Choices and action
We managed to collect all that plastic from Saints beach Tuesday and Wednesday morning, washed up with the tide. We went down this morning but there was very little in comparison. This stuff - toothbrushes, vegan friendly make-up remover and urgh, horrible air freshener- were lost off a container during rough seas. Apparently no one is currently taking responsibility.
Mind you Elon Musk has a rocket spinning around in space, about to make contact with the moon, and as far as I am aware there is no repercussions on him for that. This is then age where we take zero responsibility for our actions and the effect they have on this planet and others. It’s such a shame that money and power are still more important than the quality of the air we breathe, the sea we swim in and the skies we look up into.
This whole episode has reminded me once again that we have to take individual responsibility regardless of the lack of responsibility shown by the corporations and supposed leaders of our time. if we turn our backs on throw away plastic and find other ways to clean our teeth, move our make-up and freshen the air, for example, then there is no need for all this plastic in the first place and if there is no demand for it, then there will be no corporations making it and selling it.
It’s us and our choices and actions that drives all of this. We can’t just keep living the way we’re living and expecting others to make the changes for us. Individually we need to become increasingly conscious of what we’re buying and how we’re therefore spending our money, and the implications this has for the planet. If we each make positive changes, then those positive changes will be felt by everyone. But as always it has to start with us.
We have to increasingly recognise that not everyone had our best interests at heart. There’s a lot of things being made and sold that are simply not needed in this world. But we buy them anyway, because they’re fashionable or the children love them, or they’re cheap or whatever it may be, but really, we just don’t need it.
I often look around the cottage and sigh at the amount of stuff we have that we just don’t need. Often a Reiki attunenment will bring on a clear out and I’m always grateful for this - as we go through an inner clear out, we often want to have an outer clear out too. One of my intentions is to increasingly simplify so that I own very little by way of material possessions. I’m trying to become increasingly conscious of what I’m buying and where it has come from and the implications this has more widely too.
I’m also trying these days to make what I can and buy in bulk where I can. Does mean the children go a little crazy when faced with kilo bags of dried mango and I have to hide them away so that they last out beyond a few weeks! It also means that I spend more time than I used to in the kitchen, this morning making gluten and dairy free pancakes for Eben while simultaneously making lavender deodorant! But i feel better for it. For at least trying.
But saying all that I’m still getting on a plane on Saturday…so that’s a few more trees that need planting. It’s always a work in progress, butI am conscious of it, did consider it, and at least we have been able to take the toothbrushes from the beach to the Animal Shelter where they will be put to good use. As for the other plastic, well at least it’s not resting on the sea bed and can be collected in our recycling this evening. Silver clouds and all!
At the end of the day we have free will and we have choice, how we action that choice is up to us. The Bhagavad Gita talks about this…what motivates our action? I’ve fond it a very interesting enquiry into my life generally, what motivates my choices and the decisions I am making, are they truly from the heart and for the planet and the bigger picture (thinking 7 generations away!), or are they for some selfish and short-term gain? More on that no doubt, another time!
Love Emma xx
