Sharing, swapping and paradigms

We have had a wonderful morning in the sun amongst friends. More than 30 people came to Essential Edibles at the Joslin Reserve this morning. People waving and greeting each other with baskets of mandarines, lemons, kale, spinach, parsley, lemon grass, marmalade, chutney and eggs. Seedlings of lettuce, coriander, parsley, sage and rosemary as well as lots of Australian plants.

There was a recipe for grapefruit marmalade and 4 different kinds of bikes brought our friends – ordinary bikes, a large tricycle, an extended bike with a seat for 4 year old Derek and a gopher. The sun shone from 8.30 to 11.30 while we chatted, shared and swapped.

And this brings me to PARADIGMS: Do we have to rethink our paradigm to take away more than we brought? Did we calculate whether we had brought more than we took home? Perhaps building community, discovering resilience and finding ways to adapt to the new situation that is coming requires thinking though our paradigm.

I heard about a workshop conducted with a group of businesses in an area of Adelaide. The facilitator talked about Climate Change and the adaptations that will be required. One participant crossed his arms and said that there was always change happening and that we will live through it – was he skeptical or just resistant? At the end of the day the facilitator went around the group for an answer to the question ‘What is one thing you have decided to do after this workshop?’ When it was the turn of the skeptical/resistant fellow he said he was going home to rethink the paradigm from which he had been operating.

Let us all review our paradigms.