Story

I am currently reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and I came across these paragraphs which really spoke to me.  Kimmerer is a professor of Botany and she took a survey of her Environmental studies students.

Later in the survey, they were asked to rate their knowledge of positive interactions between people and land.  The median response was 'none.' 

How is it possible that in twenty years of education they cannot think of any beneficial relationships between people and the environment?  Perhaps the negative examples they see every day- brownfields, factory farms, suburban sprawl- truncated their ability to see some good between humans and the earth...when we talked about this after class, I realized that they could not even imagine what beneficial relations between their species and others might look like.  How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like?  

We are a people of stories.  We need those stories to guide is in who we are.  For a very long time, the human story has been one of dominance over nature.  It has been a story of our species using the planet to our own end.  We are separate.  Our beliefs have taken us out of nature and put us above it; we are more important.  Our stories tell us that the planet is there to provide for us, indefinitely.  We are taught that we are resourceful and intelligent, and that science and ingenuity will always find a way for survival.  Our stories are lies, or at the very least, incomplete.

What we need now are stories that reflect the true nature of life on Earth.  Resources are finite.  There is a limit to what we can take.  There is a limit to how much of our waste the planet can absorb.  There is a limit to what we can engineer and manipulate.  There are fundamental basics that are required for life on earth and we are playing with and destroying these at an alarming rate.  Clean water, fertile soil, breathable air, thriving oceans and an atmosphere that is conducive to human life.  Without these, our species does not survive.  Our stories do not tell us this.  Our stories do not include lessons of how to sustain and nurture these fundamentals for life.

We need new stories.

If our students can not even imagine a world where we have a positive impact on the planet, how can we hope to survive on the planet?  Are we destined to be a plague on the earth?  Right now, we are parasites sucking the life out of the very planet we rely on for survival.  How do we change our relationship from parasitic to symbiotic?  How do we heal our relationship with the planet?

We change our story.  We have to.  We no longer have a choice.

But how do we change it and what do we change it to? 

Spring Equinox

Today I created a ritual for myself for the first time.  Being the spring equinox, and a time of rebirth and growth, I decided to release those thing to which I was holding on that no longer served me.  Following the guidance of people in my life, I wrote down those things which keep coming up for me.  I see them in dreams.  They cross through my thoughts and occupy my brain.  They bring up old emotions and make me revisit, relive the trauma over and over.  Today I wrote them all down.  I went out into the sunny, cold day and started a very small fire in a metal dish.  I began by burning some sage and inviting the ancestors.  I asked them to support me in releasing that which no longer serves me.  I asked them to cleanse my spirit so that I may grow and realize the person I am.  After the fire produced flame (I can't say it really 'got started' but there was enough to burn the pieces of paper I had written on), I burned the thoughts and events, one by one, reflecting on each before putting it into the flame.  I looked for lessons learned and perspective provided.  I looked for the medicine in each situation.  I held the medicine and released the pain, trauma and emotion attached to each one.  The final thing I released were all the emotions that are holding me back- self hate, control, fear.  I then relit the sage and thanked the ancestors for their assistance, and cleared myself of all that I had been holding.  Aho.

The Post

I just got back from seeing the movie 'The Post'.  What a great movie.  So interesting.

There are a few things that have struck me after watching this movie.  The first is that it is amazing how only 40 years ago, it was quite normal for it to be quite unfathomable for a woman to be the head of a company and how men were expected to make all the decisions.  Here was a woman, who had grown up in the company, and then had her father give the company to her husband.  It is only when her husband dies that she is given the chance to lead that which is her father's legacy.  She is questioned and doubted by all the men on her board, and investors shy away because they don't believe a woman will make them profits. 

Thank you women who came before me.  Thank you.  You have paved the way for women to shine, to take control, to be leaders.  You have given us a voice and the strength to use it.  I hope we will continue to use that voice as an ally to those whose voices are still silenced.

Students

It is amazing to me that even though I am not sure what my students are saying, it is blatantly obvious when they are being mean to another student.  Today, I watched one of my students laugh at another student.  I'm not sure why he was laughing at him.  If I had to guess it was because the first student is from a small town and has an accident.  The laughing student found this hilarious.  I found it incredibly mean.  Is it my job to teach these young adults how to be nice?  Is it my job to teach them compassion?  I am already teaching them the English language and Canadian culture.  When I don't know exactly what happened, it is difficult to really explore the issue.  Instead, I look at the laughing student and ask him if he is being kind.  He says he is laughing with his friend.  I look him in the eye and say that he should be kind and leave it at that.

Teaching is exhausting to me.  The drain of 20 students all requiring something from me.  This little introvert needs to find some new work.

I need to write things down

In my daily life- commuting on the train, teaching, talking with friends, I am constantly thinking of interesting things to write about.  Brilliant ideas (at least in my own mind).  Then I come home and sit down to write and I can't think of anything.  Time to carry around a little notebook, or even better, jot ideas down on my phone so I don't forget.

United or fall

I was thinking today about how many issues there in the world right now and it seems that each issue has its own group of people advocating for its improvement.  Indigenous rights, Black Lives Matter, Save the Whales...what if all of these groups came together for one common purpose- improving human life.  Let me be clear, I am in no way referring to money or GDP here.  I am talking about human happiness, fulfilment, sense of purpose and joy.  If we were all to focus on being our most authentic selves, it is amazing the things we could accomplish.  If we all stopped focusing on money- making and spending, then we would have time to live fully.  This idea of 'making a living' is a relatively new one.  Why does our culture insist on 'having jobs'?  It has been shown in indigenous cultures that they would spend 15 hours a week to acquire what they needed to survive and the rest of their time would be spent in leisure.  Consumption of natural resources would decrease.  Energy production could be greener because there wouldn't be this idea of increasing the GDP and making money off of production.  Animals could be saved because we wouldn't be destroying their habitats.  Racism and inequality might become a thing of the past. 

What cause might be strong enough to bring enough to bring us all together?  As Naomi Klein suggests, perhaps Global Warming is the one.  If we don't all start doing something to mitigate green house gases, there will be no people to fight for.

Baths

I have recently rediscovered the joy of the bath.  Growing up, we had a regular sized shower tub, but then in my early 20s my parents moved into a house with a soaker tub.  Oh my, what a difference those few inches of water make!  It was heavenly.  I eventually moved out and then they sold the house, so, no more soaks for me.  Most of my apartments had a shower stall, no tubs in sight.  It wasn't until my partner rented a hotel room with a soaker tub that I was reunited with my love for the soak.  So much so, that I started to plan a spa bathroom in our basement.  Not wanting to relegate me to the basement, and knowing that we already had two and a half baths just for the two of us, my partner very gallantly offered to give up his shower in the ensuite so that we could put in a soaker tub/spa bathroom.  Oh my goodness is it great.  There is nothing like walking into a room and feeling instantly calmer.  It took sitting in many tubs before I found the one I wanted and weeks of contractor renovations, but I now have my spa bathroom.

I love the way my body feels after a soak in the tub.  It is as though every muscle has relaxed, all tension released and I'm like a baby again, all gooey and pliable.  My soul likes the bath too.  I sit and do nothing, think nothing and just Be for 20 minutes, or 30 minutes, or an hour.  Life is good.

Home

Today it was -13 outside.  I found myself thinking that I  would not be strong enough, mentally or physically to be homeless.  How do people sit in this kind of cold without proper clothing or sleeping bags?  How do you muster up the mental strength to be outside in these temperatures?  I am grateful that I do not have to.  I am grateful that I have a home.  I am grateful that I am able to buy a winter coat and boots.  I am grateful that I do not have to be cold.

On a more flippant note- if I were to lose my home (touch wood), I would hope it would be summer and I would walk my way south and end up somewhere warmer.  There's no way I would be staying around Toronto.

I missed yesterday

Last night I went to hear Philip Shepherd talk about his new book Radical Wholeness.  I knew nothing about him before I went but am now really excited about and looking forward to reading his book.

I had two potential writing topics on the train this morning, but unfortunately I have forgotten both of them.  Therefore, I will forgo writing tonight with the hopes that I will be more inspired in the morning (look at me being gentle with myself- or am I just being lazy.  Either way, I'm going to bed.)

Over Educating

I have a couple of friends who are currently looking for jobs.  They are both quite competent in their fields and are in their late 30s early 40s.  While they have excellent work experience, they do not have certificates or degrees in the fields in which they work.  You see, their careers evolved over time.  Quite naturally, their work shifted and morphed into something different.  For one, it was a shift in direction, the other works in IT and as it changed, he changed with it.  Now that they are looking for jobs, they find that they are not even getting interviews.  I'd like to think that it's not because of their age, although that may be part of the reason.  I believe the greater issue is that they don't have diplomas or degrees in the field where they want to work.  Because of this, they are not even making it past the resume stage.  HR departments have been taught to look for certain degrees, diplomas and certificates and if they don't see those on the resume, they discard the candidate.  There is no longer any room for someone learning on the job or acquiring skills on their own.  It seems that somehow we equate having a certificate with having knowledge. 

Having just completed a Master's Degree in a program where if you paid your fees and completed the assignments you passed, I'm not sure that we should be putting so much faith in those pieces of paper, and essentially ignoring the human being behind the resume. Experience is worth so much more than a very expensive piece of paper. 

Education has become a business and as such it requires a market.  What better way to create a market than by convincing employers that candidates require a degree from your institution in order to qualify for the job?  And the fact is, that it isn't even the schools that are propagating this idea.  Somehow it has become a societal norm.  We have become an overeducated society, massively in debt and no longer produce people who are competent to do the work they have been so over educated to do.