Recycle

No'j - the essence of No'j is thought on No'j days, it is good to contemplate how our thoughts influence our actions of both conscious co-creation and intentional or unintentional destructive behavior

Okay, who loves Michigan falls more than me? I adore the warm days, cool breezes. This year the trees are turning very slowly allowing us to sort of revel in the color change. Previous years, the change has happened so quickly that I felt that I almost missed the spectacular colors. The earth is reminding us that it has its own cycles no matter what we do and with this change we seem to be getting more color.

And so the leaves will fall mulching the ground, the ground that helps to feed the trees that dropped the leaves in the first place. Nature's recycling. Elegant, efficient and for part of it, a treat for the eyes.

Frankly, I don't do enough when it comes to recycling. You would be able to go through my garbage and find bits here and there that should have gone into recycle. And let's not mention color glass! What the heck am I supposed to do with that? Our recycle center doesn't take it which is ridiculous so we "try" not to buy it in the first place. And recycling is not a small task. We have to load it into the truck and then drive off the island to the recycle center, becoming a weekly duty for Joe and I. Just part of the many "to do" things on our list. I guess it makes me feel more responsible but still, I know I have to do more when it comes to my part, which would take a lot more effort.

The effort and consciousness that needs more work on my part, has become really evident from a book that I have been reading called "American Indian Life". A lot of things struck me about the way the Indians lived before we got here. But what was most clear (besides that they lived in Teepees in the dead of winter without gortex) was that they used and recycled everything. For instance, in the book, a real life character T'ena, was being taught to be careful about whatever she found on the floor - bits of food, bone, feather, hair or skin. It was a rule that all such waste bits be put separate into baskets by the women, and carried to the haunts in the forest or on the river, of the creatures to which the bits belonged. Her partner, Cries-for-salmon, would go along with her to see how she dumped into the river from her canoe, the feathers of duck, goose or swan, that they might change back into birds such they had come from-as the feather drifted down the current, although invisible to her, Cries-for-salmon said, they became birds again to return to feed in their old haunts of mud and goose grass. She had learned this from her mother empting out fish bones to become fish, and she saw her take to the forest the bones of game animals. Were such bones left on the floor and stepped on, it would be a sin.

No longer are there barefooted archers lurking in the forest but while I write this, gunshots in the distance - a result of the beginning of duck hunting season. I wonder if any of the hunters will respect life the duck has given up to feed them as did Cries-for-Salmon - maybe, but I don't get that from most of the conversations I hear. Like just about everything else in life, many of us think that it is our right to eat what and when we want to, not understanding that it is a gift and a privilege to have something on the table. So much has to happen in nature just so one human being can be fed. Hard to remember when pushing the shopping carts down the aisles of Costco.

I continue to put in more effort to recycle. Putting my foot down about some packaging, buying just about everything used and of course doing my weekly recycle, though a hassle is worth it. Maybe just maybe we, or I should just speak for myself, it would do no harm in adopting these powerful lessons in living with nature, so that I may continue to live as the higher self I was meant to be. Recycling information allowing the industrial age to come to an end making it time for a new age, a new paradigm, a new consciousness - changing or recycling each one of us, one by one which in turn will lead us all into a world of change.