This has been a pet irritation of mine for some time. We are brought up on the idea that we find the love of our life, eyes meet, we kiss, we connect & live happily ever after - I mean you would have to be living in fantasy land to believe in this stuff....right ? Like I dare you to send me a story of a princess that has kissed the man of her dreams in some unpredictable movie like moment & lived happily every after....go on dare you !!
For women its if we just meet our mans needs, give him what he wants, let him believe he is the most important God forsaken person on the planet he will be happy......????? & we will feel "complete" WRONG Mr Cruise !!!
I've had a week, no a month, actually half a lifetime of it. Don't get me wrong...I love a chick flick like any other dreamer, but love..... what is love really ? If we listened to the writers, producers & actors, first you meet, then you dislike each other, then you realise your mistake, then you fight dragons & wars of half a lifetime, (not forgetting you miraculously keep your sexy good looks & trim taut physique throughout the many years that follow...this is afterall a fairytale) & after wasting most of your life aching for that one 'true love' you find them just in time for the death us do part section.
What is it about love, the OMG of some ridiculous lyrics that I am so over at present I turn off the radio to stop hearing it ? Is it the stuff that makes you go weak at the knees that good marketing would have you believe ? or is it that I have discarded faith & hope & replaced it with cynicism & contempt ? There is no denying human beings have more than a few weaknesses, one of which has made millions for cartoon fantasy movie writers & producers by selling the Abraham Maslow message that we each need to feel connected, a sense of belonging, to feel safe & loved to feel worthwhile....why?
Does that mean if we are unloveable, independent & fail to connect with our special someone we are hopeless ? may as well be written off ? or need to spend copious amounts of money in having a happily married til death do us part psychologist tell you what you need to change...whose only concept of heart break is the crusts weren't cut off their packed lunch that morning.
Nietzsche stated 'What doesn't kills us makes us stronger' - if this be true, then why aren't my biceps bigger ?
There are millions of books written on how to love, how to get the person of your dreams, how to change yourself, be a better person, be the person you are looking for....oooooh please, why can't we be OK the way we are (well some of us anyway)? It takes years to form these habits, to be as annoying as this...why change now ? :)
Maybe it truly is love that requires luck to keep many people hanging out to find what connects them to all that is good in their lives ? What if it is only once & what if we miss it ? What if they never feel the same ? Bugger ........ there is always writing to Juliet Capulet & waiting for one of her secretaries to tell you what you already know !
Love should be reserved for the committed, the dedicated, its a treasure, a gift, not everyone is fortunate to receive, why should it be wasted on people who toss it aside like brussel sprouts on a plate ? How many millions, no make that trillions of people each year ache for not knowing what it is like to be loved or to have truly loved with all your heart ? How many of those same people feel the same the following year ? When Noah said in the Notebook the best we can hope in all our life is to have loved someone with all your heart.....I loved this quote, yet thought my God only a man could say this - what is the point of giving all of yourself to someone who doesn't give it back ? Wouldn't the quote have been more disney like if it were that the gift in life is to be loved by someone with all their heart ? Maybe its late & this is all getting a bit wishy washy for me....What happened to respect ? Trust ? loyalty ? honesty ? compassion ? understanding ? committment ? ......Is love just an emotion, & most of the time a wasted one at that. Does it makes us stronger ? weaker ? more vulnerable ? If your heart breaks does it mend ?
What the romantic he meets her stories don't tell you, what we hear little about is the love so great, so overwhelming that without it life is not worthwhile. A love born of a beginning & seeks no end, a love simple & uncomplicated, the touch of a hand, a smile. Some years ago I read the story of an old headstone in a graveyard in the US, a friend had seen it, this massive mother like angel holding a child in her arms towering over all the other headstones, I wish I could find the picture to put up, the wings were awesome, casting a shadow across the grounds....my friend decided to visit the local library to research its history. The headstone marked the graves of a mother & child, the child had drowned accidentally at only a few years old & the mother some months later, sicken with grief, stopped eating, stoped living, her emptiness never filled & she died of 'melancholoy' her heart had stopped beating, it was broken. At the time my son was on treatment for cancer & I read this & felt a fear deep within that our time was coming & how would I live beyond these moments. How would I let go. My heart did break & it has never repaired, it broke again several times that year, my sister died in the same 12 mth & my marriage fell apart, it too never repaired.
When I was younger I thought having your heart broken was the most painful of all lifes experiences, I was right & yet I was wrong. Nothing has ever compared to the grief of losing a child. I learned I did not have to let go, that once you love, you can choose to keep it there, tucked inside forever, that I did not have to let go of the happiness, of the laughter & to answer all my previous questions, yes love makes you vulnerable & weak & strong & sometimes when your heart breaks, that place where you store your love, sometimes it doesn't mend. This is real love, not the romantic notions etched on movie screens & fiction....this is the earth shattering, keep you awake at night love & maybe there are many of you thinking well she just hasn't found the right one yet...maybe you are right, part of me is hoping you are right, the other is thinking there only so many times you can break the one thing & you need to have all the pieces to be able to put it back together...maybe I did have that once & maybe I lost that as well & maybe some pieces are just gone ? Maybe I've stopped believing ?
So I'm going to take a break from romantic chick flicks & fairytales & live in the moment & I hope you can prove me wrong...but I won't hold my breathe.
One final note....On the drive home the other day after being interstate for a few weeks, my daughter asked "how do you make wishes come true Mummy...." I had to think of a logical reason for a 4 yr old & found myself stating "you just have to ,wish them long enough & hard enough & believe in them too"........What it would be like to be 4 again ?
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
I know life will be better when I have..... more stuff ?
Clive Hamilton posed the question in his 2005 book 'Affluenza' when will we have enough? This week I confirmed I will participate in a compacting challenge. I have agreed for the next 3 months to not purchase any new products, other than those essential items e.g. food and petrol etc. I can however barter, trade, buy used and heaven forbid...go without !
It doesn't seem a lot to be asking does it? Yet it begs to question why is it in my lifetime our houses are twice as big today as they were 40 odd years ago..... yet we have less children in them ? Why do we now need outdoor kitchens rather than a hot plate and a few bricks to ask a few friends over? In one arena we have the rapidly contagious affluenza and in the other climbing rates of depression, substance abuse, violence, all whilst living in one of the most obese nations in the world. At this rate our communities are literally consuming the world to its and our death.
I have always had difficulty understanding the concept of working harder to make more money to buy more things, live in bigger houses, buy more cars and have less time with your children, only to find yourself out of a job due to work related stress and physical illness. Its simply ludicrous.
As Stephen King once said “...Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” The need to have more, to accumulate more stuff is a monster. The haunting voices of the need to fit in and drives people to max out credit cards, develop gambling addictions and at worst commit crimes to have more, more money, more things, more status....more is society in despair.
The irony of this is the faster the monster grows, the less the person really has spiritually, the greater the chasm between themselves and their children, the less they connect with huamnity and more with consumption overload, sinking into the deep abyss of more and more stuff!
Some buy for a new colour, a new shape, a new style, to keep up with friends, family and society at large, driving the consumer lifestyle and squeezing the life out of our communities, forming the foundations for claims the lifestyle of Victorians cannot be sustained into the near future. As the banking industry used in its recent marketing to increase spending, there will be no inheritance for our children, there will be nothing to inherit, without a shift in consumer behaviour towards a more responsible committment to reduce, reuse and recycle.
A few years ago I was driving out west with my husband to the 10th year of my sisters death. My family and I had decided to have a get together and mark the occasion by celebrating her life, rather than dwell on the sadness of her decision to take her own life 10 years prior. What had we learned in that 10 years about life? What did we learn from losing our sister? A woman with an IQ most would dream of, with the potential to be anyone, learn anything. Yet with all her stuff and I mean lots of stuff, this was a generous woman who after inviting us to attend a ball, brought home several dresses which she had purchased to choose from to wear, yet none of the glitter was enough. The year before her death we spent Christmas together, you could not see the flooring for the sea of wrapping and presents, all that stuff and yet so little happiness.
Four days later we arrived home and started plans to have a mammoth garage sale and whatever was remaining would go into storage whilst we packed up our children, headed north and took the long way home, around the entire coast of Australia. We purchased a second hand trailer and had it modified by our wonderfully talented boiler maker friend to accommodate our camping gear; home for the following months was a large 2nd hand canvas tent, providing enough space for each of us to have alone time & a kitchen/eating area to stay dry in the wet & out of the heat. We each had one small box each in which to pack treasures, books, a diary, some favourite things. Despite my husband and my own backpacking experiences, packing for five people, including three children to travel indefinitely, living on the road, amounted to more than we had anticipated. Following a stop over in Bundaberg with my parents, we off loaded a few unnecessary things (more stuff).
I was a different person back then, a shadow of who I have become today. By the time we had reached Cairns, we decided to purchase a smaller tent, no kitchen, no spare rooms, space for bedding alone. Gradually we spent less and less time indoors and more and more time combing beaches,learning local Aboriginal history & culture, hiking hills in the footsteps of Captain Cook, scouring vast empty plains for plants, animals (at times any life at all !). We needed less stuff and more of each other. Spending late nights reflecting on the day with friends we greeted along the way. Amazing as it was, we crossed three States, thousands of miles and bumped into the same family in four different locations, from one side of the country to the other.
So life changing this experience is that we went with minimal stuff, yet came back with less and more of ourselves. You couldn't buy an adventure training pack to find what we discovered about life, about ourselves. Life is not in things, it is in us, in our moments together, laughing, playing, hiking in 48 degree heat, sleeping in the car when the weather is too rough to put up the tent! Sitting back at night enjoying a sunset over Cable Beach 'the stairway to heaven', braving the soaking rain to grab a glimpse of the Apostles, knowing next time another one will have been taken by the sea.
Life is in the land, the sun, the stars, we are so intrinsically connected to nature, only through a symbiotic relationship can we learn to live with the land rather than off it.
It never mattered whether our towels matched or our doona covers clashed with the lining of our tent. It was more important to have time to sit and share our day with our new friends on the road and learn about this amazing country we call home.
We decided to settle in Victoria as we passed through on our way home to NSW, yet spent a few months without our things before they arrived, we were more excited to be reunited with our Jack Russell 'Millie' rather than our things !
I've lost count of the amount of times I've heard someone say "I know life will better when I have....." more money, another car, a bigger house, a plasma, when I don't have to work. Yet never realising all of these things, each one is a choice, we don't need any of it. No-one is suggesting you or I run off to join a buddhist society, yet ask yourself do you really need more if you already have one and nothing is broken or wrong with it ? Would you need a bigger house if you had less stuff? It is irony of the modern world, so many living in chronic poverty and affluence in the same neighbourhood. Ask yourself are you happy ? Are you living your authentic self ? or are you plagued with a self-generated pressure to keep up with rich and famous?
Everytime you purchase something, your choice has an impact on the sustainability of our plant. Think of the process it has taken to put it in your home. Take chocolate for example. A large percentage of the cocoa beans are farmed on the west coast of Africa, mostly using child slave labour, even the Fair Trade chocolate. Children are stolen/abducted from their families across the border in Ghana and herded like a commodity to cocoa farms to ensure the farmers can remain in the competitive market. The children earn nothing, attend no school and have no contact with their family. A market driven by western trade and production companies. This is the human side, then there is the energy, waste and impact on the environment to bring the cocoa bean to the processing plants, the manufacturing, the transport again to the retailers, the individual and bulk wrapping and packaging. Who generates this market....we DO ! Buying fish from the supermarket is no longer a means of sharing in local produce, with Barra from Thailand and fruit lasting less than a few days after weeks of sitting in bulk freezers.
Australia is one of the worlds highest producers of waste, up there with Denmark and the US, with individuals estimated at producing approximately 700kg of waste annually. There was talk Sydney having run out of landfill to excessive consumption, considered using empty mines near Goulburn, spreading its carbon footprint even further !! Our societies are driven by wants more than our needs. Yet studies conducted on Australia's excessive relationship with consumption revealed most Australian's feel they do not earn enough to meet all their needs. Australian's state they buy to feel more contented, to 'fit in', yet continue to feel a deep emptiness and so buy more.
The issue of 'affluenza' is not only an environmental issue it is both a psychological and social issue, the ramifications of this long term increase in obsessive purchasing is leaving dysfunctional communities riddled with mental health disorders, creating family breakdown and less hope of the individual progressing to self actualisation as Maslow had posited in his hierarchy of needs, without some connection to humanity not material posessions and without first fostering a sense of self, a healthy, well adjusted self.
Its simple really, stop consuming ! There is no denying children grow and their needs change, yet so are millions of others. I began ebaying years ago and more than happy with my choices, not to mention my sales ! We decided to stop replacing broken/worn dinner sets and commenced using our vintage collections. Not only are they simply beautiful, the plates are much smaller and so we eat less. These are a few of the benefits from making a conscious decision to change our consumption behaviour. My lessons so far, I pass onto my children, to form sustainable habits for living into the futue, from not only my current compacting challenge, the changes to my lifestyle from learning we do not need stuff !
1. You don't need it, really you don't. Do you have a roof over your head? Do you have food on the table? This is what you need.
2. Stop buying ! Yes stop. Try it, you will be amazed. Don't even tempt yourself, stop receiving junk mail, stop browsing the malls, go to the park with your children, visit a friend.
3. Take stock. Do you need what you have? Do you have too much? How many of the same style of tops can one person have ? At the end of the day you can only wear one item at a time!
4. Get rid of it? Recycle, reuse. Clean house !
5. The more you buy, the more you do, the more work you have. Spend time doing the things that will give you joy, enrich your sense of self, volunteer, give back to your community, listen to your child read.
6. How often do you cook ? do you cook really from scratch, fresh vegies, no pre-packaged mixes & starter meals, tasted good home cooked meals - get with the program. Obesity is draining our health system. If you don't know what is in it, then don't eat it! You could do more for your children & save a fortune by eating more fruit & veg, no snack bars, dippy things or fruit sticks - real fruit, real food !
7. You don't have time ? Make it. Slow down, you don't need a big house, a big car, a new home makeover. Ask a young child what is that they really want from their parents and it has nothing to do with plug-ins or batteries !
8. Start spreading the word. Encourage recycle days with your local school or Kinder, donate your things to raise funds for more outdoor play equipment or improve the outside environments. Organise swap meets with your local playgroup. Look up the local Baby & Child markets in most States, take along your old things & come home with new wardrobe !
9. Walk - walk as much as you can. You might feel like a late Friday night snack, yet take the time to think of the impact of just jumping in the car to grab a chocolate bar !
10. Which brings me to my most important THINK ! We are supposedly the most intelligent species on the planet ( you have to wonder sometimes). Yet ask yourself what values do I pass onto my children, what is my legacy as they become adults and parents themselves. For my family we practice the 3 R's - respect for self, respect for others and Responsibility for your actions.
I look forward to hearing about your own experiences, own challenges and making the change, as in the inspiring quote by Ghandi "Be the change you want to see in the world".
It doesn't seem a lot to be asking does it? Yet it begs to question why is it in my lifetime our houses are twice as big today as they were 40 odd years ago..... yet we have less children in them ? Why do we now need outdoor kitchens rather than a hot plate and a few bricks to ask a few friends over? In one arena we have the rapidly contagious affluenza and in the other climbing rates of depression, substance abuse, violence, all whilst living in one of the most obese nations in the world. At this rate our communities are literally consuming the world to its and our death.
I have always had difficulty understanding the concept of working harder to make more money to buy more things, live in bigger houses, buy more cars and have less time with your children, only to find yourself out of a job due to work related stress and physical illness. Its simply ludicrous.
As Stephen King once said “...Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” The need to have more, to accumulate more stuff is a monster. The haunting voices of the need to fit in and drives people to max out credit cards, develop gambling addictions and at worst commit crimes to have more, more money, more things, more status....more is society in despair.
The irony of this is the faster the monster grows, the less the person really has spiritually, the greater the chasm between themselves and their children, the less they connect with huamnity and more with consumption overload, sinking into the deep abyss of more and more stuff!
Some buy for a new colour, a new shape, a new style, to keep up with friends, family and society at large, driving the consumer lifestyle and squeezing the life out of our communities, forming the foundations for claims the lifestyle of Victorians cannot be sustained into the near future. As the banking industry used in its recent marketing to increase spending, there will be no inheritance for our children, there will be nothing to inherit, without a shift in consumer behaviour towards a more responsible committment to reduce, reuse and recycle.
A few years ago I was driving out west with my husband to the 10th year of my sisters death. My family and I had decided to have a get together and mark the occasion by celebrating her life, rather than dwell on the sadness of her decision to take her own life 10 years prior. What had we learned in that 10 years about life? What did we learn from losing our sister? A woman with an IQ most would dream of, with the potential to be anyone, learn anything. Yet with all her stuff and I mean lots of stuff, this was a generous woman who after inviting us to attend a ball, brought home several dresses which she had purchased to choose from to wear, yet none of the glitter was enough. The year before her death we spent Christmas together, you could not see the flooring for the sea of wrapping and presents, all that stuff and yet so little happiness.
Four days later we arrived home and started plans to have a mammoth garage sale and whatever was remaining would go into storage whilst we packed up our children, headed north and took the long way home, around the entire coast of Australia. We purchased a second hand trailer and had it modified by our wonderfully talented boiler maker friend to accommodate our camping gear; home for the following months was a large 2nd hand canvas tent, providing enough space for each of us to have alone time & a kitchen/eating area to stay dry in the wet & out of the heat. We each had one small box each in which to pack treasures, books, a diary, some favourite things. Despite my husband and my own backpacking experiences, packing for five people, including three children to travel indefinitely, living on the road, amounted to more than we had anticipated. Following a stop over in Bundaberg with my parents, we off loaded a few unnecessary things (more stuff).
I was a different person back then, a shadow of who I have become today. By the time we had reached Cairns, we decided to purchase a smaller tent, no kitchen, no spare rooms, space for bedding alone. Gradually we spent less and less time indoors and more and more time combing beaches,learning local Aboriginal history & culture, hiking hills in the footsteps of Captain Cook, scouring vast empty plains for plants, animals (at times any life at all !). We needed less stuff and more of each other. Spending late nights reflecting on the day with friends we greeted along the way. Amazing as it was, we crossed three States, thousands of miles and bumped into the same family in four different locations, from one side of the country to the other.
So life changing this experience is that we went with minimal stuff, yet came back with less and more of ourselves. You couldn't buy an adventure training pack to find what we discovered about life, about ourselves. Life is not in things, it is in us, in our moments together, laughing, playing, hiking in 48 degree heat, sleeping in the car when the weather is too rough to put up the tent! Sitting back at night enjoying a sunset over Cable Beach 'the stairway to heaven', braving the soaking rain to grab a glimpse of the Apostles, knowing next time another one will have been taken by the sea.
Life is in the land, the sun, the stars, we are so intrinsically connected to nature, only through a symbiotic relationship can we learn to live with the land rather than off it.
It never mattered whether our towels matched or our doona covers clashed with the lining of our tent. It was more important to have time to sit and share our day with our new friends on the road and learn about this amazing country we call home.
We decided to settle in Victoria as we passed through on our way home to NSW, yet spent a few months without our things before they arrived, we were more excited to be reunited with our Jack Russell 'Millie' rather than our things !
I've lost count of the amount of times I've heard someone say "I know life will better when I have....." more money, another car, a bigger house, a plasma, when I don't have to work. Yet never realising all of these things, each one is a choice, we don't need any of it. No-one is suggesting you or I run off to join a buddhist society, yet ask yourself do you really need more if you already have one and nothing is broken or wrong with it ? Would you need a bigger house if you had less stuff? It is irony of the modern world, so many living in chronic poverty and affluence in the same neighbourhood. Ask yourself are you happy ? Are you living your authentic self ? or are you plagued with a self-generated pressure to keep up with rich and famous?
Everytime you purchase something, your choice has an impact on the sustainability of our plant. Think of the process it has taken to put it in your home. Take chocolate for example. A large percentage of the cocoa beans are farmed on the west coast of Africa, mostly using child slave labour, even the Fair Trade chocolate. Children are stolen/abducted from their families across the border in Ghana and herded like a commodity to cocoa farms to ensure the farmers can remain in the competitive market. The children earn nothing, attend no school and have no contact with their family. A market driven by western trade and production companies. This is the human side, then there is the energy, waste and impact on the environment to bring the cocoa bean to the processing plants, the manufacturing, the transport again to the retailers, the individual and bulk wrapping and packaging. Who generates this market....we DO ! Buying fish from the supermarket is no longer a means of sharing in local produce, with Barra from Thailand and fruit lasting less than a few days after weeks of sitting in bulk freezers.
Australia is one of the worlds highest producers of waste, up there with Denmark and the US, with individuals estimated at producing approximately 700kg of waste annually. There was talk Sydney having run out of landfill to excessive consumption, considered using empty mines near Goulburn, spreading its carbon footprint even further !! Our societies are driven by wants more than our needs. Yet studies conducted on Australia's excessive relationship with consumption revealed most Australian's feel they do not earn enough to meet all their needs. Australian's state they buy to feel more contented, to 'fit in', yet continue to feel a deep emptiness and so buy more.
The issue of 'affluenza' is not only an environmental issue it is both a psychological and social issue, the ramifications of this long term increase in obsessive purchasing is leaving dysfunctional communities riddled with mental health disorders, creating family breakdown and less hope of the individual progressing to self actualisation as Maslow had posited in his hierarchy of needs, without some connection to humanity not material posessions and without first fostering a sense of self, a healthy, well adjusted self.
Its simple really, stop consuming ! There is no denying children grow and their needs change, yet so are millions of others. I began ebaying years ago and more than happy with my choices, not to mention my sales ! We decided to stop replacing broken/worn dinner sets and commenced using our vintage collections. Not only are they simply beautiful, the plates are much smaller and so we eat less. These are a few of the benefits from making a conscious decision to change our consumption behaviour. My lessons so far, I pass onto my children, to form sustainable habits for living into the futue, from not only my current compacting challenge, the changes to my lifestyle from learning we do not need stuff !
1. You don't need it, really you don't. Do you have a roof over your head? Do you have food on the table? This is what you need.
2. Stop buying ! Yes stop. Try it, you will be amazed. Don't even tempt yourself, stop receiving junk mail, stop browsing the malls, go to the park with your children, visit a friend.
3. Take stock. Do you need what you have? Do you have too much? How many of the same style of tops can one person have ? At the end of the day you can only wear one item at a time!
4. Get rid of it? Recycle, reuse. Clean house !
5. The more you buy, the more you do, the more work you have. Spend time doing the things that will give you joy, enrich your sense of self, volunteer, give back to your community, listen to your child read.
6. How often do you cook ? do you cook really from scratch, fresh vegies, no pre-packaged mixes & starter meals, tasted good home cooked meals - get with the program. Obesity is draining our health system. If you don't know what is in it, then don't eat it! You could do more for your children & save a fortune by eating more fruit & veg, no snack bars, dippy things or fruit sticks - real fruit, real food !
7. You don't have time ? Make it. Slow down, you don't need a big house, a big car, a new home makeover. Ask a young child what is that they really want from their parents and it has nothing to do with plug-ins or batteries !
8. Start spreading the word. Encourage recycle days with your local school or Kinder, donate your things to raise funds for more outdoor play equipment or improve the outside environments. Organise swap meets with your local playgroup. Look up the local Baby & Child markets in most States, take along your old things & come home with new wardrobe !
9. Walk - walk as much as you can. You might feel like a late Friday night snack, yet take the time to think of the impact of just jumping in the car to grab a chocolate bar !
10. Which brings me to my most important THINK ! We are supposedly the most intelligent species on the planet ( you have to wonder sometimes). Yet ask yourself what values do I pass onto my children, what is my legacy as they become adults and parents themselves. For my family we practice the 3 R's - respect for self, respect for others and Responsibility for your actions.
I look forward to hearing about your own experiences, own challenges and making the change, as in the inspiring quote by Ghandi "Be the change you want to see in the world".
Saturday, April 17, 2010
The legacy of the grown ups
I can still remember the stillness of the eucalypt and the coolnees of a winter breeze, the loneliness of riding deep into the bush on a Sunday's morning, whilst most were still fast asleep. Only the clip...clop...echoed. It's amazing I remember any of this really as not long after this I was crushed under 1400 of equine flesh leaving a permanent white splatter like image across my brain, cracking the skull-cap protecting my brain against the asphalt, scary for those who don't know what they are looking at, uniquely interesting and pretty for others, for me its knowing that there will be somethings I can never remember, lost forever up until that day. I didn't find this out until years down the track when MRI was more widely used....bit of a fright at first for a parent of a child who has died from a tumour to see lots of little white dots across their brain ! I thank everyday not just for memory, for sensory development, the greatest of all human wonders. Our senses link us to our past, our moments of joy, of pain, of discovery, of learning. Our senses reconnect us, are the motherboards of our hardrives, they help us remember.
I continued to ride when my body repaired and the scars healed.. lost my nerve a little, in addition to my favourite jeans and singlet top (complete with glittered horse picture on front)...yes a singlet top...no wonder 25 years later and I still have a few physical scars!.. Yet never my passion for nature, animals and my greater interconnectedness to all living things. I managed to get back in the saddle again two years down the track in Sydney and the United Kingdom a short while later; when I smell leather it reminds me of boots, saddles and adjusting stirrups and fresh lucerne brings me back to when life was simple and solitary. I have been so blessed with the right mix of risk and safety, of nature and learning. Even the scars, each a lesson. Despite the long term impact, this was my journey and I own it.
I was reminded of this experience as I completed an article this week on early childhood education for sustainability, of our senses and our legacy of devolving sensory development from the ignorance and lack of active participation in nature and learning for our own children, the very real potential of a generation of children with biophobia.
There is a great deal of gloom and doom, we do not need the 'State of the World'reports to remind us, the media does well enoug...however, when our very own Commissioner for Sustainability and Environment states Victorian's consumption is at such a rate, with the current climate change predictions, this lifestyle of obsessive consumption, brought on by affluenza will not be sustainable into the near future for our children. Even predictions Victoria has a 'bio-diversity crises' on their hands has fallen on many deaf ears across the State, with anti-climate change advocates breeding in their small corners of the regions, claiming any endeavour to ensure education for sustainability is included in all curriculums from early childhood through to tertiary education, is a sign policy has become a cult-like practice and to 'leave children alone' 'let them be children' with the fear any such responsible action .....as fostering empathy in early learning for all living things, is an attempt by the current Federal government to remove their responsibility and indoctrinate children into becoming 'greenies'.
In the past few weeks during the early hours of each morning, tap tap tapping away at the keyboard, I have been overloaded by...... (not the predicted damage should we not change our self-centred wasteful consumption ways) and saddened by the visual image, the little white spots, the scar tissue already revealing itself of the thousands of acres lost to genetically produced seed farming, the acceptance (if not compulsory use) of synthetic turf across children's services, as if the lessons from treated pine wasn't enough, using a surface invented by the same company responsible for environmental disasters and owning of 85% of genetically modified seeds, learning how utterly stupid is the supposedly most intelligent species on the planet to allow a small group of remaining intelligent dedicated and humane people to battle against mobile phone manufactures to heed their pleas to reduce the mining of coltan in order to save what is remaining of near extinct mountain gorillas.
So widespread is the ignorance and apathy, right on our very doorsteps despite the travel brochure attempt in disguise as the learning framework (since many services tossed it aside for reading later) highlighting the vital need for nature in learning to ensure a reduction in negative brain development and poor health outcomes for children, somehow following its release across the State in May 2009, a few months later approval was given for a 120 place local service which opened, where the only pieces (and I mean pieces) of grass and rip rip wood chip is for the 11 hour a week Kinder program at the publicly visual end of the building. So for the other 4 rooms of toddlers, infants and "baby sat" 4-5 years olds, (as we all know in Gippsland childcare is "babysitting" and Kinder is "education" :) they will have to be happy with egg cartons with cotton wool, water and wheat seeds, hands, feet on the very surface which holds more chemicals than the treated pine...oooh buts its soft when you fall ! Did anyone ever read the many studies to look at injury rates or was it more about good marketing windfalls ? I wonder what patterns of memory will be stored as the synaptic responses gear up for the wonders of plastics and synthetics which burn like hell when you slide on them! As for smell...mmm have you ever put your nose up against the heated up play equipment in summer ?
Though speaking of marketing and wind, I hear LOHS consumers are on the rise, Lifestyle of the Health and Sustainbility aware, or would it be those who have evolved with a conscience? If the birds of the Galapagos sharpened their beaks to adapt to environmental conditions, what was it that motivated humanity to adapt to fitting more in their wallets than their brain ? Smaller hearts over bigger cars and houses ? or thinking more about winning money, than giving what they have to help those who have none!
Going, going gone....goes the fall of the auctioneers hammer, down on the State. Victoria the smallest state in the country and certainly not alone in its degradation of flora and fauna across the nation, yet the smallest state with the largest land clearing and population density - we can't afford to grow or consume more....its change or bust !
So for the skeptics, let's say if you are right, and the world is not heading towards a nasty downfall, with catastrophic effects, what have we to loose by tightening the belt, less spending, more recycling, less consumption, turning off the lights and just get rid of plastic bags altogether (at least if anything the marine life will be happier !). I mean how many mobiles can one person have ? how easy is it to recycle rather than increase the massive land fill which continues to weigh down this gorgeous country like an anchor to the center of the earth?. The scars tell a story of ignorance and apathy, culturally we have lost hundreds of indigenous languages and have a long way to go to balance the health, education and opportunities available equally to Australian Aboriginal families across this country and for Gippslanders alone, the return of the rivers to green and blue is a miracle if we consider the blood shed on this region throughout history and the melting mix of sulphur, carbon monoxide, nitrate dioxide, formaldehyde, toluene, xylene and benzene's into the atmosphere....no your partner or friend did not 'drop one' that's the eau du toilette of the Valley, with its double the State average of hospital admissions for respiratory conditions to accident and emergency each year.
There is a lot here to be fighting for, to be standing up, speaking out and not going down without a battle for. We are human, we make mistakes, acknowledging them is the first step to change. Have you ever seen the view from the top of Baw Baw? both in teeth chattering winter rugged up in your snow gear and in spring sipping a tea from the deck with a view across the region? Then there are the people. So many northerners commented to me "why would you go to the valley its like the deep south of the country"....yet you have to come here to see why. There is an honesty and realness about the lack of humility in this region, what you see is what you get. Peel back the layers, these are friends, family, this is our interconnectedness, it is what makes us who we are, we can't run from every man-made disaster, we must stand up and own it, then go forward. When we know better...we can and must do better.
This week I found myself linking back in with organisations and people I have lost contact with for nearly 13 years. Friends who shared in my anguish and frustration of the biggest battle of our lives, cancer. There are times I would prefer to remember swimming with horses in the river and camping out bush, moving the memory loss bar a little, rather than the second by second memory of saying to my husband "if the doctor sits down at the side of the bed to talk, its good, if he says lets go into another room, not so good" and then the doctor entered and minutes later we were finding out our 16 month old blonde curly blue eyed boy had a tumour in the middle of his brain 'tiger country' they called it. From that day on I can't smell hospital hand cleaning products without instantly being in that room, in a treatment room, hooking up to chemo, blood transfusions and saying goodbye.
The Children's Health and Environmental Coalition has evolved to something greater and thank goodness their voices are being heard. It never leaves your mind when you join a study to look at environmental pollutants, household products and their impact on child health and development, when you are asked if you use particular cleaning products, washing, gardening and emr generating products and wonder where there is smoke there is fire. It was many years before I purchased a microwave again, owned a mobile or used products with chemicals....slowly they crept back in and I weakened. So here I am again, throwing out the trash, recycling what I can and clearing out the emotions and stupidity of letting the ignorance in.
How much do we still not know, not because we don't have the knowledge or resources, because we can't know. A conspiracy theorist just like my Dad...I know....yet how many jobs would be lost by the cure of so many diseases? The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports 40% of the disease burden in the world is attributed to environmental causes...40 % - this is preventable for goodness sake!! Millions of children die every single year to environmental pollutants and disease attributed to environmental causes. How much money (the mind boggles) is tied up with the drugs, resource manufacturing to do with treating these diseases? How can we possibly be regarded as the smartest species on the planet when we create lifestyles to kill off our very own species and eradicate others from the face of the earth?
This isn't going to cost you anything to make a change, if anything it can save you a fortune, do you know how much it costs you to heat a home, yet if you just had an environmental audit, followed through on the recommendations or put sealing around windows/doors, you could save a fortune in $$$ let alone the impact on the environment.
Where to start. Go around your house now and turn off the lights....for goodness sake if it is daytime...turn off the lights, open the shades and ventilate/illuminate naturally.Stop buying. Yes stop it. You already have enough sheets, towels and clothes. Each year millions of tons of recycled items filter through the charity stores, not to mention the business boom on online sales of pre-used items, vintage is in, get with the program. If you have to buy, buy it local. Those big juice bright perfect tomatoes, they may look great, like a hollywood body filled with plastic and saline, yet they are not real tomatoes. Put in a vege garden, don't forget the environmental pollutants so think carefully and think organic, get a compost, worm farm, let nature do its business. Walk more, car pool, take public transport if you have to. All those magazines, old stamps, cardboard boxes, egg cartons, any of it - ask your local school or Kinder and recycle. For goodness sake above all advocate for children to feel the grass between their toes, to find wonder and amazement from seeds, sticks and leaves falling from trees, collecting eggs from real chickens, if you are unsure take a look at the eco centres out there creating healthy environments for children. The results are in, a child's active participation in natural environments develops empathy and compassion, respect for self, respect for others, respect for the natural environment. We don't need more studies to tell us children today are less resilient, less respectful and the loss of empathy as a value is on its way out, we need to open the doors, rain hail or shine and let the children out. Let them touch, feel and smell there way. Green, brown whatever...is the new pink (although I like pink...its still in !).
'If you are thinking a year ahead
plant a seed
If you are thinking ten years ahead
plant a tree
If you are thinking a hundred years ahead
educate people'.
Kuan Tzu 500 BC Chinese Poet
Margaret McMillan 200 years ago as a Scottish advocate for children commenced the creche movement in the United Kingdom to reduce the amount of children being used in mines, what today would be Primary school. A leader way ahead of her time, advocating for the importance of sensory development, the need for natural environments to stimulate children's learning, to provide better health outcomes for children at a time when children's rights were a dirty word. 200 years and we are still battling on, despite the science on sensory development; attachment, trauma, behaviour and a child's need for a symbiotic relationship with the natural environment. Still fighting the economy against health battle. It won't cost you your job for goodness sake to give your child a better chance to develop into a healthy, compassionate human being. You can make changes in your own home, simple changes which require informed choices. Have you ever noticed how much packaging goes into some products? Or how many products do the same thing? Strangely when the fingers are pointed many look at our parents generation, yet life was a great deal simpler and less packaged back then, having a piece of fruit and a sandwich was enough to take for school, obesity is a common word today, nearly accepted, even a woman in the US is making money from eating herself to death online (gross is an understatement. With more products, more spending, more conveniences, we expel less energy, is it no wonder obesity is a common word?
For me the how is motivated everyday by the why.....Maybe you have one, maybe you don't, maybe you could share mine ? its remembering the promise I made many years ago, as I held the tiny cold hand of a 3 years and 4 months of age little boy, frail and worn out from trial chemotherapy, radiation and pain relief, he smiled through it all and never gave up. I held Ben's hand and told him he had fought hard enough and it was ok to let go. I said thank you for showing me the way, thank you for giving me the chance to learn a different way of knowing and thank you for blessing us all with your presence. I told him children deserved more from the grown-ups, the legacy we leave is not good enough. Too many genetically modified foods, additives and chemically produced environments. The legacy of the degradation of natural wonders, the extinction of flora and fauna, the legacy of thousands of children dying of cancer every singe year. I told him I would do better that this was not good enough and his message was heard, I will never forget and I said goodbye.
All that is put on our gravestones when we are gone are the dates we enter and the date we leave, just a simple dash in between. We take with us our scars, we leave behind our memories. No-one puts how much money you earned, whether you won the tattslotto, how many houses you had or cars you drove, its just a simple dash.
We all have a chance here to create a legacy of hope, of endurance, of compassion and commitment to serve others, to do better, to define integrity (unlike a psychologist I know from a training day last year who wasn't sure what it meant...mmmm), to be honest, capable and above all own this journey we are on together.
This week in Melbourne is the Conference for Healthy Parks Healthy People, professionals from around the globe speaking loud about the importance of preserving parks for the wellbeing of humanity. I finished my article and I'm off to the forum in Melbourne later this week, the book is coming along and I've taken some advice and working on a feasibility study for an eco service in the Latrobe Valley, the evidence is compelling.
If you have heard a word of this, if it has touched you, sparked a memory, stored from a sensory experience as a child laying on your back under a tree watching the leaves flap in the breeze, join me as a member of the Jane Goodall Institute and start a group in your community to "be the change"....' never doubt that a small group of people can change the world indeed its the only thing that ever has'....M. Mead....
Mountain Gorilla recycle your phone campaign
http://www.janegoodall.org.au/templates/jgd/page/page_html_standard.php?secID=116&riID=6
I continued to ride when my body repaired and the scars healed.. lost my nerve a little, in addition to my favourite jeans and singlet top (complete with glittered horse picture on front)...yes a singlet top...no wonder 25 years later and I still have a few physical scars!.. Yet never my passion for nature, animals and my greater interconnectedness to all living things. I managed to get back in the saddle again two years down the track in Sydney and the United Kingdom a short while later; when I smell leather it reminds me of boots, saddles and adjusting stirrups and fresh lucerne brings me back to when life was simple and solitary. I have been so blessed with the right mix of risk and safety, of nature and learning. Even the scars, each a lesson. Despite the long term impact, this was my journey and I own it.
I was reminded of this experience as I completed an article this week on early childhood education for sustainability, of our senses and our legacy of devolving sensory development from the ignorance and lack of active participation in nature and learning for our own children, the very real potential of a generation of children with biophobia.
There is a great deal of gloom and doom, we do not need the 'State of the World'reports to remind us, the media does well enoug...however, when our very own Commissioner for Sustainability and Environment states Victorian's consumption is at such a rate, with the current climate change predictions, this lifestyle of obsessive consumption, brought on by affluenza will not be sustainable into the near future for our children. Even predictions Victoria has a 'bio-diversity crises' on their hands has fallen on many deaf ears across the State, with anti-climate change advocates breeding in their small corners of the regions, claiming any endeavour to ensure education for sustainability is included in all curriculums from early childhood through to tertiary education, is a sign policy has become a cult-like practice and to 'leave children alone' 'let them be children' with the fear any such responsible action .....as fostering empathy in early learning for all living things, is an attempt by the current Federal government to remove their responsibility and indoctrinate children into becoming 'greenies'.
In the past few weeks during the early hours of each morning, tap tap tapping away at the keyboard, I have been overloaded by...... (not the predicted damage should we not change our self-centred wasteful consumption ways) and saddened by the visual image, the little white spots, the scar tissue already revealing itself of the thousands of acres lost to genetically produced seed farming, the acceptance (if not compulsory use) of synthetic turf across children's services, as if the lessons from treated pine wasn't enough, using a surface invented by the same company responsible for environmental disasters and owning of 85% of genetically modified seeds, learning how utterly stupid is the supposedly most intelligent species on the planet to allow a small group of remaining intelligent dedicated and humane people to battle against mobile phone manufactures to heed their pleas to reduce the mining of coltan in order to save what is remaining of near extinct mountain gorillas.
So widespread is the ignorance and apathy, right on our very doorsteps despite the travel brochure attempt in disguise as the learning framework (since many services tossed it aside for reading later) highlighting the vital need for nature in learning to ensure a reduction in negative brain development and poor health outcomes for children, somehow following its release across the State in May 2009, a few months later approval was given for a 120 place local service which opened, where the only pieces (and I mean pieces) of grass and rip rip wood chip is for the 11 hour a week Kinder program at the publicly visual end of the building. So for the other 4 rooms of toddlers, infants and "baby sat" 4-5 years olds, (as we all know in Gippsland childcare is "babysitting" and Kinder is "education" :) they will have to be happy with egg cartons with cotton wool, water and wheat seeds, hands, feet on the very surface which holds more chemicals than the treated pine...oooh buts its soft when you fall ! Did anyone ever read the many studies to look at injury rates or was it more about good marketing windfalls ? I wonder what patterns of memory will be stored as the synaptic responses gear up for the wonders of plastics and synthetics which burn like hell when you slide on them! As for smell...mmm have you ever put your nose up against the heated up play equipment in summer ?
Though speaking of marketing and wind, I hear LOHS consumers are on the rise, Lifestyle of the Health and Sustainbility aware, or would it be those who have evolved with a conscience? If the birds of the Galapagos sharpened their beaks to adapt to environmental conditions, what was it that motivated humanity to adapt to fitting more in their wallets than their brain ? Smaller hearts over bigger cars and houses ? or thinking more about winning money, than giving what they have to help those who have none!
Going, going gone....goes the fall of the auctioneers hammer, down on the State. Victoria the smallest state in the country and certainly not alone in its degradation of flora and fauna across the nation, yet the smallest state with the largest land clearing and population density - we can't afford to grow or consume more....its change or bust !
So for the skeptics, let's say if you are right, and the world is not heading towards a nasty downfall, with catastrophic effects, what have we to loose by tightening the belt, less spending, more recycling, less consumption, turning off the lights and just get rid of plastic bags altogether (at least if anything the marine life will be happier !). I mean how many mobiles can one person have ? how easy is it to recycle rather than increase the massive land fill which continues to weigh down this gorgeous country like an anchor to the center of the earth?. The scars tell a story of ignorance and apathy, culturally we have lost hundreds of indigenous languages and have a long way to go to balance the health, education and opportunities available equally to Australian Aboriginal families across this country and for Gippslanders alone, the return of the rivers to green and blue is a miracle if we consider the blood shed on this region throughout history and the melting mix of sulphur, carbon monoxide, nitrate dioxide, formaldehyde, toluene, xylene and benzene's into the atmosphere....no your partner or friend did not 'drop one' that's the eau du toilette of the Valley, with its double the State average of hospital admissions for respiratory conditions to accident and emergency each year.
There is a lot here to be fighting for, to be standing up, speaking out and not going down without a battle for. We are human, we make mistakes, acknowledging them is the first step to change. Have you ever seen the view from the top of Baw Baw? both in teeth chattering winter rugged up in your snow gear and in spring sipping a tea from the deck with a view across the region? Then there are the people. So many northerners commented to me "why would you go to the valley its like the deep south of the country"....yet you have to come here to see why. There is an honesty and realness about the lack of humility in this region, what you see is what you get. Peel back the layers, these are friends, family, this is our interconnectedness, it is what makes us who we are, we can't run from every man-made disaster, we must stand up and own it, then go forward. When we know better...we can and must do better.
This week I found myself linking back in with organisations and people I have lost contact with for nearly 13 years. Friends who shared in my anguish and frustration of the biggest battle of our lives, cancer. There are times I would prefer to remember swimming with horses in the river and camping out bush, moving the memory loss bar a little, rather than the second by second memory of saying to my husband "if the doctor sits down at the side of the bed to talk, its good, if he says lets go into another room, not so good" and then the doctor entered and minutes later we were finding out our 16 month old blonde curly blue eyed boy had a tumour in the middle of his brain 'tiger country' they called it. From that day on I can't smell hospital hand cleaning products without instantly being in that room, in a treatment room, hooking up to chemo, blood transfusions and saying goodbye.
The Children's Health and Environmental Coalition has evolved to something greater and thank goodness their voices are being heard. It never leaves your mind when you join a study to look at environmental pollutants, household products and their impact on child health and development, when you are asked if you use particular cleaning products, washing, gardening and emr generating products and wonder where there is smoke there is fire. It was many years before I purchased a microwave again, owned a mobile or used products with chemicals....slowly they crept back in and I weakened. So here I am again, throwing out the trash, recycling what I can and clearing out the emotions and stupidity of letting the ignorance in.
How much do we still not know, not because we don't have the knowledge or resources, because we can't know. A conspiracy theorist just like my Dad...I know....yet how many jobs would be lost by the cure of so many diseases? The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports 40% of the disease burden in the world is attributed to environmental causes...40 % - this is preventable for goodness sake!! Millions of children die every single year to environmental pollutants and disease attributed to environmental causes. How much money (the mind boggles) is tied up with the drugs, resource manufacturing to do with treating these diseases? How can we possibly be regarded as the smartest species on the planet when we create lifestyles to kill off our very own species and eradicate others from the face of the earth?
This isn't going to cost you anything to make a change, if anything it can save you a fortune, do you know how much it costs you to heat a home, yet if you just had an environmental audit, followed through on the recommendations or put sealing around windows/doors, you could save a fortune in $$$ let alone the impact on the environment.
Where to start. Go around your house now and turn off the lights....for goodness sake if it is daytime...turn off the lights, open the shades and ventilate/illuminate naturally.Stop buying. Yes stop it. You already have enough sheets, towels and clothes. Each year millions of tons of recycled items filter through the charity stores, not to mention the business boom on online sales of pre-used items, vintage is in, get with the program. If you have to buy, buy it local. Those big juice bright perfect tomatoes, they may look great, like a hollywood body filled with plastic and saline, yet they are not real tomatoes. Put in a vege garden, don't forget the environmental pollutants so think carefully and think organic, get a compost, worm farm, let nature do its business. Walk more, car pool, take public transport if you have to. All those magazines, old stamps, cardboard boxes, egg cartons, any of it - ask your local school or Kinder and recycle. For goodness sake above all advocate for children to feel the grass between their toes, to find wonder and amazement from seeds, sticks and leaves falling from trees, collecting eggs from real chickens, if you are unsure take a look at the eco centres out there creating healthy environments for children. The results are in, a child's active participation in natural environments develops empathy and compassion, respect for self, respect for others, respect for the natural environment. We don't need more studies to tell us children today are less resilient, less respectful and the loss of empathy as a value is on its way out, we need to open the doors, rain hail or shine and let the children out. Let them touch, feel and smell there way. Green, brown whatever...is the new pink (although I like pink...its still in !).
'If you are thinking a year ahead
plant a seed
If you are thinking ten years ahead
plant a tree
If you are thinking a hundred years ahead
educate people'.
Kuan Tzu 500 BC Chinese Poet
Margaret McMillan 200 years ago as a Scottish advocate for children commenced the creche movement in the United Kingdom to reduce the amount of children being used in mines, what today would be Primary school. A leader way ahead of her time, advocating for the importance of sensory development, the need for natural environments to stimulate children's learning, to provide better health outcomes for children at a time when children's rights were a dirty word. 200 years and we are still battling on, despite the science on sensory development; attachment, trauma, behaviour and a child's need for a symbiotic relationship with the natural environment. Still fighting the economy against health battle. It won't cost you your job for goodness sake to give your child a better chance to develop into a healthy, compassionate human being. You can make changes in your own home, simple changes which require informed choices. Have you ever noticed how much packaging goes into some products? Or how many products do the same thing? Strangely when the fingers are pointed many look at our parents generation, yet life was a great deal simpler and less packaged back then, having a piece of fruit and a sandwich was enough to take for school, obesity is a common word today, nearly accepted, even a woman in the US is making money from eating herself to death online (gross is an understatement. With more products, more spending, more conveniences, we expel less energy, is it no wonder obesity is a common word?
For me the how is motivated everyday by the why.....Maybe you have one, maybe you don't, maybe you could share mine ? its remembering the promise I made many years ago, as I held the tiny cold hand of a 3 years and 4 months of age little boy, frail and worn out from trial chemotherapy, radiation and pain relief, he smiled through it all and never gave up. I held Ben's hand and told him he had fought hard enough and it was ok to let go. I said thank you for showing me the way, thank you for giving me the chance to learn a different way of knowing and thank you for blessing us all with your presence. I told him children deserved more from the grown-ups, the legacy we leave is not good enough. Too many genetically modified foods, additives and chemically produced environments. The legacy of the degradation of natural wonders, the extinction of flora and fauna, the legacy of thousands of children dying of cancer every singe year. I told him I would do better that this was not good enough and his message was heard, I will never forget and I said goodbye.
All that is put on our gravestones when we are gone are the dates we enter and the date we leave, just a simple dash in between. We take with us our scars, we leave behind our memories. No-one puts how much money you earned, whether you won the tattslotto, how many houses you had or cars you drove, its just a simple dash.
We all have a chance here to create a legacy of hope, of endurance, of compassion and commitment to serve others, to do better, to define integrity (unlike a psychologist I know from a training day last year who wasn't sure what it meant...mmmm), to be honest, capable and above all own this journey we are on together.
This week in Melbourne is the Conference for Healthy Parks Healthy People, professionals from around the globe speaking loud about the importance of preserving parks for the wellbeing of humanity. I finished my article and I'm off to the forum in Melbourne later this week, the book is coming along and I've taken some advice and working on a feasibility study for an eco service in the Latrobe Valley, the evidence is compelling.
If you have heard a word of this, if it has touched you, sparked a memory, stored from a sensory experience as a child laying on your back under a tree watching the leaves flap in the breeze, join me as a member of the Jane Goodall Institute and start a group in your community to "be the change"....' never doubt that a small group of people can change the world indeed its the only thing that ever has'....M. Mead....
Mountain Gorilla recycle your phone campaign
http://www.janegoodall.org.au/templates/jgd/page/page_html_standard.php?secID=116&riID=6
Sunday, March 14, 2010
"I'm bored......"
It's the cry, whine of the young and older child "Mum I'm bored....". My usual response is "boring people are bored". Sometimes it challenges the left side of the brain long enough to kick start the right side into thinking more creatively, when a child has had limited self-directed play opportunity, a defibrilliator for the brain would be handy, without it they are lost in their sea of despair without cords, controllers and buttons to press. It's a sad reality of the 'give them what they want' generation, influenced by catchy marketing, the guilt of hard-working, never at home, time-poor parenting & reminiscent of the over flowing junk filled letter boxes which need trees to be removed just to make the mail boxes bigger ! The irony of the affluence and culture shift of childhood. How many times have we all heard the phrase "in my day....." handed down from parent to parent to use sparingly in the hope it will ignite a spark of meaningfulness and gratitude to play.
Let me share with you the ache of my heart over the last few weeks where the grown-ups have grown so big, with big mortgages, big cars, big t.v.s, so big their bills are enormous, their left side of the brain is constantly engaged in juggling the pressures of their affluenza, so much so they forget about imagination, what it was like, what it looked like and why the hell it is so damn important.
Once upon a time there was a little girl, "a princess" with long golden locks, soft satin pink gloves up to her arm pits, a feather boa at risk of flinging her into the sky if a large gust of wind caught it, in a satin "gown" handed down from her sister, attempting to sing Bocelli' meets Dora whilst bouncing on the trampoline. Not an unusual sight for her loyal subjects, who stood back in awe of her imagination in all its glory....opera on the trampoline...who would have ever thought of that ?
One day the little princess went to Kinder where all the maidens and prince's in the land joined together in play. They each lined up neatly outside and one by one in a neat little dairy cattle like line, entered their next adventure...the kingdom of the Kinder Castle...."woo hooooo".
The princess stood quietly to take in her new surroundings, each activity kindly and neatly prepared for her, the textas, the craft boxes, even the paints already selected, the 'wise' teachers had prepared it all, down to selecting the puzzles and telling the children what to do, when to sing, when to line up and where,to go next. The walls adorned pictures, one of each maiden and prince placed neatly side-by-side, detailed with the same black texta. The princess couldn't wait to be "allowed" to run outside; she really missed her long flowing dress and locks, replaced by a "uniform" and "neat hair" to unify with all the other maidens and prince's, yet she packed her imagination.
Outside the kinder castle beckoned adventures of free imaginative play in the fairy garden, digging to Africa in the sandpit and cooking up a storm in the timber restaurant behind the hedge. The princess ran with excitment, over the "troll" bridge....hiding beneath the "fairy tree", making friends with all the "animals of the forest". Today was the day the restaurant opened, you could see the spectacle of right and left brain development as it occured, limited by requests for the door to stay open as it "had to", limited by no props, no tea sets, no table cloths, aprons or heaven forbid flour and water, no paper, no pencils, no extension of the hive of creative activity directed by the children. There was passionate play oozing from every voice, there in their freedom to explore, occurred the very synaptic formations laying the foundations for the brains future. The princess ran until she could run no more. The princess stopped ...where are all the dress-ups she wondered? Why can't I have shoes and clothes outside? I need to make a wand, a hat, where are my jewels and bag ? The prince's in their adventures to Africa suggested they could "help dig them out" yet their hands were tired, there were only enough spades for a few "diggers". The princess stopped, her imagination went quiet.
The children were told to "share" "take turns" taught the social conforming rules of play, the "rules of Kinder", the "way to line up", "sit down" and "sing"....why the children didn't need their imaginations afterall, the kind teachers could think, act, plan and provide for them and so the right brain began to quieten, the left brain too, neither required to work closely together anymore, all that is un-real is considered meaningless and second to "skill development" and "cooperation".
The princess felt an emptiness inside her heart, a quietness she had not felt before. Gone was the bouncing and excitement, considered "challenging" and placed extra demands on the wise educators to think outside the box. There were no rainbow flowers, just flowers with red petals and green leaves.
The next time the princess came to the Kinder castle she cried out with a gasp "I'm bored Mummy...." and thus begins the story of all the children of the land and the tale of the long lost treasure of imagination.
So I removed Lu from Kinder, not without an attempt to share a few valuable lessons of years of my own early childhood experiences and joy of adopting an emergent curriculum approach. Yet when you are facing adults who cannot imagine a world of teaching so stimulating and exciting, you are asked to politely butt out...and so I did.
It wasn't the only environment I felt the suppression of the child as an individual and adult-direction take over as the 'only way'. It occurred at swimming as well. To a point where Lu was held on her back when she refused to allow her ears to get wet and pulled backwards into the water against the teachers chest. Lu screamed and cried, real tears! As the 'soft mother' I am, I went to the side of the pool, by this time she had started the self-intiated hyper-ventilating. On attempting to discuss with the Coordinator the benefits of flexibility and given Lu's previous passion for water & swimming lessons, this was a complete suprise. I was told to go out to the car & "make her" come in, that I would be "negligent" as a parent if I did not make her have swimming lessons.
I will not dispute the benefits, particularly the safety around learning to swim. Yet instructors are just that, learn to swim teachers, no child development specialists. They are taught on a need to know subject basis, swimming is their subject, everything outside of that is irrelvant, like child psychology and the impact of distress and trauma on the developing brain. They were not concerned that this little princess imagined herself as a mermaid with long flowing locks swimming thru the water, who showed no fear leaping from the edge of the deep end of the pool in Broome & dolphin wobbling up to the surface at 18 months of age ! What they wanted, like the wise Kinder castle staff is for her to conform. I spent months of a UK freezing winter attending learning to swim & decided to complete an instructors course.....23 years ago and very little has change.
Where has the imagination gone and what is its role in childhood ?
There is now research stating too much imagination results in anxiety disorders and fears? Yet not enough contributes to mental health disorders, obsessive compulsive, a need to control every part of the child's environment. That...wait for it....without imagination a child has difficulty playing, needs constant adult assistance. Does this mean the child still has dreams ? OMG what would life be like without dreams ?
Is there a role for imagination in a child's world today?
When I was young, I dreamed and imagined of travelling to far off places and I did. Imagination is so much more than the neatly contrived dictionary meaning "the formation of a mental image of something that is not perceived as real and is not present to the senses". Imagining gives us hope, takes us to far off places when the pain is too great, helps us remember and imagine those we can no longer see. It lays the foundations for dreams, tucked away in the hardrive of our thoughts, are the imaginings of our childhood. The imagination helps us find the pterodactyl in the shadow drifting across the water, a galloping stallion in the clouds, what would Picasso have painted without his imagination? Every human-made wonder on the planet started with an idea, imagining and bringing their vision to reality.
This year my eldest son will apply for the Army. His first word, before Mum for goodness sake...was "plane"...bizarre I know....When he was 3 years old he would collect objects from around the house and put them in his cam pouch, strap it too his back, grab a stick from the garden & create his military adventures around the yard. Now we run/walk together at 0600 as part of his fitness prep fo his application. Whilst I wish he had dreamed another dream, imagined a different path, the smile on his face at Cadet training and the committment to his dream is something I will forever be proud of.
We are their tools, we are the instruments of the child's imagination. The ones who help children to discover the joys of long car trips without DVD players and game machines, who share in awe of dress-ups and imaginative play, we are their collaborators, their loyal followers. We move moutains to fill the car with petrol and drag everyone out of bed at 0400 to drive 5 hrs to Sydney when we only have 24 hrs notice that the US Indepdence is visiting Sydney harbour, just to share their dreams, to give them hope. The brain that fires together.....wires together. Imagination stimulates a developing brain, the child's brain literally grows when they imagine !! Benjamin Franklin ....Martin Luther King.....these men had dreams....
Join me in turning the tide on the tales of the lost treasure of imagination. Share in the child's joy, hold back turning on that t.v., dance a little more, turn up the music, visit a museum, spend a day at the beach, go bush walking.....without you the child's imagination is at risk of extinction.....
PS There is of course a down side to the use of the imagination, random bursts of laughter, screams of joy, you use a lot of tape, ribbon, fabric and staples !! Arm yourself with a trusty toolbox. Imagining also has some side effects - it results in a loss of boredom !!!
Let me share with you the ache of my heart over the last few weeks where the grown-ups have grown so big, with big mortgages, big cars, big t.v.s, so big their bills are enormous, their left side of the brain is constantly engaged in juggling the pressures of their affluenza, so much so they forget about imagination, what it was like, what it looked like and why the hell it is so damn important.
Once upon a time there was a little girl, "a princess" with long golden locks, soft satin pink gloves up to her arm pits, a feather boa at risk of flinging her into the sky if a large gust of wind caught it, in a satin "gown" handed down from her sister, attempting to sing Bocelli' meets Dora whilst bouncing on the trampoline. Not an unusual sight for her loyal subjects, who stood back in awe of her imagination in all its glory....opera on the trampoline...who would have ever thought of that ?
One day the little princess went to Kinder where all the maidens and prince's in the land joined together in play. They each lined up neatly outside and one by one in a neat little dairy cattle like line, entered their next adventure...the kingdom of the Kinder Castle...."woo hooooo".
The princess stood quietly to take in her new surroundings, each activity kindly and neatly prepared for her, the textas, the craft boxes, even the paints already selected, the 'wise' teachers had prepared it all, down to selecting the puzzles and telling the children what to do, when to sing, when to line up and where,to go next. The walls adorned pictures, one of each maiden and prince placed neatly side-by-side, detailed with the same black texta. The princess couldn't wait to be "allowed" to run outside; she really missed her long flowing dress and locks, replaced by a "uniform" and "neat hair" to unify with all the other maidens and prince's, yet she packed her imagination.
Outside the kinder castle beckoned adventures of free imaginative play in the fairy garden, digging to Africa in the sandpit and cooking up a storm in the timber restaurant behind the hedge. The princess ran with excitment, over the "troll" bridge....hiding beneath the "fairy tree", making friends with all the "animals of the forest". Today was the day the restaurant opened, you could see the spectacle of right and left brain development as it occured, limited by requests for the door to stay open as it "had to", limited by no props, no tea sets, no table cloths, aprons or heaven forbid flour and water, no paper, no pencils, no extension of the hive of creative activity directed by the children. There was passionate play oozing from every voice, there in their freedom to explore, occurred the very synaptic formations laying the foundations for the brains future. The princess ran until she could run no more. The princess stopped ...where are all the dress-ups she wondered? Why can't I have shoes and clothes outside? I need to make a wand, a hat, where are my jewels and bag ? The prince's in their adventures to Africa suggested they could "help dig them out" yet their hands were tired, there were only enough spades for a few "diggers". The princess stopped, her imagination went quiet.
The children were told to "share" "take turns" taught the social conforming rules of play, the "rules of Kinder", the "way to line up", "sit down" and "sing"....why the children didn't need their imaginations afterall, the kind teachers could think, act, plan and provide for them and so the right brain began to quieten, the left brain too, neither required to work closely together anymore, all that is un-real is considered meaningless and second to "skill development" and "cooperation".
The princess felt an emptiness inside her heart, a quietness she had not felt before. Gone was the bouncing and excitement, considered "challenging" and placed extra demands on the wise educators to think outside the box. There were no rainbow flowers, just flowers with red petals and green leaves.
The next time the princess came to the Kinder castle she cried out with a gasp "I'm bored Mummy...." and thus begins the story of all the children of the land and the tale of the long lost treasure of imagination.
So I removed Lu from Kinder, not without an attempt to share a few valuable lessons of years of my own early childhood experiences and joy of adopting an emergent curriculum approach. Yet when you are facing adults who cannot imagine a world of teaching so stimulating and exciting, you are asked to politely butt out...and so I did.
It wasn't the only environment I felt the suppression of the child as an individual and adult-direction take over as the 'only way'. It occurred at swimming as well. To a point where Lu was held on her back when she refused to allow her ears to get wet and pulled backwards into the water against the teachers chest. Lu screamed and cried, real tears! As the 'soft mother' I am, I went to the side of the pool, by this time she had started the self-intiated hyper-ventilating. On attempting to discuss with the Coordinator the benefits of flexibility and given Lu's previous passion for water & swimming lessons, this was a complete suprise. I was told to go out to the car & "make her" come in, that I would be "negligent" as a parent if I did not make her have swimming lessons.
I will not dispute the benefits, particularly the safety around learning to swim. Yet instructors are just that, learn to swim teachers, no child development specialists. They are taught on a need to know subject basis, swimming is their subject, everything outside of that is irrelvant, like child psychology and the impact of distress and trauma on the developing brain. They were not concerned that this little princess imagined herself as a mermaid with long flowing locks swimming thru the water, who showed no fear leaping from the edge of the deep end of the pool in Broome & dolphin wobbling up to the surface at 18 months of age ! What they wanted, like the wise Kinder castle staff is for her to conform. I spent months of a UK freezing winter attending learning to swim & decided to complete an instructors course.....23 years ago and very little has change.
Where has the imagination gone and what is its role in childhood ?
There is now research stating too much imagination results in anxiety disorders and fears? Yet not enough contributes to mental health disorders, obsessive compulsive, a need to control every part of the child's environment. That...wait for it....without imagination a child has difficulty playing, needs constant adult assistance. Does this mean the child still has dreams ? OMG what would life be like without dreams ?
Is there a role for imagination in a child's world today?
When I was young, I dreamed and imagined of travelling to far off places and I did. Imagination is so much more than the neatly contrived dictionary meaning "the formation of a mental image of something that is not perceived as real and is not present to the senses". Imagining gives us hope, takes us to far off places when the pain is too great, helps us remember and imagine those we can no longer see. It lays the foundations for dreams, tucked away in the hardrive of our thoughts, are the imaginings of our childhood. The imagination helps us find the pterodactyl in the shadow drifting across the water, a galloping stallion in the clouds, what would Picasso have painted without his imagination? Every human-made wonder on the planet started with an idea, imagining and bringing their vision to reality.
This year my eldest son will apply for the Army. His first word, before Mum for goodness sake...was "plane"...bizarre I know....When he was 3 years old he would collect objects from around the house and put them in his cam pouch, strap it too his back, grab a stick from the garden & create his military adventures around the yard. Now we run/walk together at 0600 as part of his fitness prep fo his application. Whilst I wish he had dreamed another dream, imagined a different path, the smile on his face at Cadet training and the committment to his dream is something I will forever be proud of.
We are their tools, we are the instruments of the child's imagination. The ones who help children to discover the joys of long car trips without DVD players and game machines, who share in awe of dress-ups and imaginative play, we are their collaborators, their loyal followers. We move moutains to fill the car with petrol and drag everyone out of bed at 0400 to drive 5 hrs to Sydney when we only have 24 hrs notice that the US Indepdence is visiting Sydney harbour, just to share their dreams, to give them hope. The brain that fires together.....wires together. Imagination stimulates a developing brain, the child's brain literally grows when they imagine !! Benjamin Franklin ....Martin Luther King.....these men had dreams....
Join me in turning the tide on the tales of the lost treasure of imagination. Share in the child's joy, hold back turning on that t.v., dance a little more, turn up the music, visit a museum, spend a day at the beach, go bush walking.....without you the child's imagination is at risk of extinction.....
PS There is of course a down side to the use of the imagination, random bursts of laughter, screams of joy, you use a lot of tape, ribbon, fabric and staples !! Arm yourself with a trusty toolbox. Imagining also has some side effects - it results in a loss of boredom !!!
Monday, January 4, 2010
the 'owning things' obsession
Peter McAllister hit the nail on the head in 'Manthropology' only he referred to the male human beings and how little they have evolved throughout history....when we look at what man/woman/child started out with, a hole in a rock or thatched hut, basic purpose built tools, comfort for warmth to meet basic needs, we have to wonder who really evolved? Maybe the history books have it all wrong and this is actually a species in reverse. This constant obsession with objects, with owning things, with controlling people, owning people, defining themselves by the label they wear, drive or how many properties they own. Why is it the question "so do you rent or own your house" creeps into so many introductory conversations or "so what do you do"....you can usually tell the sincerity and intelligence of a person by how quickly they accept "I'm a Leisure technologist" as your answer and due to their brain being composed of mostly crap, they don't have the RAM in their brain to process new information outside of their understanding......Sad really....that human beings have become so detached from their emotional perception that the cannot here the voice of their soul, the empty void of past pain, hurt, loss, loneliness screaming out to them to listen, to feel to be.....they can't here because of the ka..ching...ka....ching of the cash register or the the jingle in their wallet (or their partners?), they cannot see the invisible cord which connects them with their children, just like the umbilical thru birth, hanging by a thread, the risk of being ripped from their child's heart, because they are blinded by the light shinning out of their gluteus maximus, they miss seeing what they consider 'the little people' because their head is held up so high, propped by what they consider status, that they walk straight over what matters most to get more things, to get where they believe it is where they want.
Life truly is a journey, one of discover, where we are headed is not on any map, you cannot GOOGLE it, its inside you all along. There are roads, they connect your heart and soul with each other....we choose who we become, how we treat each other, how we treat ourselves, what sets us apart from other species is our ability to choose our path....any attempt to fill this empty feeling inside with 'things' with 'status' with '$$' will be lifelong, a bottomless bag, these things will block the roads connecting our hearts and soul, block our vision of what our children really need, distance us from partners, family, friends and colleagues and erode the very fabric of what makes us the most unique species on the planet.....all that we have at the end is a dash, a simple line between the date we were born and the date we die - How will you live your dash ?
Life truly is a journey, one of discover, where we are headed is not on any map, you cannot GOOGLE it, its inside you all along. There are roads, they connect your heart and soul with each other....we choose who we become, how we treat each other, how we treat ourselves, what sets us apart from other species is our ability to choose our path....any attempt to fill this empty feeling inside with 'things' with 'status' with '$$' will be lifelong, a bottomless bag, these things will block the roads connecting our hearts and soul, block our vision of what our children really need, distance us from partners, family, friends and colleagues and erode the very fabric of what makes us the most unique species on the planet.....all that we have at the end is a dash, a simple line between the date we were born and the date we die - How will you live your dash ?
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