Waste = Opportunity

It's been a busy week.  From last weekend's Spring Party at Bill & Becky's to a work week filled with some contract work at UM and the Montana Environmental Education Association annual conference--well, I am most ready for the weekend.

At last year's MEEA conference,  I knew only a few people.  Maybe five, and most of them were my co-workers.  But this year--well!  It seemed as though I knew every second person there, and even those I didn't know by sight I knew by name from email exchanges or online collaboration.  Amazing what a difference a year makes.  I've got to say, environmental educators are a lovely group of people.

I attended several sessions today, and a couple of quotes from a couple of facilitators stuck out in my mind.

"Hard humble work + tangible results = a transformational experience."

This from Jason Mandela at Garden City Harvest, a fantastic Missoula organization that grows local organic food, provides education and training about sustainable agriculture to the community, and distributes healthy food to low-income people.  When Jason mentioned this little mantra, which is foundational to GCH's philosophy, I couldn't help but think of my Lenten practices.  They certainly have been challenging (some days more than others), but I am already seeing some tangible results, and am feeling that this will be a transformational experience for me--in ways that still remain to be seen.

The most fascinating session I attended was with Sam Stier from The Biomimicry Institute, which "promotes learning from and then emulating natural forms, processes and ecosystems to create more sustainable and healthier human technologies and designs."  For all you science nerds (and even non-science nerds), this is a website and a concept to check out.  Scientists who use biomimicry to create new technologies have done everything from creating solar panels that follow the sun (mimicking heliotropism, found in flowers such as buttercups), to redesigning a high-speed Japanese train by mimicking the shape of a kingfisher's bill, to developing carbon-neutral cement production by mimicking the chemistry of coral.  It seems obvious, but there are some seriously cool things that we can learn from nature.  As Sam said today, the natural ecosystem is our only (and incredibly amazing) example of a sustainable system, and the more that we can do to mimic natural processes, the closer we will come to sustainability.

Quote of the Day:  "For ecosystems, waste is an opportunity."

Let me write that again:
FOR ECOSYSTEMS, WASTE IS AN OPPORTUNITY.

I can't get this idea out of my head.  Think about it.  Truly think about what it means.  There is no "waste" in ecosystems.  There are no landfills where precious resources are trapped, buried, and completely shut away from the rest of the world.  There are no islands of non-biodegradable plastic swirling around in the Pacific Ocean.  There is no imbalance that is not, quite quickly, re-balanced.

When a tree dies, tiny organisms use it as their home or their food.  It breaks down, the very bark and leaves and wood becoming humus, becoming earth, the nutrients going back into the ecosystem.  During my summer at the Au Sable Institute, at the Pacific Rim campus on Whidbey Island, WA, I learned about nurse logs for the first time.  I am sure it was not the first time I had seen them, but it was the first time I saw them and knew what they were.  A tree had died and fallen, and on its trunk grew thick carpets of moss and several new trees, their roots curving over and around the dead trunk below them, pulling nourishment--nursing--from the decaying wood.  The tree wasn't pumped full of nasty chemicals and stuck in a box.  No, when it died, it fell, and gave itself back to the ecosystem from which it had come, earth to earth.

I also wonder about this idea on a philosophical level.  What difference might it make in our lives if we viewed situations that we are used to describing as "wasteful" as opportunities, instead?  Whether we feel that we wasted a year or five of our lives in a dead-end relationship, or an unfulfilling job, or in a city that we never felt at home in, or if we see sadness or depression as wasteful emotions, or even current politicians and short-sighted legislation as wasteful--no matter what it is we view as waste, what might happen if we can see those things as opportunities?  I wonder if we might feel more encouraged, empowered, and creative, as we wait to see what will rise from the ashes, as we remember that death and life are intricately intertwined, as we remember that some things must die so that other things may live.  We have the opportunity to learn so much about ourselves after a relationship ends.  We learn--and come into--our own strength.  Through loneliness and sadness can come creativity--dark-edged, perhaps, but brilliant, like onyx or hematite.  When we are frustrated with poor legislative decisions (and poor legislators), we may be inspired to take action, to make ourselves more a part of the political process than we have cared or dared to be before.

My challenge to myself--and to you, as well--is to look at our lives and shift our thinking, to look at things we are tempted to label as "waste" and call them "opportunity" instead.  Whether it's literal "waste" (do I need to throw away that Kleenex?  Maybe I should start using cloth hankies instead! Maybe that cracker box can become the cover for a journal! etc.) or metaphorical "waste," let's look for the opportunities hidden inside.  Here's to creativity and opportunity and sustainability!

Up next:  observations from 2.5 weeks of Lenten practices.