Counting Blessings

Sitting here at work on my lunch break, wishing I were outside at my little urban homestead working on the process of simplification and sustainability.  I really want to get my broccoli and cabbage in before the rains come. I have days where I really resent this job and having to be part of the work day rat race.  My husband works afternoons and me days which adds to the frustration.  I can really get into a funk and waste time here at work and at home smoldering over things I want to do and don't want to do.  Some of these things are completely outside of my control and my responsibility and the home projects can be accomplished in the hours I am at home if I don't get bogged down by the inner spoiled brat that really wants it her way.  It stinks being the eldest in the pecking order and a type A personality on top of it.  Surrendering to the moment and letting it unfold into the next is really key to sanity I think.  One of the hardest lessons I think I am learning as well. 

I get weekly massages, am in the middle of acupuncture treatment and recently enrolled in a yoga class.  All of these things could not be possible if I did not have the job that I have.  On the other hand (there is always a yin and yang to things) I wouldn't need so much attention to my body if I could be at home working on the things I love and not sit so many hours at a desk. 

So in my quest to become more sustainable and simplify living at home, I realize that I do bring that to work as well.  I am more aware of my body, take more breaks from the sitting position and do my best to focus and not allow the stress of a manufacturing job eat away at me.  A friend said to me last week "any one can mediate in silence",  learning to live a meditative life goes hand in hand with the simple lifestyle as well and can be done amid the chaos of life.  So I am learning to be meditative at work and at home when chaos strikes.  Since I have been putting this more into practice I find I can recover more quickly from "issues" that arise and actually feel a peace while the "issues" are occurring. I hope that I can be a good example for my peers both at work and in my personal life.  Imagine if each person practiced peace each and every day of their life.  Hmmm.....

I have learned to count my many blessings and ponder emotions more profoundly before acting upon them.  When I feel angry or upset, I am learning to walk outside of myself and take a look within to get at the source of it.  I ask myself does _______ really matter in the grand scheme of things?  Doing this helps immensely. 

What does all of this have to do with local living... a lot.  To live the simple local life, it takes looking at ourselves and our needs, wants, dreams, desires, likes and dislikes as an individual.  Local living is a social choice.  To me local living, self actualization and simple sustainable living go hand in hand.  Yin and Yang.  It is a shining example of living a balanced Locavorian life.

Be blessed today in knowing all that you have!
Peace,
Tree

Becoming a Locavore

I consider myself to be a locavore and take strides everyday to stay that way.  It is a mixed up world out there and it seems that most people are tired of the rat race and have the desire to slow down and get back in touch with nature, family, a simpler life style and themselves.  I can not really speak for others only for myself.  In that way I hope to share my journey to a simpler local lifestyle with others of like mind.

As I try to become more green, more aware, more sustainable, more simple in my life, I find that I get more and more confused, unsure and at times down right terrified.  There is so much going on in the world today.  Buzz words for a greener, healthier sustainable lifestyle are on every TV commercial, billboard, radio ad, magazine cover and food package.  Sorting out how much is hype and how much is genuine is mind boggling.  Reading labels and country of origin has become a compulsion.  I feel like some days it would be so much simpler to just go back to eating fast food and not even thinking of what country my shoes come from and who made them.  But that way of thinking is what got us overweight and unemployed. 

There is an old saying that knowledge is power.  I am not to sure of that these days.  I wonder some days if knowledge is my ticket to the mental hospital.  In all seriousness, getting simple in a complicated world is a process.  A process I feel takes a village.  Each day I try to learn something new or define a process already in place.  One thing always seems to turn into another.  Then I get the "now what? look on my face and research some more on whatever it is I am simplifying at the moment. 

I hope by blogging about my experiences will help to connect like minded folks together to share ways of becoming simpler in today's complicated world.  Becoming simple is completely connected to living a local life.  This is my journey to becoming a true Locavorian. 

Peace,
Tree