books | I am an Interculturalist

Clutter to me is books, I cannot go past a good bargain and as I take my 87 year old mum op shopping every week its really easy to buy one or two a week. I am also a member of the Sunday Assembly book club in Melbourne Australia so there is another book a month. Living in a one bedroom apartment this means that I have several piles of them as I brought most of the books I had from the house I was sharing in Northcote and they fill my book shelf plus some.

I chose the above picture because my desktop sometimes looks like this, I use pictures a lot on Facebook when I comment on someone else’s post, I don’t understand why people share and comment with a heart or something like that which gives you no idea what appealed to you about the post. If social media is about sharing I think people should put in the time to contribute to another/others. I recently created 6 files and categorised all my pictures and files on desktop, heaps easier.

So what else can be cluttered, I recently attended a talk by Mary Anne Bennie, http://www.paperflow.com.au which was fascinating in the way she got people to see how we keep unnecessary things in our homes. The first question she asked was “How many towels do you own’, The answers went from two to twenty, Mary Anne asked the person who replied twenty, what do you do with them. The person lived with her husband and the children had left home, Mary Anne pointed out that they could never use more than four, One in the bathroom each, and one in the wash. She moved through each area of the house and sprung me in the clothes cabinet, I have about twenty shirts, same question, why did I need twenty shirts? Off to the op/thrift shop for some of them. It takes a breakthrough to give your precious possessions away and I am working on it on a daily basis.

I recently met a musician who has gone off the grid, moved out of his home and lives out of his car and on the goodwill of his friends. He has been doing this for over a year and the way he spoke about it on the night I met him his sense of freedom was extraordinary. I’m not up to this yet but good on him for showing it can be done.

The mind also gets cluttered with the fast paced life we live these days, constant information via phones, computers, media, hardly a break from it if we allow it to happen. I have recently returned to my meditation practice as well as my Tai Chi practice. i find this switching off of the world liberating from the constant chatter in my head. My 60 year old legs do not appreciate the lotus position but I have noticed the slowing of the chatter that clutters my mind.

So where is your clutter? Take some action to free your self from its hold. Namaste to next time my friends.

I attended an amazing community event yesterday – Rewilding the Urban Soul – a campfire conversation. It was led by two women who had had two life altering experiences and written books about them: Maya Ward walked the length of the major artery in Melbourne, Australia, The Yarra River and Claire Dunn, who spent a year living off the grid. Maya’s book is https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Comfort-of-Water-A-River-Pilgrimage/129867517114277 and Claire’s https://www.facebook.com/myyearwithoutmatches

They had originally organised it for a site that seated at about 40 people at https://www.facebook.com/CERES.Environment.Park?fref=ts but had to move it as the Facebook attendees got to over 200, about 150 turned up. They were hugely different quests but both had a similar theme: that we have lost touch with the land and had got stuck in our daily routines however noble they were. Maya had spent years organising events at Ceres environmental Park and Claire had worked as an environmental activist for over a decade.

I am fascinated by the wisdom of Indigenous people and their contact with the land , they do not own it as we think we do , they are part of it. At most of the events I attend in my local area Welcome to Country is given at the beginning of the event. This is a special ceremony that welcomes you to the land and gives respect to the land and the wisdom of the elders for the local indigenous tribe the Wurrundjeri, who have been custodians of the land for 40,000 years.

Clare was asked a questions about whether she used local indigenous methods as part of her survival skills over the year. Clare replied that she had wherever possible but that there was so little reference material for native housing that she had had to experiment using her own experiences before she came up with a practical home after two months but that she tried to use indigenous practices from around the world such as starting fires without matches for all other things. Clare was a part of a group of six people who were close in proximity to each other for the period of the twelve months.

People were more interested in the inner journey rather than the outer journey but both Maya and Clare returned the conversation to the fact that the inner transformation had come from the physical actions of in Maya’s case, walking for 22 days and Clare, in being with the land for 12 months. I asked Maya a question after the event that they often said that as humans we do not listen, but are just waiting fir the right of reply. Maya replied that yes, thats what it was all about. Another person asked Clare was she afraid of dying during the period.

So how do we get this remarkable sense of community with the land and all its creatures, including us human beings? Attending events like this one helps as people get to share their dreams and actions about being able to live like this. Take off your shoes and get contact with the land on a regular basis and feel the energy of mother earth. Have technology free days or weeks, talk to your neighbours and workmates, do not assume they do not have similar dreams.

I have brought Clare’s book and will report on it later, Namaste until next time, dear friends.