that life reminds you how fragile it is
how precious
how delicate
how beautiful
how full of abundance.
let it come to me
in boundfulls and handfulls and graciousness.
M
Today starts like many others November 11, 2007
with a sore head. I overindulged again, which was wholey and compleatly the point.
Sold my fridge yesterday and im moving out of my flat in a few day.
I cooked up a storm with the left over fridgeness, and we had a feast. C and i started on the hoard of cheap wine from successive ‘pak n save’ sales.
I wonder when i will stop just having fun and be a proper grown up?!
The feeling that i am waiting for something to happen, something to shift, is dull and quiet and always there. Somethings wrong…
Just one more drink, just one more trip in the car, just one more rubbish bag.
Next time ill take the bus, next time ill stay sober, next time ill recycle.
When do things change?
Again , a sore head in the morning. Fabulous.
October 22, 2007
I watched this movie last night called “fast food nation” which is the adaptation of a book i read a while back. really REALLY good movie. Made my feet itchy for some environmental happenings, but also a bit disparing about how big and intertwined this mess is.
Also reading this book called I SEE RED, about this woman who got mega screwed over in business with Stephen Tindell and the warehouse.
Seems to be a theme of learning for me at the moment about big business. I really am a science geek at heart so this economics stuff is a little daunting.
i find it interesting that there are people who really do feel that money is more real than nature and the earth. i guess for many its more immediate and instant. What if it was the other way around? what if we felt more included in the environmental systems than economic ones? what if we went to work each day to work for our environmental bank balance?
Some might see that as a step back, but… is that such a bad thing? Some of us work hard to live lightly on the earth, and have pretty pitiful bank balances. AND the people with the healthy looking bank balances are the ones fucking it up for the rest of us. lets do some biomimicry here…. where is the equilibrium?
socal and environmental justice are just two iterations of the same thing really, inequalities in one lead to the other….
a little fish in water September 26, 2007
a few days ago the fisheries minister of New Zealand significantly cut the allowable catch of many of New Zealands native fish. They are managed by the quota management system that from the sounds of it, was based on some pretty shady science in the begining – influenced by the fishing companies.
He basically said, i need to make this move because otherwise the whole sustainability of the industry will be in jeopardy.
Orange roughy are long-lived and have a maximum age of 120-130 years. They do not mature until they are around 30 years old.
its lovely to hear some good news for a change, and some politicians talking some sense.
one fishing company is suing for lost revenue, and another is suing because the cuts aren’t big enough to ensure long term stocks and revenue.
how fitting
Chaotic Space September 23, 2007
When beginning to examine sustainability, we need to ask ourselves “what is at stake?”
- Our traditional pointers of economics are pointing us completely in the wrong direction.
Ultimately, what drives sustainable development?
Answer: the desire to live well
But to “live well” sustainably is to live within the limits of this lifetime.
“Limits” are not really something that is in the human heart. We don’t have dreams about limits; we have dreams and desires of possibilities and the boundless endless paths of our future.
We need to move forward from talking about limits, to things that resonate within people’s hearts.
We need to talk about sustainability as a positive and well living situation, not one in which mirrors our present day with things taken out and missing.
Things are not really “things” but our relationships with them. Our language and interaction and conversations about and with these physical things. And this meaning is simply our construction.
The creative arts have a strong role to play, we need to create space, chaotic space, where it is possible to tear down old constructs and ideas and find new voices
The first step to being sustainable is thinking sustainable, and the first step to thinking sustainable is to create chaos in which our new ideas can form.
“We need to create space, chaotic space, where it is possible to tear down old constructs and ideas and find new voices “
Let us walk into this chaos with excitement and anticipation.
with a slightly tantrum-esk look on our faces… September 20, 2007
It is not enough to clumsily take the sum of past actions passively. This state of thinking will get us precisely nowhere, other than trekking the footprints of past problems, recreating them in varying manifestations.
It is not enough to simply avoid in the problems we face now, in the future. We need intentions to create our future, it’s the most important conversation we will ever have.
I paraphrase a quote that a speaker once told me. Most people spend more time deciding what they are going to wear on holiday than planning the rest of their life.
I can hardly say this is true for me, because i am usually late in packing… but getting ready for a night on the town…? that really is another story. sorry. tangent. focus
He was eluding to the profound short-sightedness that plagues our society, our lack of importance of goals and visions, our collective fear of commitment to an end. Ask most students what they want out of their degree and they stare blankly back at you. At the least you will get some iteration of “i want to get a job”.
We have power, not in the traditional sense of the word, but in our ability to co-create. This word “co-create” initally bugged me no end. it just sounded so away-with-the-fairies i’m on LSD or something. But what it really means is that there is not any one person who is creating the future who we have to convince or influence. It really is all of us, and the most important point about all of this is we are all participating in the process whether we are aware of it or not. The shift is not from a non-influential state to an influential one, its the process of moving from passive creating to purposeful intention.
(Oh no here we go again, another new-age mumbo-jibber-jabber word. Intention. THIS word bugs me because it has no responsibility to action. “oh i have the intention of cleaning my room i really do” , “but professor i had an intention of writing the essay … it just hasn’t manifested yet”. the word has got a bad rep cause we pretty much use it to lie most of the time.) But real intention provides a clarity to match things up against. The process of coming to the state of intention is one that truly defines us.
Intention is one of the most powerful tools that we possess. Our past problems stem from a lack to holistic intention on our behalf. We have been reacting rather than being rational.
Leadership has evaded me in my wanderings as a thinker, a ponderer, an enquirer. the word is used a lot but i don’t know if many of us know too much what it really means. We are told that we need strong bold leadership in order to reach sustainability, we whine about the incompetence of our politicians, our economy, our society. We panic and look for them, “where are they?” we cry with a slightly tantrum-esk look on our faces.
We are looking in the wrong place. It’s like looking for your glasses under your bed, in your bathroom, under the mess, when in fact they are smugly sitting on your head.
Leadership is all around us, it is in our schools, universities, retirement homes, workplaces. Not in the sense of the one-magical-person-out-there-who-will-save-us, but as a small part of us all. The role of a leader is not to lead anymore, it is now the premise of connection.
To connect us with each other, with our purposes and ourselves. To connect us with information, resources and education to fulfil those purposes on an individual level.
Leadership then can be reflexive, and no longer aggressive. Leadership primarily by example is much more powerful.
The people can in essence be lead by themselves and their collective purpose, rather than the personal, though charismatic aspirations of a select few.
In essence, we need to “foster an environment of open and honest dialogue” where people recognise the value and worth of their unique voice, and that of the voices of others.
AND THAT OF THE VOICES OF OTHERS
The collective united premise is emerging everywhere. Think indy media, wikipedia, the couchsurfing project, google earth. Its all shifting the responsibility and expression to the personal level.
It is not enough to be a passive consumer anymore, it’s a laughable excuse.
It is not the task on one person alone, it is the task of many.
The Question Question Question… September 20, 2007
No matter how thrilling life is, how important I feel this movement is, or how blessed I am with rich colourful experiences… I often find myself completely bemused by the millions of the questions and ideas that cross my mind
At times i feel rather blessed with this overactive inquisition – why would i not want to see the colours and feel what is there to be experienced ?
but on the flipside – at times it compleatly overwhelms me.
I find it incredibly telling that I have this constant need to mentally organise my thoughts (blog anyone?!). Environment, ethics, gender, activism, friendship, relationships….spirituality…. expression…. music …. Dare I go on forever?
It comes down to this,
its all interconnected.
Ya….I know … I know it just sounds like another hippy rant….
But truly and completely… everything relates to everything else.
I was allowing myself to feel this strange sense of panic the other day at my need for others to help me, to prop me up when I was feeling low. I felt frustrated that I couldn’t look after my own mental health and be self sufficient. It bothered me a lot. i wasn’t being a “sustainable” person!
i was online (as i am alot) and I messaged one of my mentours and he replied simply
There is ONLY inter-dependent, the self as separate entity is a myth, no such thing exists. We are the Two legged nation, we only exist and have meaning as part of fabric of humanity and all creatures and all creation.
Whoa, way to bring me back to earth. I truly am blessed to be present to such a level of understanding across our so-called boundaries.
Either way, when it comes down to it, this really is the most daunting of predicaments, and the most inspiring.
Here is my question …
When to ponder? Think? Inquire? Learn? Feel? Even when it is scary and daunting and avoidable? When to open up our hearts to pain and joy? You can’t exactly filter out one or the other, it kind of defeats the purpose of the experience.
All the time?
untill you are full up?
only when you like it? (lets only experience things that are warm and fuzzy and safe?!)
So here is my next question
When to caution? Protect? Relax? Nurture and Cocoon?
to say ENOUGH with all this intensity of life… i need a break
its a brilliant thing how you come to find the wisdom in which you need right then and there… on my friends blog i came to read this…
I beg you… to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers…
its all really just a big adventure 
Do you like what you see? September 13, 2007
I want you to take a deep breath
Can you feel the air going into your lungs?
Does it feel heavy?
Does it smell good?
Does the air feel cool?
Does it feel clear?
Does it feel fresh?
I want you to stand up
Can you feel the floor push against your feet?
Can you stomp on it?
Does it push back?
Lie down
Can you feel the floor on your back?
I want you to close your eyes and listen
What do you hear?
Can you hear the birds?
Can you hear the wind through the trees?
Can you hear other people?
Do you hear cars and trains and buses?
Do you hear nothing?
I want you to visit the rivers and streams, the beaches and lakes
Take your shoes off and walk in the water
Is the water blue and clear?
Is the water littered and murky?
Does it feel good on your feet?
Is there anything living in it?
Would you like to live in this water?
I want you to think about what you had for lunch
Where did it come from?
Who grew the vegetables?
Who cared for the animals?
How did they get here?
I want you to take a look in the rubbish bin
What is in there?
What did you use it for?
Why did you use it?Where did it come from?
Where is it going?
Look out the window of your house, your car, your school
Do you like what you see?
What do you like about it?
What don’t you like?
If you could change something,
What would you change?
I want you to look at your hands
What can they do?
Can you wiggle your fingers?
Can you be in charge of your hands?
Can you tell them what to do?
Do they do things you don’t like?
I want you to take a step forward
And another
Can you be in charge of which direction you go?
Can you aim where you are walking?
Do you ever walk the wrong way without thinking?
I want you to make a loud noise
Roar like a lion
Whoosh like the wind
Be silent
Can you be in charge of what your mouth says?
Can you say what you think?
Can anyone else be in charge what you say?
I want you to close your eyes and imagine
A place where you can’t wiggle your fingers
You can’t control them
A place where you can’t choose the direction you walk in
You walk where someone else wants you to
A place where you can’t speak
You say something someone else wants to
Is this a nice place?
Do you like it?
Does it feel good?
Does it feel bad?
Why?
I want you to open your eyes now
This world is different
Is our world
We don’t need to imagine it
In this place you can use your hands for only what you feel like
It feels good doesn’t it?
In this place you can choose the direction you walk
Any direction you want!
In this place you can use your voice
To say anything!
In this place you can imagine whatever you want!
You can imagine anything
And if you can imagine it, you can create it
With your hands
With your feet
With your voice
They are your tools
Look out your window
Do you like what you see?
Is it clean air?
Clean water?
Clean soil?
Is it what you want it to be?
If it is what you want it to be
Use your tools to make sure it stays that way
Make sure other people get to be glad about it
Tell your friends how wonderful it is
If it isn’t what you want it to be
Use your tools to change it
Get your friends to help
Tell important people what you want
Get your friends to tell them too
Because, if no one says anything
And no one does anything
Then we might loose what is important
We might loose the things that are good
And end up with a place we don’t like
But if we all say
What we want
And what we like
And help to get it
Then we can do anything
We can create it,
It you ever doubt that
Open your eyes
Shake you hands
Stomp your feet
Yell out LOUD!
Think of the world you want
Imagine it
And build it
The power you hold within you is huge!
Your potential is far from what you can know
Your unique gift is waiting to be made
A place for you in the making of our future is here
I have placed a cushion on the chair
I have made you a warm hot chocolate
I have told everyone you are coming
They are all excited to meet you
All you need do
Is take a deep breath
I believe in you
love and hate September 12, 2007
Of the many contradictions that exist in the world, the contrast between love and hate is perhaps the starkest, and the most alike.
The difference in passion needed to utter “I love you” and “I hate you” is pretty much negligible.
You can’t hate something or someone unless you loved them to begin with?
….. or is it the other way around?
You can’t love someone unless you hated them to begin with?
Some days it inspires me beyond comprehension, and others it takes me to a deep-dark-self loathing place.
So that this same thing, I hate it, and I love it with equal conviction.
It defines me and frustrates me.
“Sustainability” – it even pains me typing out the word.
Sustainability
Sustainability
Its sitting there on the page being all … hard to define and judgmental.
Sometimes it causes me think some sort of temporary-environmentalist-schizophrenia is at work.
i really do love/hate it.
“You know that when I hate you, it is because I love you to a point of passion that unhinges my soul.”
