Spiritual Sustainability

Spiritual Sustainability=Sustenance for the Soul. What drives us to do what we do? Many of us moms out here "greening" the world have taken it on with a vengeance. The passion that has been ignited goes beyond the typical every day list of goals to a deeper, more meaningful sense of purpose.

For those of us non-religious folks it seems quite spiritual - it's a calling from Mother Earth in her full Goddess form. In this time of unsettling uncertainty it feels essential that we hold some sense of the sacred. The difficulty is that our understanding of what is sacred has been manipulated and dismantled. Many families, like our own, do not subscribe to any particular religious dogma but feel a need to provide our children with a sense of connection to something.

For our family, Mother Earth herself serves as a symbol. She reminds us of what is really important in a time where our minds have been clouded. She brings us together in community in search of living a more sustainable, simple and balanced way. She reminds us that in Nature we find perfection.In a time when our species is lacking depth of meaning to substantiate the ways we live our lives, we turn to her for clarity.

Let us free our minds of our states of bondage and become free thinkers once again. Let us have physical spaces where we can gather with our children that are free from toxic chemicals sprayed in the common air we breathe - free from colorful packaging that entices our children's minds, from advertisments that alters our intuition. Let us take on the spirit of Scenic America (http://www.scenic.org/) - dedicated solely to preserving and enhancing the visual character of America's communities and countryside. Our children need to be able to escape the cluttered pervasive ugliness that bombards their every move.

This week our hybrid cooperative opens our community space as a temple where we can gather to share information, inspiration and ideas on how to live more sustainable lives. I say hybrid because we are a mixture of things with most of it being made up as we go along. The issue for us this week was how to convey to our members and the outside community the intention of our actual space as not only a place to gather, but more importantly a space where one can be free of the accepted marketing maddness that infiltates our minds.

It is designed to be an advertisement free zone where our kids can be kids not potential consumers. Thus, there will be no juice boxes, water bottles, pacifiers, plastic toys, video games, gmo snack foods, fast foods... (the list goes on) allowed. We're not militants but rather purists desperately seeking to (re)discover sanctity in a world gone mad.

Perhaps in such a space our children will be able to find God - in all her marvelous forms.