a beginner's guide to voting with your body

What does it mean to vote with your body?

We tend to think of political activism as writing letters to public figures, going on marches or going to the polls every few years, but I have come to realise that the most powerful political tool I have access to is me. The way I choose to live, the beliefs I choose to maintain, my choices each day, these are my ballot. My body is my ballot.

Here is a quick, but maybe not so easy, beginner's guide (because I am still a beginner at conscious living also) to voting with your body.

1. Self inquiry. Get quite. Get still. Ask yourself what kind of being you are. Are you a helpful being? Are you a kind being? What are your values? 

No one has a right to pass judgement on your values. Your values, whatever you decide they are, are your unique gift to the world. (and, by the way, your values can change as often as you decide based on whatever new information you might receive. There is a word for inflexible values, it's called "dogma")

Let your values inform your politics.

2. Recognize your power. Think about all the ways you interact with the political and economic system. Do you buy things? Do you consume things? Are you involved in organizations? What about communities or social groups? What activities do you enjoy? Who do you work for? How do you spend your time?

3. Become conscious. Critically analyse whether the activities in the above line up with your values. Where does your money go? For example, do you give your money to oil and petroleum companies (no judgement, I do it too!) or to your local municipality in the form of public transportation? 

Where do you buy your food? Where does that food come from and how is it produced? What are you actually eating (read ingredients)? 

What else are you buying/consuming? Clothing? Where is that made? What is it made of? Who made it? Furniture? Books? Other things? Do you need them? Who are you supporting and why?

Remember that every time you put a penny down you participate in a political/social/environmental act. What is your purchase saying to the government, to your community, to yourself?

Think about your choices. 

Time is a form of currency too. Think about where you are spending your time and how. Do these choices feel good to you? If so they are probably in alignment with your values. If not, then you might want to ask yourself why you are investing time in them.

Infuse your day, your week, your life with consciousness.

4. Notice and make adjustments. Only once we finally see what we are doing can we decide to make changes. Remember that you are significant! Corporations, organizations, producers couldn't survive without individuals who support them! And if you want to see change in the world the easiest way is to change how you see the world. Start with yourself. You are the only thing you can really change. Feel the power and agency in that. If you life with conscious intention, you lead with authority.

5. Never stop learning, changing and adjusting. Be open. Seek the truth, but don't cling to it.

I told you it was quick! Easy is another story. It can seem overwhelming - all of the choices, so many things to consider and so much potential for mistakes! But there is a great beauty and comfort in knowing that each simple choice we make helps to create a reality we are looking towards. Nobody can live 100% perfectly all the time (or ever!), but we can adapt, recalibrate, and use our values to guide us gradually to the path of our choosing and in time, to the world of our choosing.

I may not be the most politically literate person in the world, and you won't catch me protesting in the street, but I make sure I vote every day with my lifestyle and my choices. Gandhi said, "my life is my message," well I second that, and add, my body is my ballot. 

Love,

R

I'm no Buddhist Vegan Yogi Pacifist Idealist Left-wing Hipster, and I politely decline to be categorized

Yes, another rant about not conforming to labels.

But I am honestly finding a need to draw a dotted line in my life between what people are saying I am and what I actually am. So herewith my little manifesto...

What I actually am is so simple and clear, whilst not really being easy to define in words. 

I am spirit

I am raw experience

leading edge stuff

I am the listener

I am the being who seeks 

I am so large that I am actually part of you and you and you

and I am a facet of that wholeness looking at itself

I am 

just me.


Don't you feel that too when you sit quietly with yourself?

I feel very uncomfortable and anxious when defined categorically as any of the above or etc. and I think that this is because I have glimpsed my true self and I know it to be so much more than a string of labels.

So when I go to a restaurant and my companion announces proudly to the server that I am a vegan, my heart kind of reaches out its fist and strangles me before my mouth can go into any explanation of the particularities of my food choices and how they relate to what meal I might be ordering that night. 

I am NOT a vegan. If I tell you that I am a vegan, it is merely for convenience sake, lest I launch into the truths I've come to know that have led me to make this choice or that one and you, zoning out in boredom, come to conclude anyway that I am a vegan, albeit with some weird fundamentalist beliefs that nevertheless make me feel I have to defend myself in the face of that accusation.

I do eat eggs, for your information, but only when I either know the chickens, or the chickens are friends of a friend. 

I am opposed to consuming another's suffering.

I will also turn a blind eye sometimes when chocolate is involved if I think that the chocolate will nourish me more than fundamentalism will in that given moment. (sometimes fundamentalism does win, but it's really on a case to case basis.)

And I enjoy honey! I have a couple of sweaters made of wool and 2 pairs of leather shoes, purchased before I read about some of the practices involved with producing these materials (don't worry, I say a little prayer of gratitude each time I wear them...no joke). I also wear silk. It gets to the point where we are splitting hairs and I lose all interest.

The essence of what I am saying, using the example of my diet, is that in any decision I make these days, whether about food or politics or spirituality, I hold that choice up to my heart's eye, like a little pearl, and turn it around, feeling its weight, its unique texture, its particular shade. I allow my mind to weigh in with some opinions it might have and then when the knowing is there in my heart I move forward. 

I think this is another way of describing intuition.

I will, therefore, not be bound by the label 'vegan' to eat in a certain way, or to make 'difficult choices' like whether or not to eat honey, or wear wool, or all of the numerous fundamentalisms I can get shoved into if I subscribe to that category.

I will not be found making statements like, "hey guys, I'm a vegan so can we eat somewhere that serves vegan food?" I rather stick to, "let's go anywhere you enjoy because I can always find something on the menu I like!" (p.s. I LOVE food!)

I will never never never call myself a Buddhist or Christian or Yogi, because all those labels mean to me are that I couldn't be bothered figuring out the truth within so I will subscribe to someone else's truth. However, I will save a rant about religion for another day (or maybe I will give it a miss...)

I am not saying that great and profound wisdom doesn't come from Buddha or Patanjali or John Robbins (author of my favourite pro-vegan book The Food Revolution). These teachings are tools that allow us to see and know. 

We can pick up each little pearl of wisdom we find amongst the sand and hold it to the light of our soul to see if our own image is reflected back to us in the radiant opalescence there.

We can wander blithely along the beach uncovering pearls, gathering them, admiring them, leaving one behind here or there, all the while keeping our vision turned up toward the horizon. 

Love,
R