Sew a Seed or Drop a Bomb

Having loved enough and lost enough,
I’m no longer searching 
just opening,
no longer trying to make sense of pain
but trying to be a soft and sturdy home
in which real things can land.
These are the irritations
that rub into a pearl.
So we can talk for a while
but then we must listen,
the way rocks listen to the sea.
And we can churn at all that goes wrong
but then we must lay all distractions
down and water every living seed.
And yes, on nights like tonight
I too feel alone. But seldom do I
face it squarely enough
to see that it’s a door
into the endless breath
that has no breather,
into the surf that human
shells call God. Mark Nepo
I have been quiet- sewing sewing seeds and dropping bombs, realising that that’s what I have always done in someway, to survive, stay alive, and be alive. Staying alive is one way, like a moral compass, that we believe will eventually help us to find our way in a world that constantly tells us we should but really- your mere existence is not enough.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
e. e. cummings

Being alive as the walking dead is another ( been there done that) waking up each morning with John Kabat Zin’s voice “wherever you go there you are” pounding away in my head along with a hangover headache blinding me enough that chopping off my head seemed like a good idea. It was the liver though that finally got my attention. Addiction was a desperate attempt to feel fully alive.
“The dying process teaches us how to live a healthy life” Gabor Mate
And then living fully enough to listen the way rocks listen to the sea is in my understanding the movement towards living fully. Nature is my alter. It hasnt always been. Through a variety of traumatic experiences I disconnected from my body and emotions, and nature. In London where I Lived for over 40 years Nature was not something I did, but when I spent 2 years at the ocean after my mother died it saved my life and it still does save me, if anything bad happens in nature I feel it, not because I have some moral obligation but because when we love something we protect it and at times it was and is where I feel loved unconditionally. I am still understanding Nature it continues to find ways to teach me when I listen. So when I hear climate change I hear nature is hurting in trouble and that’s what pushes me to take action. I am not a marcher or a petitioner. I can though share what I know about nature’s love through re connecting the next generations in nature, and when we listen to it -the land, the beings it will tell us show us what is needed, and how and where and when to sew our seeds. And when it drops a bomb, erupts, burns, drowns, floods or qaukes then I had better also start dropping my own bombs.

So much working me right now individually and collectively and in that I am my own landing pad my own sewer of seeds and bomber and polluter, and lover of nature. My own home and home for others the sea and the rock the mountain and the tree and I can also disintegrate and erode and flow and flood and erupt. I think that

Recently I have been reading interesting ideas about the slow response to climate change, the amazon burning. My own numbing and disconnection due to my own trauma would I know for sure have contributed to my not reacting 20 years ago. Are we then so numbed now so disconnected that we have been and still are slow to respond? When we reach to addiction of ALL kind ( and we are all addicted to something, maybe even activism-my bomb just dropped) , abuse, violence are we so numbed traumatised and disconnected that we can no longer respond or even care about yet another trauma like the Amazon burning.

My lungs have been hurting from grief my heart hurts, my kid’s lungs hurt and I am being triggered daily as my own trauma isn’t so much resurfacing but reminding me to not numb out again, to live fully -as the Amazon is burning. All I want to do right now is plant trees here in South Africa and teach the next generations to love the trees, love nature and leave a legacy by planting trees. That’s my way of responding to climate change and the Amazon burning. I no longer feel helpless in major disasters, I return to “how am I living my life knowing that I may die at any moment”. And then I fail, fall and get up again and sew a few more seeds and I listen. That’s normal. It’s what I have always done, and occasionally I drop a bomb.

It does matter how where and most importantly WHY we donate. If money is energy and you can’t get to the Amazon or any other disaster then maybe you would consider what I call the gift that keeps on giving. By supporting our initiative here in South Africa, assisting children to re connect with Nature, Trees for Tomorrow, or Youth Nature Connection Days, Nature doesn’t mind. But what Nature teaches is sacred reciprocity and just maybe by donating to a tree here for a kid to leave a legacy on your behalf, their behalf the communities behalf and nature’s behalf, we contribute to weaving a web that will reverberate for many genrations to come and somehow it will reach the Amazon one day. Please donate to Return To Origin’s Trees for Tomorrow or Youth Nature Connection days which assist young people to love Nature and themselves. What you love you Protect.

Please Donate here https://www.returntoorigin.org.za/projects/youth-nature-connection-days/  And Here https://www.returntoorigin.org.za/projects/trees-for-tomorrow/
It’s simple and thank you for taking an action today.

May all worlds bless and protect you always

Mbali