Do What You Want, but...

I’ve found myself so busy lately, that I cannot keep track of time. Of course, it’s my “fault” that I’m busy. I’m doing what I want; but doing what I want ends up with me being very busy.

Before I get knee deep in this blog, I’m going to tell you a secret. I ask my Spirit Guides for titles to talks and blogs. I get 4-5 at a time, then eventually write or speak them. I’ve had a few last minute talks lately, so I haven’t really been mindful of checking my Spirit stash for titles.

When I sat down to write this, I slowed down to check in with my Brigade (the endearing term I hold for my Spirit Guides); and my Guide, Andrew, came in with a message:

“As much as you’d like to simply do what you want...you can. You can do what you want every moment of every day. But you must remember that every action has an outcome; so firstly ask yourself if you also want the outcome.”

This message sounded familiar, which lead to a light bulb going off in my head. "I've heard something like this before!" I went back to check my stash of titles; and, lo and behold, I see the title, “Do want you want”. This title was given to me by the sardonic Andrew.

Do what you want. I thought that an odd title when I got it; but they all seem a little odd at first, really. After the message he gave me when I went about to write this talk, the title made more sense. It wasn’t the title about doing what you want, it was a title about Karma.

Oh, Karma. Karma you are so reliable. We all truly, consistently underestimate your ability to work every single time. Karma, you are simple yet effective...you always win!

It is important you know Chapel of Awareness’s definition of Karma. It is the only definition of Karma that has ever truly resonated with me. Chapel of Awareness defines karma as “Cause and Effect”. Simple causation. I love that. It is so simple. Far too often, humans complicate the ever lovin' shit out of everything; and we really do ourselves a disservice in doing so.

Remember, the spiritual law of Karma is in play 24/7. Every action we take has a reaction; but we don't think about it every day. I feel like we live a lot of life on auto-pilot, mindlessly. Our actions may have reactions that affect more than just ourselves too. Yea, we’re all in this together.

All of earth is in this together.

There’s about 3 gabazillion scenarios and or impacts one could bring up with regards to karma. Day to day karma, personal karma, family karma, work karma, state-wide karma, country karma.. global karma!!! I enjoy the big picture, so I’m going to focus on global karma; but just one particular part of global karma. By global karma, I mean “the actions that we take that create a global reaction”. But, "Rev. Meg", you say, "we couldn’t possibly be so influential that are actions can create a global reaction!" But yes, you are so influential. We are all that influential- especially when we’re in on something together, right?

At Chapel of Awareness, someone once asked Spirit what the biggest threat to humanity was, and Spirit replied, “Greed and overpopulation.” How can greed and overpopulation be THAT large of a threat to humanity? It seems like a giant meteor or a super flu would’ve been the best answer...or something else catastrophic. Greed and overpopulation are not catastrophic; but the karma that follows them is.

If you want to buy a new pair of shoes, you can! Do what you want. The personal karma might be joy, a more comfortable day to day life, or another pair of shoes in the sea of shoes in your closet. Also, the global karmic reaction is about a 30 lb carbon footprint. One new pair of shoes equals leaving a 100 watt bulb running for a week straight. The clothing industry produces 1.2 billion tons of carbon emissions every year. Over the last 15 years, our new clothing purchases have doubled, and our usage of the clothes we buy has halved. Humans are essentially treating clothing like kleenex. Speaking of kleenex, the paper industry produces ½ a billion tons per year. Add on a few more billion for technological devices.

We buy all these things in excess, the mass production of which causes environmental harm to our home (earth), and then we turn them into trash- quickly. Not everything we buy is purchased out of pure greed; but most of it is. No one needs 50 pairs of shoes. No one needs to use paper towels instead of reusable towels. No one needs to buy a dress new, versus picking up one at a thrift store.

Do what you want, “But you must remember that every action has an outcome; so firstly ask yourself you also want the outcome.”

Humans in the world thrown away 1.3 billion tons of food a year...that’s a third of all the food we grow. Wait, huh? We throw away A THIRD of the food we grow every year? We throw away 133 billion pounds in the US alone. The animal agriculture industry is 44% of the methane has emissions worldwide, just one industry. Animal agriculture in the U.S. is destroying the ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico...all the poop run-off is killing everything in the ocean their...or infecting the fish we eat...with poop. Poop. POOP.

POOP.

We’re messing up our oceans, water ways, air and atmosphere….because we want chocolate milk and steak. We throw away something we need to survive (food), onto something we need to survive (earth), jeopardizing the delicate balance of the only planet we have to survive on...all because we went grocery shopping hungry. Our global food industry is the greatest threat to earth. That's pretty ironic.

We buy too much food because we’re greedy, we’ve overpopulated the earth with livestock because we’re greedy, we overpopulated the earth with humans...because sex is kinda great...we can get greedy about that too…

We avoid the $10 bottle of eco friendly dish soap to buy the 3$ bottle of non eco friendly dish soap, so we can have $7 extra dollars to buy more crap that we’re going to throw in a landfill. We use paper plates, so we save time doing dishes, because we get greedy about time.

130 million babies are born every year; but there are 153 million orphaned children. There’s a lot of extra humans out there; but there’s really not a lot of extra space. So far, we have failed to come up with a way to make earth larger. In fact, it gets smaller, because more and more space is taken up by people and trash.

Our air toxicity is high, our water toxicity is high, more people have environmentally caused diseases than ever, more children are being born with environmentally caused diseases and disorders than ever, we’re all dying from heart disease and diabetes from washing down steak and eggs covered in cheese with chocolate milk, cancer rates are at an all time high (and a VERY small percentage of that is genetic), our oceans and land are riddled with waste (a lot of which will outlive the Pyramids of Egypt), and the habitable parts of earth are “shrinking”...but we’re growing.

Why? Greed and overpopulation? No. The Karmic reaction of greed and overpopulation. Global Karma. Simple cause and effect. This is the reaction of an entire world’s mindless actions. Throw trash on the ground here, buy single use plastics there, use a handful of napkins to wipe up a drop there...accidentally make 5 babies...oops. Sex is pretty great, I get it.

But really, look what we’ve done. Look what we’ve all contributed to.

Check out all that karma.

It’s not easy to be mindful all the time in the modern world, it’s not. There’s so much craziness, so many distractions; but it’s easy to wash a dish, and not use a paper plate. Maybe not using paper plates will save a couple Orangutan homes. Orangutans are pretty cute: the gingers of the ape world. It’s easy to get a t-shirt from a thrift store; and then you'll save a carbon footprint, and some cash to buy the $10 bottle of eco friendly dish soap. That eco friendly soap will help keep our oceans and waterways clean. It’s easy to eat more veggies, and a lot less meat and dairy; and then you'll decrease some methane gas emissions, keep the Gulf of Mexico healthy, and drastically lower your chances of getting heart disease and cancer. It’s easy to not buy too much food; and then you'll save some cash to spend on the eco friendly laundry detergent. It’s not as easy to not overpopulate because sex is pretty great...but we’ll get there! Just kidding, it’s easy to get birth control, and it’s easy to adopt.

It’s easy to not be greedy. As soon as we choose to take on the uneasy task of being mindful of karma, saving Earth and ourselves is easy.

“Do what you want. As much as you’d like to simply do what you want...you can. You can do what you want every moment of every day. But you must remember that every action has an outcome; so firstly ask yourself if you also want the outcome.”

Cheers, everyone! Here’s to a more mindful future, and a cleaner future for my 2 year old nephew :)