THE REVOLUTION FROM WITHIN

The environmental quagmire we are in is not easily solved. It is not only the injustice at the top, but our problems go down into the very roots of our day-to-day living. To really be sustainable there will need to be an overhaul of how humanity lives on this planet.  

It’s complicated.

 When we buy food or anything, it is always wrapped in plastic. We are killing this planet one wrapper at a time. The only way out of this is to buy unwrapped food or grow it yourself. This is a stretch. If you, a really woke and active person, can’t really manage to do this then how can you ask corporate mongers to stop making millions of dollars on their toxic investments?

An issue that really uncovers how deep of a revolution is needed is the way we farm. Basically, it is wrong in so many ways. It creates massive carbon and methane emissions as well as breaks down the soil to dust. And that isn’t even considering the Round-up issue - that every piece of food is contaminated with glyphosate. We can’t expect to spray thousands of tons of poison all over the land and think we don’t ingest it. Our bodies contain plastic and glyphosate is in our cells.

The poison we do to the world is also done to us. Why is cancer our number one killer? Perhaps it is a karmic message. We are a cancer, multiplying uncontrollably and disconnected from the body of the Earth. We think things are bad now, but what happens when we go from 7.5 billion to 9 billion people in 20 years? We need birth control and a plague and abortions.

But we are fighting the global overpopulation cures.

So, should we just curl up in a ball and binge watch crappy shows eating our plastic wrapped bonbons? We are not only surrounded by poisoned food we are also surrounded by poisoned mind garbage. Where is the answer? Looking for profound answers in a blog is probably not going to be satisfying, but let’s talk about books. Books can change the world by changing the way we view the world. The book, Braiding Sweetgrass has some of the answers.  

Contained within the beautiful pros is the idea of loving the Earth and that the Earth loves us. To truly feel this, you must read the book as Native American Scientist, Robin Wall Kimmerer takes your hand and leads you down paths that are luxurious with simple pleasures of the fragrant Earth until you find yourself at the end of the book with a new way of looking at the world. After reading Braiding Sweetgrass, I was inspired to take on an environmental revolution within my life - not buying plastic wrapped food.

This required me to stop shopping at the cheap stores. I had to buy whole fruits and vegetables and cook, which in the long run was more cost effective. Realizing that the process of cooking took time, and if I am always at work, it is a challenge. I considered our past. The idea of women’s work, women staying home cooking and cleaning, has been lost in our mad rush to create equality and progress. Perhaps we will come full circle but with new eyes that a domestic partner, whatever gender, is a valuable asset to environmental living.

What we all need to do, from the activist to the tycoon, is to simplify and enrich our domestic world by cohabitating, letting go of our fixation with getting ahead, and see time as more valuable than money. This may be a part of the deeper revolution within.