right term, but during his vows on December 31, 2022, for the record, he said: “Who could have predicted the climate crisis?” In fact, is he really aware of the importance of the situation? He is informed but not conscious. But there are millions of us who are informed but unaware. Because who does not know in his entourage, a person very aware of the loss of biodiversity, of the climate crisis but who continues to fly for a week’s vacation in Thailand, goes to the baker one km away by taking his SUV, continues to put spread with palm oil in his pancakes, etc.
A few leads from Pascal Greboval
I will tell you a personal anecdote. I was not born green, I became one in the early 2000s through a form of epiphany. I was in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia and I climbed to the highest ski resort in the world 4,300 meters and up there: amazement! Plus a gram of snow, nothing, a completely peeled summit. I really became aware of what was happening. And my way of thinking has really changed. So I don’t invite everyone to go to La Paz but I invite you to walk, swim, cycle in nature as often as possible. Because awareness cannot be decreed, it is experienced. And I have the weakness to think that it is in contact with nature, its fragility that we can arouse it.
For too long we think we are the kings, the queens of the earth when we are only small beans in an ocean of beauty.