The circle of life

        It’s amazing being self sustaining. It is how we are meant to live. I helped make adobe today. Mixing straw, dirt and water I made rectangular bricks that, once hardened, will be used to make a wall. The sheep and llamas are sheared every year and their wool is used to make yarn. I went to the garden, pulled a carrot from the ground, washed it and ate it and something about that felt so right. It makes me think about all the baby carrots sitting in plastic bags at the grocery store. Where did they come from? Were they shipped by plane or train or truck? Who pulled them from the dirt? How did they end up at this Winn-Dixie?  I know that the food we eat comes from the earth one way or another, yet a simple little fact like that is easy to forget when you’ve spent the past 13 years living in New York City where it’s so easy to consume. There I can go to a deli and pay $12 for a handful of lettuce with nuts, eggs, raisins already chopped up and served in a plastic container that I carelessly throw away in the nearest trash, strutting away in an outfit, shoes and make-up that were made from materials that have some forgotten origin, delivered to me in a bag with a pricetag made of paper from some tree that disappeared and was never mourned. 

         Humankind has done some very destructive things. I took a hike the other day through a national park right outside of Santiago. From the top of the cordillera you could see a thick layer of gray smog just sitting on top of Santiago, an unmoving cloud of pollution. Climate change and global warming is a real threat. There are too many signs and too many warnings for us to say “We had no idea” when shit hits the fan. There are too many good people in this world that sit by and do nothing. But then again, humans are extraordinary. We’ve found ways of cultivating the earth, we live on land but we fly through the skies and we sail on the seas. We have so much intelligence, so much technology and resources and the power of knowledge. So isn’t it so backwards that there are sick, hungry people? How did we become so detached from the earth? How did we get to a point where one could live in over-abundance while others right next door struggle to survive? 

        I have spent my life receiving gifts that I’ve been too blind to appreciate. I’ve never gone hungry, I’ve always had a roof over my head, I’ve had access to education, I’m intelligent, I have big bright future ahead of me, and I have a great family that is ready to pick me up whenever I fall. I am extremely privileged in many ways. I never did anything to deserve it, and I get such a guilty feeling when I look into the hungry eyes of a homeless man sitting on the curb. I think: here I am, ripping my hair out over which college to go to, and this man doesn’t know where he’ll find his next meal. I’m no better than this guy, why do I get to choose my future when he is left with no choice? Maybe life isn’t fair, and we just live. But I was born with some sense of justice, or maybe I learned it, somehow I know everything happens for a reason and what goes around comes around. The universe is showering me with gifts now and that just means I will spend my whole life finding ways of giving back.