Recently, I was a guest lecturer at a local university speaking to future teachers about the role of civil society in the classroom. At one point I asked the students whether they saw themselves as someone who can influence change. While a healthy majority said yes, most said it with caveats (depends on the situation) and a sizeable proportion felt that they weren’t capable of that or that it was really tough to feel like an individual can make a difference. The chat box lit up with the students outlining how they’re just not “that type of person”, some lacked “courage” and some felt already defeated. Most of these students are in their 20s. What a shame.
And while I had more things that I wanted to talk to them about, I instantly diverted to talk to them about their inherent power, their agency in society, the normal feelings of disappointment or feeling like things are too big to be tackled. I confessed about my own struggles with all of those things. A student commented in the chat, “but you’re so brave and courageous, that’s not me.”
So since then I’ve been thinking about courage and how we define it, what acts are acknowledged and which ones aren’t. I’d like to share with you my thoughts over this past week because I think courage is integral to movement building.
Courage has become synonymous with daring feats, impossible odds, physical prowess and most often associated with masculinity. That narrow understanding leaves a whole lot of people out. People start to believe that they are unable to identify as courageous, which leads them into another headspace of ‘if I’m not courageous, I must be weak, scared and small’.
This is where I think it intersects with advocacy and movement building. Having people that see themselves as weak, scared, small, insignificant etc., means that creating change becomes that much harder. We want people to embrace their power and use it for the betterment of all. How do you do that with people that reject their power even exists?
Being a child of the 80s and 90s, I’ve always loved this one line from an INXS song,
“Cause we all have wings, but some of us don’t know why”
I’ve always interpreted this lyric as recognition that we all have the ability to fly, to elevate ourselves and strive for better, but some of us have forgotten. We’ve become too used to thinking that our wings are a vestigial part that are only functional with a special chosen few. If you’re one of those with functional wings, then you can do amazing things and lead. If not, you are relegated to plodding through life and big things shouldn’t be expected of you.
But what if it was the courage that enabled the wings to work in the first place? And what does that type of courage look like?
Despite popular culture defining courage as some sort of strength, bravery or heroism, that’s not how the word started. The root of courage is “heart” in Latin. In those times the heart was seen as the seat of the emotions. Thus, courage was used to describe acts of the heart. I believe in taking that a step further to see courage as being true to the passion and emotions in your heart. Courage is allowing your heart to inform you and speak through your actions.
Recently, I met owners of two amazing companies in the area, The Roost micro-winery and Miski Brewing. I wanted to know what led them to starting a business and take a chance on themselves. Both owners spoke of feeling a connection to wanting something better. In their own ways, their hearts were speaking. Michael from the Roost spoke about moving from London, UK and finding a way to connect with the gorgeous landscape of the Niagara Escarpment. He and his wife learned wine making as they went and now The Roost has several award winning wines using cold climate grapes. Mariella and Ricardo from Miski Brewing talked about moving from Peru in their mid 20s with the hope of raising their children in Canada. Neither of them spoke English. They didn’t know much about brewing, but wanted to highlight quinoa, a staple in their native land. Now they have the only gluten free brewery in Ontario!
This isn’t intended as a plug for their businesses (although I love supporting businesses like this), but more so to recognize the courage that both families exhibited to listen to their hearts, take risks that had no guarantee for success and put their heart’s passion into their daily lives. These are the types of examples we should be looking for in our own lives - all the times that we wanted better, dreamed bigger, spoke our truth or felt a yearning in our hearts that we acted upon - big acts or small steps. All that matters is did you let your heart speak?
Working together with others to make our communities better and to empower others is my heart working through me. Of course I have the people that dislike what I do, how I do it or what I say, but I remember that despite the obstacles I need to display courage - heart.
When we look at the big problems we need to solve together, we must have heart. We must remember that we all have wings. We are all capable of bringing the change that we want and need. And we must help others remember why they have their wings too.
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." ― Anais Nin
I dedicate this piece in particular to two of my closest friends who I’ve seen struggle, get downtrodden, wind up in dark places only to let their heart lead them out of the darkness. They got back up everytime. They are some of the most courageous people I’ve ever known. May we all strive to be like them.
Weekly News Digest - “The Blowhole”
Here are some emerging stories and events that we think will have an impact on our region that we’re keeping our eye on.
Greenbelt legislation is tabled. After a disastrous summer, the provincial government has tabled legislation that will put the Greenbelt lands back in. This is a great win. However, the Greenbelt is still not protected well enough. This legislation isn’t improving the existing Greenbelt, it’s just fixing what they broke. You can submit your comments about making the Greenbelt stronger (no highways, aggregate extraction) and bigger here until November 30.
Future Water Risk? The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks is looking to exempt certain activities from going through proper process to get a fulsome review from Ministry staff. Some of these activities involve certain waste management systems that deal with asbestos, hazardous waste and biomedical waste that cannot be disposed of on land. If implemented, the specified changes mean there will no longer by an up-front, detailed review by Ministry staff to assess the potential environmental impacts from the specified operations. It also means that the public participation and appeal rights under the Environmental Bill of Rights, 1993 would no longer apply. Considering how dependent our region is on finite groundwater supplies and our fresh water lakes, we are very concerned on how this will impact the safety of our water down the road. You can learn more here from the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
Speaking of water risks…. This study released in May of this year studied the water risk for Ontarians using an interdisciplinary framework. It completely dispels the myth that Ontario is a water rich area that does not have any future water concerns. In fact, it assessed that most of the Greater Toronto Area was at very high risk in regards to its cumulative water quality and Simcoe County is at high risk. From our perspective this means that we must take all necessary precautions to protect our existing water sources from uses that damage the quantity and quality of water. In the study they outlined uses such as aggregate extraction, construction dewatering, water bottling and oil and gas extraction as some of the key harmful activities. This is why we believe that expanding the Greenbelt over key water sources makes the most sense. It limits construction and aggregate activities. We would also want to see water bottling bans within Greenbelt lands as well. Once the water is gone, it’s gone. We can’t make it and we can’t just make it reappear. With climate impacts increasing, now is the time to stop unnecessary water damaging projects such as the Bradford Bypass and improve our water protections.
Join the Pod
Like what we talk about and want to engage with our coalition more? Check us out on social media or drop us a line if you’d like to volunteer: info@simcoecountygreenbelt.ca
