My current knitting project - bright and cheerful!
I found it a little tricky trying to decide on a name for my blog. I've been reading blogs since maybe December 2009, and before that it hadn't really crossed my mind to even do that, let alone have my own. It seemed something... well... maybe a little self-indulgent to me at the time and I had no idea that I would be enjoying the blogging world even half as much as I do now. It's great to be a part of a community of like-minded people, even if it is most often a virtual community. I simply love the generosity out there, of people sharing ideas, thoughts and inspiration for others to enjoy and discuss. Well, I wanted to be a fuller part of it and wanted to offer to all those who might be interested a glimpse of my life, how I'm trying to live a good and happy one, the changes that I'm going through and my thoughts and inspirations along the way. So here I am.
As I mentioned in my first ever post, I have been interested in simple, sustainable living for a long time and over the years I have been learning more about it and how I can make such changes in my life. Before I moved to live in India, I had made some changes, such as running a van on biodiesel made from recycled cooking oil, using only environmentally friendly household products, gardening organically and so on. These were pretty simple steps that I could take, but I wanted more. I also spent a year living in a Buddhist community with environmentally conscious people, where we bought food and cooked communally, had chickens, sorted out and took all our recycling to the local recycling centre, grew some fruit and veggies... Again, it was good being in such a great place where I learnt a lot and I value that time greatly.
Surprisingly though, living in India was certainly a challenge when it came to sustainable living. I found it pretty tricky finding ecologically sound household or personal hygiene products, had no option but to have electricity powered by the local dirty coal-fired power stations, had little access to any truly organic veg or fruit (so much of India's produce is smothered in chemicals or is imported, which I tried very much to avoid), and had few opportunities to grow my own. Never-the-less, I have started working with local farmers, trying to help them become organic, and that is starting to pick up speed. That's something I'm pretty proud of at least, but still wish I could do more.
But now I'm back in the UK, at least for the time being, and who knows where I'll be going next. I may return to India, but I may resettle here. The coming months will help me to decide that.
So that's where I am at. I'm on a path. At the moment, the view ahead is a little overgrown and needs some pruning before I see where it's taking me. But what I know is that I am starting to become ever more serious about the need for a simple, wholesome life for my family, one where wholesome cooking, crafting, learning practical life skills, such as sewing, knitting, woodwork, gathering and cooking with wild foods, and learning to be more self-reliant become my focus.
Right now I feel privileged for a few reasons. I feel privileged that I have a new opportunity to start afresh as when I moved to India, I gave away or sold probably 95% of my belongings. I have a clean palate onto which I can bring in elements that are in line with my new approach to life. I feel privileged to be able to do this, to have the chance to change, as so many people have much more complexity and physical baggage to consider such a life change. I know I have created these conditions through various (tough) decisions I have made over the past few years, but I still feel fortunate that I can still make these decisions. I used to be afraid of taking such plunges. Maybe I should still be. And maybe I am... maybe. But it's good to have some fear there I guess, as it's great to have challenges. They help us grow. I've learnt that a lot over the past few years.
So this is my path. My family's path. But it is just one path. There are many other ways towards this kind of life, but this is where I'm going. And even though it's a little uncertain right now, I'm enjoying trying to scramble forward to see just where it is I'm going to be. I'm certainly finding an enormous amount of inspiration out there in the blogging world and hope to engage a lot more fully with these amazing people over the coming months. One such person is Rhonda, who writes here at one of my favorite blogs, "down---to---earth". Today she wrote a fantastic piece about "Getting the simple life" and I hope talk more about that over the next few days.
And now I'm going to curl up in bed with Leela and my new book - Attached at the Heart arrived today! Happy days!
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