Walking in Balance
with the Three R's
(Reducing, Reusing, Recycling)
by Jeff Hohensee (Turtle Speaks With Heart)
"I will walk in balance with Grandmother Earth and in harmony with
all her children." This probably means something different for all of us.
For me, this part of the SunDance Vow is a warrior's statement of intent,
catalyzing how I will fight our enemies. In my day-to-day life, part of
this translates that I vow to be attentive about what I am taking and what
I am giving away. Balance and harmony feels critical to me, for without it
I fear that my actions as a warrior are nothing more than veiled
self-importance.
I don't know if there were ever easy times to be a warrior. For me, these times are definitely not easy. There seem to be monumental forces in our collective working to focus my attention exclusively on the human world. The media bombards me with covert and overt messages that (unintentionally?) strip me of responsibility for everything except being an unsatisfiable consumer. My current understanding of consuming is that it is "consciously taking what I can use with honor to feed my hungers so that I may work to feed the hungers of life and others." On the dark side I currently understand consuming to mean "taking whatever I need to keep me happy", or even darker "being unconscious of the strip-mining of the mineral, plant and animal worlds that creates the things that opiate me into a dull state of complacency."
The United States, which represents six percent of the world's population, consumes sixty percent of the world's natural "resources". I have grown up in a culture that promotes a cavalier attitude towards the Earth and its natural systems. It does not have to be like this. To reduce the impact of my consumption I choose to be conscious of what I am buying and how it was manufactured. My intent is to reduce my ecological footprint by paying attention to the environmental cost of everything I use: water, earth, air and energy. For example, I avoid disposable products. While using a disposable napkin is kind of convenient in the short term, in the long term it causes a lot of unnecessary environmental pain. When I use something once and then throw it away, I feel like I am walking on the edge of violating Sacred Law.
Understanding all of the environmental costs of a product can be very complex. To make it easier for people to understand, environmental educators developed a Three R hierarchy as a teaching tool.
REDUCING, the most mini-max of the three, means not consuming in the first place. For example, reducing means going to the store and not using a new bag for a handful of items, or not buying food that is over-packaged.
REUSING, while consuming more of the Earth than reducing, can still be done with great honor and respect. A reusable item can be blessed and awakened. In the tonal world a reusable item is durable, like a reusable coffee cup, a cloth sack or a washable plate.
RECYCLING is the third R. Recycling is a huge improvement over picking up a "free" single use item and then landfilling it. Still, recycling is a distant third to reducing and reusing in terms of impact. Contrary to popular belief, recycling does not heal the environment. Recycled materials still need to be transported, remanufactured and redistributed (which contribute to water, air and land pollution and consume energy). At best recycling reduces my impact. At worst, it creates a false sense of security and good will. I recycle only what I cannot avoid using in the first place, or find a reusable substitute for.
Landfilling is my last alternative for letting go of something I no longer want. Landfills seal items away from Grandmother Earth's natural cycles. Invariably the items that I landfill will be recreated from raw materials. By recycling I reduce the environmental costs of extraction, but I still "buy" the cost of transportation, remanufacturing and distribution. By being attentive to my decisions I have reduced what I landfill down to about a glove box worth of waste a week without any noticeable impact on the quality of my lifestyle.
There are thousands of tips on how to reduce waste. I learned most of what I know by watching what I threw away, and then finding alternatives to reduce, reuse and recycle. I then asked our local experts questions, and I continually checked in on my intent.
Life does not owe me anything. I don't take what I consume for granted. For me, part of honoring Grandmother Earth for her give-aways is giving away in return. My culture's traditional give-away for consuming is money. Money in and of itself is not evil. How I use money is my choice. Still, it has been hard for me to comprehend how spending money for consumer goods is a give-away to anything except the human world.
We have a campaign that we are leading with Los Angeles teenagers that starts out with the intent "We have to ReThink the way we live." The first step in our process is guiding teenagers to understand the Earth as a living system. We then help them to evaluate the hidden environmental costs of their daily decisions. To bring these teachings into their bodies, we then support them in leading projects that create a measurable improvement in the health of their environment. The third piece is really critical for me. While understanding and action can reduce my impact on the environment, reducing how much I take doesn't bring me back into balance. To honor Grandmother Earth for all she gives, I actively participate in local environmental projects that aid in healing of the land. I do my best to make sure the quality and quantity of these projects are equivalent to the pollution that I help create, the electricity and gas that I use, the parts of the earth that I consume, and the food that I eat.
This is one part of my current understanding of how I can walk in balance and harmony. Every one of us is an individual. I honor whatever path you choose that walks towards the light. I pray that together we succeed in healing Grandmother Earth and all of her children -- the mineral, plant, animal, human and spirit worlds.