Gratitude is the topic of the Green Moms blog carnival this month, which will be posted on the Best of Mother Earth blog next Monday. With Thanksgiving approaching, we’ve been asked to write about the three green things we’re the most grateful for. Which raises the question:
What’s green?
For example, is it greener to bottle wine in glass or plastic? Most Fake Plastic Fish readers would say glass. But there are plenty of other well-meaning folks who claim plastic is the greener option because of its light weight.
We might not all agree on what products or procedures are the greenest. And some things that we once thought were green (Nalgene bottles for example) turn out not to be after further research. But what green folks have in common, I believe, is the desire to create a world in which life can continue to thrive indefinitely. Life itself is what makes people take up the “green” cause and label themselves and their products and practices “green.” So, with that in mind, these are the “green” things I am most grateful for:
1) This moment, which finds me sitting at a plastic computer, typing this post on a plastic keyboard, listening to a plastic radio and the squeak of Michael’s chair next to me. Nothing exists outside of this moment. Nothing. It’s all we have and all we ever will have. It’s the greenest thing there is.
2) The breath going in and out of my lungs in this moment and connecting me with all other breathing things in this world. Everything, in fact, that has ever breathed. What an amazing ocean of air we live in, mostly without thinking about it, like fish oblivious to the water in which they swim. In and out. In and out. Even while we sleep. We might disagree on the best ways to keep the air breathable, but the fact is that we all have to breath it.
3) All the trillions (quadrillions? more?) of life forms sharing this amazing, insane world. The people who use plastic. The birds and fish and sea turtles who eat plastic. The lives that are saved by plastic devices and the lives that are harmed by plastic poisons. The people I meet each day who are trying to do their bit, step by step, to protect the planet, and the people in my life who tell me they don’t care. And the organisms that will eventually evolve to thrive on plastic. This crazy stew of life and pollution that I am privileged to be part of. What a time to be alive, working for a cause while recognizing that we could be wrong.
This past Sunday, my Green Sangha chapter discussed our 4th Principle:
Questioning Ourselves
We constantly live with the questions of what is authentic, loving, and appropriate action. We’re willing to not know and be open to other points of view. We know we could be wrong.
I am truly grateful to be a part of such a nourishing community of activists who support one another while leaving ourselves open to the possibility of change, not only in the world outside but inside ourselves as well. Realizing there is no inner or outer fundamentally.
And I’m also grateful to be a part of the community of bloggers and blog-readers, people from all over the world whom I never would have met before the Internet made such communication possible.
Thank you all for the work you’re doing. Tomorrow, I’m going to write about a few people who have taken up the plastic-free challenge and have written about it on their blogs. For each of them, there are many, many others who quietly make changes in their own lives without tooting any horns. I wish I could toot a few horns for you. Keep doing what you’re doing and know that you are needed and appreciated.
