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Litter in Lovely Places

3/30/2012

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Without a doubt the thing that causes me the most exasperation in life is litter. Why? It is because it is the thing in life that is unnecessary and avoidable. Wherever I have gone in the world, not matter how remote, there is always a fag end, a plastic bottle or a sweet wrapper to not only spoil the places of beauty I have visited, but result in pollution and damage to wildlife. I remember reading on a beach in Western Australia that something as little as 10 plastic bags can kill a whale by obstructing its gutand there are over a million plastic bags floating in the oceans at anyone time.

And it is me, or does the UK appear to have more litter on the streets, parks, woods and beaches now than only a couple of years ago? I know there are places in the world where litter collection and recycling is difficult, but not in the UK. The problem appears to be people's lack of wanting to use litter bins. Most of the litter I see on runs and walks is "toss-able" ie tossed out of a car window, from a bicycle, from the hands of a walker. You know the litter I mean, beer cans, fag ends, crisp packets, plastic water bottles and more.

What does this have to do with Heartfelt Ceremonies and Compassionate Support? Or am I just griping about pet hates?

I love my planet and I respect it, doing all I can (although I am sure I can do
more) to preserve its beauty and leave it as a legacy to my children and their
children, taking the long view that I am just a short term visitor to this world
and that I must not abuse it. We see a world in daily environmental crisis, with disasters being predicted on a massive scale. Even without the disasters that are forecast and the loss of life that will result, we see filth and waste everywhere. Those that watched on TV Sports Relief the families picking through waste from a huge rubbish dump in Bangladesh will consider how awful an existence some people face, living from the filthy rubbish of others. These were not ingenious schemes to use recycling to to prevent future waste, this was witnessing a living hell for families with nothing, trying to stay alive by finding enough scrap to sell and even forced to eat discarded food from a landfill rubbish tip!

So this is my compassionate support bit. Like many my donations to Sports Relief are made and I hope if only one person less has to ensure that hell, then it was a donation well made. But there is further compassion, what can I do in my homeland? I can gripe and moan or say the local council should do more to prevent this awful littering. But this is not the solution, nor is shaming people to stop littering.

The heartfelt bit is the desire to stop and pick up the rubbish of others, loving
and kindly and without judgment. To just use a trip a week, perhaps a journey or walk or run with the aim of collecting as much "toss-able rubbish" as one
carrier bag will hold. I did this on a run on a country trial-way and filled a
bag in 30 minutes and just over 3 miles. It was simple and even enjoyable.
Better still people watched me do it, some may be inspired to do the same,
because of their heartfelt wish to live in as lovely a place as me and for it to
be clean and litter free. And there were no shortage of empty rubbish bins for
me to put the litter in, so I did not even need to take it home with me. What
about you,would you be heartfelt and inspired, compassionate towards our
beautiful planet?

Please enjoy April and have many loving experiences with the litter you
find.



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A time and a place for love?

3/1/2012

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I bet you are looking at the picture and thinking, well there's no love in this place! Or any other supermarket or shopping centre for that matter. So if I cannot have a loving experience in a supermarket, then where must I go and what must I feel?

Many of us feel that a loving experience, that is to say the knowing that we are a loving being, capable of giving and receiving love to all that need it, may see the need to be in a place of calm and a state of peace. Many may also feel that is not in my local supermarket. Hussle and bussle, rudeness, rushing and generally no love, peace or calm in this place.

Time to go a little deeper. If I am a person capable of giving and receiving love, why do I look to restrict myself to certain times and places? Why do I say I can be loving in one place and not another? If I do that then what I do is exclude my ability to love others in certain places. So in a place of calm and I can be loving to all I meet. But in a place of frenzy I cannot. But surely that means I am wasting an opportunity and using an on/off switch? If I say I cannot be loving in a supermarket, then I exclude all the people in that place, who are probably feeling just as I do, they too probably feel they cannot be loving towards others.

See the dilemma? People switch off their love in a place that needs love, thus contributing to the lovelessness of the place they are and creating instead anguish, anger and anxiety, which does not help. Also what if we take these "shopping" feelings with us, in the car on the way home, in the home we live in, to work, to school? We perpetuate this lack of loving by continuing to throw around the toxicity of our "shopping" feelings.

What can we do to stop this toxic overspill? Simple, do two things.

First recognise yourself as a loving being, not some of the time, but ALL of the time. A person capable of loving yourself and ALL other people, animals, plants and other objects you come across, all of the time. You may not like everyone you meet, but you can love them, without condition or judgment, just love them as your fellow being, a brother, sister, partner, lover. Love them all no matter what.

Second recognise that all places are sacred and all are capable of having love within them. Don't make excuses that a place is too busy, too ugly, too noisy to have loving calm within it. Be the change you want to see in the world. Be the love in a loveless place, recognise people not as fellow shoppers all in a rush to buy "stuff", but as fellow loving beings. Give them some of your love.

How? You don't need to say 'I love you' to everyone you meet, but you can demonstrate loving and kind behaviour. Courtesy, politeness, an offer to help someone struggling with too much to carry. A smile to the person at the checkout, put some money in the charity pot. These are the gifts of loving kindness available to us all to in turn give to others, try them and see how much love you give and then receive as a results of your actions.

Please enjoy March and have many loving experiences.

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    I am Noel Lockyer-Stevens and I use this blog to discuss thought provoking topics.

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