‘Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have. ” Margaret Mead cultural anthropologist 1901 -1978

We retire stuff all the time, shoes, cars, bicycles, kitchen appliances, homes, pets, jobs, friends, families, marriages, phones, conversations and stories. Some times because they are broken and fragile and sometimes because our needs change.

All the time we are in the process of discarding and adding.

 

Willingly and unwillingly over the course of my life time I have had occasion to abandon all of the above and some, with the response varying between suffering and hurt to great relief.

Along the way the lessons placed in front of me served as the driver to let go of held beliefs propelling me into a deep inquiry of who what how where I am????]

Have you ever challenged your local council over garbage collection or public toilets, street lighting or medical centres, written letters to the editor, politicians, joined rallies, marched in the streets, protested outside parliament, taken part in strike action, signed petitions, filed submissions over any number of issues.

Quietly and hopefully we have participated in this idea of democracy with the held idea that the powers that be will listen and change course. And admittedly there have been occasions in history where this has been validated.

Injustice remains embedded as we in this country cast our votes within an adversarial system rooted in debate and discord. Fear spirals, suspicion reigns, conflict spills over and people/creatures/ Earth systems are suffering. The government /business model has power, money and measures in place to keep the people in checkmate.

Perhaps we are being asked to do less rather then more, perhaps it is time to disappear within our Selves and discover the truth of  Being.

Perhaps we could turn off the news cycle, unplug the device, spin around and look in the street, the park, the neighbours yard, the sky.

We could engage in the inner world courting our creative heart , encouraging family, community, making happy times, acting creatively, meditating, gardening cooking and eating together. Check out the waterfalls, rugged headlands and dangle feet in sweet rollocking rivers singing of love and gratitude. Seek out the stories of people making the world a better place.

Gather with community, make a dream come true ,a skate park, gardens of food, regenerate the banks of a creek or paint murals in dreary grey places.

Grass roots activism is a valid and powerful reply to a world we find disturbing. It is radical, subversive, creative and begins when we quit looking for answers from government.

Abandon conflict and fear by not looking for an enemy.

Renounce hopelessness and despair by connecting and building loving relationships.

Stop complaining .

Abandoning the estate can create a space in which we look around, take notice and allow deep appreciation to dominate our thoughts. A crow sitting on the wire, a bee disappears inside a flower, a tree waves, a cloud looks like a whale, a tiny mushroom pokes up on the side of the pavement, a smile beams across the counter at you.

 

Make this the real narrative – immersing fully intentionally completely in nature and there we will learn how to be here, how to live, how to love, how to hope and how to give.

Letting the old story go awakens something dormant within allowing a vital energy to bubble forth, a deep sense of kinship reignited in which the love of life, of earth of each other , in which the whole crazy zany quirky rumbling tumbling leaping dancing skittering twittering of Life Being Lived is felt.

Will this change the world? It changed mine, it is transforming mine, it can transform our past and our future.

It is warm and funny on the other side of the estate, peaceful and creative, timeless and welcome, inclusive and encouraging. Only a breath away to your inner Being, where we find our Selves at Home.

As simple as that.                  Yes and No.

It does require sacrifice, courage and resilience.

Honestly what else have you got going on today that is more important then coming in tune with Your Spirit, planet Earth, and the Heart of the Universe.

Abandon the estate and sing yourSelf back into existence.

happy solstice dear mother Earth and all her Beings .