Like most human beings, I have my fair share of anxiety, which is weird, given that I am retired. What do I have to be stressed about? Well, like you, I’m stressed about normal things. Like “Is my daughter happy?” I stress about money and debt (see: money). I worry whether our guests happy. Also, we have an aging barnyard, and I hate it when my animals die, no matter how old, so I worry about losing them. But, since that isn’t enough, I also have a LOT of anxiety about the state of our planet. Namely, climate change, and the inevitable loss of entire trophic levels of species. I carry a lot of generational guilt. Our kids and grandkids did not do this, and didn’t contribute to it, yet they are tasked with not only dealing with it long after we’re gone, but hopefully fixing it. I know. Total buzzkill Janine. This blog will be more uplifting as it progresses, I promise.
In order to not fall into the inevitable abyss of climate depression, I decided to get certified in Permaculture.[1] What is permaculture? Well, according to the Permaculture Institute: “Permaculture (the word, coined by Bill Mollison, is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture and permanent culture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people — providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.” (https://www.permaculturenews.org/what-is-permaculture/).
Getting certified in Permaculture design greatly helped my anxiety. Because I learned cool ways to grow food and live restoratively[2] and I learned that, gloriously swimming below the radar of the mainstream, talking heads and politicians, as well as what appears to be a large sea of indifference, are an army of people/cultures looking for and finding solutions. People who are taking action on climate change while finding ways to feed and shelter not only ourselves, but the species we live along side with.
With all these questions/answers/anxieties and solutions swimming around in my head, I was going about my day looking for a tomato cage in our “bone yard”[3]. It was there that I happened upon a little snail chowing down on a mushroom in the moss under the shade of the fir trees. Intrigued, I sat down to watch him (or her, it’s hard to tell with snails). This little snail was REALLY ENJOYING his mushroom.[4] Like, if I had a highly sensitive recording device, I KNOW we would have heard tiny “NOM NOM NOM NOM”s coming from his happy little mouth. So I visited with the snail for quite a while. [5]
While visiting with my snail (and P.S. the picture posted here is THAT SNAIL), I realized that my blood pressure came down, my pulse slowed, and I relaxed. I breathed in the aroma of Balsam fir trees in the forest. I calmed down.
I can’t fix climate change. I can’t fix it globally, I can’t fix it regionally, but I can improve my little part of the planet. I can choose to grow native plants that provide food and shelter to pollinators and all the species that rely on them, and I can grow food for my family. I could make sure the little snail and all of the species and soil biota and fungi and trees and flowers and grasses were at least not harmed by me, but at best greatly supported by me. Imagine what we could accomplish if all of us did that? I still think of my snail when I start to fret about the world. That little snail had it all figured out. If he can live his best life, then so can I.
When I worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I signed my emails with a quote from Samuel Butler: “All of the animals but man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.” I try to take that to heart. After all, sometimes having a good meal with a new friend is all you need to be happy.
[1] P.S. if you are interested, see: https://sowingsolutions.org/ --its wonderful, and it was where I was certified in permaculture design.
[2] Yes, that's a word, and we’re still learning and always will be.
[3] A bone yard is a term used in the construction industry to define a place where construction materials are kept. The “bones” of a construction project. So, no, we do not have people buried behind our garage. That we know of…
[4] I get accused of being “anthropomorphic”, but I posit that humans aren’t the only species that have emotions, so is it anthropomorphic to assign an attribute that was already there? P.S. also, though I love them dearly, scientists can be soooo boring.
[5] It should be noted that Tim is used to me going missing for chunks of time, as I might go off in the forest watching for squirrels, rabbits, mink, frogs, snakes and the occasional fairy (and p.s. I choose to believe in magic, so fairies are real, dammit).
.
コメント