Dispossessed but true

Dispossessed but true

Recently I have recognised that I have been dispossessed of Gaia, and in recognising this I know that it is those who are not dispossessed of Gaia who have the wisdom that needs to be followed – Indigenous Wisdom. My culture is dispossessed, and my culture shows that dispossession through its exploitation of Gaia’s resources because they do not recognise they are Gaia, they have no relationship with Gaia.

But there has always been a nag in me since recognising this dispossession, how can I be following my path? Is it that my path was not complete? I previously answered that by saying my path must be Gaia, and in a sense I have just gone further along the path. That doesn’t feel true yet in a sense it is as I have become more Gaia-conscious. My path is true but transient, that is who I am. Recognising the global need for Indigenous Wisdom comes from that transience. Recognising the need for decumulation – relocalisation – is a global recognition, it is true for the whole world but it needs local wisdom to drive it.

When Winona talks of her relationship with seeds, the Pawnee seeds recognising the land, it is wisdom I cannot understand but can respect. I do not have local wisdom so I cannot understand, my wisdom - my path (within limits I have much to learn), is transient – global . Are the local and global yin and yang (maybe this I haven’t read it)?

I have recurring dreams that I don’t fully understand, waking up and thinking about those dreams made me write this blog – yet I did not wake from such a dream just now. In my dreams I have different homes, neither of which are where I am. There is a home I think is mine, and then I am waking up living in a home that was a different life of mine. A while back in one dream I moved that second home and it became part of my recurrent dream that in my second life I live in that new home. Weeks will separate the dreams and yet it is the same situation. The home looks the same. It was my home but it was not my real home – and neither was where I live. I have never been late for a flight, I am too organised for that, but lateness is a recurring dream. I can never find my passport, last minute packing takes over and I miss my flight, yet in life I am too organised for that. I am in a panic as I am trying to pack things I didn’t want to leave behind, they just become more and more. In real life my path is true (within limits I have much to learn), I am spiritual (within limits I have much to learn), so what is it that I have left behind? What am I not bringing with me? What am I trying to bring with me at the last minute? And I have some answer now for that. I am trying to bring with me what no transient can bring, their roots in Gaia. I am transient, I am dispossessed but I am true to my path. But there are no roots. [PS I woke up early today and wondered whether this interpretation was fanciful.]

All around me wherever I have lived I see people with roots. They have roots in Gaia but they don’t have any desire for transience - whether transience in Gaia. There is transient Wisdom as opposed to rooted or Indigenous Wisdom. This Wisdom is different, all paths are different. What is the relationship of the Transient to the Indigenous? As yet I have no idea.

But however transient my Wisdom is I do know the need for Indigenous Wisdom, and that is the local Wisdom that is needed for Gaia and a green economy. For us to save Gaia we need the spirit that Winona reflects (here talking about Building a Green Economy) and yet she says the same as the Resilience Alliance. But I don’t want academics of a dispossessed culture leading me back to relocalisation (leading the decumulating), I would love for them to recognise Indigenous Wisdom and add their help - maybe they do. I want the local Wisdom of cultures that have survived and kept their roots in Gaia. The global green revolution must be local led, Indigenous-led, transient Wisdom can see that.

There is a role for transient Wisdom, discussed below (added!), the role for local Indigenous Wisdom is clear – to lead in saving Gaia.

There is an unspoken question that keeps coming up, what happens to most of the people? The dispossessed who live in cities (do they kill each other in the next global 1%-war?). When I talk of decumulation I see the need for a return to localisation. If it can begin it begins with the 1% being shamed into releasing their accumulation. It begins with these 1%-shamed supporting Frontline Communities in their struggle against the 1%-driven resource exploitation. This will stop further people accumulating in the cities. But what happens to the generations of people whose whole culture is dispossession? What will happen to them? Winona talks of roof gardens. Is she right? She has local wisdom. She knows that relocalisation is the only sustainability. She tells the audience get skilled, maths teachers without local skills cannot survive. Education needs to learn this lesson, or maybe families need to have a trade again. Either way the skill that is career and money is not enough – maths teachers with little money!! There needs to be a second craft skill, what can be made to trade. Engineers can have skills for the accumulated but they can also use those skills for the decumulated. I have no such skills, I am a dinosaur part of the dispossessed who can survive in accumulation culture but when energy becomes local I have nothing to offer except endless blogs.

It is a sad question, what happens to the dispossessed poor? Wow these dispossessed are liberals as well. They are going to suffer as their jobs for the accumulation gradually disappear. They need to stop whining and get a craft. Is their whining not only because of injustice but because they feel dispossessed – some kind of apocalyptic warning? The cities need to reeducate or there will be chaos, destructive chaos.

Scary! However nice Winona is being to you, Liberals there is no-one who will protect you. Get your kids a craft, a local skill, or they will be in trouble somehow.

NEXTDAY - The Xmas message from Thay's community speaks to this transience, I am part of a spiritual tradition - transient spiritual tradition? I respect roots in Gaia, they have much to teach me although most would be just explanation as I cannot feel their roots. My "roots" are in transience. That sounds ludicrous but it is Gaia that gives me sunnata. It is Gaia that has given me compassion, insight and creativity (however little). I am over so grateful to Gaia for this as I see the suffering around me, and since I found my path at 23 I have had such limited suffering. I can never undervalue (except at occasional ego times) just how fortunate I have been.

It does bring with it a sadness, a sadness I accept and live with. I am now surrounded by MAWPs who despite their MAWPness try to be pleasant with each other, they are of course racist to Thais at varying levels. Sadly I disturb their imbalance just by being with them because I can't let their arrogance slide, no matter how much I try. They are not my community, I am transient. I am more in harmony with the Thais because I am kun kruu, not seen as an exploiting Farang MAWP. There is a pleasantness to be around their community, their rural lifestyle, but I understand little. Perhaps if I could understand their language better - my transience didn't give me the ability to speak tones, I would understand more and feel the pleasance less; but that is pointless negativity.

My compassion, spirituality and Buddhism puts me on the periphery of Buddhist Sanghas, I miss their value - comradeship. My creativity brings me into the community of genuine arts, in the past I have felt their paths as they have felt mine. But this is also a tradition in which I am on the periphery for my art is not deeply creative - my writing does not have the creative edge I see in Alice Walker, Doris Lessing. My writing is analysis, explanation, it is always about wanting people to follow the path even the scifi - hence the pathtivism manual the Treatise was not enough. This path is not nebulous, whilst it is spiritual it is mindful, permanently present, and just gritty - Pirsig's gumption.

There is no sangha for me. There is the path with its compassion, insight and cretivity. I want to share but as yet that sharing dosn't happen on a personal level. So there is my website, that is my sangha, that is my feeble contribution to the tradition. Being who I am, being Gaia that is how I give. My compassion wants to give more, wants more people to read, understand maybe communicate, but that would change where I am now, and I am so afraid of losing that there is no motivation to be out there more than I am. For me retirement is a time to reflect and learn and give back in writing what the struggle in life and the workplace have given me, no more struggle in the writing scene wanted. So for me now no Sangha, no community of artists, just a website legacy that maybe will help some. That is my transience, my spiritual tradition, my roots in Gaia. And that is with the greatest respect to the tradition of Sanghas, to Winona and her roots in the land - her Indigenous Wisdom, and other spiritual communities.

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