abandon the estate

 

‘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.

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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 .

 

we are miracle makers in Bud

In physics transition means a change of an atom,nucleus, electron etc.  from one quantum state to another…

 

life is about transitions

first tooth to second

child to puberty

marriage to divorce

the now to death.

   Once upon a time I was a child who wanted to change the world; at play in a backyard with a climbable apricot tree, a passion-flower cubby, a swing that went higher than the shed and a playhouse big enough to have friends to tea party with. My father built it out of a packing case; it had three windows that opened and closed with Mum made curtains, a green sliding door I could lock and in this myspace friends and I played, acting out adult themes – teaching vet / zoo keeping  doctors and nurses domestic life and war.

               This was the 60’s and war was still very much part of our lives – war had taken off my uncles leg, broken the spirit of my friend’s father who sat in his chair all day long and frightened my parents generation who had been allocated rations living behind blacked out windows waiting for bad news.

                                         

          A favourite game was saving the world, imagining that the child come avenging angel would hold up a hand in front of the generals with their armies and say, Stop! do not do this. In my innocence with curly copper headed curls shining in a garden where boysenberries grew under the back hedge my voice quivering with real heart-felt emotion I truly believed I could do this thing. I could persuade ‘them’ to Stop this madness.

     At the same time I believed in magic witches fairies and the power of good over evil. This was the cornerstone of an ordinary childhood that contained no abuse. I was sent to Sunday school, lived in a house with pictures on the walls of Jesus with his long hair, smiling cradling a lamb or with children swarming all over him. I learnt to pray to God to help me pass my exams, give me things I needed and heal the people who were hurt. On some level I understood these notions were childish and that grownups lived in another world.

When did I stop believing? When did I realise that make-believe was make believe and that reality was well, reality?

Well gee, let me fess up –magic witches fairies and the power of goodness still hold sway in my worldview. I still believe we hold an innate capacity to change things.

In this reality I am aware injustice overpowers the Forest the Rivers the People, that it is not as simple as the childhood dream of,  Stop do do this.

In the name of civilization I am overrun with mad schemes of despoliation, exploitation, annihilation but even so this cannot deflect the power of the innocent child within who carried the adult I have Become.

Growing into adulthood I learnt to squash the whispers of the heart and divide the world into logical rational linear segments, to say compartments when talking of a forest or unnamed drainage feature when mentioning the perky little stream, and if ‘they’ had their way I would say terrorist instead of asylum seeker. Despite this ‘adult’ speak, despite solid scientific evidence which endorses that logging our native forests, mining coal, poisoning our food crops and robbing our aquifers is creating serious repercussions, despite all this knowledge still we are met with stonewall after stonewall.

In an honest attempt to bypass the heartless discourse of cold commercial gain when I write to Gladys the NSW state premier I heart speak – of love and grandchildren, of the Breath and Water of Life, of the Sacredness of the Quoll, the Bent Winged Bat, the Masked Owl, the Rainforest and the Elemental Spirit all humans share.

I have no illusions that Gladys will hear me, that Corunna Forest with its magnificent spotted gums will be preserved.

What I do have is a certainty that HeartEarth speak is a valid communication that goes to the root of our commonality, that through our shared connections we can impossibly possibly change the world.

In physics transition means a change of an atom, nucleus, electron etc. from one quantum state to another…

Existing as a bunch of atoms could lend us the idea that we inhabit many dimensions simultaneously – in our heads our hearts our offices our homes, in the wild at sea on land, in the dream, in spirit – and if so then maybe we can comprehend we are Miracle Makers in Bud and this is the Season of coming into Bloom.

The old world of logic and plausible deniability, murder and war, biocide and disrespect, is neither sustainable nor healthy for our bodies minds hearts or spirits.

Transition into a new paradigm which is more than a faint glimmer in communities around the world is arising expanding and including of all Beings.

Today we salute those that Do and those that Pray, those that Plant and those that Paint, those that Write and those that Build and those that know Magic Wisdom and the Power of Goodness.

in love trust and innocence

sandra