Sustainabilty/Resilience Tag

25 Nov

Posted at 18:46h in Sarah's Journal by

I’m trying to find my way back to the ‘functional zone’. I sit in the sauna. I try the steam room with eucalyptus and mint to soothe my sinuses. I exchange massages. My head is foggy. The weather is clammy cold. I sound husky, my legs move more slowly than usual. Each night I sweat and cough, wake feeling bed-ship-wrecked – drenched and exhausted with bruises on the insides. I have lost patience with the common cold. It feels as though days keep escaping from me. The habitual sense of being overloaded with communication increases as my output decreases. I notice how an underlying anxiety rises as my inbox grows. Messages wait unanswered and my to-do list eludes me, mocks me. I realise how little leeway there is between the functional zone and feeling out of control.

19 Nov

Posted at 21:45h in Sarah's Journal by

There it sits, nestling on a rail between drab coats and no-longer-treasured jackets. It has been waiting for me. Like a glass slipper, it fits perfectly. Today my prize is a pink fur jacket with illicit micro-fibres. I try to reserve my fashion purchases to the pre-loved, or organic eco-cotton. Like a well-matched blind date, we tentatively introduce ourselves, but notice the chemistry between us. I imagine how we will be years into our relationship – partnering with dresses I’m already intimate with. I glance coyly in the mirror as we snuggle behind the too-tight-fitting changing room curtain. If the universe has sent me a jacket in dusky pink with the softest touch, it would be churlish to reject it. We leave the shop together, my purse lighter, to get to know one another.

13 Nov

Posted at 15:29h in Sarah's Journal by

I stand looking up at this mature London Plane tree. Its bark is mottled and knobbled with cankers. Two arms reach out as though about to bend and gather me up. Its leaves are yellowing, thinning on top like the mullet of an ageing rock star. In the midst of the rush and busyness of freelance life, this is a moment of pause. Calling Charles Eisenstein to mind, I embrace this still centre of Hackney Downs as an antidote to “the Problem of Urgency”, that “struggle may itself be part of the problem”. Instead I dwell in the calm of tree time. I breathe; spend just a few minutes not racing to the next destination.

04 Nov

Posted at 23:46h in Sarah's Journal by

I read the poster in my head with Grata’s monotone intonation. “Change is coming, whether you like it or not.” It is posted on a hoarding in Shoreditch, where another new building will no doubt spring up. Wave upon wave of change has chased investment down this old Roman highway. Nineteen years ago I used to bring our Ford Escort to a backstreet garage here to be serviced at Holywell Motors. I discovered there used to be a Priory here on the site of a sacred well. It was renowned from 1150, then “much decayed and spoiled” in John Stow’s London survey 1525-1603. There have been countless changes in the centuries since Holywell Priory was dissolved; but Greta’s warning points to a far greater transformation than the city skyline. “Change is coming, whether you like it or not.”

25 Oct

Posted at 17:49h in Culture Reviews by

Jamie Wheal’s brilliant and erudite proposition is that in the post modern, industrialised west we are suffering a “collapse of meaning”. He identifies a necessary collective ‘griefgasm’ (Bilal’s term), to belch out our trauma. “Our ability to be of service is in direct proportion to our ability to digest our grief”. He articulates a very convincing synthesis of how to bring about change for the many not the few – “it needs to be all of us, or none of us”. He presents a diagram of the components of collective transformation. The crux is awakening through both ecstatic practice, through cathartic experience, yet connected and grounded in community. His shiny appearance, “super sexy, gee wizz” language is designed to get the attention of the well groomed smart casual movers and shakers in the audience. “How to blow your mind with household substances – respiration, embodiment, music, sexuality and substances…stacked together to bio-hack consciousness” is the programme. I share his passion to ignite courage, witness his eyes brim, and am already on board with most of what he espouses. He brings together strands to inspire “don’t curse the darkness, light a fire”(Watkinson). I would also love to hear his words weaving in circle with others – with women and people of colour. Here he stands with Yoms and June prefiguring my wish.
Recapture the Rapture: Rethinking God, Sex and Death in a World That’s Lost Its Mind. Talk by Jamie Wheel. www.tickettailor.com/events/rebelwisdom/290176/

19 Oct

Posted at 19:31h in Sarah's Journal by

In these moist grey autumn days, it’s time to gather and store conkers to keep me going through the dark cold of winter. What are my resources, my harvest of nuts? Each morning begins with a skin brushing before peeling on thermals. A few minutes of extra moving, stretching or dancing before breakfast cranks up my sluggish circulation. I will walk, breathing in nature with dogs and crows. At the end of the day a salt-water foot soak and self-massage works with sofa hour. In the winter months of ‘Persephone time’ I will sew and make things. I will eat warm winter soups and ginger tea. I will allow time to read, to steep myself in the pile of unread books under the chair by the bookcase as the nights draw in. Regular trips to the sauna with my over 50’s discount card will be a luxury heat top-up. At the end of short days I will inch closer to a lover or snuggle up with a hot water bottle.

17 Oct

Posted at 21:21h in Sarah's Journal by

‘Amazing Grace’ is the moment. Written by former slave trader John Newton (‘who saved a wretch like me’), who then converted to Christianity and subsequently condemned slavery. Voices lift in harmonies, hands flutter up. We sit as insignificant flames in the dark. With a tendency to hypervigilance, I find the scene unsettling. The sound of helicopters competes with churning fountains. The row of fluorescent yellow jackets stand guard. Incense wafts, the bells of St Martin in the Fields toll eight. A giant papier maché curlew stands, wings swaying. I sit on the cold stone floor of Trafalgar Square “touching the earth and allowing the earth to be all of me,” in Brian’s words. The mic is passed between faiths. Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Jews, other faiths and the agnostics. Some display their professions on placards to dispel the myth of the jobless and “unwashed” (which someone shouted at me this week). I smile at an ‘unco-operative crusty’ wearing their identity as ‘Compliance Analyst’. This feels like the moment to be here.

15 Oct

Posted at 22:20h in Culture Reviews by

Naomi Klein lights the touch paper and sparks of recognition and accord fly. Her arguments – as ever smart and brilliant ignite the quintessential Guardian audience and me. I sit feeling the flame in my mid-fifties with my white face, greying hair and organic veg box deliveries. I feel as though someone who speaks truth to power is delivering my thoughts and also some of my not yet articulated opinions. “We need to raise the collective alarm, to grieve together and to plan together.” She talks passionately about the metaphor of fire both in its negative and positive aspects. “Maybe you’re carrying some trauma that needs to be cleared away. What is the debris that you need to clear away on the inside so that we can clear away the debris on the outside? We have to clear away the deniers, the distracters, the doomers, and most of all we have to clear away the debris of the dividers.” She says, “we will be facing more tests of our humanity,” and asks, “what are we willing to give up?” In praise of hope, “we need to tell better stories about what the world could look like. We need to be on fire”, she asserts. I already am, but her words make me feel more confident in raising my torch.
www.membership.theguardian.com/event/naomi-klein-in-conversation-with-katharine-viner-63565032724

10 Oct

Posted at 22:51h in Sarah's Journal by

Under the eye of Nelson and the banner of Extinction Rebellion, Dr Emily Grossman comes to the stage in a white lab coat printed with the familiar hour glass logo. She packs a punch with a brief but clear presentation of current peer-reviewed climate science. Thousands of people – of all kinds including scientists – are taking to the streets to draw attention to the facts and predictions that people find it hard to hear, to really comprehend, and that governments fail to act on. Take the facts in, but hold them spaciously to allow room for the feelings they invoke. Let your feelings crack open your heart, but then reach out to connect through love.
www.facebook.com/ScientistsForExtinctionRebellion/

28 Sep

Posted at 18:14h in Sarah's Journal by

My wellbeing is balanced by putting myself first; and then taking care of others with any surplus energy. This practice is foundational, having experienced what happens when I don’t. Today it means describing my biomechanical symptoms and inner state of mind, sticking out my tongue, offering up my wrists. The acupuncturist’s reassuringly capable hands feel my pulse, tap in needles, heat me with burning mugwort on ginger and vibrate me with tuning forks. I absorb it all, feeling the shape of my need.