Plan C

Roadmap To Creating Sustainable Change From the Inside Out: Part 2

Find Your Reset Point

Nick Kettles and Pat Thomas

Amidst the turmoil of debate, the successes and setbacks, the hope and despair in creating a more sustainable society – and set against the backdrop of protesters actively occupying the financial districts of the world – what is the value of retreat? 

What is the value of actually pressing the pause button completely to disengage from the world, including your quest to make it a better place? Of learning how to turn the mind inwards, and take refuge within the silence, the reset point, at the centre of your very being? 

How any of us achieve this is personal and unimportant. Some people like to meditate, others engage in mindful activities such as making bread. Still others like to walk in Nature and contemplate its beauty. What’s important is that you do it.

At first blush, the benefits seem profoundly individual, even selfish. But a choice to prioritise your personal peace, taking a retreat from the inherent madness of the modern world, is not a way of escaping our responsibilities. It is, instead, a profoundly revolutionary act.

Once the surface noise of our angry or despairing thoughts about the environment, or modern world, begin to quiet down, we begin to detach from the outcome we want to see and a more reflective and creative state of mind can emerge, one that can be applied, once again, to our quest for a better, fairer more sustainable world. 

Once we begin to trust the silence within as a source of nourishment, our fear and sense of vulnerability about the planet can be embraced as confirmation that we are, in fact, deeply connected to the web of life everywhere.

Above all, each time we turn inwards and retreat we challenge the prevailing paradigm that wants us to believe that moments of quiet reflection are purposeless and self-interested, that disengaging is synonymous with boredom, lassitude, lack of choice and the greatest sin of all: being out of touch with the next ‘new’ new thing. 

When we affirm that the emptiness inside doesn’t need to be constantly filled with the ephemeral whims of consumption, we give permission for others to also discover it as a resource rich in energy. In the silence, ideas which can galvanise our sense of purpose have space to grow.

Try stopping for 20 minutes, 3 times a day, to reflect and quieten your mind, in your own unique way.  In what ways do your thoughts and feelings about the environment change?

Roadmap To Creating Sustainable Change From the Inside Out: Part 3 ‘Adopt a new aesthetic’ coming soonish. 

 

 

 

 

Roadmap To Creating Sustainable Change From the Inside Out: Part 1

Accept Your Pain About the Environment is a Reflection of Your Own Suffering

Nick Kettles and Pat Thomas

 

When the Earth is seen as sick and dying, we position ourselves as in charge, and the Earth subject to our will. Humanity is in charge. Humanity caused the problem. Humanity will fix it. Humanity has misused the earth’s resources, now humanity will redistribute them more fairly.

Taking responsibility for our impact is an essential part of our evolution as a race, no doubt, and yet our awareness of who we are, in relation to what we are taking responsibility for, can make a big difference. Our perception of the Earth's suffering may actually reflect our own deepest feelings. It’s not the Earth that’s dying but our worldview.

Our sense of urgency for the 'fragile' Earth, is actually a projection of our own deep sense of fragility and of loss; of the pain that the institutions and way of life that we have invested so much faith in, are in fact crumbling, and no longer systemically sustainable. Our belief that we can 'fix' things with a lot of angry, unexamined, frenetic activity is just one example of the need to control that sense of loss. Indeed it's the kind of meddling that got us into trouble in the first place.

Consider for a moment, the possibility that the Earth is in charge, and we as a species, subject to Her will. Consider what it would be like if we knew intrinsically, that we were a part, an intimate part, of Her whole? A dynamic part of an ecosystem which includes all Her species?

If we recognised this, we can as Satish Kumar says move from an egocentric worldview, where I am separate from the world, and my needs are more important than yours, to an ecocentric worldview, where my comfort doesn’t come at the expense of another, and who I am is determined by my ability to relate to Other, including the Earth.

This may sound like the ramblings of dyed in the wool greenies, like a touchy-feely paean to deep ecology – like that made popular by the blockbuster movie Avatar – and yet, it is absolutely necessary if we are to rediscover our integral place within the web of life.

Rather than play the hero and act to rescue a dying planet because, yes, it’s the right thing to do morally and intellectually, but also maybe to glorify ourselves and our resourcefulness as a species, do we have the courage to restore our interdependent relationship with Nature instead?

Can we take the time to accept Nature as a teacher, by observing Nature’s cycles, by growing our own vegetables, making our own bread, staying long enough in Nature to see it with new eyes, until its interconnective web, of which we are a valued and important part, is revealed?

The act of saving ourselves may in the end be a passive one, one where we do less not more. And having stepped back in that way, would we then, secure in the knowledge that we truly belong, act less from fear, and instead with greater awareness of the best use of our time, energy and resources?

Take time to consider from what perspective you are viewing your relationship with the Earth?  Is She broken?  Are you the saviour? Is She able to heal Herself?  And if so, is our part in that active or passive, or both? What have you to learn from Her? 

Roadmap To Creating Sustainable Change From the Inside Out: Part 2 ‘Find Your Reset Point’ coming soonish. 

Plan C’s Road Map To Creating Sustainable Change From The Inside Out

Nick Kettles and Pat Thomas

It’s over 18 months since we began our quest at Plan C to shift the focus of environmental debate from ‘what kind of world do we want?’ to ‘what kind of people do we have to become to make that world and then live in it sustainably, peacefully, intelligently and courageously?’

During that time our intuition that who we are being in relation to our cause, is equally as important as what we are doing, has only strengthened.

Our discussions - on this site and off - have taken us into deep territory. From the nature of beauty, via our responsibility not to see the earth as a victim, to the role of intuition in guiding us forward, we have begun to recognise certain themes, certain signposts, pointing the way for people who are also beginning to intuit that sustainable change is only possible from the inside out.

Proposing a fixed road map, a prescriptive formula for how to become the dynamic intersection for the political, economic and environmental transitions we need to make today, is not our objective at Plan C.

However, it seems wise to try and articulate the terrain we see. Make clear some of the path.  Point out the pitfalls we've noticed that prevent us from being more effective in our collective quest to create a more sustainable and loving society.

Over the next few months, or however long it takes, we’ll be posting our Road Map to Creating Sustainable Change from the Inside Out, part by part.  You are welcome to read these thoughts as a set of linear steps to follow, or, enjoy them as different facets of the same jewel. 

We look forward to your comments and feedback.