A Beginner’s Guide to Living in Collaboration with the Earth even during this lockdown by Anoopama Mukerjee Lohana, a sound energy alchemist, a meditation mentor, well-being and conscious life coach, and a big-time nature admirer.
We are becoming aware of our immediate need to return to a more ‘sustainable’ way of living life. Sustainable Businesses, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Resources, Sustainable Energy, Sustainable Housing, Sustainable Fashion, the list is endless.
We all know the theory. We all know that someone somewhere is making the Change. But, what about me and you? What about turning that theory into a conscious, spontaneous way of everyday life, that makes us active collaborators with our beautiful Planet Home? Here are 9 ways of infusing a few tiny, some landmark, choices into our home, and lifestyle even while in lockdown.
1.) NO MORE PLASTIC PACKAGED WATER
This was definitely a no brainer, and the easiest to start with! Carry your own water in a glass or metal water bottle everywhere. Packaged water is hard water and travels through varied temperatures, before reaching you. Plastic, even food grade, release toxic and carcinogenic elements into the water when left out in the sun.
2.) GIVE YOUR PEARLIES REASON TO SMILE, ORGANICALLY
The first act we indulge in, every morning – brushing our teeth- adds so much plastic waste into our Planet; and puts a concoction of chemicals into us. Use bamboo toothbrushes and nature based organic/ vegan toothpaste.
3.) BUCKET LIST
A bucket bath brings your presence into the whole bathing experience. You tend to slow down and actually pay attention to the flow of water, the temperature and the clearing of body, breath and being. Filling and holding a bucket of precious water in a copper bucket, add some salt crystals, tulsi or neem, sometimes fresh flowers, and invoke the energies of health, quenching and sustenance for all creation, into it.
4.) EAT LOCAL. UGLY. FRESH
Buying locally grown foods that are ‘ugly’ (with spots, bruises, colourations and variations of shape, size etc. as nature means them to be, unlike shiny, perfect, identical, hybrid and GMO produce) has been all the rage for a while now. It’s the reason why farmer’s markets and 100 mile dinners are popping up everywhere.
5.) SUSTAINABLE AND REUSABLE KITCHEN
Include a range of clay and earthen cookware, use bamboo and cotton dish cloth and wipes instead of paper, cotton napkins that can be washed and reused, for years most likely, instead of paper napkins, wooden chopping boards instead of plastic and polyfibre boards, and all storage containers changed to glass and steel.
6.) CONSCIOUS IS THE NEW GLAM
Connect with the blissful care of nature, by choosing to use only plant based, natural, organic and cruelty free brands. Nature vs chemicals! How does it get any better than this? Skin care and makeup that actually nurtures you and the planet.
7.) WOVEN WITH LOVE
One of the biggest culprits in the fashion industry is fast fashion or clothes made en mass, to meet the demands for hot new styles. However, fast fashion is putting our future planet at risk. Sustainable fashion pays attention to the entire supply chain and life cycle of a garment, from where and how it is made to when it ends up in our landfills.
8.) DON’T THROW! COMPOST.
This one is really about coming full circle. We actually come from a zero-waste culture, in this country. Rural India is still more use-all in its waste perspectives. Take Project Compost on! In your own apartment or home. Composting can divert as much as 30% of household waste away from the garbage can. That is important because when organic matter sits in landfills, it gets deprived of the air it needs to decompose quickly. Instead, it creates harmful methane gas as it breaks down, increasing the rate of global warming and climate change.
9.) SLOW LIVING
We have run the races too long and too fiercely. It is time now to breathe a little deeper, walk a lot more slowly, and live wholly, in every moment. Sustainability and Living in synchronicity with biorhythms cannot be your diet, choice, or fashion statement alone. It is not about limiting your experience of Life. Rather, it is about Sustaining; and being sustained; by all that is Nature birthed, living and throbbing. Meditate. Surrender your senses to subtle experiences like music, art, poetry, yoga, theatre, quiet walks, and sunsets. Laugh often. Share freely. Listen. Speak up. Follow some dream, passionately.
To read the full article on how you can go sustainable this 2020, grab on to the Spring Back to Nature issue of GlobalSpa March-April magazine.
