When I started Walnuts and Pears my goal was to create a place to share thoughts, observations and tidbits of information on landscaping, gardening, harvesting, cooking, eating, preserving, and healthy, mindful living. A place with purpose, passion, caring, love and respect for self, others and Mother Nature.
While a lot of my energy with my posts has gone into gardening, I’ve tried to touch on some of the other subjects now and again. In the fall I tend to focus inward and pay closer attention to what I’m eating, exercise and spirituality. I also focus on what I can be doing beyond the realm of myself, my family and close friends.
Yesterday I attended the Northland Bioneers Conference (which is actually a condensed version of the Bioneers Conference which was held in California in October). Although this was the 6th event, it is the first one I’ve attended. What I can say is, wow! It started at 9:00am and went until 9:00pm. It was a full day, packed with information on sustainable living covering everything from a local level to a global level. Some of what I heard reinforced what I already know, but a lot of it was truly eye-opening on what is going on in the world today.
The most impactful thing for me was that even though we hear nearly every other day that we’ve completely destroyed the planet and there’s no turning back, I was incredibly encouraged to find out is that what we’ve been doing to correct the damage is working! It’s working on both on the local and global levels. To summarize what I learned very briefly, yes, we’ve done some absolutely incredible damage to our planet, most of which cannot be repaired quickly, but we’ve also set a lot of change in motion, which is on the path to help reverse some of the damage.
I’m definitely not saying that everything is good now or that any of us can start to sit back and relax and let other people do it for us, or that any of us have a choice as to whether or not to keep trying. What I’m saying is that if we all continue to be present in our lives and be present when we make decisions regarding what we buy, what we eat, how and what we reuse, recycle and compost, what we drive, whether we drive, carpool, bike or walk, if we are conscious that everything we do, every choice we make has an impact on the future, whether it’s the immediate future or for that of future generations, it will continue to get better. Every day we have choices as to whether we support companies that are gearing themselves to continue into the 21st century as responsible leaders or chose to support companies that continue on the old path of using and depleting our natural resources (which is another conversation all together) and eventually die out. We all need to continue to make good choices. We need to continue to inform ourselves. We need to continually pay attention to how we can do things even better. Don’t get discouraged, it’s not a race, it’s a process. This is the beginning and there is no end point. It’s a journey we’re all on together. A journey of learning to live differently than we used to or than perhaps we’re comfortable with. But we’re all in this together. Some of us are going to be really good in one area and not know so much about another and vise versa. It’s okay. We can learn from each other. We need to be more open and become more of a community now than we ever have before. We need to ask each other questions and there can be no shunning, judging, preaching just helping each other live a better more sustainable life.
I know “green”, “environment” and “sustainable” get tagged or stereotyped in many ways and are commonly associated with hippie, tree-hugger and liberal, but forget the tags, the labels and the stereotypes for a moment and focus on the goal. We all want to be here, breathing clean air, drinking clean water, enjoying life. Whether your views fall to the left or to the right, whether you’re into the green revolution, the environment, sustainability or not so much, we all care for the people in our lives. Our job is simply to make sure that these basic things that we all take for granted continue to be available not only for us and for our children, but for future generations.
Please take a minute to watch this clip from Four Years. Go. Then, if you’re inclined, follow my link to the Four Years. Go. site to take a stand and make your own committment to change the course of history.
Together we can do it.
Kate
Walnuts n Pears 