Lately I have been thinking about recycling a lot.  Using those big, designated bins for paper, plastic and glass is only one way.  Giving things you don’t want or need to people and organizations is also commonly done.  Composting is a fabulous method of giving back to this earth that feeds us.  Even just finding alternate uses for stuff in your home is recycling you can do for yourself.  The possibilities are endless if you acquire the proper mindset.

So, what do I mean by the proper mindset?  It occurred to me that this concept of recycling can be considered in a different manner.  One can envision education as a reprocessing of knowledge from the teacher to the student.  Teachers often recycle their curriculum, changing it to communicate the material with different language and styles.  The same information can be presented using new, imaginative approaches to a subject.  Recycling can be invigorating!

Musicians have often used this system with songwriting when a piece is re-arranged for singers, orchestras and bands or to change its phrasing.  Artists find discarded materials and create masterpieces.  Mechanics re-purpose parts to make adjustments to old machinery, build new tools and fix broken ones.

Clothing, cars and furniture are continually being refashioned.  If you keep your clothes and shoes, even long after they become out-of-date, eventually they will come back in style.  Hairdos are always being transformed into new ones.  Fads and fashions are repeatedly recycled.  Endless variations of a few basic techniques make way for fresh creations to bloom.

The changing of the seasons is one of the most amazing examples of recycling there is.  Nature takes the hard, frozen ground of Winter, void of vegetation, except for the trees, and completely transforms it at the beginning of Spring.  With the help of the sun and rain, the soil becomes moist and ready to be seeded and suddenly a wide range of multicolored plants and flowers appear. This leads to Summer, with its sunny, hot weather, bringing tremendous growth and maturity of the produce we need to survive.  Finally, Autumn brings the harvest and the falling of the leaves that will cover the ground and prepare it for Winter.  It is the recycling of our planet and it is magnificent.

Taking what we have and making it new again is just a process of re-thinking, and thereby reusing, what we already have.  It is one’s own particular perspective that allows one to see what can be done in any area of expertise.  Each person has their own path and direction.  I know that if I keep an open mind,  I will improve my recycling skills and use up my talents along the way.  I think everyone can do this, if they choose to give it a try.