Lammas is fast approaching, summer, what's that?  Seriously though, it seems strange to be preparing for the first harvest festival, the first inkling of Autumn, when we have yet to feel summer's golden warmth caress us.
The experts tell us that the Jet Stream is beginning to move up - something that it usually does in spring/early summer.  Once it does move up over the UK the weather should become more settled.
During its journey we can experience quite unsettled weather, rain, wind, typical spring/autumn like weather.

With this summer's record breaking wet weather the subject of Global Warming and who is responsible has reared its head once more.  I have always been in the camp that believes that GW is a naturally occurring phenomena, just as it has done in the past.  I am certainly no expert in this field but I have always felt that the earth would be warming up, with or without us humans.
That said, I am strongly against anything that is harmful to the planet - quite contradictory, I know - and am strongly in favour of doing all I can to minimise my impact here.

Makes me sound hypocritical, I know, but I have always felt that the politicians and the scientists have milked the GW topic for all they could.  The scientists get obscene amounts of money to fund their research, so they are certainly going to want us all to believe in the GW effect.  As for the politicians, well they will do or say anything to curry favour with the voters, so if that meant jumping on the GW bandwagon, so be it.  Most of them will have gas guzzling cars, buy the best of everything just because they can, not because they absolutely have to and waste more money, food and resources than the rest of us.  If we are becoming jaded over the whole GW concept, is it any wonder?

But recently I have been wondering if my thinking is right.  Are we, mankind, responsible for what is going on weather wise, or is it naturally occurring?  It is quite alarming to see the pictures of the floods, worldwide, not just in the UK.  Then there is the extreme heat in the US, all seems crazy.  Are we responsible?
Things do seem to be getting worse on the natural disaster front; recently my husband and I were discussing the increase in earthquakes that occurred last year, and now the floods all over the world.  You cannot help but wonder if mother nature is striking back at us mere mortals for all we have done, or if this kind of thing would have happened anyway.

It's difficult to have an impartial viewpoint either way.  In the meantime I go about my life, trying my best to be as green as I can, doing my best not to damage the earth as I go about my life.  I guess if we all had that mentality we would discover just what kind of impact we have had.  GW is a moot topic, we can't really prove either way what has gone before us.  So my philosophy of living my life in the greenest, most caring way I can is all I can do right now.  If we teach our children to respect the earth, its inhabitants, its resources, then we are doing the best we can.  People mistrust the GW concept because of the scientists and their obscene budgets, because of the politicians and their hypocritical messages, so it is up to us to educate our children to be kind and gentle with the earth.  Maybe then will we truly understand what is happening, when science isn't begging for obscene amounts of money into funding, when politicians aren't cosying themselves up to us, but when we all act in a respectful manner towards the earth.  Until then GW remains a moot subject and extreme weather and natural disasters rage on around us.

Sorting life out

I seem to be on a never ending cycle of sorting my life out.  At this moment in time I am very disillusioned with a lot of things that I once held dear - certain people on FB/twitter/forums etc, having to do things a certain way, belief in certain things......
I have spent very little time online in recent weeks because I feel a lot of troubles and distractions are caused by certain things on certain social media sites.  Don't get me wrong, I love these sites as much as the next person, but certain groups of people seem to have an uncanny knack of sucking the very life out of you and leaving you feeling so disillusioned.  I decided to delete said people but have not really spent much time on FB since.

Besides, my blahness with life seems to be in every area of my life and not just confined to snarky mares on FB.  I think the weather plays a huge part in it too.  I love weather, the extremes of weather, everything about weather.  But in Cumbria it has rained almost everyday since early June, we have had the occasional dry day with sun, but largely it has rained and rained and rained.  We have been on flood alert quite a few times, with June 23rd being the worst when we were almost flooded.
There is such an air of despondency all around me, mainly brought on by the lack of sunshine, it's no wonder I feel so blah and meh.  I do like rain, but when it has been never ending even I get sick of it.

I was supposed to be going to counselling but I decided against that.  After my initial consultation way back at the beginning of June my next appointment was July 11th.  I cancelled.  I was able to work on myself, using Reiki and self help techniques which have helped enormously with the problems I was having.  I think it is shocking that it took a few weeks to have my initial consultation and then a further five weeks for my second appointment.  I gave my place up on the programme for someone who needed it more, we should never have to wait this long for help.

Mercury went retrograde yesterday, until August 15th - I think.  In the run up to this weekend the communication problems we have been experiencing have been pretty bad, leaving me wondering just how bumpy the ride is going to be.

I am pleased to say that staying off FB etc, working on my problems and trying not to get the wet weather get me down has really helped me focus.  Hopefully this time I will have learnt what I am supposed to and won't have to go over this stuff again.