Essays, Observing The World, -  Sep 12, 2026

Losses (September 11, 2026, Mountains and Waters Alliance)

September 11, 2001

My grandchildren have never known a world before 9-11. Or before school shootings. My children at least had their childhood before security guards and shooter drills, though they never knew the pre-Watergate illusion of honest government, available to white middle-class kids when I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s.

When John Kennedy was killed – riding in an open limousine waving to the crowds, if you can imagine that – I was 16, taking a chemistry test, and in art class when they announced he was dead. (Everyone knows where they were when that happened; when the world changed.) We all believed the coverup story.

This generation and the last have grown up in a world where you can’t trust anyone, including the government, where truth is indistinguishable from lies. They don’t consciously notice, I think, but I do. I feel it in my body, the fundamental unease of the way we live now. They’re merely slow to have babies, they’re taking care of their lives and future careers in a world that is harder every year and everything costs too much. We don’t talk much about climate change, or fascism, or the fact that AI might destroy humanity. We live our lives as best we can, without certainty.

There’s a way this is essentially Buddhist: nothing lasts, the only thing you own is your actions, we are created each moment by the moment itself, with a little flavoring from our past. But Buddhist practice chooses to live this way; having it forced on you is another matter altogether. And I wonder what it’s actually like to be a person living in Gaza, never knowing whether you or your family will die today, tonight, or tomorrow, where you will get food, whether you will be warm in that tent. My imagination doesn’t go so far as to encompass that.

September 11 in history

I looked up September 11. These items appealed to me for some reason having to do with resistance and empire.

• 9: Germanic tribes defeat the Romans and end Rome’s eastern expansion.
• 1229: Genghis Khan’s son Ogedei is elected to succeed him as emperor.
• 1297: The Scots defeat the Brits at the battle of Stirling Bridge, led by William Wallace.
• 1541: Santiago, Chile is destroyed by indigenous warriors
• 1609: beginning of Spain’s expulsion of Muslims
• 1697: Battle of Zenta: Ottoman Empire defeated and begins withdrawal.
• 1943: Jewish ghettos in Marisa and Lida, Belarus, are liqiudated by the Nazis.
• 1959    US starts food stamps
• 1973: Allende, first Marxist elected to lead a South American country, is displaced as President of a democratic Chile, replaced by Pinochet with indirect support from the U.S.
• 2001: Twin Towers destroyed in New York City. Flight 93 is brought down by a rebellion among its passengers, none of whom survived.

I found myself drawn to stories of resistance and the end of empires, plus egregious offenses relating to disasters. I began with the 1973 overthrow of democratic Chile, followed by years of dictatorship, with support from the United States. I hear that Democracy Now, then relatively new, was broadcasting about that overthrow when the news came to them about the Twin Towers. My thoughts about that are above.

Humans who have left us recently

• July 19: Richard Heinberg, leading voice on climate and energy issues, after 2-weeks with pancreatic cancer.
• August 25:  Dolly Parton, country singer and quiet philanthropist, died of cancer.
• August 31:  Wendell Berry: poet, writer, and farmer; voice of agriculture and a spiritual leader of sorts.
• September 2: Gloria Steinem: journalist, early founder of Second-Wave Feminism; Founder of Ms Magazine, lifelong activist.
• September 5: Robin Morgan: poet, journalist, early founder of Second-Wave Feminism, lifelong activist.

It feels like there is a rush to depart at this time. These were guiding lights for various times in my life. I can’t say much about it, except this: It’s our responsibility now.

Poem by Wendell Berry:

This felt suitable for this time in particular. Our journey is now.

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

I’ll write a separate blog post with news and upcoming events.

Warmly,

Shodo Spring for Mountains and Waters Alliance