Reading books and my views

 I am reading books again, as my days have spaces opened for them as I travel to see family.

It is on a whim that I bought the book 'Braiding sweet grass' by Robin Wall Kimmerer, just by a chance encounter with how the words flowed in the book . I don't remember where I read the sentences, but just went ahead and  bought it for reading on the train .

 I have since stopped my thoughts to wonder more about the strong connection I felt to nature as a child growing up , how we were reminded of not wasting  and to be grateful for all that is before us. There was a sense of compassion to all the nature that surrounded us, including those wasps that bit me , the snakes that wandered out to near our house... the general premise of the times and as  my grandmother used to say  was this, "they have as much  a right to be here as you have , so let them go their way". The subsequent  generations have shifted in their ways of life and  views. The general acceptance of all life  and the way of sharing with the others in the community has given way to an isolationist and narcissistic way of viewing every day events  and people which has permeated the minds of people even in my old village in India . The place I once remembered has changed , but all that is left in me is an ache for a past that is gone away , withered away with time .In place of the small houses, now there are mansions each of them vying to be bigger and grander than the next. 

I have noticed that the sustainability of  'less waste ' as more of a struggle , I see my daughter turning off the lights that her husband leaves on all through the house and her frustrations at the lighted house in the middle of a sunny day. This is a place cultures collide and I just hope what comes out of it will be a more sustainable approach . Their new child may show the way to a middle ground away from the extremes that is all around him. As my daughter said, "I hope I can give this baby the  life I want with the values I think are important, not his dad's or society's  waste everything way of thinking".

As I read more of the 'braiding sweet grass' , I  too begin to have a deeper understanding , I too realize , each small drop of relevant values will move the future generations closer to a place of wisdom and lives lived with gratitude  becoming a way of life .Of course the future will be guided by nature , it's just a question of if it will be a transition in ease of acceptance or forced despite our resistance ...one way or the other nature will lead .

(by Pc-3, 02/17/2023)