Or… Moving to the Beat of My Own Green Drummer
Nothing gives you a good ol’ kick in the tush like hanging around with people who are really making things happen.
At Green Drinks last night, I met more than a few people who are busy living a green life: they own an organic food business, publish environmental magazine, do green interior design, specialize in green building, or simply know everything there is to know about geothermal and photovoltaics.
Crap. You know, the one thing that can stop a person like me (and maybe others like me?) in their tracks is the weird notion that everything has passed them by. Feeling oblivious — even when you aren’t — blows.What should act as inspiration, unfortunately, often becomes a downward path toward that yucky feeling of personal obsoleteness.
If I by stopping for a moment — and I sometimes feel that I did, by disappearing overseas for a few years — I was certain to look up and see that The Movement had passed me by.
This is the dichotomy of green. On one hand: Slow down and live life real. On other hand: Hey COME ON you got to get that Momentum GOING!!! Get a move on! Let’s DO IT!!!! Move move move before all the poor Polar Bears DROWN!!!!!!!! ARHAH!!
Ugh… Hold on for a sec, would you? I have to hurry up and go do my Gentle Movement exercises and Meditation that I forgot was on my agenda this morning.
When I lived in London, I volunteered at The Passage, a soup kitchen in Central London that was often the first place the authorities sent the transients when they needed support. There was something to that, for me. I loved being there, first thing in the morning, seeing a new face. I am sure it was something I imagined, but I loved the idea of being on the edge of that person’s experience, their first feeling of warmth–quite literally with that morning cup of tea — in a strange and chaotic city.
I miss that space, and I am trying to relocate it. It isn’t in service to homeless, necessarily, I am discovering. It is in service to myself. I am — slowly! — realizing that my own choices are the speed at which the world travels. Others things are going on around me, sure. But the only Movement is my own. I am right here, at the edge of that chaotic place, making all the negotiations and discoveries, at my own speed.
I guess I do have to figure out the best way, though, to get with the other people who are making their own negotiations. Well, for now, I am writing about it, taking excellent notes on the idea, and always ready with a hot cup of tea.
3 Comments
An interesting notion to ponder, EH: Movements that have passed us by. Well, there’s this whole tats and tacs movement - piercings and tatoos - that I never became involved with. And, sadly, I burned and crashed before getting a chance to partake of the love-inducing rave cocktail affectionately known as X. Then, more recently, I missed the boat on the whole post-9/11 fear and trembling panic mode.
I fess up to the fact that I entered the green scene embarassingly late, too. If not for JeanGenie’s (semi-patient) guidance, I’d still be throwing out (instead of recycling) mountains of crap. (I still have trouble knowing what can and can’t be recycled: Some plastics can and some can’t? WTF?) We’ve given up cottage cheese b/c they quit selling it in the paper cartons. Can we be sainted by ELF yet?
CM
There was a homeless guy on the square, all smiles with his hands out and when you gave him change he was bless you and thank you and you would feel good.
One day I walked out of Walgreens and there he was with a newspaper. I reached in and gave him some change and he said “thank you brother” and gave me a news paper. I said no thanks and he said. “No you take I no read”
I asked him where he was from and he said Cuba. He has been living here for 15 years on the street.
We talked and the guy was pretty cool.
Then one cold week I did not see him.
He appeared and with a HUGE grin he said “I HAVE JOB”. He was so happy, “I put roof over head, keep warm” he said with a huge toothless grin.
I felt good.
I still see him at times as he works only until noon, I still give him change and he still thanks and smiles. He says “I love America God bless you, someday I go see my family in Cuba”.
Just thought I would tell someone!
Cheers
G
ELF? Do you mean the Earth Liberation Front, the Environmental Library Fund, Extremely-Low Frequency, or the little creatures that run around between your legs when you’ve had a few too many shrooms?
This said… sainted? Lord… don’t we wish… we’re all made of flesh and bone, and we, like bears, s*** not in the woods, but in composting toilets.
The movement hasn’t passed you by, as with all fashion, what goes around comes around, what is old is new again… 30 years ago anti-nuclear fighters built solar homes no planning and zoning would approve just to make a point that the sun was there to heat our skin… and we didn’t need the radiation.
But time went by, the Blue Meanies bought everything… crushed it, repressed it, suppressed it, strangled it… created subterfuge like incentives and rebates to better control the market.
So no, the movement has not passed you by… it’s come around full circle, finally the cat’s out of the bag, the tools of restoration are loose on the population.
We have solid state lithium ion batteries, light emitting diodes, nano-solar plastic photovoltaics, geothermal well heads, and TED… Bioneers for Billionaires, a cackle of IT entrepreneurs from Paypal, eBay, Yahoo, Google and Microsoft who want to save the Earth from the oily sins of the Rothchilds and the Rockefellers.
We’re doing good… we want it to look good… I mean, face it, if we’re going to rebuild the world in your own image, we may as well inspire ourselves from what we loved growing up as kids… the music, the movies… the comic books… it’s revolutionizing architecture, lifestyles, and with a bit of luck, we’ll leave this Earth to our kids looking a little more like them.
Green sure… but that’s just the color of the blood flowing through our veins, like chlorophyll… the color and texture exposed to the outside, with bio-architecture and new urbanism, doesn’t have to dull the senses, put us to sleep.
The new rEVolution is the transformation of all systems into sustainable operations… trust me, that’s going to take all of humanity… we’ll be lucky to make it before the oceans rise.
The clean-up task is Gargantuan… it will take a global effort the likes of which humanity has never seen… Childhood Ends, wake-up call, clean up your room or you don’t get to the next level, just like a video game.
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