Bealtaine After Samhain
As we approach the end of another year, reflection begins to take form. As many of you know, I do not have a television and rarely tune into the radio, so, perhaps, I find myself with more time and silence to reflect and think.
From the little I have experienced this year from the outside world, it appears that economics has been the driving force behind every problem on this tiny planet.
The mass destruction of our earthly home has been driven by economics… cost of living… better termed the cost of dying, for it is like inheritance tax.
The cost of living is an inheritance tax on the planet, forever diminishing what we inherited and scraping the bones of children as yet unborn.
Fracking the land for gas has been justified by governments and hailed as cheap energy.
Can you tell me the last time your cost of energy fell?
From this little part of Ireland, I have witnessed the rise and rise of energy costs, whether it be gas, oil, coal or renewables…and I look out my kitchen window every day at mountains, covered by wind turbines.
The turbines multiply each year and the cost of electricity spirals out of control.
Why?
Economics…or, a better word, profit.
Nothing for the people who look at these incredible machines every day…nothing!
There is nothing in the present economic model that takes into account the real cost of anything that pays a profit to shareholders.
Take oil for example.
What is the real cost of extracting this energy source from Mother Earth?
The real cost of Nuclear Power is for future children of this Earth to pay for…there is no safe way of dealing with the waste!
Here I stop!
It is not in my nature to be negative.
I cannot write or talk for long about any sense of helplessness we may feel, looking at the mess we have made.
As a woman, I am a pragmatist.
I was reared in poverty, so have an inbuilt ability to look at the possible.
The solutions are many-fold.
The most immediate solution is, quite simply, consume less.
By consuming less, we become active participants in a quiet revolution against the status quo that appears to hold sway.
We are only a valued part of the economic model by being greedy consumers.
We live in a state of scarcity, according to the economic model, for that brings the greatest profit for the economic model. However, as I have said before, we actually live in a world of abundance, if we could just stop and see the possible.
The possibilities inherent in a simple life, where it is highly regarded to switch off lights, bake a loaf of bread, or cake, keep a few hens and grow basic vegetables… Walk more, value good quality clothes, make shoes last by polishing them…all this and more makes you a member of society with power and not simply a faceless consumer.
Consider what it is you want in the year that lies before us.
Visualize the world you want to live in.
Create a picture of a future for children as yet unborn…those we will never see, but can only imagine.
Imagine their world, for you are creating it.
Is that power enough for you?