Trashing Mother Earth. “I am the One who weeps because your ignorance is killing me.” Council Suit

I never thought of myself as a political person until it became apparent that politics is a way of life. There’s no way around it. If you prefer hemp to polyester politics is involved. If you prefer soy milk to cow’s milk, leather as opposed to cotton, sashimi to sautéed flounder, vegetable lasagne to beefsteak, stilettos to tennis shoes, say Yes to Buddhism and No to Christianity, purchase domestic goods instead of foreign, you’re ensconced in politics. If you have a preference you’ve made a statement, a political statement in favour of one and against the other.

Even so, we are affected by one another’s choices and our actions. No person is an island. No one can withdraw or claim he or she is separate from the rest of humanity and survive. Which leads me to consider how interconnected, interrelated, and dependent on one another we are.

Reduce the use and distribution of certain goods and/or services, if an animal becomes extinct that once served as food, the change causes a domino effect that affects nations, imbalances the eco-system and the world socially, politically, economically, putting the Earth at risk of imploding.

The World is My Oyster, I Shall Not Want. Community Suit

I never thought of myself as an activist either, until I made my first SoulCollage® card on the theme of Environmental Awareness.

Before me lay a source of images I can’t turn my back on. I’m forced to feel what the earth suffers every day. I look through stacks of photos of third world countries littered with children playing on hill-size garbage dumps. Peer at oceans of oil spills and the thousand animals we can’t save; their furs, and feathers saturated in a slick of oil impossible to clean.

I cringe at the sight of raging forest fires. The corpses of deer and squirrel left to simmer in their graves. Seeing land erode and miles of green pastures turning into wasteland, adding to the nightmare I can’t escape.

I Swim At Your Mercy. Community Suit

By the time I see the emaciated body of a six-year-old held by his mother, as if he was an infant, tears flood my eyes. My body shakes from disgust, from the shock of this visual experience.

My mind struggles to compare, trying somehow to relate. Yet I can’t imagine what devastation feels like to those who suffer the crimes we commit.

So, how do we increase environmental awareness through SoulCollage®?

No matter the issue, the very nature of SoulCollage® lends itself to creating awareness. Looking at and seeing images pertaining to environmental disasters whether natural or manmade, impact consciousness, stir the emotions, educate us, and ultimately trigger a response.

These images, in a nonverbal way offer a different perspective on the world, stimulate compassion and sensitize us to needs other than our own.

Many of us feel we can’t make a difference yet we can.

To consider the possibilities, to hold the thought in mind, to focus ones attention on the wellbeing of others and the Earth, making cards devoted to environmental awareness is participating. Every thought generates kindness, circulates blessings, increases light and love throughout the world like waves carried out into the ocean.

“I am the One who is you. I am the many in the existing One,” declares my Trashing Mother Earth card. “To destroy me is to destroy the very self you worship.”

You might not be digging ditches in Afghanistan or performing open-heart surgery, still you can make a card, and send a prayer through the ethers stating you care.

To participate in one of Ivette’s Environmental Awareness groups, click on Workshops on the homepage of Amirrorself.com.

Amirrorself.com. copyright. Ivette Ebaen, 2016.