We have a responsibility, by Heather Havey, M.A.

We Have a Responsibility. By Heather Havey, M.A., www.ourbelovedearth.com


Everyday I read an article about a tragedy on Earth; they abound on a global scale in our modern world.

A billion people are hungry or starving in this world day to day. If you can visualize before you one hungry person, and the suffering that goes with this, your heart breaks and you weep. You want to feed them. I would not wish starvation on one being. To try to conceive of a billion people near starving - is impossible for me.

We have already experienced a mass extinction that far exceeds that of the age of the dinosaurs. The killer whales' bodies are considered toxic waste; their numbers are fading. Fishes are disappearing from both global over-fishing as well as from environmental toxicity. Where I live in FL, a large number of dolphins turned up dead from mercury levels in the water 21 times higher than what is deemed not-safe.

Coral reefs worldwide dying. Glaciers melting. Food propagation being owned as "intellectual property" and being genetically altered to include pesticide or pharmaceuticals within their slender green frames. So much conflict and war. So much discrimination, division, separation, death, and pain.

The examples are endless. Our world is filled with conflict, suffering, death, extinction. Because of the extent to which humans impact the world - which at this point I would consider ourselves somewhat responsible for what is happening to every level of life on the planet because we impact it so much -

WE HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO HELP.

And there ARE things that we can do.

HOW CAN WE HELP?
Infuse your life with kindness and care - toward yourself, toward others, toward animals, toward those before you in your life. PEACE THROUGH KINDNESS. This means not always making the choice that benefits yourself at others' expense. Rather, you can choose to make choices out of lovingkindness - choose that which would be most beneficial for the most life.

Please do what you can. You can choose which things to adopt wholeheartedly - to consider NONNEGOTIABLE - and you can choose levels of what you can do with the rest.

There are simple ways to start:

(1). Diet.
-ORGANIC: Everytime you choose to purchase or eat something grown organically, you are supporting healthy farming practices that lead to health for the plants, bees, soil, animals, wildlife, and people....and you are NOT supporting the pesticide industry that is poisoning the entire planet.
-VEGETARIAN: Everytime you choose to eat fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains rather than meat or dairy, you are supporting - again - healthy farming choices that use less resources than meat/dairy production; you are supporting health and NOT supporting torture of innocent beings, waste of resources, or indulgences.
-LOCAL: Everytime you choose to buy locally grown organic produce, you are supporting local farmers and you are NOT supporting the otherwise needed use of trucks/oil for distribution and also you are likely then supporting small-scale farmers rather than the corporate food production complex that does not typically have your health in heart. For nearly all big business, their primary goals are PROFIT AND GROWTH...NOT your health.
-NATURAL: Eat food that is fresh, whole, raw, organic, non-processed, and nutritious. Buy bulk. If it is packaged, canned, jarred, processed - you can choose either NOT to eat it, or to at least buy things in jars or cans that can be recycled. Recycle everything. LIMIT your use of packaging. Use canvas bags rather than plastic or paper bags.
-FREE RANGE: If you choose to eat meat/dairy, please choose to eat animals that have been raised in healthy ways that honor the animal - NOT animals that have been mass factory farmed, which leads to a life-time of horrific abuse and neglect for the animals - beyond comprehension.

(2) PASSION:
Choose a career path that brings out the passion in your heart. What are you most passionate about? As a famous quote says, the world needs people who have come alive - who Are alive - so please follow the passion of your heart, to make a difference in this world, even if that is to the person sitting by your side - choose that which gives you greatest passion and aliveness...for that is where your greatest care lies, and it will only grow.

(3) SIMPLICITY:
Do you really need those things, or is it an addiction or an accessory?

(4) THINK OF OTHERS:
When you make choices, does your love extend mostly to yourself or does it include others? Please think of others; help someone carry their groceries, smile at people, offer an open door, live generously, share ("God is in the sharing." -Neem Karoli Baba), volunteer in homeless shelters or food banks or hospices or visit the elderly once a week. The possibilities for this lie within each and every moment, and they are vast.

(5) CHOOSE THE PATH OF PEACE AND KINDNESS:
Find a spiritual path or community that helps you to find the depths of your own heart and essence, that help you to find the deep peace that lies within, underneath the wounds that shut us down and make us react in ways that we otherwise would not. Peace begins within each heart; and spreads out into the world from that place.

(6) SUPPORT LOCAL COMMERCE:
Support local artisans, local metalworkers, local artists, local business. Support American commerce, because much of our commerce has been outsourced internationally, and we need to strengthen our ailing economy.

(7) SEEK ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION & ENERGY:
Bicycle, subway, train, bus, walk, hybrid or hydrogen vehicle, etc.
Make your home solar, wind, geothermal, etc powered.

There is always more that we can do. I think at its heart this issue comes down to consideration of others and the Earth in our choice-making. At the heart of this, lies kindness.

The heart, our innate and deepest essence, is one of peace and sharing. It is only the wounded heart that hoards, divides, shuts down, rejects, judges, and so on.

We have all been badly wounded, and we can all heal our wounded hearts. This is the first step towards our own personal freedom and also the health and freedom of the world.

© 2008 Heather Havey

For more information, please see www.ourbelovedearth.com or www.peacethroughkindness.com.

If you would like to copy this on your site, please copy/paste the following link onto the article:

Original article from The Nature Way:
http://the-nature-way.blogspot.com/2008/10/we-have-responsibility.html
& See their website, Our Beloved Earth:
www.ourbelovedearth.com