Thoughts on Abundance

Photo by Livinus
 

"John has a simple world view that he espouses, and it is one that I have been trying to grasp.  At its heart is the idea that we are often raised in a world that teaches scarcity.  Because love is scarce, we must compete for affection.  Because money is scarce, we must fight to accumulate as much as possible.  Everything - from attention, to resources, to compliments - is in short supply, and so we are programmed from an early age to work to get our share.

His simple message is that such a world has it all wrong, and that in fact we live in a place of abundance, where the start point is that we get everything we want - or something better.  He teaches that struggle is optional , and that we manifest our realities, and that we forge our lives exactly the way we want them."
 - From "Small is Possible: Life in a Local Economy " by Lyle Estill

Its not easy to cultivate a mindset of abundance in a world where 'enough' is an almost alien concept and where scarcity and competition are built into our economy and society.

Although it seems contraindicative, the best way to create an abundance mindset is to share what you have.  Giving signals to yourself and others that there is plenty, that there is more than enough for everyone.  So if you need love, be loving.  If you need inspiration, help others find theirs.  If you are short on money, share what you have with those who's need is greater.

If you are stuck and all you can see is scarcity, take a step back and look at the big picture.  The world is a big place, there are plenty of people who will love you, no end of great opportunities for work, trillions of dollars . . .

Focus on what you have , rather than what you lack.  Or, consider the glass half full rather than half empty.  By focusing on the positive, you will bring more of the good stuff your way.

Miscellany Monday

1. I read this article about how the escalating costs of childcare mean that raising a child in Britain now costs £800 a month.  Surely, what they are really saying is that the cost of getting someone else to raise your child has risen to £800 a month?
   
   The article also states that "grandparents are increasingly being asked to take care of children because both parents are required to hold down full time jobs to support the family."   We live in a society where having the latest fashion, a new car, a big house (and accompanying big mortgage) are all considered necessary.  Perhaps if we thought more about what was really important to us we could afford to raise our own children.
   
   
2.  I recently downloaded the DoGooder browser plugin (for firefox of course!).  It hides the generic ads you see on the internet and "shows you thoughtful green related initiatives, philanthropic calls to action, and health and wellness ideas instead."  And 50% of its profits are donated to charity.
   
   
   
   
   
   Nothing is Good from DoGood Headquarters on Vimeo.
    
3. Vote for your favourite New Zealand plant/garden organisation to benefit from the LovePlantLife.com endowment fund - and win 6 packets of seeds from the LovePlantLife range, a copy of Save Your Own Seeds and Growing Nutrient-Dense Food by Kay Baxter from Koanga Gardens!
   
   
4. I love this gorgeous print from artsyville's Etsy store.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Did you know that $.25 is all it takes to provide a single child with both vitamin A and antiparasitics for one year? You can help save lives by suggesting the VIVAPRIME Facebook page to your friends. For every person that "Likes" VIVAPRIME, they will donate $.25 to Vitamin Angels to help malnourished children in need around the world.  All it takes is a few clicks to make a difference!

Wendell Berry’s 17 Rules For A Sustainable Economy

"A proper community, we should remember also, is a commonwealth: a place, a resource, an economy. It answers the needs, practical as well as social and spiritual, of its members - among them the need to need one another. The answer to the present alignment of political power with wealth is the restoration of the identity of community and economy.
(pg. 63, "Racism and the Economy")"
— Wendell Berry (The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry)

Wendell Berry is an American poet, novelist, essayist, philosopher and farmer.  He was born on August  5 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky, where he still lives and farms on the family farm.

He is a strong defender of family, rural communities, and traditional family farms. He has developed  these 17 rules for the healthy functioning of sustainable local communities:

1. Always ask of any proposed change or innovation: What will this do to our community? How will this affect our common wealth.

2. Always include local nature – the land, the water, the air, the native creatures – within the membership of the community.

3. Always ask how local needs might be supplied from local sources, including the mutual help of neighbors.

4. Always supply local needs first (and only then think of exporting products – first to nearby cities, then to others).

5. Understand the ultimate unsoundness of the industrial doctrine of ‘labor saving’ if that implies poor work, unemployment, or any kind of pollution or contamination.

6. Develop properly scaled value-adding industries for local products to ensure that the community does not become merely a colony of national or global economy.

7. Develop small-scale industries and businesses to support the local farm and/or forest economy.

8. Strive to supply as much of the community’s own energy as possible.

9. Strive to increase earnings (in whatever form) within the community for as long as possible before they are paid out.

10. Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community and decrease expenditures outside the community.

11. Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, and teaching its children.

12. See that the old and young take care of one another. The young must learn from the old, not necessarily, and not always in school. There must be no institutionalised childcare and no homes for the aged. The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young.

13. Account for costs now conventionally hidden or externalised. Whenever possible, these must be debited against monetary income.

14. Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programs, systems of barter, and the like.

15. Always be aware of the economic value of neighborly acts. In our time, the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighborhood, which leaves people to face their calamities alone.

16. A rural community should always be acquainted and interconnected with community-minded people in nearby towns and cities.

17. A sustainable rural economy will depend on urban consumers loyal to local products. Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive.

Nothing Like a Good Book . . .

Your reading time each day should be time that’s just for you and your internal universe. Make sure you honor yourself with that time. Every hour that you spend reading a book instead of watching television is an hour that you’re on the path to finding the satisfaction of enough.
- Postconsumers.com

If you are looking for inspiration, motivation, or education to help you change the world, check out this awesome list of 100 Best Books for Humanitarians.

The list is a treasure trove of great titles for readers who want to make a difference!  It includes everything from memoirs of child soldiers, to books that help you build your understanding of humanitarianism and humanitarian efforts.

So head on down to your local library, grab a book (or a whole pile of them!) from the list and settle down in a comfy chair, turn off the TV and enjoy a great world changing read!

The times they are a-changing

Fossil fuels will one day go the way of the dinosaur. Until then, it’s up to us to make

our contribution to change the world for the better.

This article was written by Ian McCartney of Equator Digital Agency in Glasgow.

Fossil fuels have served human beings well over the centuries. They powered the industrial revolution, they put the railways in motion and they put man on the moon. But it was always the case that fossil fuels were eventually going to go the way of the dinosaur. For one thing, the resources are finite. But even if they were unlimited, the originally unforeseen consequences of global warming would mean that alternative sources of energy would need to be found, and inevitably eventually become the norm.

While the day of renewables is dawning, the day of them being our main source is still a fair way off in the future. Until then what we have is a mix of renewable and conventional sources. Some companies have taken the lead on renewable and are on their way to an ever increasing component of renewables in their mix. So, if we require to power our country, this Scottish power company is enviable in being at the forefront of renewable technology and provision. Scottish Hydro are the UK’s largest generator of renewable electricity. And with a good few large utilities companies competing in the UK, that’s no small feat, and surely one that’s set to grow. Wind and water are the way forward, I’ll avoid making a seafaring pun here though ;)

The company also has fascinating plans to introduce a “smart meter” which is much more sophisticated than a conventional energy meter, and will provide the consumer with real-time data on their own energy consumption and costs. This looks like a real step forward, after years of conventional meters, which only indicate electricity use by means of a spinning metal disc!

And as to the future? A recent report states that, interestingly, Renewable Energy could support 8.5 million jobs by 2030. That's going to be a lot of people, a lot of revenue, and the emergence of what amounts to a new world industry.

It’s probably not fantasy to speculate that the world may right now be on the brink of a revolution every bit as transformational and as economically empowering as the industrial revolution. Only this time around the revolution will not only be high-tech, computerised and fast-moving, it will have the environment right at its heart.

In the meantime – what can we do, as individuals, to ensure that we are not living beyond our carbon means?

• Get political with a small ‘p’. Find out what each party’s green/ ecology policies are, and make note to vote according to which you feel is the greenest. You won’t be alone in doing this – a Green Party MP was voted into parliament for the first time ever just a few weeks ago.

• Calculate your carbon footprint. Not scientifically exact, but useful for highlighting areas where we are using too much. Check out this site for details.

• Recycle. Yes, I know you’ve heard this command many times. But it has to be done. It’s easier when you think of it like this: garbage is your last resort for stuff that can’t be recycled. You’ll be amazed just how much less stuff you throw out when you do (as I call it) "priority recycling". It also makes you feel better, knowing that your detritus isn’t going to spend millennia in a landfill site!

• Travel smart: If you need a car, get a hybrid. If you can walk to work, do it. If you’re travelling abroad, shop around for the greenest travel provider. These small instances of putting the environment first have a bigger collective effect than we realise.

• Buy smart: Your supermarket might think it’s worthwhile shipping potatoes from Egypt. But the farmer up the road definitely won’t. Vote with your wallet, it’s a real catalyst for change.

• Eat smart: Find out which foods are carbon light and work more of them into your diet. Red meat might taste great, but it’s only recommended in small portions for good health. And small portions will help with smaller carbon output, so we all win.

What is Community Led Development?

Community led development is a movement that is gaining traction around the world as people in under-resourced, neglected or impoverished areas seek to rebuild their communities and re-establish a sense of pride in the place where they live.  Its about communities working together across traditional boundaries to create change and solve the problems they face.

Community led development is:

• inclusive
  'Powerful communities create a place for everyone's gifts - there are no strangers - Mary Nelson
  
  
• open and transparent
• happens from the inside out
  'Meaningful and lasting community change always originates from within, and local residents in that community are the best experts on how to activate that change.' - Peter Kenyon, Bank of IDEAS
• constant, two-way communication
• builds capacity
  'Communities that view their citizens as their greatest asset and invest in the development of their full potential are those that will have the capacity to effectively compete in the global political, social and economic arena' - David Littrell
• uses local resources as much as possible
• embraces differing viewpoints
• encourages communities to support and take ownership of the solutions they create for themselves
• believes in the community's ability to solve its own problems and make things happen

How do you define community led development?

Rules of Engagement

If you're going to be changing the world, chances are you aren't going to be doing it alone - and there will probably be more than a few meetings involved.  Change can be a contentious process, and in order not to let conflict get in the way of progress, it helps to lay down some ground rules.

Here's a few examples of rules that can set the scene for an effective meeting: 

• No sidetalking or interruption
• Respect each other
• Speak personally - use "I" statements
• Along with the right to speak goes the responsibility to listen
• If you can't say it here, you can't say it anywhere
• Be open and honest
• Have fun - laughter is good
• Look for the best in each other
• Know the process is imperfect - we probably won't achieve all things for all people

Remember conflict is not a bad thing, its how it is managed that makes the difference between it being destructive or  productive.  How do you manage conflict in your efforts to change the world?