Monday 15 August 2011

Hi, I guess I'm what you might call an untrained polymath. Largely self taught.          Student of the University of life. Child of the Universe. Believed to be terminally retarded (the punishment for which in those days was repeated thrashings) until diagnosed in my early teens as severely myopic.
Neither of my parents wanted me, but after a short and disastrous marriage my mother drew the short straw. Proceeding to remind me on a daily basis and at every level of rage, just what a useless, stupid, good for nothing excrescence of a burden to her I was.

Thrown upon my own devices for much of the time (nowadays it would be called neglect and abuse) I made my connection to the world through Nature. Observing, absorbing and learning from and with the flora and fauna I shared this wonderful world with. Here I was accepted. Gerald Durrell, David Attenborough and the Library fed my curiosity.

Small wonder then that the housing estate built upon my favourite Poppy field, the cutting down of trees,the filling in with rubble of my wild pond, home to three species of newts and the disappearance of the skylarks all felt like physical blows to me.
"What WILL happen to all the plastic bags,if they won't decay?" I would ask, only to be laughed at.
"What will happen to the birds, if you keep using pesticides?"  etc... It just didn't matter, back then. Not relevant to the important business of making money.

I let them laugh. I knew what was important. I was 'that nutter who keeps chickens' on Smith's Estate. 'That southern nutter who grows veg.' before then, at College in Manchester. I 'discovered' and have followed the progress of CAT since 'Those Hippy nutters' built an oasis in a welsh quarry. Kept the faith alive while watching appalled as the world has shrunk and been destroyed wholesale,by people (my elders and betters)who taught me to respect and never harm life. To be kind and considerate to others. To be honest and reliable.
I have never found it easy to live in a world that breaks it's own rules to suit, is inconsistant and dishonest. It is hard to reconcile the super-egotistical righteousness of men, as they preach about goodness and integrity while enslaving the world to base greed and wanton destruction.

Be that as it may. Six years ago life as I knew it ended. I died. Not without some relief, it must be said. I'd worked myself to death trying to keep up with the consumer race. Providing a home for my children, and all the things I never had. Which was quite a lot.

For the past few years I have been reconnecting with what is important to me. My garden being the main aid to my recovery. And the timely disposal of the TV.
Free of the barrage of mind numbing distraction I began to form a plan. Which, having planted the seed, has sprouted into a growing shoot.
I am here to see that SUSTO does it's very best to mitigate, in a small but significant way, some of the terrible harm we have done to our mother Earth.

Most of all, to be an example of how to live 'with' the earth, not in conflict with it.
It's time to wake up folks.
We must be prepared for the consequences of our actions.

Make no mistake, we are building an Ark...and the rain is already falling...

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