Neighborhood Vacuuming

At first the dirty looks bothered her but she’s way more experienced at it now. She begins to slowly bend over and pick up a broken piece of plastic. Sometimes it’s better to have a system but other times she cleans as she pleases. Whenever she feels an excess of energy and her regular pastimes dont interest her, she bundles up, puts on two pairs of gloves and with a couple of trash bags she walks to the end of her neighborhood. Crosses the street and begins cleaning up the parallel neighborhood.

We call them Grounders. They built this civilization with our main laws and they did extensive research on our location, everything provided and how we all contribute with outreach. Outreaching in our community would be known to others as volunteering. The Grounders built our civilization and brought forth the first one-hundred and fifty Roots. Then as the Roots populated their children became trees who then made branches and so forth. All of this is in attempts to; get closer to mother nature, learn to live securely within the immediate compounds of the earth, and worship women who, just like the wonderful majesticness of mother nature, bring forth life.  

Women are in charge here and they keep everyone motivated, inspired and in line with certain tasks that align justly with everyone's individual capabilities and strength. One of the main Laws of our community is for women to always be accompanied by a male their same age and up to 10 years older than them after the women have reached full physical and emotional maturity. I know in other desensitized communities this rule would prompt abuse and leave women inferior and afraid but here in this community men are taught that women are superior. Logically, It all made perfect sense. Life and the act of living and being alive is not only celebrated but praised and given all of our attention. We say thank you for waking up in the morning and breathing and having the physical ability to do something as major as walking with free mobility. However, life can not be brought into this world to be appreciated without the magnificent women who bravely walk it. Women in our tribe enforce laws and are all given the opportunity to pick a mate once they have  endured and completed all of their tests. 

We’ve come to understand that men prefer this power exchange and immediately  relinquish all control to women and fully accept the great mother without hesitation. The second biggest law the Grounders thought of was to become the arms and legs of the great mother. This means taking care of the earth in every community by every inch whether it's picking up trash, helping a sick animal, saying hello to snails and spiders etcetera. Naturally more can be done in groups but as people travel to other communities they must always be paired up and assist and make outreach less stressful. 

Annabelle and her best friend, (male companion), have a ritual of cleaning up random loitering one step at a time. The grounders are proud of her work and have allowed her to pick the neighborhoods to clean and explore with her choice of a male companion. Annabelle’s favorite quote is, “Think and act on small things to make big changes in the future.” Annabelle is a huge nature lover and can tell you at least three facts in every ocean she visits with her favorite animals being turtles and Orcas. She researched and studied multiple things about The Butterfly Effect which, if you’re unfamiliar, usually deals with the concept of time travel and is broken down to where small actions can have non-linear impacts on the complex systems in the future. However, if this statement is true, Annabelle’s thought is that she herself can change the course of history and how people view and treat the great mother. 

Annabelle and Erin are best friends and sometimes he assists her in the neighborhood vacuum cleaning as they like to joke. Growing up all they saw and heard and read were facts about deforestation, species all around the globe going extinct and global warming decreasing not only our air quality but also our species if they don't all take appropriate action soon. Erin loves nature specifically trees and always goes a bit nutty around them. While Annabelle loves the Ocean and all the sea animal inhabitants. 

Despite the gorgeous scenery and the magical unforgettable sunsets, The last time Annabelle visited the beach on her vacation it broke her heart. Vacationing out at North Island, Seychelles was breathtaking and the clearness of the water made her never want to leave. As they began to settle in enjoying the fruity cocktails and fully relaxing Annabelle decided to go to the shore and look for glass rocks because it would be a delicate and priceless souvenir from earth. While scavenging something green and shiny caught her eyes. Moving closer to see it she noticed that it wasn’t a shiny glass rock but a baby turtle. She reached down to pick it up when she noticed that he was struggling to move. He got his back left foot snagged on a piece of looped chip glass and had a cut that was bleeding. Her heart shattered. How could a beautiful beach, island, animal be the target of such pain due to human ignorance. Her best friend noticed she was frozen in motion for quite some time and ran down to check on her. After analyzing he ran back up towards the forest for ginger root and then his bag for neosporin. They helped the baby turtle and released him back into the ocean to find his family but their lives and vacation was changed after that. That’s when they did some research and found the Grounders. 

In worlds that may even seem far away it is still our responsibility to take care of our environment and all the living beings and creatures we inhabit it with. We never know what the actions we take in our life will do and how they may affect those around us. Newton's third law of motion comes into Annabelles head every time she and Erin begin their Neighborhood vacuuming; for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Picking up a small piece of glass now may save another's turtle's life from being in danger. Having a routine of cleaning up the world one-fifth of a mile at a time may cause someone else to step up and do the same.The grounders and the roots all want Mother Nature to be taken care of and loved and appreciated. 

You never know which small act is going to change the world.

~Victoria