TRANSCRIPT
Today we’re going to the farmer’s market. We take our recycling, really composting, to this wonderful lady who has garbage cans, and we pile them in, and they take them away, and they turn them into topsoil. All right, so shall we? We shall! Let’s go.
I lived here in the 1970s. We threw away everything, just into the trash, into landfill, everything. We went out; it was the highest point in New York was the garbage pile on Staten Island. So, you know, they climb Mount Everest; they should climb that pile of garbage. But we threw everything away: cans, plastic, paper, and all of this stuff that really wants to compost and return to nature and then grow again and come to life again.
I asked my dad once, since he lived on a farm, “Did you have any garbage? Who took the garbage?” He said, “We didn’t have any,” because things weren’t so packaged in plastic. They reused everything. They used everything, and then they composted and returned things to the earth. So the cycle was complete.
So what do you see as the bigger metaphor for recycling and what you’re doing? Because it seems like a pretty small thing to throw away a little bit of garbage.
Well, just that we really are connected to nature and that we have to respect nature. Nature isn’t just something to use and exploit; it’s a cycle that has to be renewed if we’re going to survive on this planet as a species. So there really, in the ultimate sense, there’s no such thing as garbage. If there is garbage, it’s not a cycle, and something’s wrong. And that’s why we have this huge pool of plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When I found that out, I was horrified. And that this plastic disintegrates and goes into small pieces and becomes part of the krill, so that everything is plastic-lined, you know, in the food chain and in the ocean, and so ultimately us.
Let me ask you, what gives you hope?
I survived, and I’m growing, and I’m thriving like a beautiful plant. And if I can do it, coming from my background and living on this planet and this time, I feel anybody can do it.
So can you be specific about what you mean from your background at this time?
Well, I came to New York to be a modern dancer, absolutely no support from my family. And you know what? A year after I lived in New York, I was touring in a famous modern dance company.
What made it happen?
To be fair, I felt I was born with something special. And everybody is born with the true self, but some of us just have more spirit than the average person. That doesn’t make us better, but it does give us a gift that we have to develop and nurture and set in an environment where it can grow. And oddly enough, in this crazy metropolis, I was able to grow.
So I’m curious more, though. You basically, it sounds like what you’re saying is you recycled yourself.
That is very perceptive, and that is true. I removed myself from the toxicity of my family and of the norm, and I was able to find my true self and develop it, plant it in the soil of truth and nature, and I’ve bloomed.
Ideas can spread like wildfire. I do think also, as the world starts to collapse more environmentally and economically, people are going to be more open in that catastrophe for new solutions and new ways of being human. So you watch and see. Some of us who are blessed to be ahead of the pack, people will look to us as teachers and guides for this new way. And we won’t abuse that power and responsibility, but we’ll use it ethically and altruistically because we’re all one. We’re all connected. We’re all part of nature.
Just as an example, what do we got here?
Here we have a fast food restaurant, and it’s leftover pizza and vegetables. It half smells good and half smells rotten. It looks like some homeless person was having lunch. So, oh no, hold on. Let me just look at this. Dinner is served. It is terrible how much food we throw away. You know, people are starving. There’s all these programs to feed people, and look at this. You know, we just throw it away and forget how much the food industry throws away every day.
Now, I admit I brought that over in a plastic bag, and the lady knows just as I know. I know it’s not good. So we’re not perfect with this, but it’s the beginning. So all of this rots down like nature intended, and it becomes topsoil. It completes the cycle of nature. So I’m just so thrilled that, you know, some people are on board with this new thinking, and it’s exciting.