One of the best things about getting old is that you eventually run out of fucks to give. It’s like we’re born with a finite number of fucks, like eggs in the ovaries. When they run out, you discover a new level of freedom you didn’t even know was possible. Having reached that level, I’m happy to share some bathroom habits:
I LOVE compost toilets (baños secos)! They are environmentally friendly; they feed the land. They save water, which is becoming a rare resource in our increasingly polluted planet, and most of all, I can squat! Squatting is a much healthier, more natural position and cleaner. Only my feet touch the physical surface reducing contamination. In La Espiral Community in the Argentinian countryside, compost toilets were also shallow enough that I can see what’s coming out of my body: color, consistency and other characteristics that are directly related to my health. Examining one’s poop is an eye opener, despite it being a nose closer.
It wasn’t all perfect though. I was alarmed when I went to the bathroom and there were no trash cans. “I’m sure I’ll find one in the shower” I thought; No. “Maybe there was one in the dorm? With all of us sleeping there, I’m sure there’s one and I just missed it”; nope. “Hmmm…do they all use the one in the kitchen then?” I wondered. “Or maybe they have some big receptacle near the kitchen because that’s where most of the garbage gets produced?”. I walked to the kitchen, nothing readily visible besides the compost bins. I finally broke down and asked: “where’s your trash bins?”, to which they pointed to the compost. “No, not organic stuff. Trash. Like plastic and stuff”. “Ah, clean plastic gets stuffed in these (plastic) bottles which we use in construction”. “No, dirty trash that contains plastic and non organic materials”. A blank look on their faces! “Like what?!?!?”. At which point I finally gave up and used a personal trash bag which I kept on me the whole time. It felt like descending on a different universe. One that challenged my basic instincts yet aroused my curiosity and the temptation to overcome challenge! “Bring it on!” I felt, “Let’s play. I want this!”
In the orientation meeting, I made a last ditch effort at finding the easy way out. “Is there somewhere to discard of dirty plastic?”. Again, the answer was “like what?”. As I was thinking of how to say “daily pads” in Spanish, someone answered “if it’s not organic, wash it and reuse it. If not, you need to carry it out with you”! I tell you, once you start carrying your own trash on you, you become very conscious of how much you produce. How much impact you have on the environment. I became more aware of the full cycle of stuff. Trash doesn’t miraculously disappear once it goes in the bin. It just gets moved around. Here, it moved around with me, literally. I felt the pain of Mother Earth.
La Espiral is an Eco village and a natural reserve in the province of Misiones in Argentina. I was attending ECCO (Encuentro Continental de Comunidades), an Ecovillage Gathering organized by Casa Latina, the Latin American branch of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN). We ate mostly from the land, vegetarian food (they need to study in the Arab World for better recipes, but that’s another issue). Drank water from the quarry after being purified and made potable. Our compost fed the Earth which fed us. The natural cycles of life are restored. We had several workshops and conversations about “Zero Trash” (Basura Cero), “Activated charcoal production and benefits” as well as Nonviolent Communication, gender politics, Community Building and much more. Sprinkled in lots of singing, dancing and rituals including the traditional native American Temazcal (Sweat lodge).
I realized that when I’m in the city, any city, most of my trash is packaging. While most of it can be recycled, I’m not sure I trust the recycling industries in our cities. Their motives are purely financial and they don’t give a rat’s ass about the environment. I often feel that they use our guilt to acquire free raw materials. Whatever doesn’t make them enough money, gets trashed.
When Nature, Earth and Life (the culture of Love and Abundance) become more important than money, greed and death (the culture of fear and scarcity), waste and trash can and will eventually disappear. We’ll work with Mother Nature, including other beings in the cycle of win-win exchange. That’s what we did for 2 weeks in the Argentinian countryside.
At the end of the 2 weeks gathering, my trash bag was as big as my fist! I guiltily tossed it in a city trash bin where it disappeared, for now…
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Unconditional Love 