Dust off an old Dream

Thanks again to Nicole Antoinette for shaking up my world yesterday. Her blog post was all about redefining failure. Instead of viewing failure as not achieving our goals, we should view failure as not stating or chasing after your goals in the first place. Hear here!

Nicole suggested you ask yourself these questions (among others), "Who do I want to be?", "What do I want to experience?" and "How can I fully show up for myself?" Each question was it's own summit to climb and I stared at that first question for what probably added up to hours in total.

Of course I wanted to distract myself, to check my emails or walk away, but I sat there and determined not to move until the question was answered. Who do I want to be? Who DO I want to be? Dammit I don't know!

I knew I didn't want to be employed. I think wage slavery is a mugs game I've been playing far too long, but I've never been one of those people who had a talent they could make money from. I have researched a MULTITUDE of home-businesses from sewing to market stalls but never found one that could make a comparable income.

A few years ago I quit my administration job to become a kennel-hand; this was by FAR the closest I had ever been fulfilled by my employment (I love animals), but in the end seeing all the good animals put down every week was too much to bear. At least I found my beloved Winstan there and I managed to save just one.

Winstan lying on Jess

So all I had to go on was: I want to be self employed and I want to help animals. Then the little light bulb went on over my head; although the better analogy would be, then the fog cleared away and I could see the light bulb over my head. You see I remembered rather than realised that I have always wanted to run an animal sanctuary. Big or small, it doesn't matter.

However everyone had always said, "You can't do that, they're money pits" which, of course is true. So I chalked it up to a pipe dream and forgot all about it. Until yesterday.

So here, now, I say to you all. I WILL have an animal sanctuary. And if I don't make it, at least I tried, and then I haven't failed at all.

Be present this Christmas

I haven't blogged recently because I've been really down of late. The calm I brought back from Bali has definitely left and the only saving grace is my Christmas holidays start at 4pm today.

It is tough being an emotional species, all around me are people who are excited, stressed or depressed and Christmas seems to be a catalyst for emotional extremes: the highest highs and the lowest lows.

This year I'll be having Christmas at my parents house, for what will most likely be my dad's last Christmas. His myeloma seems to be progressing faster than originally expected so the pressure is on to make this a 'happy family' Christmas for everyone to remember, and there is nothing like emotional pressure to add to the festive season!

This week I have also forcibly changed my sleeping pattern from late-to-bed-late-to-rise to an early-to-bed-early-to-rise pattern by going to bed an hour earlier than usual and getting up nearly two hours earlier in the morning. The reason I'm doing this is our summer has already started with a heat-wave and I've found it WAY too hot in the evenings after work to go running. 

Now I'm awake at 5am and have an hour and a half of cool air to exercise in before the temperature starts to soar (that's the plan anyway, so far I have only managed to walk my dogs that early). But I've only had about 5 hours sleep each night as it takes me hours to fall asleep when I go to bed earlier, until the exhaustion kicks in that is. Last night was the first night I fell asleep within an hour so at least my body is figuring out what I'm doing. 

So with the end of the year in sight it's a natural time to reflect on the year that has past and look forward to the next year coming. Having said that, after a little reflection I need to bring myself back to the now, lest I lose myself in fantasies and nightmares. The calm that returns when I'm consciously in the present is fleeting, but with practice will become less so.

That is my plan for Christmas, to be present, as much as possible.

Have a Happy Christmas everyone.

Be the change

Starting tomorrow I have a week off work to go down to The Paddock and plant 200 native trees, shrubs and herbs on our block of land. We own 40 acres of ex-pastureland outside Woodanilling WA, which means we own 40 acres of long grass with a small copse of trees.

About ten years ago when Mike and I were a new couple, both disillusioned with the way the world was going, we wondered what we could do to break out of the cycle of wage slavery and improve a little piece of the world.

Slowly a plan came together to find a piece of land and make a (mostly) self-sufficient community where people could come and stay and learn or share skills. Originally this idea was going to be funded by a café, however once we realised (a) how expensive leasing a café would be and (b) how risky a venture funding one business with another would be, we decided to slog it out the slow way and work full-time while funding our plans.

So here we are, two years after finding the right property we are about to embark on the first tangible step toward making The Paddock a dream come true. This initial planting is to form a windbreak that will protect our orchard trees (to be planted next year) from the extreme sun and wind of the area.

Each year we will extend the revegetation zone by however much we can afford; eventually half of the 40 acres will have native bushland, aimed at encouraging the native wildlife to return. This zone will protect the permaculture food forest and orchards which will produce enough food for a family and surplus for sales.

We plan to build a strawbale house for us to live in and at least three tourist accommodations to rent out and for wwoofers/family/friends to stay in. A key part of the design is to include at least one workshop where people can come and share tools and skills; we will run courses including a permaculture design course to teach people how to simply and cheaply feed themselves.

All this comes from an ideal that if the world isn’t perfect, ask “what can I do to help?” I used to get very depressed watching the news and thought it was all too hard; I felt helpless and afraid. The humour of Bill Hicks helped me realise that watching the news is actually a form of media control of the populace: I was MEANT to feel helpless and afraid, that’s what keeps a population compliant. 

 

Then you look out your window… there’s no war, famine, murder. Yes, these things ARE going on in the world, but where is all the good news? The stories about people going out of their way to help each other, the stories of people who give without thought of reciprocation. 

We live in communities where people generally help other. You may not know your neighbour’s name, but if you saw him or her fall, you would rush over to help them up. Studies have been done repeatedly which prove humans are helpful, social and community minded – but you never see that on the news! 

What change would you like to see be in the world?

A dream or a new reality?

Good morning world. I had to start early to get this out.

Last night, in fact, this morning at some time between 4am and 5.30am I had the most amazing dream. The details aren’t important, but it was full of fear and fantasy; a life-and-death situation. Over the years I’ve learnt that (for me at least) the details of the dream aren’t important, the only message to be read in dreams can be found in the over-riding emotion you are left with when it is over.

In this case, when my alarm went off and I realised that my world of chases and drama was over and it was time to get up and go to work, all I wanted to do was go back to sleep to face my fears and fulfill my potential in THAT world. In this world, I was just going to go sit at a desk and answer a phone, while ‘dreaming’ of my life that is to be.

Is that what life is? A boring alternative reality? It reminded me of a quote from one of my favourite movies of all time: Waking Life. “Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration as he realized that at last, something was happening to him.”

That is exactly how I felt upon awakening this morning. Given the chance I would have chosen a life of danger and immanent physical threat, over the usual day-to-day drudgery – just to feel alive. It’s a terrible irony to feel more alive when dreaming than when awake.

But, to move past ‘wishing’ for another life, the concepts in Waking Life show us we can say yes to each moment. That each moment of our lives and our existence are unique and amazing in their own way. Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman (my favourite book) and the movie that followed, Peaceful Warrior also explain this concept beautifully.

On my way to work this morning I didn’t pull out my smart phone and play games, or read a book. I meditated. I felt the breeze on my face at the train station, heard the conversation of strangers on the train, and noticed the play of light on the leaves of the trees. Gorgeous.

Now I don’t need the risk of danger or the thrill of the chase to be happy with life. 

I can just say yes.