Tag: Connection

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Conscious Consumption

kimberleen

C20706AA-F500-48CE-9A7B-BFF17D255365This week something very exciting happened. I found milk in a glass jar in my local supermarket. It was a little strange it was in a jar, it didn’t deter from the fact that the producer of the milk had made a conscious choice that they wanted to use a glass container as the receptacle for their product. I was excited. I have longed for the days of the old fashioned milk bottle since I started reducing my plastic consumption, milk has been a challenge. So when I find a product that meets my needs it enlivens me. As it frees up so much more time for my own personal brand of world healing.

As we attempt to satisfy 7 billion people, many of us grasp that drastic change is necessary. As we jump from one side of the boat to another trying to create balance we often find that we create further instability. Watching people plunge overboard in an attempt to save themselves, I have grown very self assure of my own approach. Softly softly catch the monkey. After all I come from a place with one of the worst diets in the world where even a few green vegetable might be considered radical.

I’m a flexitarian thank you very much. That means I retain the right to eat what I want when I want, if it’s appropriate.  My own inner work includes doing my best to stay happy and keeping my alignment stable, while doing my best for other earthlings and the planet.  My primary focus in my consumption is healing humans. I believe that if as humans we can heal ourselves, we are in the best position to create rich sustaining lives, that allow us to extend our joy to the people and communities around us. In turn we will then  find way of enhancing the environments that surround us, finding natural ways of enriching our lives here on planet Earth.

For this reason I do my best to shop locally, using the nearby health food store, local shops or local markets. My preference is to use outlets that I can walk or cycle too. This also does a great deal to reduce my carbon footprint. It also helps immensely in building a sense of community and exploring local geographies.

I want to invest my energy into the people around me that are creating good things. I believe that by doing this I also enhance local inter-personal connectivity helping to create resilient communities, supporting economic stability and enhancing my own geographical area.

I want to be able to connect with the people that live round me and indulge in the contributions they make. I believe that building connections is the best way that way have as humans of getting back to our original design. We were intended to live connected relationship based lives. Using our food consumption as a base for creating those connections is one of the best ways we have of connecting with our local environment.

 

 

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Energy

kimberleen

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These days when we talk about healing, the subject of energy is almost certainly going to come up.  For many not adept in the concepts of healing, energy can feel like a non-sense and hocus pocus that can be applied to almost any situation and can appear to be for hippy types a universal explanation for anything. Even for myself I often stand on the edge of a yoga class or spiritual practitioner listening to all this energy being banded about. From personal energy, other peoples energy, the energy of a space or institution to even talk about global energy. I can be a bot overwhelming not least trying to pin point exactly what energy you may or may not be tuning into. Never mind believing that energy can work in such etheric ways.

Learning to discern energy comes to be like understanding the flavours of a fine wine. Conversations about energy can make you feel like you are living on another planet, when people don’t feel as you feel, energy is a a deeply nuanced thing.

Really though, what does the term energy mean beyond burning fuel for your car or the electricity that conducts through copper wire? When we talk about ethereal energy that seems to be everywhere can it ever be a little more scientific? The answer is yes. On a very base level, every single human transmits their own energy force field. You can call bullshit on that if you want. However the science is quite clear, we would not be able to to operate our touch screen devices without one. The energy force field that we radiate comes directly  from the energy that our hearts generates as it pumps oxygenated blood through our anatomic systems. The speed and power of your heart rate help dictate your frequency of energy you emanate. Sounds weird doesn’t it? Possibly a bit improbable? Then let me ask you to consider other energy generating or fueled devices or even something as simple as fire. We can feel fire before we touch it. A petrol generator we can both hear and feel before we see it. Cars too also vibrate and most animals, as well as humans are at the very least warm to the touch. When we think about it this way maybe then the idea of personal energy might not be quite so impossible.

 

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The Disconnect

kimberleen

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Everyone is looking for a place to belong. Now more than ever with the advent of mega cities and the progression of the digital age. We are more connected than we are divided. Yet so many of us feel alone living isolated from the group unable to make meaningful connection. What’s even more troubling is that we don’t understand the reason why.

You’ll probably be amazed that the industrial revolution might be the cause. Before the advent of industrialised economies the truth of the matter is that most humans lived in pastoral communities living in something near to subsistence farming. We like to think that many of us were living in large manor houses with our own libraries. This was simply not the case for large swathes of the population.

Prior to the industrial revolution most of us were uneducated illiterate peasants who were depended on family bonds and tribal connections to ensure our survival. The advent of the industrial revolution and global land appropriation soon came to challenge the way that humans had been living together for millennia. People moved out of rural communities into cities in order to turn their hand to the machine based work of the steam age. Mass migration and land enclosure debased family dependency and dispersed communities. Many of us lost our connection to the land from which we came, the landscapes we occupied or even the seasons that surrounded us.

It was here in the 19th century that modern education came to the fore. Education was initiated as a form of social training that was designed to prepare children for the workforce and productivity in a highly mechanised and systemised work of the factory. The need for child workers and their education, corroded and removed children from their families, and diminished tribal influence. Education and the subsequent introduction to the work place offered an individual independence that many had never experienced before. Individual financial success paved the way out of poverty and minimized the need to maintain family ties and lead the way towards individualism. Financial success alone has been regarded the pinnacle of human existence and as humans misguided by a capitalistic agenda we have come to believe that our value is intrinsically related our financial productivity. Which is for the most part the biggest lie ever told.

It’s time to reconnect. The truth is that it is almost impossible to survive without some kind of human connection. In modern society, deep inter-human connections and long standing relationships are the key signifier of a long life beyond anything else. It turns out finding a tribe is essential to living a fulfilling and good life. Love really is the answer. This is why we don’t read out our bank statements at funerals.