Archive for repurposing
True Gifts of the Holidays
Posted by: | CommentsWe never had a lot of money to use for gifts for the Holidays in our family. There have been times I minded that, when I wanted the newest what-ever as a teen, particularly. I also minded when I wanted to go out and buy all sorts of stuff for my children. Now? I have a very different perspective.
Those years of making things for Christmas, keeping the secret of what I was making from others, the small noises behind closed doors that signaled someone was working on something exciting, built an air of anticipation that was palpable. Just like making Christmas in “Little House on the Prairie”, each of us found time to do something special for the others in the family.
Making gifts for the others in our far flung family was also both time consuming and rewarding. One year we made soft stuffed cloth mobiles for the family on the East coast. We lived in the desert at the time and had an assortment of cactus, lightening and thunder, sun, moon, and coyote hanging from a branch. Another time I made pot holders of old jeans padded with an worn out cotton mattress pad and decorated with various motifs: pears, cherries, braid, stars, and apples. Some of these are still in use 30 years later! There were wall hangings, sweaters, mittens cut from old sweaters, and knit scarfs. Some years focused on elderberry jelly, spiced peach jam and various chutneys. There was even the year of homemade Kahlua!
I remember my Mother and Father making screen printed Christmas cards, carved wooden reindeer, and lots of different Christmas cookies. My grown children still ask for the Swedish wreath of sweet dough, raisins, and pecans that was always a holiday tradition when I was a girl. I’ll be making it again this year for Christmas morning! Yum Yum!
In our large family (we are up to 20) there is a premium on creativity. There is a tradition of re-gifting (I loved this, and I hope you like it too) and passing stuff down (younger cousins always love the books, toys, and treasures from older cousins). We also love second-hand stores, unusual clothing, and funny surprises.
This year we are doing something really special. Each of the ‘kids’ is writing a story from the days of the Green Van and my oldest daughter is putting it together with old pictures as a book for each of us. We are so excited by this it has taken on a life of its own! What an exciting project, and what a lovely present! You can’t find this in any store nor get it for love nor money – unless you put the time into it and make it yourself.
And that, my friends, is Christmas! We do get a few things for the kids to play with, and Santa always comes! There is an orange in the toe, a silly game, a special food, and we always hope for the bit of music, the new puzzle, a good book and a warm fire to toast our toes by after a while. The real joy comes from not having to go out shopping, no frantic tally of who gets what, and the steady joy of doing something for someone that cannot be duplicated anywhere else.
Peace, friends! Joy of the season, a joy that comes from the return of the Light after the darkest day of the year! A gathering of hearts and kids and the warmth of remembrance for what has been; a pure wish for what is most dear to us all for the future; and a great love for what is now! That’s what this Holiday season is all about! It has been celebrated since the beginning of our human family, embroidered on by life and times, and still holding true today. Gift yourself with pleasure in the love that is in your life. Create a special moment of surprise for those you love, and leave out a plate of cookies for Santa, and a few carrots for the reindeer.
Adding My Voice In
Posted by: | CommentsThere have been many conversations with friends about the ‘state of the Union’ lately. That’s the good news! At least the disparity of the situation between the 1% and the 99% has become so evident, we now get it. Or do we? I wonder if the whole truth and depth of this attempt to overturn the form of Democracy our country was founded on is really sinking in?
Whatever do I mean? What does this refer too? Well, our food contains poisons that are compromising our health, and damaging our children. Babies are now born with up to 200 chemicals in their bodies at last count. The various state and federal governmental bodies are in the grip of international companies, international financial institutions, and large organizations with even larger self interests. None of these are human, so there is no ethical code, integrity, honor, or morals involved in their point of view or their dealings with all of us. We have become chaff in the wind and whatever money we have is the only thing left in the basket when the harvest is done. We, as people, have been blown away in the winds of very Big Business doing the one thing they are geared to do: make profits above all else.
We’re in BIG TROUBLE, Folks! And it’s going to take a large turnout of ordinary citizens to get this wagon turned around. We can do this, and have to do it now – if we value the high principles this nation was founded on. That means we have to show up!
Showing up comes in many forms, so don’t think you have to join rallies, occupy Wall Street, or sleep in a tent to make a difference. Those things all help and it is a huge part of showing up. Spending some time on your closest capitol steps with others will show up as a signal of how fed-up we are with being stripped of power. There are many other ways to get this idea across and actively join the 99%. So I’ll talk about a few.
Stop consuming goods from ALL the big box stores. Trade with each other, barter, find things on FreeCycle and Craigs List. For the Holidays, ReGift to all the people on your gift lists. Think of recycling, repurposing, and renewing as political and critical acts to alert the Big Companies that we mean it when we say we are fed-up with being treated like ciphers, sheep, and cannon fodder. Allow the GNP to take a dump this year!
Start connecting with others to establish a local economy (Denver Dollars for instance), local food, and learn what you can eat that you never considered as a source of food. There is wild food in the city, you know. Relearn what Grand parents and Great-Grandparents always knew and did. We have the skills, we have the talents, and we also have the teachers. Don’t let the rhetoric of the Big Company Journalists affect or effect you! We have people who know what to do. Seek them out and become an interdependent force to be reckoned with!
That’s how we started and those sweet juices of community and cohesion are still running through our veins. We know what we need to do. So just start…start acting out of honor and morality…start joining rallies…start unplugging from the Machine!! Just tell ’em: “Grandmother Said So!”
Positive Progress
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been off and running…networking myself into a new business – at least that’s the idea. I’ve been noticed and now I am talking to some very interesting and plugged in people. The energy, enthusiasm, and joy evident in the Urban Sustainability movement is stunning! In fact every single place we need reform, or just flat out a new system, is in a marvelous state of ferment. It’s quite pro-biotic,organically growing in communities of ideas, and dreams, and deeply grounded intent. The will is there to create something new. The pieces we need are all here as well. Creativity is fountaining up in people; they are all meeting each other and immediately connecting. The air in these meetings is so delicious – full of local, organic, flexitarian home cooking, an old fashioned pot luck with people who are ecologically conscious! We’re also bringing our own plates, cups, silverware, and napkins again! Ah! Shades of the Hippy sixties and the ‘back to the land’ 70’s! Only now it’s going mainstream.
We are all practicing the best practices for the Earth as far as we can – and ready to stretch for tomorrow. It’s so excellent to be in a room full of people who (in one way or the other) sound like you do. Or more accurately, have the same underlying vision about this next step. We all want to know what the other is doing, and enjoy seeing how it all fits into the whole. What a delicious time. This type of community is so very important right now, with the world loosening at the seams to allow for the newest configuration to emerge. And it’s full of optimism!
The “greenies” are gathering around food and becoming more eco-conscious in the process. There is a wonderful sense of comradery when you find others that don’t use paper towels, or put their tissues in the compost instead of the trash. A woman in the same master composting class as I came up to me today, beaming, because she was so pleased to know someone else that uses handkerchiefs and turns off water!
What’s interesting is this is the way I grew up! We had a well on the farm, and particularly in summer you just didn’t take your hand off the faucet. The water went on and off fast, or you filled a basin to wash, because you didn’t want the well to run dry and burn out the pump! Then the water was dumped on Mother’s roses. Cloth napkins were normal, not fancy; and just about everything got turned into something else. What happened in the mean time? Check out www.TheStoryofStuff.com for an interesting answer!
Like the first line in the Tale of Two Cities, “It was the worst of times; and it was the best of times…” Whenever you can, wherever you can, focus on what is the best about these times.
