ecodreaming film

The Story of Stuff and Dreaming of a Green Christmas

This time of year, the winter solstice — the holiday season — with so many religious and cultural traditions, is the time to reflect and go inwards. It’s the time to hunker down and become your winter self. It’s the time to celebrate the return of the light. It’s the time to use the abundance in your life to share with others and to help you receive insights into your life. The holiday season is lots of things. I’d like to sit by the fire, eat acorn and persimmon bread and watch mythological films. Here, I also like to sneak out as often as possible, and merge with the dark damp haze and the cool brown ground, taking in the soil’s breath, — looking for mushrooms (presents under the tree.) I want to relax, rest, hibernate, and that seems to be in rhythm with the seasons.

Ah, but is that what our holiday seasons are usually like? It is often one of the most stressful times of the year, when the spirit of the season is really the opposite of stress. We have to run around scrambling to buy presents in our consumer culture, and travel far and wide and often to many different places. This is supposed to be the down time of the year. Many people are fed up with this stress and the consumerism and the environmental footprint of the Christmas economy, and are dreaming of green christmas. Or at least a calm, enjoyable one. So green consumerism is growing fast, and many people are looking for alternatives to the typical holiday patterns. There are so many great related sites on the internet, and many people are getting emails like “10 ways to consume less this holiday season” and whatnot, so I won’t list any of these here. But I will highly recommend a short video that really puts what’s going on in perspective — which is maybe what we should be asking Santa to bring us (perspective). Please go watch the film, The Story of Stuff to see all the dots of consumerism nicely connected.