SMALL IS ALL

A little while ago, inspired by natures seasons and cycles, which I’d felt very tangibly down at my allotment, I wrote a blog called Little and Often about daily practices and the importance of repetition and a slower pace.

I'm elaborating on that theme here, though adding in the Power of size not just pace and frequency

As we've seen; Bigger, Better, Faster and Stronger has proven itself to be unsustainable, delusory and defunct and ultimately leaves us asking “WHY?”.

As we are aware globally now that our planet is Finite, our resources are Finite and the energy is also Finite of those exhausted bodies who have long been slave to the bigger-better-faster-stronger system .

The system that never stops, never rests, nver reflects; even when a recent worker died on the production line at Amazon factory in Ghana, the workers weren't allowed stop or grieve. Which is desensitising and dehumanisation as it’s extreme.

One of the happiest childhood memories I have of my dad was when he was gardening in our little patch on the verandah, pottering away blissfully talking to his marigolds, bottlebrush and the one baby gum tree we had growing.

He used to really value and care for the smallest life forms- the ants, the lizards, the ladybeetles in the small patch he had to grow in, he was content and connected deeply to all of it.

I now know he was quoting a fellow German Friz Schumacher when he'd repeat - often quite emotionally- that “Small is Beautiful” , which I learnt to love and see through his eyes..

Small, which I was back then- was beautiful and easy for me to see before the indoctrination that school gives us. I thought the ants, lizards and lady beetles were astoundingly beautiful and fascinating.

Despite their destiny being to die well before I grew out of being small, I valued these tiny beings and loved them with all my heart, in part due to their smallness and the fragility that comes with that.

I now understand that my dad wasn't just talking about small creatures, he was talking about a whole structure of society according to Schumacher-that small systems are mighty systems and necessary to.implememt lasting change IN and FOR and BY Local communities - bottoms up. Right livelihood is what the Buddhists call small and meaningful work. Which is what all humans must engage in to feel they are contributing some value.

Globalisation, Optimisation and Big Tech isn't everything and is not actually useful in small local communities anyway.

Globalisation only seeks to strip the earth of her resources, to sell us shit we don’t need to fill the hole in our hearts we got from disconnecting from nature and community in the first place. Globalisation seeks to homogeneous our high streets and eliminate small/medium businesses in the quest for growth, power and more profit.

Another insight from the pandemic was that through the greater good motto of “Staying home to staying safe”, we shopped local, ate local, danced and moved local, got more creative and friendly with our neighbours, our little lives became intertwined with other little lives around us, more of the slower, smaller things and less of the bigger better faster stronger AND we were happy again!

Globalisation and scaling up was put on the back-burner as we rediscovered the beauty of Less IS More and SMALL is ALL and beautiful.

It's been said many times that a human can only really know and connect with a circle of 140 people maximum. That's your local butcher, baker and candle stick maker, your friends, family and partner’s friends and family and that’s all... So if 140 is the small number we need to feel a sense of community, presence and power, then how can I ensure my little group serves me and I serve them>

I could write a list right now of 140 people I interact with regularly in real life, not on socials and its probably around that number.

So while greedy multinationals still attempt to push us into this ever increasing need to scale up and the illusion of GDP growth. Remember exceptions of Butan and Denmark - 2 of the only countries in the world to measure their countries Growth Index by the happiness of their people not by how much the country grew financially.

Growth and optimisation is usually the concern of money hungry CEO'S who don't value you as a person or even know you beyond your small number producing big numbers for them.

So next time you look around at your small local group of friends or your puny little life and you find yourself happy, savour that feeling as Small is ALL and beautiful. You and your little intentional community are helping to usher in the new earth, from bottoms up, NOT top down!

The grass is NOT greener on the other side..

I'm often on the other side Of the other side and back again and KNOW in my bones, greed and growth is often not good. SMALL IS ALL and Small is Beautiful.

Enjoy and please do share how powerful SMALL has been in your life..xx