Gaia's Wounds: Lessons of the Ace of Coins
Mar. 4th, 2010 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
windinthemaplesGraeme and I spent the last two days up at Disney World, exhausting the last bit of my annual pass and enjoying a few days of Mother and Baby bonding and adventure. I'm in the midst of a series of epiphanies about the nature of Earth (as an Element, as a planet, and as Gaia Herself) and my time there has only furthered my thoughts about it. Like all epiphanies, I find it almost impossible to articulate and yet, I must. It'll have to come through piecemeal and patchwork and I hope it makes some sense.
I am an acquisitive person by nature. Maybe it was because I was born with the Moon in Taurus or perhaps it was my mother's influence as I was raised in shopping malls around the country or maybe something else entirely, but I seek comfort and stability and peace in material items. I have a collector's mindset. I love the good humor and humanitarian spirit of The Muppets, for example, and have held decades-long the desire to dedicate an entire room in my home to Muppets memorabilia. I can't help but want and when I get, I want more. It is an insatiable hunger, my desire to accumulate. I love crystals and when I'm in a crystal store or that mining museum in Arizona, I don't want one or two. Ideally, I want them all. I could buy a crystal every day of my life and never reach a point of satiation. Same too with vinyl art toys in blind boxes or sparkly stationary or art materials or seashells. It is never enough. I collect shells when I visit beaches around the world and those shells have poured above and out of every container I designate for them. I can't stop myself from scanning for more to take. I want sky-high alphabetized libraries of my own and endless color-coordinated closets, whole museums of stuff immortalizing my existence on earth. I could have scrapbooks and photographs and statues and picnic tables and gold-plated athames and the entire collection of Fraggle Rock DVDs and I would *still* never reach a point where I said. "I have bought all that I want." That point will never be reached on this path I'm on, because the stuff doesn't actually bring me fulfillment. I'm searching for contentment, an end to the yearning, and accumulating a lot of stuff I don't need in the process.
The Earth suffers because I take more than I need. I've read the works of Thomas L. Friedman and I'm aware that our American standard of consumption is unsustainable for our planet. I know that the undeveloped population of the world cannot aspire to the dizzying lifestyle we demand for ourselves in the Western World. Something has to give in this resource-exploitation arms race and I'd really rather it not be our planet's viability. I want our government to step in and start acting like this was a life and death matter, for all of us, and yet what am I doing myself? I acquire reusable shopping bags the way I seem to collect everything else...I have more than I'd ever need. I was raised this way, in a society where advertising executives revolutionized the way we live and convinced everyone that Kleenex were superior to the handy, reuseable, buy once hankerchief and that what we need for our own lasting happiness lies in the next product release or upgrade. I'm being tricked into taking more than my share, more than I need.
(You can probably begin to identify my epiphany as, well, pretty much Buddhism.)
So I'm living in this dream state where I'm completely insulated from the damage of my choices. If I choose to eat a slice of cheese pizza, I'm protected from having to witness the trauma of a dairy cow's existence. I don't have to explain my actions to the veal calf awaiting slaughter in his tiny plastic crate. If I buy a piece of jewelry, to join the collection of jewelry I already own, I don't have to see the laborers gouging into the heart of my Mother Earth to extract the metal to make it. I am so divorced from the reality of my resource consumption, I couldn't possibly tally what impact I make on the world with all my purchases. The pollution, the underpaid laborers, the environmental degradation, the resource competition, there are too many factors to figure out. What I am beginning to sense, though, is that I am part of the whole making this world so troubled. I am sitting at the communal table and taking more than my share. Though I cannot see all the other diners, there is no doubt that some/many/countless will be/are forced to do without because of my greed.
If it can't be grown, it must be mined. That's the mining industry slogan but it also pulls into sharp relief the reality that everything on this earth is natural. Everything I buy or accumulate or collect was grown upon or extracted from the earth. The sad thing is that once it is taken, it can almost never be returned. So I bought that stupid, useless metal pin at Disney World. I can't put that metal back, smooth over a disrupted ecosystem, and apologize for my mindless materialism. I can't restore hides to slaughtered animals, I can't rebuild the secret crystal cathedrals that were shattered apart by machinery for my tumbled rock collection. I cannot mold my junk mail back into living trees on an Alaskan hillside. I cannot return the resources that I have demanded for my sole use. It is too late for that.
At Disney World, I overheard a conversation between a father and his child. The child said, "This is boring." The father, with a tone of disbelief and fatigue, said, "We're spending five days at Disney World. I sold a kidney for this! You can't be bored." I'm that child. I turn to my mother, who has literally opened a vein (of petroleum, water, silver, gold, copper, platinum, quartz, etc) for me time and time and time and time again and I still take my purchases home and say, "I wish I had the pink one, too. Maybe tomorrow I can get that." It is a wonder how much She loves me, that I haven't been smited yet. My ever-suffering Mother.
I'm addicted to shopping. When I had not one cent to spare, I searched the ground under vending machines for overlooked coins. When I couldn't buy, I went browsing in dumpsters and gleefully dragging home what I claimed for myself and our household. I always wanted more. Now, I am blessed with abundance. I don't have as many natural restrictions on my ability to gather more and more material possessions. I can go to the thrift store with no needs and haul home bags and bags of things I didn't need. I can haul home books from the bookstore and ignore the library altogether. It is messed up. Okay, and admittedly I'm not actually addicted to shopping anymore than the rest of our society, but that's messed up enough. I am entertained by material items and I have the wealth to seek them out. I'd rather browse a thrift store aimlessly than do just about anything else. It is unnatural, it creates a chaos of clutter, and more than that--it is disrespectful. I do not value that everything I buy, everything I take into my home, is part of Gaia. Part of Her blood, Her body, Her very essence. If I owned one jacket, it would have importance. Instead, I have half a dozen and all of them treated as if they were unimportant, replaceable, devalued.
I both long for, and fear, the Little House life. Remember in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House book series, how she recounted tales from her childhood? Oh, the Christmas that a neighbor surprised them with a precious piece of candy when they were going to have to do without gifts. The one precious, tattered rag doll she called her toy. I can't tell you the number of holidays where I've had so much to open that none of it, ultimately, made any impact upon me. I've been asking my mother for years to write me a letter in lieu of a gift. I've yearned for that meaning, that message, that immaterial, precious sentiment. I tend to get makeup or a sweater, instead.
I own an old New England home-cooked style cookbook solely because of its Tasha Tudor illustrations. The "receipts" are organized into meals for all sorts of special occasions. For birthdays, there are special cakes for the children and the author's memory of her son's favorite meal. Wouldn't it be liberating to request a favorite food on my birthday, enjoy it with my family, and happily do without any unnecessary gifts?
All these romanticized visions share one siren call--the lure of 'less is more'. It sounds wonderful, it sounds healthy and necessary and yet to do that would be to fly in the face of all that our modern society is, all that I am. I'd have to become the weirdo that didn't give gifts at the holidays and I'd have to, even scarier, cut my ties to material goods. I'd have to learn to say, "I have all I need."
What would happen to the world if I did that?! My entire lifestyle, my day-to-day motivations are rooted in materialism. What would it take to shut down that programming and what would be left of life as I knew it?
It is terrifying. I'm contemplating giving my security blanket away. I don't want to.
Sarah asked, in passing, what the work of this past esbat was for me. Truthfully, it is this. I'm thinking of it as Mindful March. I have started to hear the voice and rock with the intense emotions of Gaia. I am catching glimpses of myself outside of the dream and awakening to find that I've been mindlessly consuming Her resources. I'm living out-of-balance and taking more than I need. I must learn to feel the sensation of "enough". I must make my decisions consciously. I've gotta get awake and stay awake and act accordingly. I certainly cannot serve Her living as I have been, a zombie shuffling ever-forward for more.
I am an acquisitive person by nature. Maybe it was because I was born with the Moon in Taurus or perhaps it was my mother's influence as I was raised in shopping malls around the country or maybe something else entirely, but I seek comfort and stability and peace in material items. I have a collector's mindset. I love the good humor and humanitarian spirit of The Muppets, for example, and have held decades-long the desire to dedicate an entire room in my home to Muppets memorabilia. I can't help but want and when I get, I want more. It is an insatiable hunger, my desire to accumulate. I love crystals and when I'm in a crystal store or that mining museum in Arizona, I don't want one or two. Ideally, I want them all. I could buy a crystal every day of my life and never reach a point of satiation. Same too with vinyl art toys in blind boxes or sparkly stationary or art materials or seashells. It is never enough. I collect shells when I visit beaches around the world and those shells have poured above and out of every container I designate for them. I can't stop myself from scanning for more to take. I want sky-high alphabetized libraries of my own and endless color-coordinated closets, whole museums of stuff immortalizing my existence on earth. I could have scrapbooks and photographs and statues and picnic tables and gold-plated athames and the entire collection of Fraggle Rock DVDs and I would *still* never reach a point where I said. "I have bought all that I want." That point will never be reached on this path I'm on, because the stuff doesn't actually bring me fulfillment. I'm searching for contentment, an end to the yearning, and accumulating a lot of stuff I don't need in the process.
The Earth suffers because I take more than I need. I've read the works of Thomas L. Friedman and I'm aware that our American standard of consumption is unsustainable for our planet. I know that the undeveloped population of the world cannot aspire to the dizzying lifestyle we demand for ourselves in the Western World. Something has to give in this resource-exploitation arms race and I'd really rather it not be our planet's viability. I want our government to step in and start acting like this was a life and death matter, for all of us, and yet what am I doing myself? I acquire reusable shopping bags the way I seem to collect everything else...I have more than I'd ever need. I was raised this way, in a society where advertising executives revolutionized the way we live and convinced everyone that Kleenex were superior to the handy, reuseable, buy once hankerchief and that what we need for our own lasting happiness lies in the next product release or upgrade. I'm being tricked into taking more than my share, more than I need.
(You can probably begin to identify my epiphany as, well, pretty much Buddhism.)
So I'm living in this dream state where I'm completely insulated from the damage of my choices. If I choose to eat a slice of cheese pizza, I'm protected from having to witness the trauma of a dairy cow's existence. I don't have to explain my actions to the veal calf awaiting slaughter in his tiny plastic crate. If I buy a piece of jewelry, to join the collection of jewelry I already own, I don't have to see the laborers gouging into the heart of my Mother Earth to extract the metal to make it. I am so divorced from the reality of my resource consumption, I couldn't possibly tally what impact I make on the world with all my purchases. The pollution, the underpaid laborers, the environmental degradation, the resource competition, there are too many factors to figure out. What I am beginning to sense, though, is that I am part of the whole making this world so troubled. I am sitting at the communal table and taking more than my share. Though I cannot see all the other diners, there is no doubt that some/many/countless will be/are forced to do without because of my greed.
If it can't be grown, it must be mined. That's the mining industry slogan but it also pulls into sharp relief the reality that everything on this earth is natural. Everything I buy or accumulate or collect was grown upon or extracted from the earth. The sad thing is that once it is taken, it can almost never be returned. So I bought that stupid, useless metal pin at Disney World. I can't put that metal back, smooth over a disrupted ecosystem, and apologize for my mindless materialism. I can't restore hides to slaughtered animals, I can't rebuild the secret crystal cathedrals that were shattered apart by machinery for my tumbled rock collection. I cannot mold my junk mail back into living trees on an Alaskan hillside. I cannot return the resources that I have demanded for my sole use. It is too late for that.
At Disney World, I overheard a conversation between a father and his child. The child said, "This is boring." The father, with a tone of disbelief and fatigue, said, "We're spending five days at Disney World. I sold a kidney for this! You can't be bored." I'm that child. I turn to my mother, who has literally opened a vein (of petroleum, water, silver, gold, copper, platinum, quartz, etc) for me time and time and time and time again and I still take my purchases home and say, "I wish I had the pink one, too. Maybe tomorrow I can get that." It is a wonder how much She loves me, that I haven't been smited yet. My ever-suffering Mother.
I'm addicted to shopping. When I had not one cent to spare, I searched the ground under vending machines for overlooked coins. When I couldn't buy, I went browsing in dumpsters and gleefully dragging home what I claimed for myself and our household. I always wanted more. Now, I am blessed with abundance. I don't have as many natural restrictions on my ability to gather more and more material possessions. I can go to the thrift store with no needs and haul home bags and bags of things I didn't need. I can haul home books from the bookstore and ignore the library altogether. It is messed up. Okay, and admittedly I'm not actually addicted to shopping anymore than the rest of our society, but that's messed up enough. I am entertained by material items and I have the wealth to seek them out. I'd rather browse a thrift store aimlessly than do just about anything else. It is unnatural, it creates a chaos of clutter, and more than that--it is disrespectful. I do not value that everything I buy, everything I take into my home, is part of Gaia. Part of Her blood, Her body, Her very essence. If I owned one jacket, it would have importance. Instead, I have half a dozen and all of them treated as if they were unimportant, replaceable, devalued.
I both long for, and fear, the Little House life. Remember in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House book series, how she recounted tales from her childhood? Oh, the Christmas that a neighbor surprised them with a precious piece of candy when they were going to have to do without gifts. The one precious, tattered rag doll she called her toy. I can't tell you the number of holidays where I've had so much to open that none of it, ultimately, made any impact upon me. I've been asking my mother for years to write me a letter in lieu of a gift. I've yearned for that meaning, that message, that immaterial, precious sentiment. I tend to get makeup or a sweater, instead.
I own an old New England home-cooked style cookbook solely because of its Tasha Tudor illustrations. The "receipts" are organized into meals for all sorts of special occasions. For birthdays, there are special cakes for the children and the author's memory of her son's favorite meal. Wouldn't it be liberating to request a favorite food on my birthday, enjoy it with my family, and happily do without any unnecessary gifts?
All these romanticized visions share one siren call--the lure of 'less is more'. It sounds wonderful, it sounds healthy and necessary and yet to do that would be to fly in the face of all that our modern society is, all that I am. I'd have to become the weirdo that didn't give gifts at the holidays and I'd have to, even scarier, cut my ties to material goods. I'd have to learn to say, "I have all I need."
What would happen to the world if I did that?! My entire lifestyle, my day-to-day motivations are rooted in materialism. What would it take to shut down that programming and what would be left of life as I knew it?
It is terrifying. I'm contemplating giving my security blanket away. I don't want to.
Sarah asked, in passing, what the work of this past esbat was for me. Truthfully, it is this. I'm thinking of it as Mindful March. I have started to hear the voice and rock with the intense emotions of Gaia. I am catching glimpses of myself outside of the dream and awakening to find that I've been mindlessly consuming Her resources. I'm living out-of-balance and taking more than I need. I must learn to feel the sensation of "enough". I must make my decisions consciously. I've gotta get awake and stay awake and act accordingly. I certainly cannot serve Her living as I have been, a zombie shuffling ever-forward for more.
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-05 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-05 11:40 am (UTC)I can see you thriving on that small house, few possessions lifestyle. I hope you find it soon. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-05 11:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-05 11:52 am (UTC)Still, I'm finding it terrifying that I go and buy all this stuff on impulse, experience the thrill of the "get", and then immediately recognize that it is stuff I don't need, won't use, or ultimately have to find a place for. I take tons of things to Goodwill every year and yet I'm still living in the chaos of too-much-stuff. There is a lasting, immediate satisfaction when I buy something I need (like a pair of pants that fits when I have none). I'm just not being aware enough to distinguish the difference between those kinds of need/want purchases ahead of time.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-05 03:37 pm (UTC)I understand completely what you mean about overabundance leading to devaluation. The Little House books are precious because of that lesson. I tend toward Eastern thought/Buddhist philosophy but don't always practice it and would like to focus on that a bit more.
Very thought-provoking post. Thank you for sharing. <3
no subject
Date: 2010-03-05 04:31 pm (UTC)I'm struggling to find a healthy balance. Like, I'm wearing a sweater that I got at the thrift store. I spent a few hours trying on everything and came home with five or six tops that fit me and looked cheery and nice. I needed that with my weight gain and shrinking wardrobe. It still feels good, everytime I see those shirts or put one on. All too frequently, though, I'm bringing things (amazing! cute! wonderful! on sale!) home and stashing them away and never looking at them again. Like, why did I have to buy that? :D The thought that I can't help myself, or that I've become emotionally dependent on hoarding "stuff" has scared me into quitting cold turkey and seeing what it feels like, if I can do it. Today's a chilly day and I'm starting to think "What can I do outside of the house, that's warmer than a park or the beach, that doesn't equate with shopping?" Sadly, I'm drawing a blank! So yeah, I'm struggling to figure it out and redefine/recognize the difference between "need" and "want".
no subject
Date: 2010-03-06 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-05 05:55 pm (UTC)"I both long for, and fear, the Little House life."
Beautifully said. Living in Boulder, I joke sometimes about being an ecohipster-- I have so many ideals that I try to live up to, and it's hard to keep them in mind all the time.
Be mindful, and be kind to yourself, too. :)