Is Autumn already here? Leaves are getting yellowish. Garden explodes with food: pumpkins, zucchinis, kale, turnips, cabbages are either ready right now or gaining size in a blink of an eye. Sun is at its lowest since I first came to Vrabsko. Days are shorter. Nights are chilly. In fact, every evening cracking of wood in fireplace can be heard, and delicate smell of smoke is hanging in the air. Afternoon sun is still very warm, but grass in shade is covered with dew despite that. Wind sometimes brings smell of moist, and ideas of having a scarf wrapped around the neck…
Suddenly I am discovering all the softest blankets and finding all the cups that fit perfectly in my hand. Books are becoming interesting much more, than they were for last six months. Surprisingly for me, they are now more intersing than new people that just came for a Youth Exchange. Summer (is it already gone?) was very fulfilling to me! I was this social creature, surrouded with people all the time, travelling, sleeping in a tent, watching sunsets and sunrises, dancing, running.
Am I still this guy? For sure, but now my needs are different… I want to sleep more. I want to listen to music, meditate, write poetry, read books. And this is first time in my life that I clearly see – that is just part of life cycles. This is fine. No shame and guilt. No judgements about being „lazy” or „not having goals”. I can sleep more. I do not need to be „efficient” at all cost. After all, that’s how nature works, rigtht?
I wish humanity knew that. I wish we remembered. I wish we could all feel safe and relaxed, as I can feel theese days. I was given this precious opportunity to live here, far away from having a „job”, renting a place and being caught up in a loop of earning and spending. Life that I have here feels so real. So simple. I wish it was accesible to everyone! I know that not everyone would choose that – that’s ok. Everyone has its own way. But somehow deep inside me, I feel that it could be the way for so many of us…
I am questioning many parts of my previous lifestyle while being here. I will share a story with you, as an example:
For a previous week I was craving a cookie. Like this classic round shape thing, with taste and scent of carmelized sugar, crunchy, maybe with some chocolate, or something else inside that would outstand from a cookie mass. First I thought it is craving for sweets, so I tried with what was around – dates, raisins, dried bananas. Nothing. Maybe I wanted something more processed? We have this gummy bears, vegan, with beetroot sugar, healthy as it can be. No, that was not it!
Normally I would just go to the shop, and buy something. Of course, I would read the ingriedients, and finally tell to myself „Come on man, you don’t need to be so harsh on yourself.” After eating a pack, I would thoughtlessly throw a plastic packaging to the bin, and forget about it.
But now it was different. I postponed the fulfillment of my craving until at some point, after a few days, in the evening, I found my morning oatmeal that was left after breakfast.That was it! I added some seeds, raisins, more oats, little bit of cane sugar, coconut oil, formed round shape cookies, baked them, and… I shared those with community.
I could not buy anything with such a quality. No plastic was produced. No animal was harmed nor abused. No gluten in it, no preservtives, no artificial ingriedients. I am not sure if I would be able to understand how important and groundbraking it is without having this expirience.
Western society created culture of single-use, quick, easy accesible products that, in most cases, are harmfull to our health. Plastic prodused in a mass scale ends up on landfills, in oceans, in forrests. Polluting wildlife, but finally also our bodies. Profit-oriented companies are looking for cheaper way to produce, at cost of quality. „If there is demand, there is supply” They will say. That is some part of true. But isn’t it that the culture that we live in is creating this demand?
Culture of detachement: We have no idea, where wheat in our shop-bought cookies is grown, where the palm oil comes from, what actually is calcium sulfate, and what it does to our bodies. Very simple procedure: I want a cookie > I am buying a cookie > I am eating a cookie. I do not see consequense of that process in external, nor internal world. At least not right away.
Culture of consumption: I work hard, so I deserve a treat. I am stressed, so I consume social media content, hoping that this will take away my deamons. Culture off adding up stuff, strategies, information. In pursuit of what I want I learn, that I need more. I need to work more. I need to study more. I need to meet more people. I need to post more, post everyday! MORE MORE MORE.
And I just want to do less in order to be present with what actually is.
I just want to do the stuff, that is needed to sustain the community. Feed the ducks. Water the garden. Build a rack for laundry in our laundry room. Clean the kitchen. Some of this stuff needs to happen every day. Some of it doesn’t. I aprecieate this time to slow down. Time to remember, to integrate. It feels so good to allow this happening. Thank you Vrabsko. Thank You me. Thank You Universe.
~Aleksander
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