Fixed it

This is tiger habitat that is being destroyed by illegal loggers... taken in
2011 when i was in Jambi province

So yesterday i fixed the hoover with the help of the Karcher man in Newtownards and then hoovered the whole house. It was great. I was so happy. The house looks great now. I need to get an eletrician out now to fixed the lights. I was thinking last night that having no lights and no heat meant that i was in bed by silly o'clock. The boys were downstairs by candlelight playing Minecraft and i was up in bed regaling Ghin with stories of my childhood. I used to be able to buy a bowl of curry rice for 40 cents and sweets were like three for five cents. Things like that. So we were kinda talking about things which we never usually talk about. It was really lovely. I thought, i quite like not having the light. And maybe not having heat is not so bad. I mean that is how they did it in the old days didnt they? I have been asked to call the electrician though, so that is the end of my romantic notions of no light. We do have light - just not light downstairs.

We have heat too, but the boiler needs replaced. Anyway, it doesn't really matter. There is plenty of time to get these things sorted. I am happy with the way they are. They'll get fixed when they get fixed, i'm totally cool with it.

Ah i hear Ghin running down.

Well, since i wrote this, the ceiling in the kitchen is leaking, doubtless the cause of the no light situation, one of Oisin's friends threw up all over the bathroom, occupational hazzard when one has friends, and i have had to cancel a lunch appointment - which is ok, although i do wish the plumber will call me back. I think i have just going to have the entire system in this house overhauled. To soothe my nerves i have made lunch which is homemade bread with walnuts and a bean stew with sour cream. This unusual choice of lunch is due to a leftover situation - i have a tin of blackbeans, from Biona, some strong flour and a packet of walnuts. I had a packet of yeast and some oil - and five carrots. So it was obvious what i needed to do - oh and half a thingy of sour cream.

I am now just sort of waiting for the tummy bug to hit us, although i hold out high hopes not succumbing personally cos i have taken most of the Master Tonic which was given to me - which is really chicken rice chilli with less chilli and horseradish. It was very comforting when i drank it. It was like sitting in Wee Nam Kee, waiting for your order to arrive, and dipping your spoon into the sauce cos it tasted just great.

The Palm Oil debate continues. The upshot of this debate has made me realise two things - i am always right. Which is the less important of the two things (well, i say that, but that i am always right is very gratifying). The other thing is that palm oil belongs to a throw away culture. So the destruction of the lungs and carbon sinks of our planet was for no good reason. This is the most horrible part of the entire tragedy. You'd think that maybe, in order to save something we have to destroy the oxygen supply on Earth. Well, i dunno what would necessitate that, but there you go.  On some level maybe i could have accepted that. You know - i sacrifice my personal wish to go out and get very pissed with my friends to stay home and bring up my children. Which is not really a sacrifice, but you get the idea. If it was for a good cause. But then i read the list of things which had palm oil in it and it was like reading a joke list of things which i would never dream of putting into my mouth or on my body anyway.

Cheap biscuits, cheap chocolate, cheap and nasty cosmetics, cheap food - usually frozen food or fried food, toilet paper!!!! cheap blah blah blah - the long and short of it was really it was the result of a disposable culture. We were doing what we were doing because of convenience. Plus it was also bad for us. Palm oil was there because it was cheap. And easy. And really bad for us. It is sort of easy for me to go - well i never eat horrible things and i would rather poke needles in my eyes that eat a bar of Cadburys which does not have palm oil, if that can be believed - BUT the thing is that these things were luxuries. Biscuits and chocolate and shampoo and lipsticks - really - these things were not necessary to the existence of life. Toilet paper - really... most of South East Asia does not use toilet paper - they use water and they use their fingers - yes, that is true. Essentially modern life is what is destroying the rainforest. And it would appear that the most trivial, ridiculous, trite, and pointless bits of modern life is doing that.

I spent an afternoon with the Bathin Sembilan in Harapan. What struck me was how they were able to live on very very little. They had no electricity. Their houses were made from everything the forest could provide. They took apart their houses and moved on when it was time to move on. They bathed in the danaus. They ate fruit all year long. They hunted for meat. They used the forest for medicine.

I am advocating living like them, but really we could live on very little too. And it would be good for us. I am now discovering that i am getting used to a colder house. Previously i would have had the heat up full whack, but now that we have to replace the boiler, it is ok - i think the temperature is something like 12 deg in the house, but the boys and i are ok. We don't need lights on - cos like the lights downstairs aren't working right, but it is ok, there is enough daylight. We will light candles later on the day.... it will be FINE. We will be ok.

The Earth is asking us to think - think before we do things. Does this make us happy? What does this mean? Part of our meditation in the teacher training course is to look at an object and think about what it has taken to make that object. The prime example is the pencil. Look at the pencil - think about everything that has taken in order to bring it to bear. Think of the entire cosmos which has taken part in the creation of that pencil. The trees under the light of the sun, the graphite taken from the earth, the people who devised the machines which cut that pencil, the paint that went onto it. How was that rubber made? That metal bit - the mining that took place to create that metal and the molding... a simple pencil, in your hand - mundane and profound.

What do i need? Why do i need it? Do i appreciate what i have been given? These are questions which we ask, need to ask all the time... and then perhaps, one day it will be fixed, if we ask the question enough. One day, it will happen.