I'm going to start with a disclaimer on this one. I hold no judgement on anyone. At least, that is, I try my very best. No one's perfect hey. If I fall into judgement, I do my best to notice, to stop, and to remember to see the perspective of the other (or myself, as the case may be). I choose to always try to do my best to see all with love - that part at least is easy. Love is always easy. The tricky bit is sometimes just clearing some of the rest of it around to make the way of love more clear as onward we go. So. There are some strong feelings in this one. They might stir the pot. But I'm not going to censor myself. I'm making the choice to share my full truth here. If you feel triggered, I apologise. I say again, I do not judge you. I love you. This is my truth. It may not be yours. And that is ok. Love exists regardless. It is the only way. Truly. If you have big feelings surface here that you struggle with, if you have any questions, if there's anything you would like to talk through, if there is anything you would like to understand, please feel free to get in touch. No question is wrong, no thought is stupid. Much of our society has striven to hide the truth. But the truth is the truth and it is always there. It cannot be denied. And the aim is always to grow together, to move forward, to support one another. So, I am here. Please feel free to connect. This is part of my work.
So, that important piece said... I continue...
And once more, the stories spiral around again to meet each other in the same place but, thankfully, for me personally, a new place, a better place and a stronger place... For the challenges we now face are also bigger and stronger than ever... And so it continues... In amongst it all, hoping to find more and more ways of growing all that is good - love, love, love... and letting go of all that no longer serves us - the unnecessary burdens that hold us down... and on we go, forward, onwards, upwards always... Working to hold dear all that is so very precious, so very fragile, so very beautiful and so very irreplaceable, and to follow our visions of the better ways that are possible, that must be possible, that already exist, that have always existed, and that must be strengthened, supported, grown and shared, of living in connection, balance and harmony with all of Life. All of Life and its many complex and interconnected cycles and symbiotic processes; living, dying, birthing, waxing, waning, growing, changing, transforming, all part of the one big wonderful thing that is Everything, nothing separate from anything else, all connected across space and across time. This we have to hold dear.
After I last wrote, I was reflecting on listening, listening to my body, listening to the trees and to the birds, listening to the land, listening listening listening... More to come on all that, hopefully soon...
And it all came together and suddenly I realised I hadn't even written of - at least not explicitly as a focus - and maybe I hadn't yet even had the fully conscious understanding (but how could I have missed it when it was so all pervasive...??) that underneath it all, under all my personal struggles of those dark days years ago that I have written about, was the biggest anguish of all, that really ultimately got me to where I ended up. The absolute despair, fear, guilt, disgust, shame, anger, overwhelm, despondence and ultimately paralysis of knowing the true depths of the dire situation we humans have created that now faces us all, and all of Life as we know it.
All those years ago, back then, I had learned more and more and more about how what we humans do is damaging all the fragile, beautiful and complex systems of Life on this planet. And the more I looked for solutions, the further away they started to feel.
I could easily tick off the 100 tips for living greener I found in a book in the library, which only left me wondering where to go next. Because I knew that was not enough. So I found new things to learn and new things to try, new people to learn from, new worlds to explore, ever more learning. I pushed myself and pushed myself to and beyond my limits in trying to live within the footprint of just one planet, just the one planet that we have, but it never felt like I was doing enough. And while I was almost completely breaking myself doing that, meanwhile whenever I ventured further out from my safe zone of home with my trees and my birds, more and more I was confronted by a feeling that all my efforts were futile.
I was directly surrounded by people who care deeply, who work so hard to live so well and who have the lowest footprints of anyone I know. I lived and worked in concentric and overlapping circles of communities within communities, populated by many such caring, light footprinted folk. So when I stayed close to home it was easier to hold hope, to feel that things would be ok and that everyone cared and we would all work together to forge the new ways.
But the further I went from home, the more I was bombarded by the pollution and waste, concrete and asphalt (where's the ground gone??), and general destruction of the rampant consumerism of this Western society that I had become extra re-sensitised to, after a desensitising early life in the city was followed by my time moving closer and closer and closer to Real Life - Nature - Community - True Life, and I meanwhile became ever more sensitive as my long overwhelmed senses were finally given the chance to reopen, reawaken.
And so, just as all the foundations of my life - relationship, home, family, community, career - were simultaneously becoming shaky and ceasing to hold me up, as I have previously written about, all this was going on, somehow under the surface, too big to bring fully out onto the table. And in the end, as I was dealing with, or - I suppose - not really dealing with, all the massive feelings; as I continued the ongoing intellectual struggle to understand and find solutions; and as more and more I felt the onslaught on my sensitive soul by this rampant destruction I was party to in a way that left me feeling I could not escape; it all just became too much. I was paralysed. I had pushed myself physically, mentally, and emotionally, to my limits and still none of it ever felt enough. I had worked volunteering to try to help make the world a better place in group after group but I could no longer hold patience against my fear of the too slow turning tide of change, though at least I time to time hoped change was actually happening, albeit so painfully slowly. I felt like those who were involved were already on board and it was like preaching to the converted, while those outside the circle of influence could never be brought in from their mutually exclusive paradigm. I catastrophised what I saw because of my fear and stress and despair. It all just seemed too impossible and I became paralysed by it all. And with my overwhelm and paralysis I became ineffective in the work and group by group I stopped participating.
And meanwhile if I did venture as far as the big city, on a journey to visit family or friends, the black stream of the marching majority in the streets of bright lights, billboards and vending machines overwhelmed me further and I clung to any sight of green growth coming up through the cracks in the concrete and almost stopped to wrap myself around any tree I passed in relief. It felt like all these people were just going along like nothing was happening while inside I wanted to scream at them all without even realising that was what was happening inside me. And so something inside me started to shut down. Again, overwhelmed, overwhelmed, overwhelmed, on all fronts, my system crashed.
And so in amongst it all, I defaulted to escapism, an old pattern of many varieties. I read fiction for younger readers, I watched series and movies on my computer, I stayed up late, I slept in, I drank, I smoked, I ate chocolate, and other junk food, then berated myself for contributing to all the problems. I didn't stretch to hard drugs but I did pretty much all the other things. More on that soon too anyway... I also stopped interacting with people so much, while I've always been such a social person. I still interacted, but it wasn't the same. Over time I withdrew more and more and my interactions became much more limited.
Where things went from there is part of the ongoing story yet to come, but it was certainly a big journey to find my way out of the maze I put myself into. But there is where I am now up to in that story. And so while all these big feelings were creeping back to me, as I found the shape of where I really had been, back all those years ago, they were meanwhile shaping up to come back to hit me for six again, as happens in the cyclical nature of things. I suppose it's always present - more on that later along the way too - but recent events have both held it at bay in some way, and then more recently allowed it to come to back to the forefront again...
So if you've been reading, you'll probably know that I've basically spent the last few years in what I sometimes refer to as the baby "survival zone". Pregnancy, new motherhood, pregnancy again (plus toddler = extra exhausting) and then another baby to join the family. Intense times. And so during these times the focus has been mostly on just getting through each day. Sure there's been a lot of joy, love, laughs and a whole lot of cute along the way, don't get me wrong. But I don't think anyone would say it's all easy peasy fun and games... Some find it harder than others; and for me I don't think it's been quite the hardest it could have been, but it's certainly been a long way from the easiest. I'm still working all this stuff out really. More on that to come too... It's even just that there's a lot of logistics involved in the simplest of things and then just when you think you have it all sorted, something - most often something to do with pee, poo, potties, nappies, food - oh woe food, or maybe naps, just for something completely different - will throw a spanner in the works and you're back working it out all over again... And sleep. You don't know just how important it is until it's gone... I spent my early life wishing I didn't have to waste time sleeping, and skipping more of it than I should have along the way. Now I just think... "One day I will sleep again." On repeat. So, survival zone... Aaaaaaaanyway...
So meanwhile, my personal footprint, now also expanded to a family footprint divided by the four of us in our domain of responsibility, has taken a slide....... And so after all my work making it smaller and smaller as much as I could over all those years, it's now a big long mucky yucky slip sliding footprint of more plastic than I've had to throw out for a long time (largely to the recycling for whatever that's been worth in this day and age, but also occasionally to the bin as required for the non-recycleables, yuk, hanging my head in shame - and goodness knows much if not all of the recycling probably joins it in landfill too - hmm this piece has been so long in the writing that the collapse of the recycling system here has come and stamped this in block letters, currently working out how to get anything recycled is a bit of a mission....... ergh...... let's get back to that one too...); much more electricity used than I'd like; more new things bought than probably the previous 10 or more years combined, even despite the many hand me downs from amazing generous folk - thank you all so very muchly; and waaaaaaaaaay more driving than I've been able to stand really.........
Which only just goes to hit me for another 6.
Wham. Bad me. Bad bad bad bad me. The guilt, the berating, the personal criticism, and the shame....... Because one needs more pressure when in the survival zone. Of course.
And round 1 when Big Little was small I did push myself. We had one car only for months and months and Little Big Little and I would get round and about on foot and on public transport and I would carry her on my front and a backpack on the back and shopping bags on each arm sometimes. We left the house when the car was going, with Beloved on his way to work, dragging us both out of bed after nights of much interrupted sleep. We used just 49 disposable (80% compostable) nappies in the whole just under 2 years she was in nappies - 49 too many for my liking! The odd 1 was in the early days, given from a friend who got it in the op shop - it leaked as much as the cloth ones anyway, so I passed on the other couple she gave me. The other 48 were used over nights, in a desperate bid for better sleep, maybe a year and a half in. It didn't help. So on the upside, after beating myself up about it, I went happily back to the routine of full cloth nappy use.
Round 2 with Little Little it was double survival mode for a while. We had already long succumbed to the second car, I had even taken Big Little for long drives on multiple occasions solely for the purpose of getting her to nap, after she conveniently decided she'd like to try to drop naps completely at about 16 months, while her contemporaries were meanwhile dropping from two to one naps or still on two, and I was pregnant and exhausted. In the nursery with premmie Little Little they sadly only had disposable nappies available, rather than the cloth and washing service that they had available on the ward with Big Little in her Little Little days. So that started us on the wrong foot and once home we used disposables regularly for night time and sometimes in the day time for Little Little from the start. I kept count out of guilt for some months, but lost some of my records about 9 months in, after a particularly guilty time of using disposables full time, while on holiday at the beach with my sister and her family who were visiting from overseas, and perhaps because of the lost records, or perhaps just because it was just too horrible to keep on counting, after that, I stopped keeping count. Who knows how many horrible hundreds we have used now another 8 or so months along.
And food. We do our best. We get veggie boxes weekly (at least when I remember to order it!) - organic, almost entirely packaging free, more or less local (sometimes choosing the 100 mile box but sometimes the mixed choice including items from further afield within Australia). We try to fill up our own containers at the Wholefoods Collective, and thankfully there are now several shops offering more and more fill your own container options round town. But children. Feeding small children. What a mission. And the time, lack of time, to do anything the long way, cooking, shopping, anything. Or even just the trying to fill up your own containers with a three year old at your feet desperate to help (which works, sort of, sometimes...) and a one year old in the sling in front of you preventing your arms from quite so easily meeting at the opening of the container, blocking your view, and making it just that bit tricky to meet scoop with container...
But anyway. We can only move forward from where we are at. And we must acknowledge that we have come forward from where we have been. Even when sometimes it's an up and down journey along the way... Enough berating, enough excuses. It is what it is - as some would say and some would hate to say - and we must just always try our very best to go forward from where we are at. Which is where I am at right now.
So back to the train of thought before the berating and excuses... So part of why all this stuff was stirring again was that I felt I was finally coming out of baby survival mode, and I was feeling more and more restless and angry at myself for taking shortcuts I wouldn't have before (in case you missed that little outburst there), for doing things in ways I wouldn't have let myself for years. I knew it was time to kick myself in the pants and improve my game again. And also join with some community actions to grow and spread the love and inspiration a little further.
And so then while all this was stirring, the hope of Australia's "climate election" was building. Wow. This could be it, I thought, along with many. Time for some real action, some real change, led from all the levels, not just the uphill battle from below.
And then wham bam bang crash knock me over completely, along with everybody else in this country - unfortunately apparently a significant minority - who actually have all the actual information and actually understand fully, or at least to some degree what's going on (and no thanks to major media there) and choose their actions and make their vote in alignment with caring first and foremost about the future of humanity, this planet and all the life on it. So as it turns out, it would seem there was some kind of bubble effect and everyone who thought this was the "climate election" was apparently just not aware of the majority there outside the bubble with their damn sharp needles pointed ready to pop, who obviously just have no idea what is really going on thanks to the efforts of media mongrels mangling the truth of the matter with the support of all those in favour of profit at any expense, or at least I'm choosing to go with the benefit of the doubt here and try not to start blaming the general public (aside from aforementioned mass media and those declared to be in favour of profit at any expense, because there the answer is clearly written and propagated) for putting their own short term gain, real or falsely promised and therefore imagined, ahead of well, the future of everything really.
So boom. There went the hopes of many. Mine among them. And back I fell into that pit of despair, disbelief, disgust, anger, fear, overwhelm.
But this time round it's been different. This time I am stronger. I won't say it hasn't been a hard few months, for me along with a lot of people. The stories in the news about mass extinctions, ongoing forest clearing and ecosystem destruction, and the future we face if we don't halt carbon emissions and start extracting carbon back from the atmosphere - Right. Now. - are absolutely devastating and frightening. And the knowledge that the people with political power, the people with all the power of lots of money, the people with the power to control large proportions of media, the people in charge of most of the decisions that have far reaching consequences, all just seem to think it's ok to just destroy it all, is terrifying. But this time, instead of paralysis and withdrawal, I have found my way onwards. There is hope. And there is action swirling, on the ground level. The masses are gathering, the momentum is building, the tide is turning. It is and it must. Because the ONLY time is NOW.
This time I am stronger. I know the power of love in my heart. I know how to take care of myself better as I go, and I do it. I have stronger connections, within and without, so much more experience, skills, tools, techniques and knowledge of things that go further, deeper into realms of truth and meaning, in ways I never expected. I have found so many different parts of the story on my journey, all that I will be writing about as I go. And I am aware of what is going on within me and I allow it, I acknowledge it, and I have ways to help manage it while working always onwards, forwards, upwards...
So on we go. Finding ways to leave behind all that no longer serves, and to grow all that is good. To find new ways from old ways, to continue the good work and keep on finding what to do next, and/or perhaps what to be next, to move together towards the visions of a better future.
To be continued. (Preview hint, next instalment will be about all of the ways forward currently in process right now, right here, for me.)
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