Saturday 30 August 2014

Being independent or being inter-dependent?

http://www.adrianasjanbijman.co.uk

It might be that coming month Scotland, ‘my’ country — as I live here— goes independent. And maybe not. With joy I received my poll card for The Scottish Independence Referendum
It feels as such an honour to vote for this on the 18th of September: the choice of independence for a country, without any war needing to be fought first. Having the choice of voting ‘Yes’ or voting ‘No’. The Referendum brings up lots of discussion, also in our Findhorn Foundation Community and I think this to be very positively, whatever the outcome will be. A neighbour’s window, which says: “Hope not fear, Dare to vote Yes”, makes me smile every time I pass it.
I just learned that it is not Scotland’s first attempt to be independent; the oldest surviving document about this fact is from 1320 when the Scots issued a ‘declaration of independence’ to be freed from English aggression and its dominating power and become its own sovereignty. Not far away from Findhorn lies Culloden Battlefield, which is an old wound in the country’s history. But personally I feel this independence moves away from the past and has all to do with wishing to decide its own future, more than Hollyrood (where the Scottish government resides) can do now.

This all reminds me of my own and our inter-dependence. I live alone and although I am not depending on a special relationship and as such could be called ‘an independent woman’ in the traditional sense, in the modern sense I am as inter-dependent as anybody else, as a human being. We all are depending, in the first place on nature, on the Earth.  But we are also depending on our friends, in a light —hopefully healthy— way, as they are depending on us. I am inter-dependent of my customers, friends and acquaintances, people who already know my graphic and photo work, who for instance ask me to do some design work for their business or who buy some notebooks from my studio or a photo book from the online web shop…. We serve each other.

So, if it will be a ‘Yes’, may we become neighbours who service each other well, who realise they are inter-dependent, both part of Europe.
The pictures I chose are about the interdependence in nature like between this intertwined group of cactuses in Jujuy in the north of Argentina.

August 2014, photo and text © Adriana Sjan Bijman


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