Change
Today I’ve started three very different blogs, wondering which one of them would come through to the top. Let me share one here in this newsletter, before I move to the Sunday Blog on change.
Alternative Sunday Blog
Perhaps it’s the extensive, hot summer here in Perth, with months of almost no rain, brown grass and dying trees that have done it, but lately I’ve been thinking more urgently about climate change.
About seven years ago the facilitator of a community gathering, a dedicated and unwavering climate activist said this; that all the other areas of activism need to give way to the urgency of the climate crisis. I felt the truth of it, even though it was muffled by my privilege of being a Generation Xer (on the cusp of being a Boomer) – we will likely be dead before the worst impacts are upon Mother Earth.
Through the muffle I still knew she was right, but I continued on my path of health advocacy, which continues largely unabated to this day.
Quite rightly, I know my week away in Singapore last week, a working/ writing/ family holiday is a privilege, and note that my last Sunday Blog focused on the sub-par accommodation, rather than the many joys and moments of pleasure in the exciting, melting-pot, built-up energy that is Singapore. And how luscious was the endless rain there, the green that sprouted everywhere, on roadsides, verges.
And so, here it is, my Sunday Blog, a bit of Ghandi’s wisdom. Pink for this week’s Pink Full Moon (FYI, apparently it’s called a Pink Moon because that’s when a pink phlox plant flowers in North America.)
Sunday Blog 132 - Change
It would seem that I’m leaning towards Ghandi’s misquoted wisdom of being the change you want to see in the world. Actually, he didn’t exactly say that. The full quote is as below, but I’ve edited it so it includes women:
“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As we change our own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards us. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.”
But whatever the origin of the quote, I’ve been tackling both sleep hygiene and sober curiosity, in one fell swoop. The sleep hygiene has come in leaps and bounds since I banned tech from the bedroom. As well as getting several unbroken night’s sleeps in a row, there is another magnificent side-effect. Reading more. The rules of my bedroom digital detox allow me to read books before I go to sleep, and if I wake in the middle of the night. I’ve read so many books in the last month that I’m actually starting to make a dent it my To Be Read pile. I felt quite justified in buying three more books this weekend. Also, I now don’t enjoy the feeling I get when I start scrolling mindlessly during the day and I seem to have vastly reduced this time suck. More reading, less scrolling. Win, win, win.
The sober curiosity journey is three weeks long as of today. Luckily, the curiosity survived the week-long trip to Singapore, and even up the top of the Marina Bay Sands hotel. It also survived my attendance at a fiftieth birthday party last night. To be fair, I did leave rather early once the bottle of Nosecco was drained. Progress, not perfection, as they say.
Both self-improvement kicks were inspired by listening to episodes of the Feel Better, Live More podcast by Dr Chatterjee from the UK. Long episodes, but they’ve been good while I’ve been driving about, marinading in all that positivity.
What about all this self-improvement? There’s a newness, like freshly sanded wood. My feelings are closer to the surface, jumbling and vying for attention. The discomfort in my consciousness of the (obscene) privilege of being able to travel, the unconscionable flying about hither and thither as the planet gets hotter and hotter. The wonder of rain in Singapore, and the endless greenery that comforts after the barrenness of a rainless Perth. The nurture of joining in a Friday night of mantra singing, returning to my Saturday yoga class after my away-from-home practice. Perhaps this miscellany has been cloaked in wine and choked by mindless scrolling.