I've been feeling a bit more magickal lately, which is cool. The full
moon is tomorrow and I'm planning to do a good yoga & meditation
session like I did for the new moon. It feels really nice to just slow
down and take care of myself like that.
The books that I ordered arrived this week! I'm about two thirds of
the way through Hope Jahren's The Story of More, most of which I read
last night. It's a really good book. After I finish lending it to
everyone I know so they can read it, I want to go back and annotate it
a bit. There are a lot of good numbers in there that would be good to
reference. Also, I agree with a lot of what she writes. I, too, hate
cars and would like to move to a country where I can walk/bike/take a
train everywhere. She also touched a little bit on the Monsanto
monopoly and things like that and it's like, yes!!! I really do think
that we (the "developed" nations) have backed the entire planet into
an impossible corner regarding the environment and energy usage and
such, and I don't know if we can convince the powerful people to "use
less, share more" (in Hope Jahren's words). I haven't read the last
part of the book yet, but I hope there's at least something actionable
that we can do. I know that there's a lot of doom and gloom when it
comes to human treatment of the environment, but being depressed about
it won't lead to any sort of change.
The other book that I got is Green Wizardry by John Michael
Greer. I've only read the intro so far, but it seems promising. I like
the idea of "modern wizards" being people who know how to garden and
compost and stuff like that. It's a very different tone than The Story
of More so far. It's less about the environment and how we got here,
and more about "Look. No one is doing enough to reduce energy usage
and take care of the environment, so shit is going to hit the fan
eventually. Rather than hoping that you're dead by then, you might as
well learn some skills to make that world a bit more comfortable".
My partner and I were also talking about planned obsolescence last
night, and wow, that shit makes me angry. It's ridiculous how much we
throw away and how *normal* it is. A lot of environmental talk centers
around how little power consumers have and that nothing is going to
change unless big corporations stop pumping carbon dioxide into the
air, and that's a valid point. I also think that we as consumers have
to change, too. The "American lifestyle" is not even remotely close to
sustainable. We need to stop relying so much on disposable things and
plastic whatevers. I realize that I've been rambling about this for a
while, but I've been thinking a lot and this helps to get my thoughts
straight. Either we fundamentally alter the way that we live (and
that's almost surely going to have to involve dismantling capitalism),
or we're fucked. And so far, we've barely done anything to get off of
the latter path.
I think it's time for me to get more involved in mutual aid. And start
a garden. I really want to do that.
(I know my feels entries always are way longer than what people
usually post, oops. This is just a good brain dump. Feel free to send
me an email on here to talk about stuff if you want!)
