I have seriously missed those mornings, spending time together not engrossed in the demands of the world. I remember way back when we would spend our mornings in the basement of our old house, we'd always be working on some project or another. Painting, building, simply creating. Some mornings we would spend an hour or so playing ping pong. And then again if the weather was right, it was not unusual to find us in the backyard around the fire pit, a toasty fire and hot coffee as we chatted and enjoyed the sunrise in our backyard paradise.
Those times are precious to me.
I felt a touch guilty asking him to take his lunch early yesterday and join me for the convoy. I know he's crazy busy and that he already had made plans. I am so thankful he was able to join me. It was an experience like none other. It felt so powerful.
Yesterday afternoon he needed to run to a store, he'd misplaced a receipt he needed and they were willing to print another. I rode along as I needed to pick up a couple of things at that store. As I was walking in there was an older lady standing outside the door, she was fumbling with a mask and looked at me with such a combination of fear and defiance on her face. She said "you simply don't know, do you wear it or don't you". I simply smiled and told her to do what made her happy, but as for me I wasn't putting one on my face again.
The mask mandates in our county finally went away on Monday. It's strange how you can decide in 5 days there will no longer be a need for masks... or each time they have tried to force them back on people you get the... a week from Tuesday everyone will need to wear a mask. At no point did we stop to question the insanity of it all. If the mask was going to protect you, then damn well put it on and leave it on, don't give everyone a week to adjust. That's like saying a condom will stop pregnancy, but not using it until after you are finished having sex. Not very dang protective at that point is it?
I'm not sure how we reached the point that we are at. To a degree I feel it is programming that has been happening for a very long time. A lot of what we are going through right now is programming. Our education system has been the tool used for it.
For far too long kids have not been being taught life skills in schools, not just in this country, they have been being taught social ideals and social norms as prescribed by someone as a means of control. Kids today leave school without basic instruction in being a functioning human. For the most part they don't understand taxes, how to open their own bank account, they will barely understand how to cook a meal for themselves or survive without prepackaged everything.
How many kids today know how to sew on a button? Can they create a sweater to keep themselves warm? Can they do any form of wood working, mechanical skills are out the window and things that are good for the soul and mind like art, music and yoga or meditation etc are things that have long since been removed from the curriculum. Did they ever teach gardening? Or any other sustainable skills? Can they care for their basic needs if the "supply chain" is ever broken?
Instead the focus is on things that they will forget long before they hit their child bearing years. They learn math skills that unless they intend to be an engineer of some type will have no value to them. I do not use an ounce of what was pounded into my head. Why are we not educating children to be sustainable humans? Why are we not teaching them to think for themselves, to reason things through, to dream huge dreams and to create the next generation of miracles?
And before all the educators out there loose their ever loving minds and say "it's the parents job"... let's unpack that for a moment. We long ago left the realm of children spending the majority of their time with their parents. It's mandatory for kids to attend a certain number of days and hours in our school system, otherwise the school doesn't get their tax dollar allotment.
Anyone stop to wonder why that is? I have. I have questioned it many times.
My parents pulled us kids out of school on a moments notice, we traveled, we experienced life. If family came to visit we weren't in classrooms staring out windows and wishing we were with them, we were with them! I did the same things with my kids. They didn't read about places in boring books, they experienced them. They grew from that. I didn't think anything of pulling them out and taking them to visit another country, to experience the beauty of nature, the starkness of a former concentration camp, the architecture that even now makes zero sense to have been created by poorly educated people with little chisels and hammers.
Neither of my babies are lacking in knowledge, life experiences or depth. The difference is that my daughter had less time in the educational system and more life experiences, there is nothing she can't or won't try. She is forever on a quest to expand her knowledge. My son spent more time engrossed in the education system, by the time he was in the later years of education it was the "you must have this many hours or you can't move up to the next grade" era.
He's crazy smart, he is super successful holds multiple degrees in computer, physics and engineering. He was always going to be on that path, he loves the technical and complex issues in life. But ask him to boil water, cash a check or plant a garden to sustain himself during hard times and that sweet boy is screwed.
Until two years ago most families were a minimum of dual income. Most required at least one parent or partner to work multiple jobs. How else were you going to pay the taxes, healthcare, home, utilities or even consider having a bit left over extras.
For the most part the world eliminated an entire generations knowledge of the basics. Things that historically were passed down, knowledge that could be beneficial was wiped out. Why?
Have you ever been in an area that is quote/unquote a food desert? I have. Want to know the irony in my opinion... those areas of cities are over flowing with vacant lots. So instead of mourning the loss of the local grocery store (which was over charging and selling sub par crap) why are we not helping them plant productive gardens? Why aren't they putting in a small flock of chickens and learning the skills to care for them? Or maybe a couple of goats or sheep? Where is the older generation or our schools in teaching them life skills? Encouraging them to care for the things that will in turn provide and care for them?
Nope, those huge vacant lots are overgrown with weeds, drug paraphernalia, trash... they are empty and useless while they could be large overflowing garden of Edens. Stop to ask yourself why? Think about all of those lots being gardened, think of the kids joy at growing their first green beans - do you remember doing that in your lower grades? I do. Imagine the increase in health from healthy food, the exercise of maintaining it, the pride one would feel in the cold winter months cracking open the seal on a mason jar and savoring that fresh flavor of food canned at the time it was harvested.
When we lived in Washington state there was a "park" for lack of a better way to explain it, the owner planted blueberry bushes, LOTS of them, and left it open for all to come and pick to their hearts content. There was no fee, if you wanted blueberries you went and picked them. So many took advantage of it, benefited from it. Many years later I visited when my daughter lived there. We went by as we strolled down memory lane, imagine my joy to discover that several old houses in the area that weren't able to be lived in were torn down and that there were 4 times as many blueberry bushes and families were still benefitting without it costing them anything.
I remember being gifted the privilege of harvesting all the blackberries my arms could stand the scratches of from another unused lot. The blackberries grow abundantly there as the birds are more then willing to share the seeds. I spent hours harvesting blackberries, literally days sometimes. Then I would take them home and clean them by the bucket full. Some would be eaten fresh - until we couldn't eat anymore, some were frozen to make cobblers when winter came, so many more went into jams and jellies that I used to provide for my kids and to give to my sweet benefactor. There were far more than I would have ever been able to gather or use.
Truth is back in those days we barely had two nickles to rub together. The military doesn't pay well and we both worked. I was the parent back in those days with multiple jobs, but my kids never did without. And those skills were beyond valuable to us as I was able to supplement our grocery dollars with a bit of hard work. I didn't have anyone to teach me those skills while I was growing up, I wasn't raised around my extended family, but I sure found sources and people to teach me.
Yesterday's convoy felt like a band-aid being ripped off my heart and my brain. I have been questioning so much since then.
Wondering why so many area governing bodies have "voted" to not allow gardens, chickens, etc on property that you own and pay huge amounts of taxes (or rent to the government for - have you thought about it that way?) to have the privilege of owning? Seriously is the sound of a rooster crowing any worse than the sound of traffic, sirens, children playing, teens playing music and hanging out? People working in their yards, construction, etc... is it?
Wondering why so many things now have fees and taxes associated with them. If it is something that you can sustain yourself with, if it is something that you can better your own life with does it have a restriction? Does it have a fee?
Why are we being programmed to believe that we can't exist without all of it? Not so many years ago people didn't spend their weekends shopping and acquiring stuff. Instead we put that energy into doing things for ourselves, we worked with our neighbors to provide so much more. People were learning skills from their youngest years. Families were cohesive, neighbors were more like family.
We weren't taught that you worked Monday through Friday, that you must retire by 65, that after that age you didn't have value. We weren't programmed to believe any of it. Life was simply lived.
I firmly believe we have a lot of undoing to get to where we start moving forward. It isn't about more taxes, more fees, more control by others. I firmly believe it is more about taking responsibility for oneself. It's about learning those dying skills and sharing them. It's about questioning some of the rules that have been levied on us for our own good, in the name of safety or protecting us etc, and questioning the real reason behind it. What was being taken away, what was being hidden, what was the benefit to some governing force and what was the loss to each of us.
When you start thinking that way, the world looks a whole lot different.
Start being brave enough to be different. Shine your light, share your skills and knowledge, be the difference in your community, in this world.
love and peace...
p.s. I am not saying we don't need reading, writing and arithmetic... look deeper...
Really good one! 381+
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