Going green is so much more than just thinking & doing.
The green movement, most of the time, comes off on a very superficial level that does very little good and actually undermines the well-intentioned goal.
Going Green typically means, adopting a set of practices or lifestyle choices that consider the environmental impact of those actions. This includes making better choices of what products to buy, car pooling, and planting a tree. In a nutshell, Do this and that and you can save the Earth.
But what is this really? A new corporate branding, a clever marketing scheme, a naïve idealism, a momentary reprieve of guilt and gluttony, or an oversimplification to make sense of a daunting reality. Well, it can be a lot of things, but none of it is helping.
These sets of practices pastiche over the old sets of practices to save paper, cut down less trees and pollute less of the environment. Meanwhile, we continue our hurried, over- scheduled and under-appreciated lives. If we have time we add recycling to our to do list of things we should do. ‘Should’ and there is the rub, the well-intentioned act now becomes an obligation, a busied compulsion. And guilt pops up again polluting our dreams and aspirations, as dirty and murky, as our rivers and seas.
Somewhere deep down inside us is a restless soul haunting our own lives, a ghost in the machine, beckoning for deep fulfillment, wanting nothing less than a cup runneth over, vibrant dynamic life out in the world with people and nature. No compensatory purchases, no coping mechanisms, no sell out. No membership fees or fine print legalese. Not separate and equal, but together intermixing our dreams, raw and open, ripe with potential. This to me is the true Green Movement- embodied and alive- singing and dancing, living out our life’s purpose in touch with all life.
And truth is this fully open living and loving is often paralyzingly scary--true freedom is, otherwise we’d all be living it by now.
But as we give and receive the courage to open our hearts, so too shall the people around us. As we heal, so too shall the planet. If we were fully actualized, living the beautiful life we love, we would leave the job we hated, cut all the needless expenses and penchant prideful indulgences and not allow the clear-cutting of a rainforest. There’d be no need, no room for it. We would come home and love our spouse and kids and undoubtedly shine radiantly for them. The showering of limitless love and tenderness would be enough. Each of our own desperate measures to make a quick buck would cease. Gazing deeply into each other’s eyes we would know. We would stand in our mature paternal instincts and stop these 'kids' from running amok in our world and resolutely declare “ENOUGH.”
Don’t get me wrong, the bulldozing of our rainforests, natural gas fracking, deepwater drilling, outsourced overseas smoke stacks, and the contamination of our precious water supplies are devastations, deluging Mother Earth’s ability to heal Herself. These are systemic problems that require systemic solutions-- Systems Thinking approaches. Just as our own immune system becomes overburdened and overstressed, we too must not suppress the planet's symptoms with teaspoon after teaspoon of cold medicine, but rather respond to the root cause before the recurring coughs and colds crescendo into an incurable disease.
