I’ve heard lots of talk about how we can use this pandemic as a turning point for the ecology and ourselves. So why don’t we? Instead of just sitting around and saying ‘yeah, we could change’ why don’t we sit around and come up with actual ways to make that change? I’d like to challenge all my blogger friends, indeed, anyone who reads this, to start thinking up ways that they can use this pandemic as a springing board for more change in their lives.
Now, there are two ways we can move forward: as individuals and as a group.
Of course, if everyone individually does enact change, then that will have the same result as a group doing it. However, there’s higher chance of the change being long-term and permanent if the change is done as a group with encouragement and group goals and maybe even group rewards.
Because of that, I’d like to challenge people to come up with both individual and group goals and ideas. I’ll show you what I mean by going first.
So, group goals:
It would be awesome if we created groups for spiritual and conscious change where we motivated each other to drive less, stay at home more, and opt for more eco-friendly options in our lives. And I meant it when I said ‘rewards’. I love rewards. I love crafting. I love getting goodies. I think it would be epic if, in these groups, people would hand out gifts to each other for markers of success.
Say the group came up with the idea of making their towns more garden-friendly. They could start a letter campaign for these groups and individuals could send ‘gifts’ to those who wrote letters for the campaign. It could be miniature incense bundles. It could be coupons for their etsy stores (see? Promotion and gifts at the same time!). Or maybe the group could make deals with gardeners to hand out samples of, say, cherry tomatoes to anyone who shows up and shows their letter on a specific day at an event. Personally, getting positive rewards for doing conscious change would really motivate me. Yeah, maybe it’s materialistic, but I love gifts and goodies. Plus, it really could be paired up with small businesses for promotions. Just saying.
So suppose, in this ideal world, that there are people who want to enact change. What sort of things can these groups mobilize for?
- Native issues.
- I’mma say this only once, so listen up. Native issues are human rights and we ought to be respecting them. For us pagans, they ought to be like our fellow spiritual siblings. There’s tons of pagans who believe in or borrow from native practices. We live on stolen land. So come on, people! Listen to them and respect them a bit. Help them out.
- Letter writing campaigns.
- Okay, this is super easy and disabled-person friendly. It just takes some time and a pen and paper, and often costs no postage (at least here in Canada).
- The ideal would be if one person writes a letter model and then the rest of the group fills it in with their concern. Even easier!
- Planning, Accountability and encouragement.
- Suppose that, as a group, people could set up a step by step ‘becoming eco friendly’ plan that people can follow one step at a time. Say, step one: bringing your own silverware or reusable coffee mug around. I think this would help people out because it would give them a direct path on how to enact change, and due to the group setting, would allow them to feel validated and encouraged by their efforts. Again, people could reward each other!
- Online seed-swaps
- I’m pretty surprised I haven’t stumbled across such a thing already. I mean, seeds must be cheap to ship locally, or even within the same country. It would just require some sort of online group setting. A blog party mayhaps?
- Prayer/ritual circles for environmental issues
- the idea here would be to start a chain of prayers or rituals for, say, 24 hours or for a specific period of change. A great thing would be to pair these up with actual physical effort, such as a letter writing campaign, or social media campaign.
- Social media campaign
- Suppose people want to encourage each other and people beyond the group to, say, bring reusable coffee mugs wherever they go. They could set up a virtual photo challenge to do this.
Alright, that’s all great and dandy. Suppose however, that no one wants to form groups. What then?
Well, individually there’s still lots we can do. Let’s delve into that.
- Start a garden
- hey, I’m a terrible gardener and I can tell you that, even with my not so green thumb, lettuce can grow indoors. Plants can be pretty determined to survive, you know.
- Support a farmer. Say you’re disabled and cannot grow anything at all. Then pick a local farmer and pay them instead of a big corporation.
- Work less, especially outside of home.
- Try and use social commuting.
- Use Divacups and eco friendly hygienic products.
- Use reusable mugs.
- Pray for change for the environment.
- Commune with your spirits on how you can bring about change for the environment.
- Make it a part of your spiritual practice to perform rituals/prayer sessions for the environment.
- Do land healing work, if you can (there’s some great ones out there!).
- Write letters to your local government about environmental issues.
So that’s that, folks. I’m not a guru, I’m not a genius, but I think that if enough of us put our brains to this, we could get some sort of a ball rolling. And really, even just starting to talk about how to change is a great start. We need to start somewhere. So really, I’m throwing this challenge out there. Let’s start a conversation on how we can move forward from this pandemic, stronger, more united, and more environmentally healthy!
I’m tagging these brilliant bloggers in no particular order because, really, I’d love to read their thoughts on how we can move forward. There’s plenty more I’d love to hear from, but I can’t remember everyone’s names off the top of my head nor find everyone in the search bar. Grump. So please, if you read this, comment and share your ideas! Do your own post!
And I’m sticking sprout pictures here to motivate people to ‘sprout’/start new ideas!
Unhinged and unenlightened 