creating 'love-in-action' friendship circles
SEEDING CHANGE THROUGH COLLABORATION WITH THOSE OF LIKE-MIND & ETHICS
For those transitioning to living and loving aligned with communitarian principles and practices, achieving the momentum and reach required to generate global awareness, and thereby adoption of practical solutions that evolve corrective socio-ecological responses, requires a consistent commitment to extending a hand in friendship to those ready, willing and able to ‘collaborate’ to ‘seed’ change from the ground-up.
Whether beginning the journey or well-advanced along the path to integrating the evolved principles and practices of sharing all with all into our daily lives, ‘together we achieve more’, must never be a throwaway line, devoid of practical application.
On the contrary, this central ‘tenet’ supplies the ethical instrument able to generate the energy and intelligent action that sees each and every communitarian from the first year of association to the seventh, and beyond, making connections – offering a helping hand to fellow communitarians across the globe to establish associations that install and demonstrate peace and social harmony, locally; which in turn, extends out to regions further afield.
Combining HOME FRONT LOVE-IN-ACTION with Global SOCIOECOLOGIAL ACTIVISM
A key objective of organizing and hosting practical activist meetups, locally, while also collaborating with regional, globally-networked communitarian unions that are forming and offering the same opportunities for face-to-face contacts, is to duplicate practical activism activities that reap the best results. Sharing the patterns and processes that work and the types of activities that fail to produce ‘good fruit’, as well as, detailing a critique of activities that require modification to achieve better and faster results, is crucial to seeding ‘common wealth’ shared prosperity that makes peace possible for all, across the globe.
Forming local, regionally and globally-networked communitarian groups from a base of reaching out a hand in friendship to Changemaker Revolutionaries to seed socio-ecological reforms, which include the protection of land and marine animals, need not involve reinventing the wheel. Effective methods and modes of practical activism are known that have proven to reap ‘fruitful harvests’ from investments of time, talent, energy and resources. Many simple ‘collective’ action activities such as forming friendship circles, sharing meals, hosting forums and discussion groups as well as annual conferences, have been tried and tested for centuries, producing productive enduring results.
Speaking up for Animals Right-To-Life & Liberty in Local Communities
From the simple act of holding gatherings to discuss the benefits of a vegetarian diet with those in his local community; more than 5000 years ago, Siddhartha Gautama, better known as Buddha, birthed a movement that now sees 520 million people across the globe, embracing a cruelty-free ethical diet that does not hold in captivity, nor torture or murder innocent animals for food, fur or fun.
Likewise, the Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras, is known to have taken to the public square to denounce the slaughter of animals and consumption of their murdered flesh on the grounds that it caused humans to wage war against each other, as well as, sullied the soul preventing union with higher forms of reality. The exact number of Greeks and Romans, Pythagoras’s public proclamations of the societal as well as health benefits of a living foods diet, influenced, cannot be known. However, what we do know, is that his dietary wisdom as well as animal right-to-life and liberty activism, provided the ethical foundations of the vegan and vegetarian as well as fruitarian societies that increase in reach and converts across nations, each and every year.
Evolving Vegan Friendships
Through individual as well as collective vegan activism, people across the globe are increasingly made aware of the health and environmental benefits of a cruelty-free diet and way of living that excludes all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment.
According the WORLD ANIMAL FOUNDATION, Currently, vegans are estimated to make up 1% of the global population. While this number may seem a drop in an ocean otherwise teeming with sharks, this 1% equates to 88 million vegans in the world. Hardly insignificant when we take into account this number exceeds the total population of countries such as the UK, France, South Africa, Italy, Thailand and many, many more, as well as, Australia – 3 times over.
Clearly a growing community that size cannot be written off as a lost cause.
When vegetarians are added into the mix, those embracing a plant-based diet, equate to 23% of the global population. 1 Billion + 840 million, and increasing each and every year, is hardly a demographic easily dismissed as a minority in decline. The World Population Review, reports that U.K. has the highest number of vegans, followed by Australia then Israel, where close to 5% of the country follow a vegan diet.
Digesting the facts, those who have ‘reached’ a higher-level of ethical consciousness should soon recognise that the greatest gift they can bestow upon the world, is to become living proof – an example of love-in-action, contributing to demonstrations of increased health along with both physical and mental wellbeing, together with involvement in conservation and responsible stewardship of the Earth, including protection of land and marine animals.
Gathering to Establish Local & Regionally Networked Global CHANGEMAKER Projects
Evidence abounds proving that ‘from little things big things grow.’ When we look back at history, we see that small local gatherings of principled-people, taking the time, and making the effort to come together to share food, knowledge and experiences as well as expertise in different areas; have birthed huge global-wide movements that changed the culture, consciousness, ethics and diets of entire populations. In this light, small local gatherings of socio-ecological and animal right-to-life changemakers, can be assured that their collective efforts can build upon and extend the ethical movements begun millennia ago.
Creating Local Friendship Circle by Inviting Social Media Vegan Friends to Meet-up
Many, if not all, ground-breaking socio-economic justice, animal rights and environmental reform movements established over the past 150 years, began by gatherings of two that grew to three, before expanding out to encompass the wider participation and contribution of hundreds, then thousands more. All it takes is one person’s willingness and courage to hold out their hand in friendship to another – to meet to share a meal, discuss ideas, ideals and projects.
Together, the vision evolves from a shapeless, formless dream, into concrete plans to establish collective organic farms producing abundant, mineral-rich, clean-green healthful living food. From these humble beginnings, another dozen people are attracted to the cause, expanding the original vision to include a Living Foods Culinary School that brings it all together – from garden to plate.
MAKE HUB workshops decked out with sewing machines and overlockers, tools and equipment – everything shared; utilized by many, rather than stored in back rooms of people’s homes, gathering dust and rusting, are also projects that can be easily manifested when friendship circles grow larger. Collaborative artisan and MAKE Hubs demonstrate the ways and means of producing durable and sustainable clothing, footwear and furniture that defeats waste and exploitation of people, animals and planet. ‘Toiling’ together to learn and share sewing, wood-working and metal-crafting skills, is also a fun and exciting way to repair, recycle and repurpose items that would otherwise be discarded in ‘landfill’.
Through the process of bringing these foundational endeavours to fruition, the confidence of the group will grow opening the way for more complex projects to be attempted. Even small collaborative missions such as establishing a shared organic food growing plot, or leasing a shed to provide a home for the MAKE Hub, is usually enough to set the wheels in motion to attract hundreds more to join the local communitarian unions.
Over time, in metropolitan areas, these original friendship circles that start off with one person inviting another to share a meal, may very well attract a thousand people – ready willing and able to collectively design, plan, and finance communal living accommodation that enables those practicing ‘common purse’ ‘common wealth’ provisioning to share everything from food, housing, electric vehicles, renewable energy generation equipment and right livelihood provisioning endeavors – such as, land and water-way rehabilitation contracts, Tiny House Building, Renewable Energy Generation installations and contract fruit harvesting etc.
