Adjustment
June 6, 2010, 2:37 PM
Filed under: Community
Filed under: Community
When people learn that I have recently moved out of NYC after a nine year residency to take up camp in rural Massachusetts they usually say, “That must be quite the adjustment.” And I say, “I haven’t really noticed.” Well, sometimes I feel this way. You see unlike some city dwellers I always had and never lost my lust for nature and all things green and simple. Being in one environment over another is not the issue, the challenge I see and feel at this present moment is accepting the two environments and working in between them. If environment shapes the mind how can I feel connected to both healthy nature and consumer driven pollution in a way where I can make a balance of the two?
My challenge has been to break free of the bubble syndrome; feeling as if my time spent in a beautiful, spiritually charged and community-minded place is not so disconnected to the boudaries that seperate it from the other world, or that parallel universe where there are people who don’t think about growing their own food and choose to shop at Walmart. When I am Earthlands I know I feel good about myself and the actions I take there, when I am away I feel differently about myself. I have to state this fact because it has been bothering me for the past month and I am in a place where I need to do something about it. This will probably happen through educating my friends as a start. My new life is no more of a bubble than my old life and the real bubble is this planet, a tiny speck in the universe. I’m going to start flushing out these ideas right here.
To start off I’d like to share what it is I am doing in this small rural town, as I get the feeling that even many people close to me don’t quite understand:
I am and have moved in the direction that has improved my quality of living by living on less. I am more dependant on those individuals that surround my immeadiate landscape and less so on those unknown entities that live outside my realm of understanding or power to connect with.
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Gulf Oil Spill, not another one.
The other night I had a conversation with some fellow community members about the BP oil spill that has devastated the Gulf and is likely to have long lasting detrimental effects on the coast’s ecosystems and people who make use of these. One member of the group stated that he hoped this would be the wake up call the US needed to understand our dependence on fossil fuels, over consumption and the unsustainable, that’s not sustainable as Timothy S. Bennett confirms in What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire, way we go about living. I agree maybe this will be a “wake up call”, but then again if all the other oil spills and mine collapses and paralyzing e. coli attacks haven’t “woken people up” yet, will this disaster make any difference?
Another voice spoke up amidst the group and suggested that if we only hope to ourselves that others will understand and acknowledge the struggles we face when conveniences that we rely on are the same means of our own destruction, then others will not get the message. So, we need to spread the message that yes, this spill and those even less noted in the news like the underground Mobile spill in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (my former abode) must be a wake up call. These atrocities are not going away and have a lot more to do with the way our culture refuses to admit its drug addiction to individualism and convenience than it does to a bad part on an oil rig. I am doing my first part and sharing the news that we need to wake up.
Depletion and Abundance
After spending the last three months living a somewhat sustainable lifestyle: off-the grid, camping, eating mostly organic and local foods, using a composting toilet and solar pumped water for showering in an incredibly beautiful tropical place, that required I fly there via a fuel guzzling jet, I have come to a point where I feel at once with my world depletion and abundance. It also happens to be the name of the current book I am reading by Sharon Astyk.
I say I feel a sense of depletion and abundance because now that I have been back on the mainland for about two days (after a brief rendevouz to Vieques and Puerto Rico, more guzzling) I am disturbed by the world I thought I once knew and the one I know now, the way most Americans behave in relation to the place that supports their life is nothing more than destructive, however, today I feel equipped to act differently and this brings me a sort of abundance that I never felt before.
It took me a long time to make many of the connections that I do today. Happiness is linked to our connection with nature, self-subsistence and regard for the future. I’m not sure you can achieve it any other way. Who knew that littering was related to pollution but has more to do with human consumption? That environmentalism doesn’t just mean we need to save our trees and dying species, it means we need to save each other, the humans, because otherwise none of our actions will matter in a world that no longer supports human life (and have no doubt that the planet will maintain any life it chooses to just fine without us). Who knew that making sustainable choices like growing our own food, reducing our energy consumption and consuming less stuff in general will make us happier than we can ever imagine?
Today what I am faced with is communicating my findings and my experiences to my peers and friends, family and community. I think this will be challenging because it took someone like me a long time to get it, and I’m still working on getting it. My partner Jonathan and I are about to make our next move- still unsure where- but surely in a direction that supports more learning and offers more education to those around us. Our first initiative is to get more and more people growing their own food, even if they only have the smallest plot of land, or even fire escape to do this on. Over the next few weeks we hope to finish, publish and print the small hand book on this subject that we wrote and designed in St. Croix. It called the mini Food Forest. Keep visiting to learn more.
Please read this book. It is excellent for families or individuals that want to know what steps that can take to lead a more self-subsistent lifestyle that places emphasis on doing so in a mentally comfortable state.
R2R DAYS 26-32 ART OF MENTORING
This past week we had the amazing opportunity to take an Art of Mentoring course with Jon Young of the Regenerative Design Institute. As a group we created our own thriving culture on the farm which explored nature connection and the need to spend time getting to know our natural world in order to enrich our lives. We covered so much important information and it will be difficult for me to cover here all at once. I would like to stress that I think this course should be mandatory for all educators and well, for everyone. I have learned so much that is meaningful to me and I know you would feel that same, because everything we learned is stuff we already know in our hearts- we’ve seen our family, especially our elders practice these notes that I will share below.
Grandmothers are natural mentors
Western thought is not culture if culture is defined as connecting to nature, people and self
“If nature connection is lost, people don’t take care of it.” Jon Young
Read Last Child in the Woods and The Tracker and Dumbing US Down
Is our culture stuck in adolescence? RIGHTS OF PASSAGE
EROSION OF CURIOSITY
“our greatest frailty is that we repeat past experiences”
You must tend to the body in order for the mind to work
Get to know where you have come from before you go forward
Greeting customs matter, meet people where they are at
The VISIONARY in all of us will arise in nature connection.
Mentoring is invisible when it’s done right
Kids NEED to tell their stories, someone needs to listen. Elders need to tell stories too. Talk to your self when need and keep listening and asking questions.
Find a sip spot: a place in the woods, in a natural setting, whatever you have access to that leaves you alone among something wild. Sit there everyday if you can and observe and ask questions. get connected and see how this simple act will transform you.
Ag Fair
This past weekend we participated in the 40th annual St. Croix Agricultural Festival. This felt like the West Indian festivals we would go to back in New York, except now we’re in the West Indies.
Hiatus Part 1
January 7, 2010, 8:25 AM
Filed under: Community, Culture, Design, Education, Food, Living, Permaculture
Filed under: Community, Culture, Design, Education, Food, Living, Permaculture
It’s been quite a while since I posted anything to the blog and my hopes are that this summary of what has happened since the last post will be the first of much more to come.
The last time I wrote I was grieving about Detroit; the misuse of space, the unemployment, the over shopped and under privileged and at this very moment I am back in Detroit having similar feelings. Except this time I’ve taken the opportunity to seek out the city’s developments in sustainable agriculture and community gardens. There has been a lot of talk about Detroit’s future as an agricultural mecca. There have been articles such as these 1 2 3 4 5 that describe the potential for this new green landscape over the industrial city. But, while there have been proposals to makeover Detroit has there been any real activity? I wondered this myself and decided to look into this. As is turns out there are several farms in downtown Detroit that are doing great work as well as organizations designed to assist these farms and make community connections. Take a look at Earthworks Urban Farm , a chemical free farm that serves a soup kitchen and educates its community about sustainable agriculture.
Here are some more links to organizations doing work around urban agriculture.
Greening of Detroit
Hantz farms Detroit
Detroit Black Community Food Security Network
So there’s a start. But what about the suburbs of he greater Detroit metropolitan area? What was once vast farmland and orchards, Detroit’s original breadbasket, has now been converted to strip mall after condo after four-lane highway. The suburbs of Detroit are a sustainability- minded urban planner’s nightmare. There are no sidewalks; you must drive to get anywhere, even to cross the street for a gallon of milk. There is very little food production, but ample lawn space. It’s also not very aesthetically pleasing, as the land is flat and the architecture obtrusive and monotonous, making it rather depressing. However, despite all its challenges these suburbs have potential. Much of the housing is arranged in communal, condo-type settings. Many people are living close to one another as well as to stores that house their needs and places of work too. I’ll even go on to suggest that there are all the ingredients for sustainable communal living space save for a few key elements which are: sidewalks, bike paths, pedestrian walks and lights, community gardens (and lots of them), community centers (within each condo community) and public space that does not involve shopping, redirecting future development upward rather than outward.
long time no blog
Since the last time I blogged I have moved out of my NYC apartment and taken up the art of vagabond. I am homeless, but not without places to stay, this is something I am incredibly grateful for.
Over the past four days I have had the privilege to spend time in one of the most depressed parts of the nation; Detroit, Michigan. Detroit has the highest rate of unemployment and cannot even afford to bury its dead. But what depresses me the most is its landscape. Not in the city proper. Yes, the streets are barren and ghost-like, full of crime and now as some have charged, sinful with its rapidly evolving casinos. No, this part of the city somehow still lends charm, and I think the charm lies in the fact that once there was something truly fabulous about the place and the community that called it home.
Instead what I find depressing are the immediate suburbs that surround this once great city in all directions outward. This sick infestation I call sprawl is in my mind the real devastation of our country. Just imagine strip malls as far as the eye can see… with stores full of stuff we don’t need. And the people are not happy. And it’s not just because they have lost their jobs and their homes and their integrity. I think it’s also because they are buying things with hard earned money that have no value and will deteriorate by the months end.
How can we be happy when we purchase death?
Recently I took a survey that aimed to understand how people deal with buying less. I personally started to buy less about one year ago. This was prompted by a low cash flow, heavy loans and a realization that stuff just wasn’t making me happy. After taking the survey I had a chance to really think about not only how I was affected by buying less, but also about how others choose or choose not to make this same decision.
With all the ailments that Detroit faces in this time why does Walmart need to force open a new store to sell vegetables from New Zealand and toys from China when that same land was once used to grow vegetables for the locals and provided a place for children to play? I suppose why does isn’t in the vocabulary of someone who has because I can at the tip of their fingers.
Today I’d like my readers to think about their purchases and their real needs. How do match up?
My next journey will take me on a road trip to Vancouver. I am still trying to cope with the fact that I will be putting in over 4,000 miles and understand that that’s A LOT of gas.
Stay tuned.
Climate Week NYC
This week NYC and elsewhere are paying special attention to climate change and the issues/opportunities that come with it. Find interesting events on the Climate Change NYC website!
Today started off with another great performance by the Yes Men as they pranked NY POST readers into a fictitious, yet factual “Were Screwed” edition of the paper. Also, TckTckTck kicked off its efforts to engage people who are ready to address climate change and support an international agreement to be determined in Copenhagen later this year.
I’ve finally done it
Big Sustainable Life is now on Twitter!! Now I can alert you to new posts and breaking news about design, culture and the environment.
Join me in my tweets at http://twitter.com/BIGSustainable
Shared gardens=shared food=shared joy and nourishment
Take a look at my back yard (yes, I have one right here in NYC).
The terrace attached to my apartment and my neighbors- a lot of space.
My other neighbor’s yard(s)- one a waste land the other a quasi edible forest garden.
The 360 view outside my back door- lots of vertical space.
