This morning, for our regular daily walk, puppy Shadow and I decided to do “errands.” Which made me wonder about the word. Aha!
And yes, you could say that this “old German” was/is “on a mission.” And that is, on each of my daily walks, to fully explore and enjoy the heart/soul connections I make with every sentient being along the way — including and especially humans, since they — we — have so much trouble showing up as our original selves. That’s what the BPP (Baby Picture Project) is all about, if you recall. However, I confess that I have yet to wear my baby picture T-shirt out in public! What does that say about me, my conditioning? I am working on it internally, and when I finally break through that mask, you will hear all about it!
So today, errands. Just like I used to do with my Mom as a kid. I’d go with her and stay in the car while she ran inside downtown stores. I liked to sit there unobserved and watch people as they walked by, wondering what was going on inside them.
This morning’s route: first, the I.U. Credit Union, then Bloomingfoods Co-op, then Starbucks.
At the IUCU, Shadow is allowed in, and as usual, sits there enjoying adoring looks and pats by those in line. One woman, about my age, especially caught my attention. She was so collected, so perfectly poised and coifed inside her mask of being an “old woman.” She reminded me of my Mom in her final years before dementia seeped in. Unlike this “old woman,” I know how spirited my mom actually was, how she hated growing older, the way people saw her as “old.” I find it sad that she succumbed to society’s expectations. And I felt sad also for the woman in line this morning. BTW: on her way out she stepped carefully around Shadow, the faintest trace of a smile on her lips.
At Bloomingfoods, I purchase three $2 trash stickers. (Well, okay, and two “extreme chocolate,” organic, fair-traded chocolate bars.) Katarina’s move out generated lots of “trash.” Where does our “trash” go. What is “away”? The question haunts me, as I see our bins fill up weekly with the packaging that attends just about any purchase not directly from the Farmer’s Market.
Also at Bloomingfoods, I spoke to one of my activist cohorts about laws we need to change next. I asked him about or grey-water laws. He agrees, they need to be changed (though they will have to be tweaked, he said, to still conform to somewhat draconian Indiana state laws). Then he added, “states with drought issues have already changed grey water laws.” He told me to come speak during the citizen comment section at the Sustainability Commision, this Thursday evening at 7 p.m. Okay. It will eat into my time with our weekly Community Dinner (green-themed this time, for St. Patrick, who, it turns out, was a bad guy and I will tell the group about him) — but hey, too much good stuff going on at once!
Shadow and I then hot-footed over to our neighborhood Starbucks, right next door to one of our neighborhood pharmacies, CVS. (How many people stop first at one, then the other? How many in our community are addicted to pharmaceutical drugs for pain, insomnia, blood pressure, stress, depression, cancer, etc.? What a racket!)
My “mission” at Starbucks was to see if they still saved coffee grounds for gardens. YES! I told them I’d stop by in the car. Which I did, expecting to get a big, messy bag of grounds for our blackberry bushes. Well no! Now even the grounds come packaged, and with a nifty “FREE” label slapped on top. I did put a $1 bill in the tip jar.
As soon as I walked in the door, there was Rebecca. She said she had called HAND, the department of the city that deals with the chicken ordinance. Since the woman who owns the house in back of the two we occupy now wants to work with us combining the three yards for permaculture, we decided we wanted to get more chickens. Each property can have five. Could we have fifteen, all in an area bordering two of them which have back-to-back chicken coops? Answer, no. Not as the law is currently written. Each coop has to be on its own property. “Well that’s a stupid law,” exclaimed Rebecca. The HAND person on the phone agreed. “Get it changed.”
Okay, so Rebecca tells me about it, and says I need to go to the next city council meeting and speak during the citizen comment section there. Okay, will do. The time I spoke against the TPP certainly did bring results. Let’s hope this does too.
The point of this post is the following: if the world is going to change, it’s up to you and me to change it. No point waiting for a savior, whether angel, an ET, or U.S. President. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for, and each of us, as souls, incarnated during this extraordinary moment so that we could be a part of the groundswell that will upend the old order that is destroying both Earth and earthlings and will usher in a new, Earth-centered, people-connected, era when each individual, expressing him or herself to the utmost, links with others in their local area doing the same.
My specialty here happens to be “outreach.” I work the edges between our little Green Acres template for transformed living in the suburbs of America and antiquated city laws defined and voted on during a very different time And, I always remember, in this and every other activity, my real work is that of relationships with all sentient beings, including city officials, who, after all, are people, too.
As Bernie says, as he keeps saying, we are all in this together.
Including those who come from the future. They are depending on us. For example, my newest grand-niece, baby Catherine Lily, who, of course, was synchronistically born on her namesake’s birthday, and who stares out here, daring us to heal our world so that her generation may live.
