Consciousness & The Carbon Challenge

I think when we look back at the period in time, in even 50 years from now we will look at it kind of like the roaring twenties, that it was such a time of extravagance. To be honest my days are currently all about researching Facebook posts keeping up to date with my clients and trying to figure out where to go next with my marketing and figuring out a brand. (Which I don't agree with in principle. You brand animals and human slaves (Just saying)). Anyways so as a result of doing this I'm actually constantly watching updates and feedback on peoples lives. Mainly inspirational leaders, life coaches and wellness professionals. The one single thing that I actually find incredibly disturbing is the amount of plane travel people do. Even when I chat to people it fucking amazes me. Now don't get me wrong, in my early twenties I was zigzagging around all over the place, never had air travel been so cheap and travel opportunities to grow been so available. Every week it seemed like Ryanair (who I also used to work for in the most unglamourise way) launched a new route and Eazyjet soon moved in after. I mean for fuck sake we even had a whole host of T.V shows about the situation, we might even still do. (I don't watch that much actual T.V.)

That all changed though as in my late twenties when my life changed tack completely. I made some radical choices and as a result met some radical people.  I have to say that the Guardian helped on this one too. They wrote some very good articles on going Carbon Neutral (I'll dig one of those out some time ) My new friends too were people who sometimes didn't have cars, were what I would like to term radical cyclists and were living a far more conscious, aware life than I'd ever witnessed. They were the kind of people I only thought existed in fairy tales and  Channel 4 documentaries. My new friends were activists and they are often and incredibly inspiring and selfless bunch. Which you know got me thinking about things on a much deeper level.

So much of Social Media is all about look at me. I'm doing stuff. Look at me I'm on holiday. Look at me I just drove two hours to take this beautiful picture of a waterfall. Being in essence a country girl it's always struck me as kind of bizarre that you drive somewhere to walk there. Gyms too there just nuts. Even though this year I took out not one but two gym memberships. That's wedding madness for you. (Have you seen those energy generating gyms yet? It's not one of those It's just a very cool idea, though factory humans might almost be here. So to decode that for you when people are off on epic adventures, the never ending trip of a life time, your screaming at me, check out my carbon footprint, it's fucking massive. This makes me  wonder when the future looks back (If it has the opportunity) if it will be like us now about yeah, plastic (Plastic pollution has been problem since I was tiny by the way. It's only now were killing everything we actually give a fuck.) ....or wow mum and dad you really went everywhere in a car....? You knew it was fucking up the planet right?

Carbon Emissions are fucking up the planet. Plane and simple (see what I did there) One 5 hour flight burns a quarter of the average persons Carbon emissions for one year. Did you know that? Have we forgotten? It was a really big deal for a while, reducing the carbon footprint. Now this agenda seems to have slipped on to the back burner while climate change still rages out of control. 

The thing is these might be behaviours that you might expect from unengaged business professional. However I really find it very hard to get round the idea that spiritual leaders and healers are doing this regularly, not talking about it or communicating how they are offsetting the issue. 

More than this, and especially where I live, Cape Town, literally every three months a whole new cohort of interns appear from Europe and the USA, you know the to save Africa, all those little children - boo hoo. (It is actually very sad. However if you've looked at the news recently you might have realised Europe and the US, are not looking that great either.) So here we are in a city that is experiencing the worst drought in a thousand years and people are flying in to save Africa. You're actually fucking killing us with your privilege.  We've been flushing the toilet with a bucket for a year (At least we have a toilet, I suppose). Don't worry about it though, your Instagram feed looks amazing. 

I now rarely fly it's as lot to do with circumstances as much as choice. I really don't find travel as rewarding as I used to and I prefer surface based travel. However I recently got married and well, a lot of air miles were used on our behalf. So yes, pot, kettle, black.

Air travel is also something that I feel draws on the disconnect between modern humans and the planet we live on, especially in the healing practices. There is a certain beauty that enriches the quality of our lives if we stand still long enough on any spot on the planet. No spot if better than any other and as the Earth orbits the sun we can see how the light changes in a room or how we notice that the swifts are back, in fact we find ourselves anticipating their arrival. In one of the things that I have learned when I have spoken to people over the years. Is there is so much to learn when you stand still and there are unique learnings, there become things that only you know. It becomes all so rich. I remember this old guy, this welder, that used to work on the wharves where I lived. Pete Tonkin his name was and he had worked out of the same welding yard for approaching on 30 years every time I used to see him he was covered in grease and soot, as were his work overalls. When we got chatting he used to tell me all about the swallows every year. They built a nest in his workshop. He told me a whole family history of the swallows it was really rather incredible. Each year he waited for them to arrive and one by one watch the fledgling emerge onto the beam that they perched on when they were learning to fly. How brave swallow mothers must be to literally push their children out the nest.

This is where the wisdom comes from and yet these days we seem to prefer a global wild goose chase. Then wonder why we can't apply Native American Wisdom to your lives.....when you are not looking for augurs in your own country.

Published on Spiralbound Notebooks in 23.06.2017