Earth Day

As many know, yesterday was "Earth Day".  Instead of taking the route of bashing that "everyday should be earth day" and that designating only one day to the Earth (or likewise one day to your Mother, or one day to be happy of your birth, or one month to remember a part of history) is ridiculous and insignificant I would rather be positive about it.  Skepticism can become an excuse to not do anything; to throw important reminders aside because the cause is so much more worthy than what time it is allotted on your calender.  Let's be honest, most people need reminders.  Even as someone who loves the Earth as much as I do, I am not exempt from this reminder.  I would much rather enjoy the designated Earth Day and focus my attention on just that.  I gotta admit, I hate having to write discretion's and explanations as to where my motives lie.  Writing a blog and sharing things that I do can take away from remaining humble in the eyes of the reader however I do not seek attention from anything I share, merely I enjoy actively sharing experiences and bridging the gap between human connections.

Currently, my boyfriend lives in Brampton in a basement apartment.  The apartment itself is a nice size, bigger than many condos up for sale in the G.T.A. at a price point of $300,000.  However, the people upstairs make me sad.  The past 8 months has been my first experience with basement apartments.  It is very close to living with strangers that do not share a single thing in common with you.  As many people may have experienced if they ever had roommates or lived with a partner or family, even when you love the people in your home, it is hard to see eye to eye on everything.  These people upstairs are not even that bad.  I could picture a million more things that could be wrong with the situation, but the mere few problems hurt my soul.  I have learned a lesson from this though:  I must work on my own inability to cope with negative energies around me; to find peace in chaos, after all, that is the true essence of peace.

I will mention, but not get too deeply into the way the mother upstairs berates her 5 year old child daily.  Perhaps someone could enlighten me on why there would ever be a reason to scream at the top of your lungs to a small child that she is stupid?  I think about it everyday.  I have even made up excuses for the woman involved.  I have heard her and her husband fight and call each other horrible names, I know the mother is taking her own inner pain out on her child.  But it does not make it right.

My story today is about the garbage build up.  It started with fast food things falling out (or being tossed out) of their vehicles onto the driveway.  Then newspapers being left outside to the wind.  Random beer caps and cigarette butts.  Empties being piled up outside the back door.  Mail not being removed from the mail box.  Eventually they started tossing full garbage bags out the back door onto the lawn.  The garbage is piling up at this moment.  The garbage is being blown by the wind so now every time I go to see my boyfriend I have to walk through a barricade of their trash to get to the door.  I wanted to knock on their door on Earth Day wearing gloves and garbage bags in hand saying, "Hey guys!  Happy Earth Day!  I will help you clean up your crap, let's go!"

Frankly put, I wimped out.  These people spend half their time yelling at each other or their 5 year old daughter, why should I be exempt?  So instead I decided that in honour of Earth Day I will be the change that I want to see in them.  I put on a bright yellow glove and picked up every piece of trash along the driveway.  I scoured the front yard and found random things like full ketchup packages to throw in the bag.  The back yard, the worst of the situation, became too much for one person with a yellow glove.  The garbage bags have been torn open and I was finding bones strewn all over the yard. I picked up as much as I could fit in the bag, tied a knot and placed it in my boyfriends trash bin.  The "man" who lives in the house was home the entire time.  I am not sure if he saw me but I was sincerely afraid of him yelling at me for picking up his trash.  The saddest part about the situation is that I cringe when I head over to Brampton to spend time with me boyfriend because it hurts my heart to see people who show no respect to Mother Earth, let alone respect to each other.

Do I dare say what is really bothering me about local environmental issues?

I do.  I will.

It is hard to admit without ridicule but I am going to throw it out there regardless.

As a child, growing up in a multicultural city was educational and interesting.  My most bestest (I know this is not a word I chose to use it anyway) friends in the world were not born in the same country as I, that which we all now reside.  I loved going over to others' homes and trying new foods and seeing cultural differences.  I am grateful for being exposed to so many cultures at a young age and to this day.  I love that both sides of my family have different traditions and I got to experience two totally different worlds when visiting my Grandparents.  Unfortunately a pattern that I dislike has been occurring for years now.  I have seen time and time again that many immigrants do not seem to give a flying fiddler's fart about the environment.

When I was a child I used to spend quite a bit of time with my Grandma and Grandpa.  They were both born in the Norfolk County Area and still live there to this day.  I still remember vividly my Grandpa picking up any trash he would see on the ground.  He never told me I had to pick it up but I always remembered how he never once complained that it was not his trash and therefore not his responsibility to get rid of it.  Keeping our environment clean came so natural to my Grandparents.  There was no need to teach cleaning up in school.  Even dog's don't shit where they sleep.  Taking care of your surroundings is the true sense of human pride.  We are born of this Earth, we will die and go back into it.  The Earth is a part of us.  When people say we are children of god, I understand it to be We are children of the Earth.

Since the snow has melted the accumulation of trash around the creek in the neighborhood is not only disrespectful but shameful.  There are garbage, and newly added recycle, bins scattered all along the path running parallel with the creek.  I cannot fathom why anyone would decide to throw their trash on the ground instead of in a bin.  I decided that I would bring a couple of bags with me on this Earth Day and pick up the trash.  I will be honest, if it wasn't Earth Day, I would not have thought about this simple action of cleaning up the creek.  I put my ego aside, the part of me that knows that it was not me who contributed to this mess, and just do it for the sake of Mother Earth to show respect to what is most important to me.

Overall, picking up trash was a positive experience.  It virtually took no effort.  It was a beautiful sunny day, I picked up some trash with yellow gloves and I saw a big difference.  It was pretty much the least I could do.  How hard is it to pick up some things off the ground?  However, prevention takes even less effort.  Smarten up people, I for one am not becoming more tolerable to these discrepancies around me.  I am becoming less fearful of the reaction of others.  I might one day kick you in the nuts for throwing your trash in the creek or screaming at your innocent child.  I care about the quality of life for all, even those who are destroying it for all, there are no exceptions.  The worst trash that I picked up was from someone or some people who had been picking up their dog's shit in a plastic bag, tying a knot in the bag and then tossing it off to the side.  I found numerous of these shit filled bags adjacent to garbage bins.  What The Fuck?  It would be better to just leave the crap on the ground because at least it will decompose back into the earth.  But to put it in a plastic bag and tie it so that the poop can macerate in a plastic bag for years and become more and more gross is just mind blowing!

I had a favourite moment on Monday afternoon.  I did receive many smiles and nods from people passing by which I hope might make people maybe take part next year.  The moment however was from the school children across the creek.  When I first started on our walk I could see the trash build up on the other side of the creek where the school yard is.  I remembered as a child being taken out on Earth Day to clean up our yard.  I wondered if the kids were still doing that?  On the way back a whole class of kids were cleaning up the other side and I can tell you it made a huge difference and it took place within minutes.  A little girl saw me on the other side and smiled and waved; I smiled and waved back.  It was a moment of human connection that is not as rare as we so often think.

Namaste

The Present

One year left of my 20's.  What does this mean?  Does it mean anything?  Well sure it means that a decade is almost up.  But it also means a decade will soon be starting again.  A new chapter if you will.  It is nice to think of this next year as the final chapter of my 20's.  After all, life is but a book.

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

I would definitely say that the climax of the last 9 years was my travel through Europe.  The pinnacle of my 20's if you please.  Everything lead up to that adventure.  It meant the world to me.  It still does. I feel like the last chapter, everything since the climax, has been truly a descent.  Not in a negative way though.  While life has not been as exciting, it still has been extremely changing and necessary.  It's like reaching the top of a mountain: it took 8 days to get up there but only 2 to get down.  In order for me to reach the next mountain top I first have to come down of the last and descend into the valley.

In my post entitled "volcano" I spoke about a difficult time and how that time triggered a past hurt.  I wrote about that event because I was again, going through an emotional week.  I was trying to figure out why I was feeling so down and as I brainstormed I realized that it was exactly a year ago when I had that emotional break down in Sicily.  It made me question the reasons for it even more so.  What were the similarities and why was I going through it again?

I have been reading a lot this past year.  Specifically, getting in tune with my spiritual side.  I have been changing my diet and practicing yoga regularly   These are things that raise your frequency and help to open your pineal gland also known as the third eye.  A year ago, I had no use for chakras.  This year, I think about them everyday.  If I cannot sleep at night I meditate on specific colours and find calmness until I sleep.  I have come to terms with how vivid my dreams are and to take special note to them.  I am no longer ashamed to admit that this stuff, this so called wacky hippie shit, intrigues me.

I have always had a keen interest in human psychology.  I am my number one patient.  I have been aware of my coping mechanisms and how I deal with things since early childhood, even if I haven't always been able to control or change my behaviour at times.  I am at least aware.  With awareness comes understanding and accepting and then learning which brings change.  So when I re-tell a story, it is my way of letting it go so that I can move on.  The key to wellness is letting go of the past.  Even if we look back on our past with fondness, we are still then comparing it to the now and trying to live up to a "better time".  What I am still continually trying to remind myself is to stay in the present moment.  To not anticipate the future and to not let the past hold me back.  Life is about the PRESENT.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why we call it the present.” 

― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

How can one let go of the past if they do not fully understand the lesson that it was meant to teach you?  The best example I can give is myself.  Last year as I was having a mental breakdown, I felt burdened by events of my past which only added to my pain.  Even after writing it out and analyzing the parallels between all the circumstances I was still left feeling sad and unhappy.  I was still sitting in my room trying to understand where this deep rooted sadness came from?  I first recognized it when I was a child and it became more prominent in my teens.  It then came back in my early twenties.  It never went anywhere it merely remained dormant for a short while.  Like a volcano.

The other night I read a chapter in Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth Awakening to Your Life's Purpose about the "pain-body".  A few weeks prior my little Earth Angel gave me a book about Earth Angel's which also spoke about this same subject.  It all came very clear to me.  To fully explain however, I feel like I need to also retell the story of my first week in Spain.  After that emotional week in Sicily, I jumped on a plane and landed in Seville, Spain...  so the story goes...

My first night in Spain was by far thee hardest travel day of my 3 months on the road.  It was the first and only time that I actually got lost on my way to the hostel.  I had the bus number written in my little red book that would drop me off at "Plaze del Duque".  My plane arrived around 8pm.  By the time I got to the appropriate bus stop the sun was down.  I got on the right bus and just to make sure I asked the driver if this bus would indeed drop me of at "plaza del duke" (that is how I pronounced it).  The bus driver did not understand me and was quite rude about it.  I showed him the writing in my book in case I pronounced it wrong.  He sighs, "oh plaza del duque" (pronounced doo-kay) and then once again rudely shook his head and tried to shun me off on my way.  The passenger behind me chimed in and explained that because of the parades the bus would not be going that way.  "Parades?" I said confusingly.  I had no other directions so I smiled and tried to give him my money for the fare regardless and figured I could at least get close enough and walk the rest of the way.  He would not accept my money, I had no choice but to get off the bus.  

I got on the next bus and I had no clue where it was taking me.  As the people on the bus started to filter out I started feeling panic set in.  It was nearing 10 pm at this point and I was lost.  A woman sitting close to me could sense my worry.  She looked at me and in English asked me if I was lost.  I sighed such a relief knowing I  could at least communicate with her.  I told her I was indeed lost.  She said that I could come back with her to her apartment and she would lend me a map.  I did not take her up on the offer though, in my head I was thinking I could just stay on the bus and hopefully it would just loop around and go back to where I had started and I could try again.  The bus was nearing her stop and so she had to go.  But before getting off she spoke to a young boy who was sitting next to her.  She said he would help me and got off the bus.  This young man could not speak english so he got out his phone and used it to interpret spanish into english.  He showed me the screen and it said "Follow Me."

What was I to do?  This guy can see that I am scared and lost.  I am the perfect person to kidnap at the moment.  Do I trust him?  The bus comes to a stop and then suddenly a song comes over the speaker.  There was no music playing until this exact moment.  This was the song:

       

I decide that the song is a sign.  I follow him.  Through the phone he lets me know it's going to be a long walk.  I nod and carry on.  We are walking fast, there are many people on the streets.  We are going down alleys and crossing streets, all the while I am thinking he could very well lead me into a dead end alley and kill me.  But I trek on.  He even asks people passing by for directions and ever so politely says "gracious" except this is the first time I hear the Spain pronunciation of thank you.  It is pronounced "glathious".  I honestly thought he was either gay or had a lisp.  I later learned that I am an ignorant north american and now I actually pronounce gracious the way of the Spaniards because the language originates there however I digress...

We start making our way into a more central area.  That is when my jaw drops.  I see the KKK marching down the street.  (The white capes and pointy hats originate in Spain, by the way, so the American racist group are not actually affiliated in fact they stole the look from priests.)  I look at him and he sees my astonishment.  As we try and make our way closer to the address in my little red book we are stopped by parades and crowds of people down every street.  I thank him over and over again for bringing me this far and he carries on to probably meet his family or friends to celebrate.  I learn the hard way that I just happened to land into Seville on the biggest celebration day in all of Spain.  Seville celebrates Easter like no other place in the world.  My timing for landing in that particular place at that exact time was crazy, bizarre, insane, and above all else, unforgettable.

In North America, we are so quick to forget what Easter is truly about.  Jesus is the reason for the season.  The Universe decided that I needed a reminder.  So here I am in Seville, lost and confused, carrying my life on my shoulders.  I am hungry.  I am tired.  I am heading down street after street only to be bombarded with crowds of people and the image of Jesus carrying his cross.  In Spain, everyone gets an entire week off of work or school to take it to the streets and remember what Jesus went through about 2000 years ago.  Every night there is a parade with intricate statues and intense marching bands circling the streets.  They go on until the sun comes up, for a whole week.  That Wednesday just happened to be the most important day and also the biggest parade day.  I am carrying my back pack and he is carrying his cross.  We keep running into each other around every corner, there is no escape.

Eventually I have to stop to get food.  I need to sit and rest.  I am pissing off the people who are celebrating and mourning by trying to push through the crowd with this enormous rucksack on my back.  I find a little pizza joint.  It is packed.  I ask for a slice to go and I take it outside and sit next to a fountain in the square.  I gobble that meal up and asses the situation.  At this point, I do know in which direction my hostel is in but I have to figure out a way to get past a parade.  After my rest, I get up and try and walk a few blocks over and then back inwards, hoping to get around the crowds.  I find myself by a park and I see a dude with his motorcycle.  I decide to ask him where I am.  He looks like my friend Raff so I immediately feel comfortable.  Bonus, he speaks English!  He pulls out his phone we type in the address of my hostel and sure enough it is literally 1 minute away down the next street!  I am thrilled!  I skip away and see the hostel sign and could literally kiss the ground at this point.

It is now midnight as I check in.  I could continue on with this story at this point but everything will just tie into the next day and the next and I will sit here all night re-telling my time in Spain!  

I had a real reminder that week about the life of Jesus.  I am not a religious person.  I have said for a long time I feel that Jesus is just a dude like you or me and that by idolizing him we are pretty much making an excuse to not be as good as him.  I feel that we could all be peaceful and loving and caring just like Jesus.  He was hung on a cross for being just that, a peaceful and kind human being.  Even worse still, wars and murder have gone on the last 2000 years in his name.  People have used him to gain control over others.  Most people who worship Jesus, do it so painfully wrong.  How his message got flip turned upside down over the years is beyond my understanding.

What I have learned these last few weeks is that we all carry the pain from the beginning of our time in our DNA.  It is embedded in us.  Eckhart suggests in his book that it is why babies come out of the wound kicking and screaming.  The most sensitive and loving people often become drug addicts and abusive because we are all dealing with centuries of pain, and it is still going on to this very day.  Rape, murder, abuse, ridicule, judgement, the list goes on.  One thing I have noticed the last few years, the older I get the more sensitive I get to the pain of others.  I can't take it anymore.  However, learning that we all have it inside us helps me to understand.  Hopefully with understanding every single one of us can learn to let go of our pain-body's.  Pain from the past lingers.  It is in the air.  You can feel it when you enter certain places where true evil could possibly have taken place in the past.  We feel it around certain people who are holding grudges or are particularly angry often.  The pain is often heavier in certain cultures and especially in woman.  During the Spanish Inquisition, woman were accused of witchcraft and burned alive for merely walking barefoot in the grass.

The point now is to let go of not just our own personal past, our stories, but to also let go of what humans have done to each other since the beginning of time.  Look to the present.  Look to now.  I refuse to accept that it is human nature to be so unkind to each other.  It is time to change this.  I am not perfect because I see the parallels I am still fighting that which is inside that wants to feed off of pain.  I will keep trying to learn and change as I grow.

       "Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing.”

— Brian L. Weiss, Messages from the Masters: Tapping Into the Power of Love

One Love