A Drop in the Ocean
These days… I often stop.
I often stop doing what I am doing, because I don’t know if it is what the people of this land want.
I get stifled in my own projects, often. When I work connect with Indigenous knowledge holders, I feel like a drop in the ocean. I feel pretty small and insignificant. I also feel like my voice is really important, but I am not so sure about how I go about life.
This is a cyclic thing you see. It can run a full cycle anywhere between one minute and one month. I don’t really have an income anymore, because I am often at the part of the cycle where I feel like a drop in the ocean, that should probably support the ocean instead of support myself. It’s not so sustainable though. Sometimes I feel like if I do go and support the ocean, I end up no help to anyone, because I can’t even support myself.
This is a big year, I often think… sh#t, we haven’t come very far in our evolution, I wonder if we will be able to sustain our future generations. You see, that is why I have turned to the Indigenous people of these lands, because from the moment we (the settler people) arrived here, we were always told the same thing, warned that destruction of the Earth leads to death. It only took a few hundred years for us to begin to understand just how important the land is.
So back to my cycles…
Sometimes, I feel like I am the ocean. I feel powerful beyond human form. The thing is, this has also come from my journey with the land and listening to the elders. This cycle is very important for balance. When I feel like a drop in the ocean, I stop everything I am doing, and I listen. I listen because I want to serve the entire ocean. I listen because I know that I create ripples, and at a time when civilisation is beginning to crumble, I sure don’t want to cause further harm.
When I feel like I am the ocean, that is when I really dive into everything I am doing in the world. I give it my all, because I have listened enough to know how my ripples will effect the rest of the ocean, and I create a strong enough current to make an impact.
There are times of course, when the waters are calm. There is rest, there is refuge, and these are the times when I am deep in nature. These are the times when I know that everything will be okay. That I am cared for, I am safe and the world can exist without my doing.
So this is my life now. I can’t even comprehend who I once was, I feel like I have been reborn, into a new life and a new body. There is so much discomfort though, because I know my impact on the planet. I know it every time I get in my car. I know it every time I buy something in plastic or glass. I know it every time I buy an egg, or coconut milk, or that paw paw that came all the way from Queensland and has being sprayed a million times. It is hard to live in these times, because every little thing we do impacts the Earth. I know the small choices I make, do make a difference. But I don’t want to serve the government and their fantasies about eternity, I want to serve the people. The people who have a good heart. The innocent, the naive, the afraid… I want to serve. That is my life now, it is a simple existence in amongst an incredibly complex and harmful system that is… finite.
That is just it really, finite. This planet was once covered in water… and perhaps, that time will come again. So it might serve humanity more, to think like water, to be like water… it might be the very thing that saves us from going under.
