Comfortable Consumerism

Ah...tis the season when consumerism is in full swing. I have emersed myself the past few years with trying to understand this complicated position we human beings have manifested for ourselves. We have become so comfortable with the convenience of having practically "everything we need" at our disposal here in America and yet remain blind to the cost.

We showed the film The 11th Hour last night for our free film series at the co-op (one of my favorite films ever) and the same feelings flooded my mind as the first time I watched it. The film brilliantly depicts the relationship between our current crisis on the planet and the incessant greed humans have for more. It clearly correlates our role as consumers and the impact our consumption has had (and continues to have) on Nature.

The question is...how do we wean ourselves from our addiction to convenience? How do we shift the mindset of millions to a worldview that embraces frugality - not scarcity, but rather frugality where there is a balance...where we actually consider the economic value of what Mother Nature herself contributes on a daily basis rather than just taking and taking.

It is this call to action that I am constructing with every insight I have come to understand as I reach out to other mothers through the pages of my book. It is a sense of values, a getting back to what is real, an appreciation of life itself that so many of us are yearning for but not knowing quite how to find.

In our states of consuming, we have become numb and dumb. Our brains are foggy. Yet, slowly, we can begin to clear our minds by eating less packaged, processed foods...by watching less tv....by trusting our own inner selves.... In time, we come across information that resonates some cord of truth and we let go of yet another artificial habit that we have been sold.

We begin to question. We begin to say no. We meet others who share similar ideas. We find our voices and in time we change the world.

Medicalized Birth

Just when you think that things may begin taking a turn for the better you come across something that sharply reminds you that we're not quite there yet....It is essential that we women begin to unravel ourselves from our oblivion! it is this alone that motivates me to finish my book. Below is my response to an article in our local newspaper just last week...although it's more like an advertisment rather than an article.

The recent article More Young Women Opting to Schedule C-Section Births by Hilary Waldman was disappointing in its lightness in addressing one of the most serious crimes happening in our country today. There are many rackets here in America but the one I find most repulsive is “Medicalized Birth”. In at time when 1 out of 3 women are having cesareans in this country, we need reporters who are questioning them, not condoning them. Something is wrong with this picture. Hillary, along with her comrades such as Doctor Girard, are irresponsibly condoning the consumer driven ways we live in the US in the realm of birth.

Yet this “my needs first” mentality has hidden costs that go beyond paper money. In April of 2008 , a report issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documented that the US infant mortality rate is now worse than 28 other countries. The study, “Recent Trends in Infant Mortality in the United States,” found that at least 28 other countries now have lower death rates for infants in the first year of life.

Where are the facts in Hilary’s article?

As pregnancy–related deaths increase in our country so does the c-section rate, up 40 percent since 1996. Almost eighty-two percent of women whose first delivery is a c-section have subsequent cesareans. Readers are being mislead by the information in this article to believe that a cesarean surgery is not only convenient, but safe. In October, a woman at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston died during a cesarean. “Valerie Scythes, 35, and Melissa Farah, 28, were friends who taught at the same grade school in Avon, N.J., and died two weeks apart last spring (2007) after delivering their firstborns, both healthy girls, via planned c-sections at Underwood Memorial Hospital in Woodbury, N.J. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Farah's death certificate said she died of "shock due to bleeding and anemia."

C-sections are not safe as implied! One in 2,500 women are at risk compared to the more than the one in 10,000 risks for vaginal birth. According to the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 36 women per 100,000 die while undergoing a caesarean compared to 9.2 deaths per 100,000 for a vaginal delivery. The risks from having a cesarean include infections, hemorrhage, transfusion, injury to other organs, anesthesia complications, psychological complications, and a maternal mortality two to four times greater than that for a vaginal birth. In addition, premature birth rates are being linked to cesareans which ultimately cause an array of health conditions for the baby as well as increase their risk for death in the first month. And what about the emotional impact of a non-vaginal birth on the baby later on in life?
Vaginal births massage the babies as the move through the birth canal gently preparing them for their entrance in the world. How does a baby being yanked from its mothers womb by a stranger respond to the world around them? Could there perhaps be a connection between the extreme levels of fear and hatred we Americans perpetuate on others around the world and the hardened and disconnected ways we are bringing new life into the world? We do not yet know the impacts of our behaviors, not much different than the now looming realities of global warming that we have conveniently chosen to dismiss in years past.

What about the costs?
In a time when our economy is failing and insurance companies are struggling to survive, how can we afford such a “luxury”? In May 1997 Hilary actually reported that “a c-section cost $12,600 at Danbury. The same labor ending in vaginal delivery costs only $7,000. And that does not account for the physical and emotional toll of major surgery” . Today, vaginal births are still about half the cost of a c-section totaling billions of dollars which in turn burdens health care cost for everyone. Women who plan c-sections are more than twice as likely to be hospitalized again in the first month after birth than the women who had a vaginal delivery. In addition, the average initial hospital cost of a planned c-section for a first-time mother was 76% higher than that for a planned vaginal birth. (Rita Rubin, USA TODAY, Answers prove elusive as C-section rate rises, Jan 08.)

All for the sake of convenience?

In a time when our world is facing more challenges than ever before, it is essential that we take a serious look at how we are living our lives – including the realm of birth. The era of convenience must come to an end. No longer can we justify excessive waste of resources, extreme scientific experiments and harm to both people and planet. Not only do we need to be birthing “green” for the health of our babies, but for the future health of their planet as well.


On a personal note Hilary, how is it possible for someone so detached from the process of living like yourself be a Health Reporter for such a notable publication? Doesn’t health signify freedom from disease without dependence on “medicalized” models? The slant in all of your articles somehow puts modern medicine on a pedestal while providing mis-information in a time when studies show that more holistic treatments are not only safer and more economical, but more effective. Why are you choosing to be a mouthpiece for unnecessary procedures and surgeries? Perhaps you are more interested in merely reporting trends than truth. Who’s paying you to say such nonsense? And I am curious Hilary, how many children do you have?

Imani, mother of 6 (4 of which were born at home naturally without any interventions and whose body does not appear to be “ravaged by multiple deliveries”) and owner of The Green Vibration’s Alchemy Café & Eco-Boutique and founder of The Growing Green Co-op in Hartford.

Hope?

It's been awhile....sigh. So much has happened in the weeks since I have written - the election, the financial crisis (which, like many other small biz owners, we're feeling at our cafe), an unexpected trip, some other unfortunate events, and some computer challenges....ah, such is life. So much happens in one day, much less weeks. It is a process of constantly finding and redefining my existence.

I am uncovering truth as I diligently write the pages of my book. It's as if I am living the book as I write it. In doing so, I am beginning to look more objectively at this illusion we call life and what it is we are creating together collectively. I grasp the seriousness of it on one hand, yet the ridiculous nature of it on the other. I am present, yet detached.

Even with such a historic moment in this Presidential Election, I felt a sense of distant objectivity. When faced with the possibility of someone like McCain even being considered as a leader of our country I vascillated between intense feelings of denial and depression. Will Obama really take the reins of the rights of humanity when this world needs it most or will he pass the potential on to the future like so many past hopefuls have?

Thankfully, the outcome of the election was a sign that we are still, as Americans, willing to shape a future based on the ideas that founded our country - but we still have a long way to go. I long for a time where a two-party system does not exist - where we can vote for who we want to vote for, not vote from a place of prevention. I wish Obama luck in one of the most difficult challenges ahead. His solicitation to Amercians for our priorities is a great place to start - so here's mine.

Dear President-elect Obama:

Congratulations on your election win!

There are many things that I would ask you to consider, but if I had to just pick one I would say this: Grow an organic garden on the White House Lawn (and all of the other suggestions outlined in Michael Pollan's NY Times "Letter to the President Elect") and please do not support a future for our children of genetically modified and cloned foods! If we can give back our food supply to our children we may have a chance to grow a better world for them! If we can educate them about the ways of the farm, both urban and suburban alike, we will transform the next century of life on this planet and perhaps be the determining factor in our own extinction. As the First Family- you have tremendous power to influence the minds of Americans - lead the way through your children. Show Americans a way to live that returns us to diets of whole, organic foods - not chemically-laden, packaged-processed, GM and non-food items. Feed your children only organic and boycott fast food. Role-model what is possible. What a powerful image it would be to have our President, with his sleeves rolled up weeding with children by his side, in the White House garden. Share that wisdom so we can give all the children in America a good start against the reality of obesity, diabetes, cancer and other food related diseases. In addressing this simple issue of food, we simultaneously begin to address all of the other issues that plague our country pertaining to the changing climate, consumerism and our relations with other countries. By getting back to basics we can begin to remember who we are and where we came from so we can better determine where it is we are going.

In Gratitude,

Imani

Experience the Holidays (green style)!

Part of the process of "going green" is a re-inventing of ourselves, or life as we have known it. What a better time to do this with our children than the holidays? It is the perfect opportunity to provide them with a new perspective by creating opportunities for them to experience special occasions.

By experience I mean really tasting, smelling and feeling the sensations of the season! Awaken our kids senses not by feeding them a processed, pre-made pumpkin pie but having them pick the local pumpkins that they then in turn bake into a pie themselves! Even more amazing is the fact that they won't even remember how the pie tasted but rather the details of baking the pie. Memories that last a lifetime.

Quality family time - when we take the time to make lasting memories with our children - is what imprints upon their fresh minds. It's not about what we buy them but rather the magic of how we made something sacred out of nothing. That's impressive!

We can take it a step further! As moms we can reclaim the consumer driven holiday rituals of today! We can begin to take them back by choosing to buy only fair-trade, organic candies or treats. We can recycle costumes for Halloween or make our own (check out http://www.greenhalloween.com/ for some great simple ideas to introduce to your kids this year an their newly released self published book Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions written by Green Halloween founder, Corey Colwell-Lipson and her mom, Lynn Colwell)! We can show our children how to give rather than to take.

Be a leader in your own community by hosting a earth-friendly celebration this year for friends & family - whether it is a Green Halloween, Winter Solstice, Holiday Clothes Swap or Green Gift Marketplace! 'Tis the season and 'tis a reason!

Upcoming Community Celebrations at The Growing Green Co-op in Hartford, CT! Holiday Clothes Swap! Saturday, November 1st 7-9pm

I AM DREAMING OF A GREEN CHRISTMAS!Prepare to bring your warm winter gently loved garments to the November Swap: COATS, SWEATERS, BLANKETS, BOOTS & even things that could be considered as a gift for someone else. We will have sewing machines available for those inspired to create new items led by the Goddesses of Yarn. Bring a friend, your imagination & your holiday spirit! Questions or even special requests? Email the Gift Goddess, Dawn at blessedoya@yahoo.com or 206.2471 REDUCE * RECYCLE * REUSE

The Growing Green Co-op will host its first annual GREEN HALLOWEEN at its new space in Hartford (for kids all ages) $5 per child Friday, October 31st, 7pm - midnight (for older kids) A safe, fun, and healthy option for those families seeking more eco-friendly rituals! Wear your own hand-made or recycled costume! Carve your own local pumpkin, bob for apples from Eagle Valley Farms, play old-fashioned games, meet new friends and re-discover you imagination!

Sustainable Shopping in Style at The Growing Green Co-op's Annual Green Gift Marketplace Friday, Dec 5th, 6-10pm The Green Gift Marketplace featuring local, hand-made, recycled, organic and creative gifts for everyone on your list! Meet "green" business members of The Growing Green Co-op and transform your shopping mall trends of the past to new found environmentally conscious treasures at our community marketplace. Order your organic Christmas Tree in advance for pick-up on this special evening or select one on site.

Fast Food Poison

Somehow my latest email address has been given to some list and my mailbox is filled with all kinds of junk mail about getting slim, changing careers, house foreclosure, buying prescription drugs and coupons to all the “convenient” mainstream places that sell the drugs and foods we have become addicted to. This reflection of modern America oozes dis-ease. I cringe knowing that the reason these emails are being sent out is because the majority of Americans respond to them.

artwork courtesy of David Deeshttp://www.deesillustration.com/

Now I am not one to ascribe to or prescribe any particular diet, however, I do know that we are what we eat and we are consuming with all parts of our being. Our minds are infiltrated with marketing schemes and mind-altering chemicals. What seeps into our brains and what we put into our mouths is impacting every aspect of our lives.

Last Friday we showed the movie Eating (www.RAVEdiet.com) in our co-op and it laid out some staggering facts. It paralleled the change in the American diet from a plant based diet to a meat eating diet a mere one hundred years ago to the increased heart disease and cancer rates we have today that were practically non-existent in those days (except the wealthy elite). It exposed the political connections with what we have been taught to be the food pyramid with the companies that are benefiting from such schemes – such as the subsidies that the meat and dairy industries receive to get us to eat these kinds of food (without them steak would cost $90 lb.)!

Here in Hartford where our organic café & co-op are located, we face one of the highest poverty rates as well as high incidence of diabetes, obesity and asthma, particularly in children. It is disturbing that “today, when we produce more food than ever before, more than one in ten people on the Earth are hungry. The hunger of 800 million happens at the same time as another historical first: they are outnumbered by the one billion people on this planet that are overweight.” (taken from Stuffed & Starved – a great new read by Raj Patel).

For the first time since we have owned our café, I have encountered a refreshing interest in healthier eating habits from folks within our own neighborhood. A few weeks ago, at various intervals during a twenty-four hour period, three different women came into our café looking for live food! The exciting thing for me was that they all had a basic understanding of what is going on with our food system and were seeking ways to affect change.

They were all concerned about their own health and those around them- especially the children. They all realized that there has been a break down in our production of wholesome, nutritious foods and they are understanding the depths of suffering from the cheap, chemically laden, gmo foods that have flooded our marketplace. The hard core facts from “Super Size Me” and Fast Food Nation are trickling down into the overall consciousness. It is the time to demand change.

We also facilitated several field trips through our Summer Activism Program. We took twenty local urban kids on a field trip to the trash museum and an organic farm to pick blueberries. I was overjoyed watching the kids chomp on celery sticks, red peppers and carrot sticks that were passed around the bus. They were delighted to pick blueberries right off the bush. And although we met some of the kids on the day of the trip for the first time - not one complained about the all organic lunch that was free of excessive packaging and plastic wrap.

On another trip to the Smart Living Center and CT Audubon Center the kids lined up for pieces of fresh sliced watermelon. I gracefully removed two juice boxes that were being handed out by our hosts without objections and kindly informed them that part of our program was to eat only organic as a way of promoting a smaller carbon footprint. Overall, it proved for me what I believe to be true – that kids will naturally gravitate to what is good for them.

Last month a group of 25 high school students came in to experience an organic lunch and a brief talk. I spoke to them about the marketing tactics targeting specifically at them and the power they have to demand different products by making different choices. They were clearly impacted by the information and were anxious to learn more. Many asked how to get involved with our upcoming Green Teen Activism & Open Mikes.

One student, after despairing over the fact that he has eaten Captain Crunch for breakfast his whole life, asked what to do? They asked what I eat for breakfast and upon hearing it was a green juice consisting of sprouts, celery and cucumber they actually wanted to try it! That’s impressive. It indicates, again, that Americans (our youth) do want choices. We just need to remember that it is up to us to CHOOSE.

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.

Floundering in Complexity

artwork courtesy of David Dees
http://www.deesillustration.com/

The past few weeks have left us in a whirlwind with unexpected and extraordinary circumstances too crazy to write about ….. nonetheless my overall conclusion has been both a deeper understanding of and appreciation for community: community when times are good and when times are bad.

We live in a time when many of us are estranged from our families of origin or don’t even know who our neighbors are. We are distracted - electronic gadgets and blue tubes have displaced real live human to human interactions. It’s no wonder that so many of us feel so disconnected, isolated and confused.

For a long time I have been immersed with ideas of community and have persistently strived to manifest sustainable ways in which to raise my children with others. I can’t say that it has been easy or with minimal effort, but I feel that the concepts that have been floating in my mind are finally starting to take hold in tangible forms.

And it is about time! Because life on our planet is most likely going to become ever more challenging and difficult. Many of us are already feeling the pressure of what is heading our way. We need to be prepared.

In doing so, we not only need to begin thinking about the future in different terms, but we also need to not get overwhelmed when doing so. We need to stay focused and simplify. Get down to basics and prioritize. If we can begin to look at things from his perspective – a proactive approach – then we will have set in motion a pattern of handling things when we need it the most.

The other part is that we need to work together. We need to get back to the basic principals of community where we have a network of people around us that we can lean on in times of need or vice versa.

Our society has purposely facilitated a world where many people today feel entirely alone and unsupported. This is not a natural way for humans to be in the world. Regaining our sense of self and connection to the earth and each other is the challenge of our times.