BEST OF ONE WORLD: 60 steps to a sustainable, meaningful and joyful life

PROLOGUE

Iam not an environmentalist nor a climate change activist. I am just a regular mother and grandmother who is very concerned about the future of her children, grandchildren and forthcoming generations. I also love nature and believe we are all connected. Therefore, a threat to other living species feels like a personal assault on me and my family. That is what inspired me to write this book. By writing and sharing my journey to stop these assaults, I feel I am taking control over what I can within this tiny corner of this vast wide world over which I feel I have no control. I have no control over the destruction of the Amazon rainforest or the destruction of marine life through industrial fishing. However, what I do have control of, is what I do or do not do in my daily life.

This is why I embarked on the path to an eco-friendlier lifestyle. Taking these steps led me on an extraordinary journey through a world of joy I did not even know existed.

In my first memoir, The Best of Three Worlds¹, published in 2019, I shared my journey highlighting the importance of unconditional love, psychological safety, forgiveness and other humanitarian values, as well as the fusion of the rich cultures and histories of three countries: Kenya, India and England. At that time, I was living in Birmingham, in the UK. The last lines in The Best of Three Worlds state, ‘I wish with my heart that my future generations will capitalise on their inheritance of these family values, thirst for education and flair for entrepreneurship to make this a better and peaceful world for all living beings.’ I cannot expect them to do this if I am not doing everything within my power to make this a peaceful world for all living beings.

Following the publication of that book, 2020 was ablaze with major tumultuous events – Brexit, climate change, and most of all, worldwide lockdowns due to the Coronavirus rise in infections in February 2020 and global death tolls from this Covid-19 pandemic. This pandemic gripped the world and brought it to a standstill. We were confined in our homes, working or not working. We could not see our loved ones or rush around the country and the world as we were used to. As 2020 threw its door open to us, the bushfires in Australia were already rampaging, consuming 18.6 million hectares of land and some six thousand buildings. It was devastating for humans as well as wildlife. Three billion terrestrial vertebrates died in the fires, and some species may have been driven to extinction. Wildfires in the Brazilian Amazon and more acres of the world’s ‘green lungs’ were devastated. Agricultural and industrial development exacerbated the wildfires on the west coast of the USA. The climate change debate gained momentum and there was a call from many directions for us to save trees or to use less water, energy and plastic². In addition to this, the Black Lives Matter movement was fired up by the death of George Floyd. How can the life of a person not matter, just because of the colour of his skin?

It was a year of tremendous loss and gain. This collective turbulence and trauma meant we had to contend with much fear, anxiety and isolation but at the same time gain appreciation for our health and the support of loved ones. Remote working and being confined to our houses during lockdown triggered an awareness and appreciation of the nature around us. Empty supermarket shelves made us more aware of the food we eat and its distribution chain.

Did this pandemic change us as people? Did business become more socially and environmentally responsible? How did politics change? Did the lockdowns trigger the compassion within us that would save the planet? All these issues screamed at me and kept me pondering well into the night during that time.

It was a time when many of us were seeking answers and meaning in order to come to terms with these events. Why is this happening now? What are the lessons that humanity needs to learn from this suffering? The way I tried to make sense of this was the belief that the universe is angry. It has sent many messages via natural disasters for us to treat the planet more kindly, reduce the carbon footprint, reduce plastic, and take better care of all the species, but we did not listen enough. Eventually, it had to bring us to a standstill and confine us to our homes, so we would have to pause for a few months and have time to reflect on how we were living our lives. It enforced the changes that we should have voluntarily embraced in our lives many years ago, e.g. less flying and travelling, coming together as a community, and spending more time with family and friends.

As a child, whenever there was news of a natural disaster, my Baa (Mother) would say, ‘Dharti ooper bhaar vathi gayo chhe,’ meaning Mother Earth is feeling weighed down.

Now Mother Earth was crying out loud but we were not listening or doing enough.

We are still not listening.

I am still not listening enough either.

The Covid crisis gave people much needed time to reflect, appreciate the basics of life and review their priorities. For me, that certainly happened as the questions on the scientific laws of nature and universal truths that life is based on, were revived. It feels as if I have been sleepwalking past this beautiful, stunning, intricate tapestry of nature all my life. However, I have now woken up from this slumber and started to notice the exquisite mosaic of nature around me. Like me, people started to appreciate how we live and care for our planet and make the connection between industrialisation, climate change and the demise of nature and its treasure of species. The realisation of how nature and every living species on the planet is crucial for our survival and the urgency for change started to creep into our obtuse psyches. We wanted to hold onto this tranquil feeling and commitment to preserve nature. However, few have since changed their behaviour permanently. To me, it feels as if the changes happened fleetingly. Is it because we got caught up in the rat race again, living with the belief that money means happiness and material possessions assign personal worth? But it is humbling to note that the richest people on earth were not immune to the Coronavirus infection, nor were they spared the implications of the wildfires and floods.

In January 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic, I moved to a village in Surrey to be nearer to my children and grandchildren. My new house is next to a vast meadow, approximately seventy metres from the River Wey, which runs parallel to Manor Farm and Manor House. Unlike the urban location of my house in Birmingham, there is an abundance of nature as soon as I set foot out of my front door. I have got into a routine of taking my daily walk along the riverbank and around Manor Farm. On my way back, I find a comfortable spot by the river and take in the magnificent nature around me to connect with the elements of Mother Earth, the reverence of the river and the soul of the sky, which guide me in the direction of my destiny and purpose in life. I get this feeling of complete oneness with the world, this feeling that we are all one entity; the people, flora and fauna, oceans, mountains, deserts, every living being in every continent of the world connected.

Then one day…

I am standing on the bridge over the weir, watching the white splashes as water gushes from under the bridge and takes its course further along the River Wey. My ears welcome the chirping and tweeting of the birds as they play with each other and fly from one tree to the next. A walker calls out to his dog in the meadow in the distance.

Suddenly this sweet natural orchestra turns into a cacophony.

Then there is silence.

Silence for a few long moments.

A little while later a mellifluous voice whispers in my ear and says, ‘This paradise which is feasting your eyes and streaming its melody through your ears may not all be there for your granddaughters and their generations. The ecosystem of the planet is falling apart and one day, all this will be taken away from all of you!’

My body, mind and spirit are all in chaos and then locked in stalemate, in that one breath that tries to make its way from my nose to my lungs. I break out in a sweat, my muscles flop like lifeless rags in my limbs, my heart chases its beats in desperation and the panorama of paradise before my eyes fades into a blank cold sheet of grey.

Although I am in agony, I manage to hold onto my breath as well as the picturesque vision that was in front of my eyes. I sink all my attention into that present moment and many more moments after. I stop searching for answers and simply make room for them in my heart. Gradually, I resurface from this state to the feel of my hands perched on the stone ledge. The rush of the river water jolts my senses back into my spirit. The birds go quiet.

The voice whispers again. ‘Are you going to do anything about it? What are the small everyday actions and behaviour changes you need to make which will take the weight off our magnificent Mother Earth?’

How can I have missed this message? The message being conveyed to me and all of us that we need to save our extraordinary planet. I see the bigger picture and hear about it in the news every day. How can I as one single pixel in this vast picture make any difference at all?

Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘Be the change you want to be.’

I have to change first, then encourage other pixels around me to make changes too. The more pixels I can reach out to, the more we can all change the bigger picture.

As a child, I lived a car-free, plastic-free, waste-free, vegetarian/almost vegan lifestyle, surrounded by beautiful natural landscapes and warm kind-hearted people. So, what changed that I lost the capacity to live that way? I moved from living in a small close-knit community, in a small town called Thika in Kenya, to the huge city of Birmingham in England. I got embroiled in consumerism, convenience foods and commuting by car. I lost the intrinsic relationship with nature. I was in this state for fifty years until my move to a village in Surrey, back into a small close-knit community.

A thought bolts out of my head like an arrow from a bow. Can I recreate the same sustainable life that I lived as a child here? After all, some of the conditions are the same. I can endeavour to complete the circle of being brought up in a small town on a plant-based diet in tune with the laws of nature by revisiting the values of my childhood and creating a more sustainable lifestyle.

How about if we all did the same in our local environments?

A collective shift in values is imperative and needs to ripple across the globe, causing a seismic epiphany. We need to be forced to question the narrowness of our attitudes and to think of a new way of living, a new order for our priorities where material wealth slips to the bottom of the list and planetary wealth springs to the top. Is there a stir in our conscience after being exposed to the television images of floods and wildfires around the world, the growing coverage of climate activism and the groundbreaking work of pioneers such as David Attenborough?

Are you listening and doing something about this?

Am I listening and