Hey! I have a request...I have been making this little series of videos (2 so far) called "I would walk anywhere with you".
It helps to show our travels and what the ride is about. I would love to get these videos out to more people so if you would, please email them to your friends, post them on your facebook walls, feel free to send them to local news stations, anything you can think of!
It helps me to get more interviews and dip into emotions and ideas a little easier when people we approach can see that we're trying to do something positive with what they give to us. These videos are put to the music of Radical Face and Electric President (same artist). Listen to the lyrics; his mind is beautiful.
Walter and I are looking right now at his college loans. We both want to volunteer more, do more, live more the way we want to live...but he owes over $50,000 and has given them over $45,000. A whopping $5,000 of what he's paid has gone to principle, the rest has gone to interest and he has never once been late on a payment.
This is just an example of the traps that we are put into. So many things have gotten out of hand like this. There is a whole life to be lived that is unrelated to these money traps. I'm not fighting against modern civilization, I know new discoveries and a lot of good has come out of today's world, but there are a lot of things that I feel have become unbalanced.
Right now I am listening to a woman on the radio called Maya Lin. She has designed a memorial called "What Is Missing". It focuses on the sounds that have slipped away from the loss of animals that have died off. Maya Lin also designed the Vietnam's Veteran's Memorial in Washington D.C.
She says that we really can make a difference by doing little things...things as simple as only buying recycled paper. When someone like this takes it upon themselves to point out all of the incredible sounds that have disappeared from species dying off due to pollution and carelessness from human beings it really makes you stop and think about how we live and what is important.
"Forests are cut down for many reasons, but most of them are related to money or to people’s need to provide for their families." -National Geographic
Click HERE to read more.
Is that not what we revolve around? Money and providing for our families? Providing for our families with money? But the buck often stops there. What this drive for money causes, devastating things like these trees being cut down in "swaths as big as Panama" every single year, is often overlooked. We don't really think about that on a daily basis, but when you do, when you really stop to think about these facts, how silly does it all become?
I have been called a "tree hugger" on this trip because I'm out on a horse every day and I like nature and I have long hair, but trees have nothing to do with being "hippie". They are one of the hugest sources of life. That is our partner. That is life. Trees, water, resources that we use up to such a degree that they are disappearing like the birds, unnoticed. Unnoticed for now anyway. With trees gone we would care less about stupid money that makes us run around like we're in a circus. We would only care about trees and somehow getting them back. I just hope there is a way to start caring about them more than money before it's all past the point of no return.
At the root of it all I believe that our lives are very simple. I think we get the most out of giving and sharing ourselves. We love to help and we love to try to heal and all of us love a pretty day with fresh air and clean cool water. This world is too fast. It just is. So fast that the sound of a bird that was once there can die away leaving an empty space that is so quickly filled with unnecessary chatter that we never hear it's silence.
It's the replacement that scares me, replacing something great with something less. It's the filling the space, filling the time, that heavies the human heart.
I always want to make it clear that I'm learning these things as I go-from interviews like this with Maya Lin, from the horse, from Walter telling me to pay more attention to sounds so things become less mundane (something he said only days ago which I find odd since I just heard this interview this morning!). I never want to sound preachy because I really don't like preachy stuff. I am just sharing things as I learn them and feel them.
There are just some things that really can't be debated. It's not one side or the other. It's a fact that these species died and will never, ever return, and it's a fact that most of us have enormous debts, and it's a fact that many of us feel strapped down to something because someone told us we had to stay there.
I believe that there is a dream that is individual to all of us and that is the path we should follow. Everyone has a little urge that they have always had, something no person placed there. It came from some place none of us know about, but was one day whispered into our minds. "I really want to do this". And then we are stopped. Stopped by fear or doubt or the ache of trauma. Stopped by the traps that our sometimes step by step lives can place us into.
I'm saying nothing probably anyone reading this hasn't already heard, but I guess sometimes it's nice to just have someone pop on the radio or wherever who makes you think again...even if you already knew.
Oh dids. You're not being preachy, you're just reminding. I think that's one of our biggest responsibilities to one another. We all know wrong from right and that we have happiness inside us if we work at it and that there's joy in the small things, but we get all tied up. we forget or we justify and then we have to be reminded. In yoga, I have to be reminded to breathe every four seconds or I really will forget. When it comes to the environment, though, it's a real luxury to be able to forget. The damages are hidden from view, whether they be extinct animals, lost livelihoods, sick children, loss of culture, debt, or ruined homes. I forget all the time and I am always thankful when someone reminds me.
ReplyDeleteGood thing I have such a smart dids. Thank you, my beautiful sister. I miss you more than the joy that comes from rubs, cookies, sunrises and sunsets, big fields, mountains, hot cider, music, smiles, laughter, wine and cheese, puppies, kittens, all little baby animals, and Italy put together.
ReplyDeleteJust a couple more months...just a couple more months. Sojey says hello.