9/5

It is such a glorious time of the year that we are ‘living’ outside as much as we can. Cooking on the bonfire (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USYf7tUCkbo for a funny video of our fire made traditional ‘damper’), taking Ollie out for walks to munch fresh Spring grass, spending slow quality time in the present – then, going back inside the four walls of my house, I enter the pressured frenzy of ‘getting things done’. As soon as I sit in front of the computer, with the phone at my side,
I get sucked into a vortex of turning visions and thoughts into words, trying to communicate ideas that I have been living for so many years, into easily digestable, understandable information.

I am now fully involved in organising the ‘Living the Good Life’ Festival ( livingthegoodlifefest.com) that will be on in just two weeks. Sometimes I think it was easier to organise the Expo Cotacachi in Ecuador over ten years ago – despite the language barrier, more people seemed to understand the vision of alternative development…well at least the people I was working closely with.

I’ll give you just one example. There is some ‘concern’ about our plan to serve the healthy, vegetarian snacks we are making on banana leaves (to avoid rubbish) – because of the ‘health risk’. Health Risk??!! But its fine to serve up mushed up, factory farmed pigs in the form of sausages on paper serviettes! Why? - when things seem so obvious to me, when we look around and see fatter and more unhealthy children with chronic diseases like asthma and allergies all around us - do I have to feel so defensive for caring?

Anway, of course we will make sure we ‘sterilize’ the banana leaves before we use them (despite the fact that banana leaves have natural anti-bacterial properties) and keep everyone happy…but it gives you an idea about how challenging things can be sometimes in trying to bring in new, commonsense ideas back into a culture that has become so obedient to mass production and modern ‘convenience’.