There is too much stuff in this house – 16 years of four children, various guests, pets, businesses and endless activity. It just had to go – I needed to truly release SO much of this “stuff” – this was a clearing of Hollywood proportions. The skip was filled to the brim and so we hired a Ute loaded it up and drove to the DUMP.

The Dump – as a kid, going to the dump was THE exciting adventure of the weekend. There was no such thing as a skip – to us that was the nickname that the Greeks and Italians had for us Aussies who watched Skippy the Bush Kangaroo after school each day. This was the time in my childhood when firecracker nights were still legal and Dad could burn anything in the incinerator in the back yard without applying to the council in triplicate. Whatever was too big and hard to burn, Dad would load up into the Volkswagen. My brother and I would pile in stuffing our bodies in amongst old bikes with knees up to our chins surrounded by various broken bits and pieces of our household’s life that my father could pry from my mother’s stubborn fingers.

The closest dump was located in the next suburb with tiny dirt roads carved through mountains of settling landfill winding around various stages of rubbish processing. Today it is a very trendy upmarket suburb sporting parks and house proud residences. But back then, going to the dump, for me, a budding Archaeologist, this was akin to a religious experience. After all, these were piles of prehistoric treasures just waiting to be discovered and my imagination would run wild digging up jars containing sacred scrolls and all the answers to the universe.

We would drive into craters of dirt, park beside other dumpers and watch as some people sifted through the already dumped “stuff” seeking that “one person’s trash is another’s treasure” find. We would all pile out of the car and grab the various refuse items and literally just throw willy nilly out onto the ground. The smell was something that has etched itself onto my memory forever – a combination of old, dirt, sickness and death – simply ferrel. There were crows, magpies and seagulls everywhere – all capitalising on whatever opportunity they spotted and wasting nothing. Looking back now, it was dangerous and quite a health and safety hazard. That is something we never thought of back then. However as a six year old, dodging the seagulls swooping while chucking crap from the VW – it was great fun!

Today, the Dump is called a Transfer Station. Transferring your trash OUT of your household and into a station where it can be recycled restored and resold as someone else’s treasure is a federal enterprise and managed by a strict accountability system.

So today, driving into neat lawned grounds we were met by a weighing station and given a ticket with specific path and bay instructions. Impeccable landscaped gardens greet us around each corner and after seven curbs we turn into a large shed with an enormous deep hole in the middle where bulldozers and large shiny yellow squishing machines transform ordinary rubbish into flat neat little packages. The dump smell is diluted to 100th of my memory and the whole place was – well – clean and tidy. I felt significantly underdressed and respectively hopped out of the car, mindful of all the safety instructions as per the hundreds of signs around me and carefully placed the rubbish into the designated area. It felt like we were at Ikea – the Ikea where items are returned and transferred after a decade or two.

I watched the abundance of our city being transferred to this neat clean little facility and wondered about our relationship with “stuff” and where appreciation would factor into our waste management practices. What a great example of the universal balance – here at the Dump. Sunday mornings may find many people at Harvey Norman or Far Pavilions buying new furniture. Sunday afternoons may find many people at the Transfer Station relieving themselves of the old furniture they no longer want. In one end and out the other – just like living organisms expelling toxins and waste.

Waste management is big business and is the human control of the collection, treatment and disposal of different wastes. Approximately 3000 tonnes of solid waste are generated each day in the south-east corner of Queensland alone. Most of this waste is sent to landfill. But what if we applied the law of the 5 ‘R’s before we made our next purchase? Recycle, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Restore – this is what REAL appreciation is all about! How could we upgrade our relationship with “stuff” with appreciation and reduce our waste?

The word Waste comes from the Anglo Frankish “waster” meaning to spoil and ruin – squander, spend or consume uselessly, the opposite of save, appreciate and value.

Decluttering is a wonderful thing. Clearing out creates space on an energetic level. However what if we regularly conducted an inventory of every single thing that we owned and held in our house, office or life? What if we valued our “stuff”? What if we converted decluttering to our very own internal transfer station? Seeing the incredible abundance in our lives, what could appreciate into wealth then?

How many people globally have been majorly freaking out every time they read a headline about the looming global economic crisis? There is so much stress, fear, anger and confusion. Why? What do we think we will lose? If we could list all those things that we think we will lose, I wonder how many would truly matter. What is our wealth outside of money and business and possessions? What is our wealth if we lose all that we own? Where is the surplus to balance this deficit?

No one knows for sure or can easily explain why we are experiencing a Global Financial Crisis (now commonly known as the GFC). So perhaps to better understand it, we could examine what a GFC may mean in our own backyards.

In our household, if we need money to pay expenses, we find it by cutting costs elsewhere until we have enough money to cover the costs. We look at our household budget and see where we are spending and what we are purchasing and evaluate what we can cut that doesn’t immediately benefit the household. If we don’t have it we don’t buy it. We spend only what we make. We ask these questions – Do I need to pay for gym membership when I can go for a walk for free? No – so add that cost back into the deficit. Do I need to pay for Foxtel when I can watch public TV for free? No – so add that cost back into the deficit. Do I need to buy or rent a DVD when I can borrow a DVD from the library for free? No – so add that cost back into the deficit. Do I need to pay for beauty or spa treatments when I can get as massage from my husband, walk on the beach, swim in the ocean and breathe mountain air for free? No – so add that cost back into the deficit. This list goes on and on until we cut spending and find the money we need to meet obligations. This continues until the bill is met. We evaluate, we value what we have and make changes to lifestyle accordingly. We save instead of spend. If we spend more than we make and then find ourselves in a situation where we cannot make ends meet, is the government interested in bailing us out? If I run the household budget and balance the books, do I deserve to be given a golden handshake just for doing my job? If I take the weekly grocery money to the pokies, gamble it and lose, is the government interested in bailing me out?

What is the value of my household to a government?

In our small business, if we need money to pay expenses, we find it by cutting costs elsewhere until we have enough money to cover the costs. We look at our business budget and see where we are spending and what we are purchasing and evaluate what we can cut that doesn’t immediately benefit the business. If we don’t have it we don’t buy it. We spend only what we make. We ask these questions – Do I need to pay for a new desk when I can make do with the one I have now? No – so add that cost back into the deficit. Do I need to pay for the latest I PHONE when I can use the one I have now? No – so add that cost back into the deficit. Do I need to pay wages for an assistant when I can manage my time (and that of my team) more effectively and add a little more onto every team members jobs so that together we all achieve what is needed? Five or Ten minutes each day lost in productivity actually costs a company thousands of dollars in a year. No – so add that cost back into the deficit. This list goes on and on until we cut spending and find the money we need to meet obligations. This continues until the bill is met. We evaluate, we value what we have and make changes to operations accordingly. We save instead of spend. If we spend more than we make and then find ourselves in a situation where we cannot make ends meet, is the government interested in bailing us out? If an employee or manager fulfils the expectations of their role –i.e. does the job they were hired to do, do they deserve to be given a raise or a golden parachute just for doing their job? If I take the annual wages budget and invest it in a new enterprise, gamble and incur losses, is the government interested in bailing me out?

What is the value of my small business to a government?

In our body, if we exhaust our adrenals through stress, the stomach can no longer digest food. When this occurs, the pancreas steps in and the energy is taken from another system until we have enough to cover the costs. The Liver is producing bile that is not efficient. If bile is too acidic it will not digest fat so then pancreas tries to digest. The body is trying to meet its nutritional needs by borrowing from different systems to keep alive. The body’s agenda is to live and it will cling to life as long as it possibly can so it looks at its energy budget and identifies where it is spending and cuts what isn’t immediately benefitting the body. The body values what resources it has and makes changes to its processes accordingly. We save instead of spend. If we spend more energy than we have and then find ourselves in a situation where our bodies have no fuel to survive, is the government interested in bailing us out? If I look after my health and balance all my systems – spiritual, emotional and physical, do I deserve to be given a golden handshake? If I run marathons without fuelling my body, gamble and lose all my energy, is the government interested in bailing me out?

What is the value of my body to a government?

The enterprise of our households, small businesses and physical bodies hold just as much value as Wall Street or governments. The currency of Infrastructure, Healthcare, Housing, Employment, Fuel, Food, and Education are evident in each enterprise structure regardless of the size with each holding a function and a value.

The simple key to balance the books in each is appreciation.

We are witnessing a global catalyst of great change in our lifetimes. This GFC is giving us the opportunity to appreciate what value we already have by identifying the surplus in our lives. In doing so we may balance whatever deficit that may loom as a result of this great change in balancing the books of the world beginning with our own backyard.

It’s hard to believe that there are only 12 days until it’s Christmas! For me, the middle of December has always been a magical time – everything looks, sounds, smells and feels different. There is this unspoken expectation hanging in the air that magic is about to happen – a creative tension of childlike wonder and joy – familiar and simply impossible to ignore.

Looking back now from January until December, I see an exquisite and intricate brightly colored quilt sewn and embroidered by the hands of those I have shared 2009 with. Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring have cycled through these months connecting, disconnecting and reconnecting a diverse catalogue of faces, hearts and souls. Standing from this seasonal vantage point, I feel outrageously wealthy with appreciation for the colors and textures that each of you has added to my year.

This is the season where we review all the moving parts of our lives and make a list, check it twice and appreciate, value and buy gifts for those in our lives who have added to the wealth of the year. This is the season for retailers and businesses all over the country to encourage us in this gift buying frenzy by hanging mistletoe, tinsel, hiring Santa’s and piping carol music throughout the centre in symbols, language, images and music that celebrate a northern hemisphere Winter Solstice, Yule, Saturnalia and various “stories” with origins in other times, cultures, mythologies and belief structures.

Here in the southern hemisphere, it is summer – the night is short, day is long and the temperature is humid and hot. Yet we annually put men into hot red and white fluffy Santa suits with boots, capes, furred collars, long jackets and pants. We stuff them into these suits and pay them to sit in air conditioned North Pole decorated shopping centres, while outside under the harsh Australian sun, the mercury boils over 40 degrees Celsius and the only ice we need cools the beer that we swill as we sit watching the cricket in our boardies and thongs.

Year after year we decorate our green plastic trees, drape our houses with thousands of twinkling fairy lights, sing songs about snow and covet traditional Christmas turkey, plum pudding and egg nog all from the comfort of our air conditioned homes while outside, our gardens are burning and melting under another scorching southern summer.

So what are we actually celebrating here?

Life is a series of natural processes that appear to be following a continuous cycle. The passing of time and the progression of birth, life, decline and death, as experienced in human lives, is echoed in the progression of the seasons through the solstices and equinoxes. Winter solstice is the midpoint between Samhain and Imbolc – the beginning of winter and the beginning of spring and many Christmas symbols appear to celebrate this process.

I know – let’s set up a global public debate between the finest academic scientific brains and get to the bottom of this story! Like those in the centuries before us, we will simply add our own perspective to the meaning of this human celebration – this expression – this holi- day. Perhaps our willingness to continue to celebrate such a paradox of stories perfectly illustrates how the human heart wishes to express magic, joy and love in unrelenting and infinite creation, connection and celebration?

So from me – Merry Christmas. Happy Holi-days. Kool Yule, Season’s Greetings – whatever you wish to call it!

In December 2009, in an age where 50 is the new 30, grey is the new black, old is the new young and the mythology of race, religion, culture and sex merge and blur from the many into the one, I wish you an appreciation of the colours and textures in all the stories you have collected and created in your lives, wrapped in boxes and placed under your tree. Enjoy – in joy – as you carefully unwrap these gifts on Christmas morning ripping through the paper and the ribbon as you celebrate what’s inside the box.

xxx