After many weeks of glorious sunshine during the lockdown, a period of grey skies and rain has set in. I don’t mind the rain, personally. Fewer people like to walk in the wet and so it’s easier to find space to be by oneself.
I love the way the rain feels. I love walking without my hood up and feeling it on my head and face. I feel alive this way. We’re too wrapped in comfort these days. Too disconnected from the earth and the elements.
Before I share a poem with you, I wanted to write a few lines to give a little context. Lately, (although it’s not really lately and more just a speeding up of a feeling I’ve been in for many years) the pull is becoming stronger and stronger within me to make bigger, braver changes to the way I live.
The poem below doesn’t constitute a big change by any stretch of the imagination, but it shares something about the way I feel about needing to make much bigger efforts to bring my daily actions into greater alignment with my beliefs about the world and the things I really care about.
I, like everyone making changes and trying to do better for the sake of our common home, am so unbelievably imperfect and there is much more that I don’t know than I do. My only intention, as always, is to continue following my heart, sharing the journey, and hoping that it is useful to others along the way.
I Was Shopping for Digestive Biscuits
I was shopping for digestive biscuits.
I had a fancy to make a pie.
But on every packet, where it said
“palm oil” in the list of ingredients,
they may as well have plastered
the face of an orangutan,
eyes drawn down in sad horror as
another piece of its home
was ripped without care of consequence
from the wailing earth.
When I returned home,
I looked up recipes for digestive biscuits
and found that they are very simple to make.
I made them.
They were delicious.
No blood of orangutan.
The supermarkets have given us convenience.
They cut out the need to labour over homemade biscuits
so we could spend longer at our desks,
oiling the machines of power and greed that turn the world.
Still, it will not be very convenient
when there is no world left to turn.
Then again, who am I kidding?
The world will turn.
But we will no longer turn in it or with it.
Love and courage,
Leah
P.S. Of course, then there is the butter to consider, the sugar, the oats. Where and how are all these produced? What is the impact? Is the pleasure of a digestive biscuit worth more than the pleasure of being alive on planet earth?
Thank you Leah. I do enjoy your emails . . . the problem of digestives, of Nutella et al are with us everywhere. I remember when we were told to buy diesel cars because they were ‘less polluting’ now we’re being penalised and told to buy petrol/hybrid/electric; but what pollution is caused by the manufacture and then disposal of the batteries and the purification of crude oil for petrol? The list is endless. People like me are unable, not unwilling, to ‘go off the grid’, so what do we do?
Thank you Patsy! Yes, the palm oil is really everywhere. And yes, the constantly changing advice and regulations about what is best to drive. Like you say, the environmental cost of the manufacture of something new is also huge and I am not at all educated enough on it all to be able to comment at any great length. Do you mean you couldn’t go off grid for health / age related reasons? I really hope that’s not a terrible thing to ask?! That was my assumption when I first read your comment. If that were the reason, it makes me think about returning to ways of living where we are living more in community, taking care of one another, so that each person was able to work within their current capacity. This is something I think about a lot and, as an introvert who likes to spend a lot of time alone, I struggle with the idea of having to live alongside many others and yet also see how it would be so beautiful and beneficial!
I feel how privileged I am to be able to receive your writing which always fills me either with immense love for nature, gratitude for being able to live or sometimes with spiritual awakening! Thank you so much.
Sending you love on your way…
You are the best, Indira! Your appreciation for my writing is honestly so beautiful to receive. You make me feel like my work is worthwhile. Thank you! Lots of love xx
What a great email/poem. Yes, it is important to change at least one thing, and then another, and then another… until we can all, cumulatively, make one big change. Let the orangutang have his home, his life. Every living being in this planet deserves a place, a space to thrive in. Profits line the pockets of the corporates. Animals just need a place to call their own, be it in amongst the trees or on the ground, or in burrows…why should man destroy their habitat for his pleasure and greed!
I love digestives but from today onwards, I will make my own. Thank you 🙏🏻
Thank you for leaving a comment, Jindi! Everything you have written speaks to me so deeply. Yes, changing one thing and then another and another. And I am so moved that you will be making your own digestives from this day forth – I feel inspired by your commitment to keep going with my own commitments about where I want to change. Thank you! If it’s helpful, this is the recipe I used and both I and my partner (who loves digestives too), thought they were even better than shop bought and tasted totally like digestives!
https://moorlandseater.com/homemade-digestive-biscuits/
Beautiful, Leah! So much truth in your words. I have loved your open and heartfelt look at the world in your recent posts. Thank you! I hope to meet you one day in person and join one of your online groups. ❤️
Best wishes,
Sam
Thank you so much, Sam! It is lovely to know you’ve been enjoying the recent posts. Ah, yes, it would be so nice to meet more of the people here and of course you are welcome any time you would like to join a group! Much love xx
Thank you Leah, as usual thought provoking. I started making my own yogurt from coconut milk. Simple and delicious. Also I buy non dairy butter and there are nut cheeses. Blessings, Margi.
Thank you, Margi! I often wonder about the impact of food miles for things like coconut products and what is happening ‘on the ground’ of the places where coconuts are grown to meet the huge surge in popularity of coconut products in the west. I don’t think there are any easy or one-solution-fits-every-scenario answers to any of it. What feels important is that we care enough to explore alternatives and to keep learning and questioning as we go. And that is what I hear in everything you are doing and everything that I am doing and that others are doing – we may all be doing different things and may not always agree on what is the ‘best’ way – but we are all doing these things and trying things out because, ultimately, we care. And I think with that as a starting point, we are much more likely to find our way to a better future. Thank you so much for sharing xx