The Sacred Balance

By David Suzuki. A really heavy read for me, bringing me into the "whoa" zone nightly. I love to read, but don't often get much time (thanks kids!). About 15 minutes before bed is all. So, this book has been with me for what seems like months.

There are 5 parts (OK, maybe more, but I would categorize it as 5). Air, Water, Earth and Fire are the first 4. He talks about the history of the planet, how things came to be, how incredibly long it took for things to be, and how short a time us humans have been on this planet (and what we're doing to it). All of these things take me to the zone. I have an 'out of body feeling' when I think about the universe, our galaxy, the sun, our amazing planet and the life that exists here.

I used to spend a lot of time reading this kind of non-fiction & thinking about environmental issues, my health. Since I've had kids I have a much harder time with it. The "Why are we here?" question has changed for me. It used to just boggle my mind, "why are we here? how did this happen? what are the chances?". I've just accepted these questions that have no answers. I know it's a miracle that life on this planet exists. Life is so good, so miraculous, so fleeting, that I need to enjoy every single minute. There is no room in my life for anger, being annoyed or frustrated, bored or sad. This is impossible of course because day to day life gets in the way of the big picture. But, I'm working on it. I'm happier. I care less about the small stuff. I am in the here and now, living life and loving my kids.

I am so happy that The Sacred Balance touched on LOVE. The last part relates our worldly experience of love and spirituality. How it is essential for our survival- it's not only cultural but biological too. Because of where I am in my life I could completely relate to the mother child love/bond. It helps the rest make sense. Becoming a mother has made my life make sense. And this book helped me to relate this life to the big picture. Whoa.

Love.

Wordless Wednesday (Our Big Tree Edition)

Beach Clean-up

Sunday we participated in The Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. It was a gorgeous, sunny autumn day. We live very close to the beach. It amazes me how much litter there was, even though it is cleaned regularly by municipal staff. Thousands and thousands of cigarette butts were picked out of the sand that children play in every day. Amazing.

I like to participate in things like this, and now that I have kids I think it's even more important. I want to set an example for them, show them what action looks like, and help them to know the impacts of thoughtlessness. We can't go on wasting, polluting, avoiding the consequences of our actions any longer. It's our kids future that we are changing; they are the ones that will live with the results of how we live today.

I hope I can instill in them a love for nature, people and our planet.

Toxic Nation

I’ve just finished reading Slow Death By Rubber Duck. Now, I thought I was pretty well informed about all of the bad stuff that we breath, absorb, and ingest. This book made me feel like I know nothing about the ways in which we come in contact with them, and what these things do in our bodies. And it’s all much worse than I thought. I do as much as I can to protect my body, and my kids from harmful chemicals. I feed them organic food as much as I can, we use natural cleaners in our home, don’t use smelly SLS filled shampoos and soaps. I buy second-hand a lot – I figure by the time we get things the chemical residue has been washed off, and (in the case of furniture) the worst of the off-gassing is over. This book has made me realize it’s much worse than I thought, and I feel kinda helpless.

I’m not going to change the things that I already do- I have to keep believing that every little bit helps. But we can’t for example, not ingest chemicals in our water. We can’t avoid BPA- even if we rid all plastics from our home. One source is public drinking water. Another- receipts. All those shiny paper receipts transfer BPA to your skin and is absorbed easily. I just bought a large box of recycled printer paper, thinking I was doing something good. Apparently recycled paper is really high in BPA because it’s largely made from newspaper---- newspaper ink is high in- yah, BPA.

It really gets me that I’ve been avoiding fleece PJ’s for my kids- except for Carters. Carter’s pj’s are not treated with fire-retardant chemicals. Yay! Right? Well…… they fail to explain that fleece is polyester and polyester is a sythetic material that has the chemicals bonded right into it. So no need for additional treatment! I like the "polyester is naturally flame resistant" part of their explanation (click here for the whole thing). There is nothing "natural" about polyester. I’m going to make an effort from here on out to only buy natural fiber clothing and bedding.

I could really go on and on and give an entire book synopsis. If you’re interested, read the book yourself. It’s very interesting material and the authors have a great sense of humour. But if you’re like me and try to do everything you can to protect yourself from the bad stuff- you might end up a bit depressed. They end the book by saying we have to make changes on a large scale- doing your personal bit by protecting yourself and your family just isn’t enough. That bit wasn’t exactly inspiring (I don’t have a whole lotta faith in humanity) but it made me feel better. We’re all in this together, on this planet, and everyone is responsible for making things better, doing things right. Rates of disease, especially cancer is just going to keep increasing until we make big changes. We’ll all realize that eventually, won’t we?