tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44487187029451890002024-03-08T00:32:53.133-07:00Mel's Journalmy adventures with voluntary simplicityMelanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-67891313816984069002010-01-18T09:08:00.000-07:002012-10-22T09:09:18.791-06:00Monday, January 18, 2010
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, I never finished my last entry—maybe I’ll get
back to it one of these days (maybe not).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m recovering from food poisoning after eating some
bad sushi rolls on Thursday. It’s been interesting. During the nights I’ve been
drenched in sweat and full of delirious dreaming, or at least very vivid
dreaming now that I’m no longer feverish. In the course of all of this
dreaming, all of these little bits of memory from childhood have come up—things
I haven’t remembered in forever. There have been all sorts of past life things.
There have been insights that have floated up (can’t remember them now, but
they feel very close to the surface, so I’m sure I haven’t lost them). And I
have received what seems to be guidance about various practical things (like my
blogs and the car). My perceptions feel clearer and the world seems fresh and
full of possibilities. It almost seems as if this illness went in and cleaned
out some cobwebs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It makes me think about where our consciousness comes
from. Some people speculate that we’re not really us, since we’re mostly made
up of bacteria and other foreign critters. Rather, we’re the sum total of all
the critters comprising us. Maybe my shift in consciousness is not a result of
the illness but actually the contribution of the bacteria (or virus) itself.
Strange way to think about it, yet it makes sense. Any addition of critters to
my bodily ecosystem creates change, so it’s sensible to think the change could
filter up to consciousness. In that case, I thank the critters for their
contribution.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I might be sensing that one of the insights had to do
with paradigm shifting. I just think that in my delirium I was shifting between
many different ways of perceiving reality, so the entrenchedness of our current
paradigm seems absurd. Why is everyone so attached to this paradigm? We have an
infinite number of ways we could express ourselves and human society—why cling
so tenaciously to one that’s so dysfunctional and unpleasant?</span></div>
Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-72888691900622487852009-12-31T09:05:00.000-07:002012-10-22T09:06:21.110-06:00Thursday, December 31, 2009
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, it’s New Year’s Eve—and not only that, but it’s
also a blue moon. I guess it’s time for me to reflect back on the year (and the
decade, if I get around to it) and plan for next year (and maybe the next
decade)[and maybe even the next half of my life].<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I feel like we’re on the brink of societal collapse. It
seems important to focus on the positive things we can be doing so that the
transformation will be less chaotic. That’s what I’m going to be working on.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This past year I began to feel a much more urgent need
to learn skills that could help me become more self-sufficient. These are
skills I’ve always wanted to learn, but it’s all begun to fell urgent nowadays.
I expanded the garden and was able to can and store a lot more food this year
for the winter. Not nearly enough, but at least it’s made a noticeable dent.
Next year one of my goals is to start a serious food storage effort. I want to
have at least a year’s worth of food always in reserve and more than that if
I’m able. For the coming year I’d like to buy a good supply of beans and grains
and other staples (salt, sugar, vinegar,…) and then can and dry and store as
much garden produce as possible.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My burning need is to disengage from the system. The
system is making life on earth unsustainable and as long as I continue to
participate in the system I’m a guilty party.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">How do I more fully disengage? By taking back a lot of
the responsibilities I’ve delegated to others, particularly nameless, faceless
corporations. I certainly can’t do it all in the coming year, but I feel
confident I can in the next ten years.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I really like all of the new initiatives that have been
springing up in the past few years. There is an increasing group of people
awakening to the true reality of our time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Transition Town initiative is an interesting
movement. It was started to help prepare towns for peak oil, but I think it’s
much more broadly applicable to all of the crises we’re facing. I think the
financial crisis is a much more ominous worry—like possibly in the next few
months. We really need more time to re-build resilient communities.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve been giving considerable thought to my town of
Snyder. I actually think it has a lot going for it and if society collapsed we
may actually be a very cohesive community. We’re small enough, old-fashioned
enough, and skilled enough to potentially pull together quite well. Most people
already garden and many have backyard livestock of some sort. We could grow
most of our produce, plus eggs and small-scale livestock, and the surrounding
farms can produce grains. I think we could all look out for each other quite
well, and do alright.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the next year I’d like to get hens and meat rabbits,
and all of the accoutrements I’d need. I’m planning to expand the garden to 800
square feet at least and get the soil tested and amended. I’m planning to grow
oats and get a grain roller, start nixtamalizing my own corn to make homemade
masa, hopefully finally get a pressure canner AND finally clean out the storm
cellar. I hope to order some bulk grains and beans in February through a
Denver-based bulk grain sale and buy a bunch of buckets for food storage. I
plan to get suitable crocks for making sauerkraut. Ideally I’d like to get a
high quality grain mill, but I’m not sure that’ll happen this year. And I’d
like to finally put up a clothesline.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’m no longer buying any disposable products except
toilet paper, and any clothes I buy (besides underwear) are secondhand. I’d
like to learn how to knit socks so I can make several pairs of durable and warm
wool socks for Collin and me. Store-bought socks nowadays are so cheap they’re
almost worthless. I think manufacturers purposely design them to wear out as
fast as possible.</span></div>
Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-12715605137613905512009-12-30T09:01:00.000-07:002012-10-22T09:02:48.036-06:00Wednesday, December 30, 2009
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Khatru died yesterday, aged 17 years, 4 months, and 12
days. It was a rather beautiful death. I got to wake up with her beside me
(she’s been sleeping with me, snuggled against my chest, for about the past
month because her body could no longer keep her warm). She was still alive but
her body seemed to be completely paralyzed. Even so, her eyes through very
subtle shifts of focus were responding to everything I said. I talked to her
and stroked and kissed her for about half an hour, then told her I was getting up
to fill her hot water bottle. When I got back a minute or so later her head was
torqued back and she wasn’t breathing. She spasmed a few times and her heart
stopped beating a few minutes later. It almost seems like she waited for me to
wake up so I could say good-bye to her.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We had to borrow John’s mattock so we could dig a hole
in the frozen ground. It wasn’t easy. Collin and I tag-teamed to get it done.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems very strange without her here. I spent more
years with her than anyone else in my life except Mom and Dad—and with them it
was only a few months longer. So the energy shifts yet again in the house.</span></div>
Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-88450734396022257232009-12-09T08:59:00.000-07:002012-10-22T09:03:45.228-06:00Wednesday, December 9, 2009<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I woke up exceedingly groggy this morning and my
morning coffee hasn’t helped me feel any less dazed (yet). It’s been bitterly
cold, but at least this morning the sun is shining and the weather system that
brought snow the past few days has cleared out. It was supposed to get down to
-9 last night, but when I woke up this morning (although not until 7:30) it was
10 above, so I don’t think it got quite that cold last night. Yesterday it
didn’t get above 10 all day.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’d like to write about Albrecht’s book but my thoughts
are so cloudy this morning—we’ll see how it goes. I haven’t read all of his book,
but what I’ve read has been almost earth-shattering for me.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Forgive me if I get some facts wrong here—I haven’t
internalized the information yet so I could easily garble it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">He explained of course how mineralized soils led to
plants with high mineral and protein content and likewise how low-mineral soils
led to plants high in starches and sugars. He also explained how soils age and
that when temperature and humidity increase, aging happens much faster. In
areas with high rainfall, such as the northeast US, soils age rapidly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In his first few chapters he included these really
fascinating maps of the US. Obviously the most fertile (and mineralized) part
of the country is what we call the nation’s breadbasket. The most infertile
section is the humid southeast. One thing I had never realized is that forests
spring up on old, depleted soils. That should have been obvious—trees are all
cellulose. And the lushness of Pennsylvania is really all about plants being all
about carbohydrates rather than proteins and minerals.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The subdued nature of life here on the plains is
actually healthier. Mineralized plants grow much smaller, but concentrate much
greater nutrition. The conservative way life expresses itself here is a sign of
health.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Fodders grown in the east are only good at fattening
cattle—not for raising healthy cattle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">On a hunch I looked online to see if I could find a map
which shows the distribution of diabetes in the US.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was shocked when I found one—it totally
matches Albrecht’s maps! I wasn’t sure I would find such a close
correspondence, since our diets aren’t very local anymore. Maybe it’s a total
coincidence, but I don’t think so. Maybe it’s what’s in the water (or not I the
water) rather than the food that makes a difference. Most water is local—even
soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi are bottled regionally. Maybe there are enough
regional foods—dairy and produce perhaps—to allow the soils to express
themselves through the people. It’s shocking and fascinating and brings me
right back to—what else—environmental determinism!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We are expressions of the land—and only as healthy as
the land itself. That Hamaker fellow I quoted the other day believed that the
glaciers were responsible for mineralizing much of the land (by crushing and
distributing rocks over vast distances) and that because we are so far into an
interglacial period we’ve largely depleted our supply of minerals.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There would then be a cycle of health and disease on
earth, it would seem, that would correspond with glacial advances and retreats.
We are currently in a dying or disease part of the cycle.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The implications of everything Albrecht wrote seem
enormous. It will take me awhile to trace the paths of all of them.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One thing I’m wondering about is the Fertile Crescent
and the advent of agriculture. When those first grains were cultivated, the
land there must have been highly mineralized. Those would have been very high
protein, mineral-rich crops. Healthy humans grew out of that soil and civilization
grew from it too. But eventually the land was depleted (actually salinized is
what I’ve heard). Then what happened—marauding, pillaging, conquering. Everyone
fighting for resources. Haven’t we simply been fighting for protein and
minerals? And haven’t people with the most protein and minerals been the most
dominant cultures? It’s Jared Diamond all over again. The tropics are all
carbonaceous—cellulose and starches. They have starchy root crops, woody nut
crops, no grass crops (except sugar cane?).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For cultures to be strong enough to maraud and conquer
they needed protein-rich food. Is this true? Or were they marauding and
conquering because their own supply of protein was dwindling and they were
trying to find more?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s clear to me that in order to have healthy humans
we need to have healthy soils. If we all were eating healthy, mineralized foods
I’m convinced the true potential of our species could unfold.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">More and more I’ve been thinking lately that I might
not want to move back to Pennsylvania after all. This new part of the
equation—the health of the soil—adds another factor to my considerations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Appalachia is artsy and creative—very expressive in
other words—like the rampant growth of foliage there. All sky energy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Colorado is understated in its expression. It’s aging
very slowly because it’s so arid, so there’s not as much going on here. The
soils are more mineralized—there’s more earth energy here.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Where would the ideal blending of earth and sky be
found? It seems it might be somewhere a little wetter than here—where soils age
faster and there’s more going on—but somewhere drier than Pennsylvania.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Probably it would be smack dab in the middle
of one of Albrecht’s maps.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course if I’m growing all of my food and doing so in
re-mineralized soils, I could do that anywhere. But simply because I would be
getting a healthy balance of earth and sky isn’t enough. The whole culture
surrounding me matters, so I would want that to be healthy too.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And I wonder, if I found a place that perfectly
balanced earth and sky energy, would that also be a place where new paradigms
wanted to be birthed?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">(Ooh—the outside temperature right now is -3.3. When I
though it said 10 above earlier, it must have actually said -10.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-69686838360661388732009-12-06T08:54:00.000-07:002012-10-22T08:55:26.807-06:00Sunday, December 6, 2009
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In William Albrecht’s book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Soil</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fertility and Animal
Health</i>, (which I was able to download for free) he says this about
corn:”Corn, another of the grasses, can have considerable concentration of
nitrogen. However, the introduction of its hybrids has reduced that while the
starch and fodder yields have gone up. Hybridization has been the equivalent of
pushing the physiological performance by the corn plant down to make it
duplicate more nearly those of sugar cane. By this manipulation we have pushed
the crop’s production of protein nearly down and out for growing young
animals.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But I found a quote in John Hamaker’s book the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Survival of Civilization</i> (also a free
download) that seems to contradict what the woman said Charles Walters said in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eco-Farm</i> regarding hybrid corn being
unable to take up trace minerals. Hamaker said:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“In the summer of 1977 a corn crop was grown on soil
which was mineralized with glacial gravel crusher screenings. The corn was
tested along with corn from the same seed grown with conventional chemical
fertilizers. The mineralized corn had 57 percent more phosphorus, 90 percent
more potassium, 47 percent more calcium, and 60 percent more magnesium than the
chemical-grown corn. The mineral-grown corn had close to 9 percent protein,
which is very good for a hybrid corn.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Hamaker also said:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Virtually all of the subsoil and most of the topsoil
of the world have been stripped of all but a small quantity of elements. So it
is not surprising that the chemical-grown corn had substantially less mineral
content than the 1963 corn described in the USDA Handbook of the Nutritional
Contents of Food. The mineralized corn was substantially higher in mineral
content than the 1963 corn. Hence, as the elements have been used up in the
soil, a poor food supply in 1963 has turned into a 100 percent junk food supply
in 1978. There has been a corresponding increase in disease and medical costs.
Essentially, disease means that enzyme systems are malfunctioning for lack of
the elements required to make the enzymes.”</span></div>
Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-44553495342682156442009-11-26T08:49:00.000-07:002012-10-22T08:51:07.619-06:00Thursday, November 26, 2009
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The guy who writes the soil minerals blog I love (I
think his name is Michael Astera) finally had some new posts this month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t post often, but when he does it’s
always good stuff. (He also has a website soilminerals.com which has a lot of
good info too.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Anyway, one thing he said caught my attention. In
previous posts he’s pointed out that one of the (few) benefits of conventional
agriculture is that if a consumer eats some broccoli that was grown on
minerally-deficient soils from one location, he’ll also likely be eating, say,
peppers that were grown on mineral-rich soils somewhere else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because conventional agriculture brings foods
in from such far-flung places, as long as you’re eating a good variety of
foods, you’re unlikely to become deficient in essential minerals. But if you’re
growing all of your own food you stand a very good chance of developing
deficiencies since the spot you choose to farm is unlikely to have optimal
levels of everything you need. That’s why re-mineralization is so important.
What he mentioned in his recent posts concerned grazing animals. He said that
in the past we used to hunt grazing animals who regularly migrated vast distances,
thus eating from a wide variety of soils. Now all of our animals are confined
to relatively small acreages and so they can’t achieve a healthy mineral
balance. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Think about it—all of the vast herds of animals that
once covered the earth, now dwindling and dwindling and confined by human
developments and fences, limiting their range. Unable to freely migrate, they
can’t become the fullest and truest manifestations of who they’re meant to be,
and earth and sky can’t fully meet within them. And then we eat them and we’re
imbalanced too. Animals instinctively know what they need for optimal health,
but when they’re penned in they can’t migrate to find it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Then someone in the comment section said the following,
“I read recently in Charles Walters’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eco-Farm</i>
that test after test has shown that hybrid corn is not even able to take up
trace minerals from the soil.” This sort of ties in with my question of whether
sweet corn is sweet because it grows on minerally-depleted soil. Would it be
less sweet on optimal soils? Apparently not. It seems that hybridization has so
damaged it that it can’t even access the soil minerals now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All very interesting stuff. I want to learn more.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Next year I want to test my soil and re-mineralize it
and get a Brix refractometer so I can chart my results. It would be fun then to
start a garden service to test people’s gardens, write soil prescriptions and
help them maximize nutrition in the things they grow.</span></div>
Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-30817864636725702009-11-16T08:45:00.000-07:002012-10-22T08:47:23.544-06:00Monday, November 16, 2009<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I’ve been sick the past few days with the flu bug
that’s been going around, so I’ve just been bundled up in bed with a stack of
books.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two of the books seem very
important and I need to spend more time reflecting on what I read.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I caught myself dreaming about the one book
last night, so my mind is definitely trying to work something out.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The book I finished last evening was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death and
Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators</i>, by William
Stolzenburg. It documented many examples of “trophic cascades”—chain reactions
initiated by the loss of top predators, spreading throughout the food web and
bringing down entire ecosystems. It’s very scary stuff.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">For instance, when we eradicated the deer’s predators
we created a cascade leading to the loss of countless other species in those
habitats: songbirds, bears, orchids, trillium lilies, cedars, whole forests….
In many places which have been studied, up to 80% of species have been lost due
to the overpopulation of deer. What remains is a severely altered and dying
ecosystem—only the ‘deer-proof’ species, like “poisonous snakeroot and stinging
nettles”, can survive at ground level. And the density of deer is also
responsible for the epidemic of Lyme disease in the human population.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One of the most interesting parts of the book concerned
the reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone. The whole ecosystem had been
disturbed once wolves were eradicated in the 1920s. The elk population
skyrocketed, causing massive damage to the ecosystem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No new groves of aspen, willow, or cottonwood
had been able to spring up in seventy years—any new shoots would immediately be
grazed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Riverbanks were eroding with no
vegetation to hold them in place. Bird habitat was destroyed, beavers were
driven away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But once the wolves were
re-introduced all of that began to change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The willows began to spring up in lush thickets along the river,
surprisingly quickly. The number of wolves seemed too low to account for such a
rapid rebound—they just weren’t killing enough elk yet to have that kind of impact
on the vegetation.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What the researchers figured out is the most
interesting part of the whole book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
willows were coming back because of fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When the elk had no enemies they browsed indiscriminately, everywhere.
Once they had an enemy again their old survival instincts reawakened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They recognized certain types of terrain to
be dangerous and thus began avoiding them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Mostly these places were river bottoms, stream courses, or other
incongruities in the land that would cause them to slow down during a chase. A
wolf, who is so much lighter and more agile than an elk, doesn’t need to slow
down nearly as much to accommodate changing terrain and can catch up with an
elk more readily in such places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when
the fear returned, the willows returned—in river bottoms and other places that
posed a hazard to the elk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once the
river bottoms repopulate with willows it’s expected to have a (positively)
cascading effect—halting erosion, bringing back songbirds and beavers, fish and
amphibians and aquatic insects, etc.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In another part of the book a French ecologist,
Jean-Louis Marten, studying an archipelago in which some islands were free of
deer and others overrun by them said, “For me it was sort of a major light bulb
which came on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suddenly what I realized
working there [is] that carnivores are mainly not animals which eat prey but
which change the behavior of prey.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Fear is the glue that holds the world together, or used
to. No critter <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">likes</i> fear, and all
creatures seek safety, but only we humans have developed the power to eradicate
fear. By wiping out predators we feel safe, yet it is a false sense of safety
because it is untenable. Without anything to fear the world falls apart.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We’ve wiped out the predators, thus changing the
behavior of vast numbers of species, including ourselves. We <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">need </i>to occupy niches constrained by
fear. How can there possibly be hope for us or the planet now that we have the
technology to make guns and other extremely efficient weapons of death? Our
instinct is to create safety for ourselves, and if easy technology is at our
fingertips to do just that, we do it. Eliminate the wolves, the big cats, giant
raptors, bears, etc. No need to live in fear. But no fear, no world.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What is fear? Beyond emotion, beyond a chemical
response in the body, what is it? It seems to be a necessary part of the
metabolism of Gaia, a key regulatory function.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems ridiculous to think we could bring back fear
to the human population. Not without total societal collapse. That’s what the
world desperately needs though. Without it we’re doomed.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">When I imagine the world full of predators again, it’s
a beautiful world. We would live like the !Kung again, a part of the ecosystem,
participating, being both predator and prey, co-evolving.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We humans don’t co-evolve anymore and what does that do
to the intelligence of the planet? It dumbs it down. Eventually it will kill
the planet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Imagine if we had fear again. If we had fear we would
learn how to be present again. Our powers of direct perception would be honed. Our
ecosystems would have natural constraints and limits which we would easily
recognize. Our human endeavors would arise from the land, co-expressions of
place.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A more bizarre thought wants to come through too.
Something about the co-evolution of us and predators. We co-evolve by
behaviorally influencing each other and by jointly influencing our environment.
My bizarre thought is that maybe by us never being preyed upon anymore, the
predators miss out on something vital they need.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m thinking about the food web and how human
bodies are the only bodies largely exempted from passing through the gut of
carnivores. It gets to my thoughts about the energy of foods—how I learned that
herbs each possess unique energy which changes us when we ingest them and how easy
it is to extrapolate that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything </i>we
consume, animals included, imparts a unique energy or unique qualities to us.
So likewise for the predators—everything they ingest helps to form their
identities.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Humans (largely) are no longer ingested by anything
other than microbes. It seems intuitively important to me that human bodies
inform the bodies of other animals by passing through their gut, and by
transforming our flesh into their flesh. I realize no science yet exists to
show that this matters—the closest “science” would be the field of
nutrition—but I think there’s something here. Each living thing concentrates
its own unique interactions with the environment into its flesh—that flesh is
consumed and it impacts the consumer. Yes we can reduce it all to calories and
fats and proteins and carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals and maybe in an
elementary way that’s all it is—but maybe not.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What do we know about what happens in the gut? We know
that most of our immune system resides there. Why is that? Our immune system
has the job of recognizing and responding appropriately to our environment. I’m
sure what it finds passing through the gut can trip epigenetic triggers that
turn gene expression on and off. I believe we are profoundly shaped by what we ingest.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Back to the issue of fear again. Fear creates diversity—more
niches and more species. An elk-free thicket of willows is a pocket-sized
niche—a diminutive ecosystem which evolves its own flora and fauna. Humans on
the savannahs of Africa knew to avoid thickets, which might be hiding lions, so
those were human-free thickets. What evolved in the thickets was surely
different than what evolved in the surrounding open lands where humans modified
the environment with their hunting and gathering activities and their mere
presence. Diversity is a direct effect of fear.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems like humans have never come to terms with
physical manifestation and what that entails. By physically manifesting we
enter a compact that requires us to participate in the intricate dance of
eating and being eaten. Life is a process of energy being transformed by death.
We try desperately to opt out of that compact—killing off all the predators so
we can’t be eaten and even trying to stave off the microbes as long as possible
after death by shooting our corpses full of preservatives. But if we’re here in
physical form, that’s the compact. Without it, life isn’t possible.</span></div>
Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-88156916028733365212009-11-05T20:59:00.000-07:002011-12-07T20:05:01.595-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
had a dream last night that we were moving to a new house—a large beautiful log
house nestled among forested hills, with a huge yard with plenty of room for
gardening and for some animals.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Moving
to a new house is a recurring theme in my dreams. The dream is always set in
Pennsylvania, and the house I’m moving from (my house) always ends up being Mom
and Dad’s house.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In
this dream at varying points I was my adult self, my seventeen year old self, and
my twelve year old self.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
only odd thing in the dream was that in the old house we were leaving behind a
lot of stuff I thought we should be taking. The attic was full of stuff, mostly
toys. I thought if we were selling the house to a family it would be nice to
leave the toys for them, but we were selling the house to a baseball association.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I found some of Grandma's afghans in the
attic as well. I wanted to at least keep an all-white one, but had trouble
getting to it because I spotted a huge black widow spider. Grandma was there in
the attic with me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
thing that vexed me the most was that we hadn’t taken any of the dressers. I
complained to Mom that I wouldn’t have anywhere to put my clothes in the new
house. She suggested a cardboard box, but I was complaining how ridiculous that
seemed when we had all of these dressers. Jamie had a gorgeous, tall antique
chest of drawers. She was talking about how perhaps she could get $150 for it
if she sold it. I thought it would make a perfect dresser for me if only I
could convince everyone else to move the dressers to the new house.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
dressers obviously symbolize something. Mom and Dad’s house (my childhood home)
has always symbolized my Self, and these moving dreams always seem to be about
moving into a newer Self, in this case also a more expansive self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dressers contain our clothes, which we use to
don different forms of self-expression. But it wasn’t that I’d be without
clothes, it was that I’d be without a container to hold them. And a cardboard
box wasn’t good enough. I wanted something beautiful, with character and the
patina of age, like Jamie’s dresser. Even my dresser (from childhood) is
probably, technically, an antique now. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Any</i>
dresser would’ve been better than a cardboard box.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
was arguing vehemently that we need to have beautiful containers to house our
self-expression, our various forms of self expression--but what does that
really mean? If I move into a more expansive Self, I still want a beautiful
container to house my various forms of self-expression. Each form of
self-expression I don, each persona, is not me in my totality. All of those
various expressions, together, should be a thing of beauty. But even all of
those are not all of me. The whole house represents the whole Self. The dresser
only represents the various aspects of self which manifest discretely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
toys in the attic--they represent playful spontaneity. I wanted them to go to
children who would fully engage with them—not to a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">baseball association</i>—where play has become rigid and overly
formalized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
Grandma’s afghans….as far as I know, she never did crochet an all-white one.
The color white contains all other colors, but is an absence of color as well.
What does the afghan represent? It represents my connection to Grandma of
course—to memories of my personal past, what’s gone before. It’s an item of
warmth and comfort; it represents love. The purity of love. And how love contains
everything. The afghan is made up of both matter and empty space—yarn endlessly
looping back upon itself and interconnecting with other parts of itself. The
form of it is created by the intersection of matter and emptiness. (Earth and
sky?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Back
to the symbolism of the dresser. The dresser I was most drawn to was tall, wide,
but narrow from front to back. In proportion and styling it reminded me of a Shaker
piece—simple, and elegantly understated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But the finish on it was not Shaker—it was very rich, had beautiful
depth, perhaps it was a wax finish which had been painstakingly built up over many
years of attention. This seems to represent myself as I’m currently
manifesting—in this context of voluntary simplicity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Another
interesting thing was Mom’s cardboard box comment. It was implied that the
cardboard box would be one left over from the move. So I would’ve been
basically living out of a box, as if the move were only temporary. But it
wasn’t meant to be a temporary move. There seems to be symbolism there about
living outside of the box too. A cardboard box is ugly—that was a big part of
my objection to it. I wanted to live in a beautiful space.</span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-8981219110458790142009-11-01T20:57:00.000-07:002011-12-07T19:58:55.113-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">My
newest thought today about how we might save the world?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do nothing.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This
paradigm has been about too much “doing” anyway. All of the activists out
there, doing this, doing that—they’re acting from within the current paradigm
and that never works.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Our
destructive society has arisen as a natural process of the earth, and earth
will always evolve back towards balance sooner or later. We’ve swung so far out
of balance now—reached total unsustainability —that the only way for things to
go is to swing back towards sustainability.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">How
will that happen?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We simply can sit back
and allow it to happen. In fact the end of Western society is already underway.
The financial system is utterly unsustainable—it may only have a few months
left. Total economic collapse is what will bring us back towards balance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">All
of our problems—greenhouse gases, peak oil, overpopulation, etc.—will right
themselves when modern society collapses. No, it likely won’t be pretty, but
the earth will eventually return to balance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">At
the same time that I’ve been getting this vibe lately that we’re on the brink
of collapse, I’ve also been getting a vibe that a new paradigm is about to be
birthed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
keep finding more and more people scattered across the web who are awake as I
am and have learned how to be authentic and present—these are the people who will
first express the new paradigm. It’s already staring to eke out through them.
Our job isn’t to dismantle civilization—there’s no need. Civilization will
dismantle itself. What we need to do is to birth the new paradigm—show people
what lies ahead for us, lay the groundwork, create the vision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
it needs to be a practical vision. Post-collapse, we’ll need to be practical. Re-
localization, taking back control of our food supply, building community—these
very basic things will be of the utmost importance. It would be really good if
we could somehow manage to maintain global inter-connectivity—although I don’t
know how likely it is that the Internet will survive. Without it, we run the
risk of forgetting things, becoming alienated from each other and regressing to
a sort of tribalism—us and them all over again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We
need global connectivity—that’s the only blessing to have come out of
globalism. It should be a priority that of all things, connectivity is the one
thing we preserve on a global scale.</span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-4605305057285066592009-10-31T20:55:00.000-06:002011-12-07T19:56:44.164-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
get closer and closer to the end of this journal—must mean a new chapter of my
life will soon begin. I wonder what lies in store?<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
weird vibe I’ve been getting lately makes me wonder if the next chapter isn’t
going to be about total societal collapse. Economically we’re teetering on the
very edge of the abyss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It’s
unnerving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-8625275675103863512009-10-25T20:53:00.000-06:002011-12-07T19:55:02.150-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m
having a new thought tonight. I haven’t had time to work with it so it’s still
very undeveloped, but I wanted to jot it down so I don’t lose it.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
been so frustrated that we haven’t found a way to tackle all of the “converging
catastrophes” we face. We haven’t found that crack that would let us enter into
a new paradigm. The old paradigm is a sinking ship still trying to charge along
at full speed, but all the while taking us all down with her. Stopping the
madness seems impossible. How do you topple the system?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And not only topple it, but have something
even better to replace it with?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Tonight
the new thought has to do with not how to bring about change, but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">where</i> to bring about change. I was thinking
again about the land and the unique energy of each place. I was thinking about
Jared Diamond’s book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Guns, Germs, and
Steel</i>, and how Diamond believes that unique features of the land brought
about the domestication of animals, the rise of sedentary lifestyles, city-states,
eventually colonialism, etc. When I read the book I remember being depressed—it
made a pretty convincing case that the rise of Western society was an
inevitable and very organic process of the earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Tonight
I am wondering—if there were propensities held in the land which led to the rise
of our Western culture, might there not also be propensities held in the land
that might give rise to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">next</i>
paradigm?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Are
there places in this world which would be conducive to birthing the next
paradigm?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are there places which possess
the right “personality” for that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are
there places that are already small-scale success stories?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are there places more conducive to evolving or
expressing solutions?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
need to think about this more—not tonight, too sleepy. But if such places
exist, we need to work with those places and help to expand the solutions so
they can work globally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">What
are the geological features that would birth of post-consumer, post-ego
paradigm?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Or,
another way to think about this would be to have every locale do an inventory
of its “personality” traits and learn what part of the solution it might be
able to give birth to. I’m sure each locale has its own particular strengths—each
locale might have something to contribute to a global solution.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
got to give this more thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-18578299375877412982009-10-11T20:51:00.000-06:002011-12-07T19:53:04.426-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We’re
having a cold October. It got down into the low twenties the past two
nights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The garden is done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not even sure the chard made it through.
When all is said and done the tomato harvest was 241 pounds. I could’ve gotten
more if I had picked all of the green tomatoes but I let them go into the compost.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It
was a good year in the garden. I canned tomato juice, tomato sauce, marinara,
ketchup, hot sauce, salsa, and three kinds of pickles, froze tomato paste,
pesto, zucchini, chard, and green beans, sun dried (well, oven dried) a batch
of tomatoes, dried oregano, coriander seeds and dill seeds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve got a string of garlic, the small pile
of butternut squash, beets still in the ground, piles of cantaloupe and
watermelon (although mostly they didn’t ripen). I still have tomatoes on the
counter, the giant bag of hot peppers to deal with, more chard waiting to be
frozen and basil to be made into pesto.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Is still have to dig the last of the potatoes. Collin has a mountain of gourds
(plus I donated all but one pie pumpkin because they just didn’t get big enough
to bother with).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
failures this year were lima beans (again), the potatoes (darn grasshoppers),
cabbage, and peas (I got a good harvest of snow peas, but only one serving’s worth
of shell peas before the frost hit). The onions did poorly too. The sets I
planted had their leaves snapped off by wind and hail so they didn’t bulb out
very well, and the onions I planted from seed didn’t grow fast enough to produce
full-sized bulbs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
all in all it was a great year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t
believe the season is over already. Next year will be even bigger and better.
And next year I’ve GOT to get hens and rabbits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That’s a must.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-79148503090632233862009-10-09T19:47:00.000-06:002011-12-07T19:49:52.787-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
been getting really bad vibes they lately about the stability of our society.
That’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">on top</i> of my regular doom and
gloom about climate, population, and the environment. Despite the official line
of bullcrap we’re hearing about the recession being almost over, I don’t
believe we’ve even begun to see the worst of things. I still think we’re heading
for something absolutely catastrophic—far worse than the Great Depression. They
keep pumping fake trillions into the economy, as if that could possibly create
any <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real</i> change. It’s mere
slight-of-hand. What’s the point of any of that when the dollar is totally
worthless?<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
so many reasons the time is now or never for converting to a steady-state
economy. But it won’t happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The machine
is too big. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">only</i> way it will
happen is through catastrophic collapse of civilization, with the survivors having
to rebuild from nothing—and who’s to say those survivors will be smart enough
to do it right?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Personally
I would like to survive the coming collapse just for the adventure of it, but
at the moment I feel very ill prepared.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">My
most immediate goal is to deal with the food issue. I’d like to have a year or
two of staples stockpiled. I normally have at least a month of food on hand
simply because I tend to only do one shopping trip per month. But one month’s
worth of food isn’t going to cut it. I need a big stockpile of beans, rice,
flour, sprouting seeds, salt, yeast, sugar, etc., etc. I need a grain mill and
a pressure canner. I need rabbits and chickens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The list goes on and on. I need to practice foraging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I need to learn about hunting and trapping. There’s
so much to learn and acquire. Fortunately this is stuff I’ve always wanted to learn
and do. Even if everything were peachy in the world at large, I’d still be
working towards self-sufficiency. This just adds a sense of urgency to the
process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-67062981188053643592009-09-23T19:45:00.000-06:002011-12-07T19:45:45.573-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
was reading back through here and came to the section where I was puzzling
about the weather last year—trying to figure out how I could be the same
phenomenon as the weather, as my vision suggested. I think I’ve figured it
out—it’s the metabolism thing. “The metabolism of the grass and the metabolism
of the horse are one and the same”. The metabolism of the human being and the
metabolism of the weather are one and the same. We represent the metabolism of
Gaia.<o:p></o:p></span>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-45093164670204196322009-09-21T19:43:00.000-06:002011-12-07T19:44:19.826-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
was thinking about the John Livingston essay again and his idea that we “downshift”
into the egoic self. I had a different way of conceptualizing it flash in my
mind. It kind of reverses the whole concept. I pictured the energy of Gaia as a
ground beneath us, the energy of our immediate environment as another layer
above that, then maybe our collective humanity as another layer, and at the top
(and farthest removed from Gaia) would be our individual consciousness and ego.
Expanding our consciousness is just merging back down into earth consciousness.
I like this conceptualization better, because “upshifting” seems to imply
effort and a striving for a new state of being. But my concept feels more
natural--a surrender back to the ground of being from which we emerged.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Each
individual and each living thing is an apex coming out of the ground of being,
or Gaia. At the peak of the apex is that little dot of self and ego. We look
all around us and it sure looks like we’re all little isolated dots. We just
forget to look beneath our feet. If we did that we’d see we’re still firmly
connected to something larger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-23041617198993525382009-09-01T19:38:00.000-06:002011-12-07T19:41:55.721-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Yesterday
the cumulative tomato harvest topped 50 pounds. I’m guessing when all is said
and done (barring an early frost, which is quite possible considering our unusually
cool summer) we’ll have a harvest of at least 150 pounds--maybe 200. That’s all
from a 100 square foot bed--actually a little less because the middle of the
bed contains twenty-some odd basil plants. According to John Jeavons a 100
square foot bed should yield roughly 100 pounds for the beginning gardener, 194
pounds for the intermediate gardener, and as much as 418 pounds for the
advanced gardener.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
tomatoes are the only thing I’m weighing this year, mainly because they’re the
major crop, taking up nearly a fifth of the whole garden. When Collin’s grown I
won’t have to go so crazy with tomatoes, but while he’s still with me, I need
to keep him well supplied with tomato sauces and salsa and ketchup, etc.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Over
the weekend I canned our first batch of tomato sauce. I made six pints of a
basil marinara (there was also an almost-full seventh pint that just went
straight into the fridge). On Friday I plan to can a batch of spaghetti sauce.
I figure about 24 pints total of various types of pasta sauces should last a
full year, especially considering I’m also making tons of pesto.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Then,
after I have 24 pints of sauce, I’ll make a few pints of pizza sauce, then move
on to ketchup. We’ve already done some salsa. I made a 1 quart jar of lacto-fermented
salsa, and over the weekend Collin made four little 4-ounce jars of fresh salsa.
But, if the tomato harvest holds out, I’d like to can some salsa for the winter
as well. We’ve got four different types of hot peppers growing, all doing
extremely well. So I’ve got to use those up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Then</span></i><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">, if the tomato
harvest is still going strong, I like to do some jars of tomato juice and
vegetable juice, tomato paste, and finally, some canned whole tomatoes. </span><span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And,
of course, we’ve also been eating tons of tomatoes fresh!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">On
Sunday we ate our first corn-on-the-cob from the garden, and also our first
cantaloupe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
spent the entire weekend in the kitchen. Saturday morning I picked, blanched,
and froze the day’s green beans, then picked basil and made a batch of pesto. Then
I picked chard, made the stems into lacto-fermented pickles (that’ll take three
or four weeks) and put the chard leaves into a double batch of pasta. I started
dough for sourdough bread, and I baked a loaf of lemon zucchini nut bread (my
current favorite zucchini recipe).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">On
Sunday I made the basil marinara, as well as rolling out the pasta dough I had
started on Saturday, and hanging it to dry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Of
course, in addition to all of this was the regular cooking of all of our meals,
from scratch of course. On Saturday I made tostados, which included rolling
sixteen corn tortillas, cooking each one in the cast iron skillet, then frying
each one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
been wondering about corn masa—wondering if there’s a way I can make it myself.
I know it’s just corn and hydrated lime. Ironically, the process is explained
in a book I just took out of the library called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wild Fermentation</i>, by Sandor Ellix Katz.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Now
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">why,</i> you may be asking yourself, would
I want to go through all of that trouble when corn tortillas are readily
available and extremely cheap? And why is it not enough to buy the corn masa
and just add water? Why must I soak my corn for hours, then cook for hours in a
hydrated lime solution or wood ash solution, then rub off all the skins, then
grind the corn, then make the dough, roll it, cook it, and fry it before eating
it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Probably
because I’m just plain crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But maybe
it has to do with this need to get back to the basics. There’s something important
about being intimately involved in all aspects of my food production. In a
spiritual sense I think we need to merge with our food--there has to be
participation on many levels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
besides that, if I do this myself, I can buy organic whole dried corn at
Vitamin Cottage, and know I’m avoiding the genetically modified corn that’s in
the masa from the regular grocer. Plus if I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i>
one day go completely off-grid, I will have acquired knowledge that will be
very useful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Did
you realize that without this process of soaking the corn in lime, called nixtamalization,
the healthiest qualities of corn remain unavailable? Sander Katz says, “Specifically,
it alters the ratio of available amino acids, rendering nixtamalized corn a
complete protein, and making niacin in the corn more available to humans.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">You
have to wonder what type of process led the ancient Aztecs to this process. It
had to be a spiritual process, a communication from the corn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m
learning so much about plants these days. Actually it feels like I’m learning <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">from</i> plants these days. It’s hard to
describe, but I can feel subtle shifts in my perceptions, in my way of
experiencing the world, as I take in these different plant energies. I believe
living foods share their intelligences with us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
been dreaming about plants incessantly. The one night last week (after eating
an inordinate amount of tomatoes) I spent at least the first 2/3 of the night
dreaming about nothing other than tomatoes. Tomato energy was coursing through
me, and it wanted me to integrate that energy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Lately,
I’ve also been fascinated with the topic of fermentation, both as a food
preservation technique and as a method of enhancing the healthfulness of foods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So
far, I’ve been experimenting with sourdough breads, homemade ginger ale,
lacto-fermented beet juice, salsa, and chard stalks. I love the idea of
inviting in the local wild yeasts and bacteria. It seems like another important
way for me to participate with and merge with the local ecosystem. Eating the
soil (indirectly through the plants), eating the plants, which express both the
soil and the sun (and all local conditions), eating the local yeasts and the
local bacteria. The only things missing are the local animals, and I hope to
remedy that eventually.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We’ve
become so disengaged from our particular place on earth. We’ve stopped
interacting with place. Instead, place has become an insignificant backdrop for
our purely human activities. We act as if we’re the only things that matter and
we act as if we don’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">need</i> the earth.
The reality, of course, is that we are both utterly dependent upon it and
inextricably connected with all of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
been learning so much lately. Everything is fascinatingly interconnected. It
just occurred to me, for instance, this magical alchemy that occurs with corn
and lime—it’s really a way to make earth and sky influences meet. Corn--all
sugars and starches--a sky food par excellence, needs to merge with earth
elements, in this case calcium, in order to confer its healthful qualities to
humans. Left as a pure sky food it’s all carbohydrates—leading to human imbalances
such as diabetes and metabolic syndrome. We desperately need to become <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">grounded</i> beings again, and we can do
that through the foods that we eat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m
really starting to understand the sacredness of food, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deeply</i> understand the sacredness of food. Here I get to that point
were words fail. Many people have called food sacred and for years I could nod
my head that yes, of course, food is sacred. But now I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> food is sacred, and I know it in a way that defies all description,
in a way that is far deeper and more significant than I ever imagined possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Do
you think the Aztecs might have recognized corn as a sky food? Do you think
they intuited that earth and sky needed to meet?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That earth and sky (lime and corn) meeting in
a watery matrix would bring about the proper alchemy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m
thinking back to my dream in March about the patch of wheat. The message that
came in the dream was that in order for earth and sky to meet, a plant must be
able to express its true and full nature.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
wonder if over the past 10,000 years with all of our hybridizing and selective
breeding of plants we haven’t created foods that overly concentrate sky energy?
Hasn’t much of our breeding led to increased sugar and starch content?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
I’m curious—I’ll have to do some research—but do plant foods with naturally
high sugar content favor soil that’s depleted in mineral content? Would sweet
corn grown on healthily mineralized soil be less sweet than sweet corn grown in
a typical, depleted field?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t know where
I could find the answer to that, but I’ll have to do some poking around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-69523149115228644982009-08-24T19:27:00.000-06:002011-12-07T19:30:52.860-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m
really starting to think I don’t want any electricity at all when I go off-grid.
To totally do that I’d have to find a property with a spring or else a shallow
well that would allow hand pumping. If that presents too much of an obstacle I
can settle for a solar or wind-powered pump. But that should be the extent of
my electric needs, unless I absolutely need a laptop.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
still this crazy idea to have a dirt floor is holding sway—and not one of these
fancy, polished dirt floors that you see in multi-million dollar “green”
homes—I’m talking about plain dirt. At least to start, then maybe filling in
some or all of the floor with brick or stone as time goes by.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It
seems like dirt would have many good qualities. If the house was too humid, wouldn’t
it absorb some of the moisture?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
likewise, if the air was too dry, maybe it would exhale some moisture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it would probably help to regulate the
temperature too, moderating between extremes. (And wouldn’t it be wild to grow
your houseplants right in your floor?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Of
course there could be some potential drawbacks. I’m thinking a dirt floor would
be best in a dry climate, otherwise mold might be an issue. Bugs could be a
problem too. And of course dust getting tracked around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But,
ah, just imagine always having your bare feet in contact with the earth—something
in me is screaming out that this kind of contact is vital for our well being. I
don’t know why—I just feel that I need to have my feet on the dirt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
the separation of indoors and out would be minimized—you’d always be connected
to nature.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
wonder if building codes require floors? Or would I have to find a place where
building codes weren’t in effect or weren’t enforced?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">People
would probably think I’d gone off the deep end if I had a dirt floor. But
billions of people have lived and do live on bare dirt. I certainly wouldn’t be
without company.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Of
course there’s a stigma involved with dirt-floor living. But that’s okay. We’ve
been so busy getting civilized and giving up our primitive and barbaric ways
that I don’t think we recognize everything we’ve lost.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">“Dirt-floor
poor” people are connected to the earth. The dirt-floor poor are not the ones
out there plundering the earth. Is it just because they’re poor and don’t have
the resources to plunder, or is it maybe because they’re still connected to the
land—Mother Earth? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
keep reading up on the topic of re-mineralization. It’s such a fascinating topic.
Today I found a website that talked about re-mineralization in terms of raising
healthy horses—what was necessary for the soil in order to grow healthy grasses
in order to have healthy horses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
never realized (then again I don’t know much about horses) that metabolic
syndrome is a major problem for horses, just as it is for people. It seems that
when soils are depleted in essential elements the starches and sugars that
plants synthesize cannot be built into amino acids. The minerals provide the
alchemy that allows amino acids to form. So, the animals who graze on depleted
pastures get too much sugar, not enough minerals, and not enough amino acids or
proteins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
author at one point said something along the lines of—the metabolism of the
grass and the metabolism of the horse are one and the same. That was a powerful
statement for me to read. It feels like it has really far-reaching
implications—not all of which I feel able to express just yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
part of it has to do with my thoughts about us being emanations of the land and
globules of the land and expressions of the land. We’re so ridiculously
interconnected with everything else it seems absurd to act as though we’re each
independent entities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There’s
such a weird blending in my mind of the factual and the mystical when I think
about these things. It’s so fascinating to me and as I’ve said before this is
just a totally unexpected line of thinking for me. Wisdom wants to unfold--it’s
not a line of inquiry I ever would’ve planned to pursue. It just wants to be
known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That
book I took out of the library last year—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook</i>--comes to mind. I was reading people’s
reviews of it on Amazon once and while most people loved it there were quite a
few people who were put off by the author’s “New-Age”, hokey, and fruity asides
about plant energies or spirits or things like that. Those critics are clearly
people who have not worked with herbs, because as fruity as it sounds, when you
begin to work with herbs it’s obvious that these are entities, that they have
specific personalities and powers. It’s not “out there” at all—it is what <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i>!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So,
when I think about such things as herbs, it’s this weird blending of these very
practical matters—what essential elements does this specific herb tend to
concentrate, which essential oils are present, what kind of soil does it prefer,
what habitat?—and the odder, more mystical thoughts—what is expressing itself
here, why does this blending of the earth and sky manifest as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this</i>, with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">these</i> particular properties, what is being communicated here? Every
living thing is a communication of sorts. The land communicates through living
tissue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Plants
communicate with us through dreams, imagery, and intuition. I find it odd how
casually people talk about the way animals instinctively know what to eat for
health and healing and yet such a fuss is made when anyone suggests that our
ancestors instinctively knew these things as well. Animals know, and people
know (if they pay attention) because all living things communicate. Plant
wisdom is available to us simply because plants exist, they emanate from the
earth, and anything that emanates by default communicates. We don’t need
scientists to isolate healing compounds in a plant before we go to that plant
for healing. If we listen, the plant will tell us what it can do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
came across something interesting yesterday too. I was reading about hops and
came upon a picture of the female flowers—the part that’s most frequently used.
Now I’ve seen hops growing before but had never noticed the flowers. They’re
shaped like little nubby pinecones, about one to two inches long!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just like the things in my dream in January.
And then I read that hops can induce vivid dreams. Remember that in my dream the
nubby things induced hallucinations in high doses. Vivid dreams—hmm, could I be
getting warm yet?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
poked around a little more. Everywhere I looked when it mentioned hops in the context
of vivid dreams it mentioned mugwort in the same breath. My impression is that mugwort
is much more powerful at inducing vivid dreams than hops is. Still, extremely
interesting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
because of that dream last January, I’ve learned at least a little bit about
three different plants: buriti, hops, and mugwort.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-40817145807445053612009-08-22T10:38:00.000-06:002011-12-07T16:21:16.183-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Self-sufficiency
has become an absolutely enormous obsession for me. It’s frustrating that I can’t
do it all now, but encouraging because I see myself making progress in
knowledge and applied learning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m just
doing what I can for now.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
really want to get some hens next year. Definitely for the eggs of course, but
they should also make a dent in the grasshopper population should we have a
plague again next year. I think I’ll probably get about ten unsexed birds to
start, and butcher all the boys at around fifteen weeks. Ideally, I only want
three or four hens, but you just don’t know what kind of mix you’ll get when
they aren’t sexed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This
year’s garden has been so wonderful. I found the 500 square feet to still be
extremely manageable—I probably average ten or twenty minutes in the garden per
day—and with that I’m able to deal with watering, weeding, fertilizing and bug
stomping, as well as harvesting, as necessary. These 500 square feet really produce
quite a lot even considering all the losses this year due to grasshoppers and
hailstorms. Raising all of my food seems quite a reasonable endeavor. I, of
course, am not saying that just these 500 square feet would be enough to live off
of—no, of course not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I don’t have
enough space here to grow everything I would want to--the grains are the
killer. But I’m getting a good sense of what I can produce and how much space
is required.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If
I get hens and rabbits and a beehive and expand the garden to a thousand square
feet, I think I could reduce our grocery bill to $50 per month or less. If only
I could have a dairy goat here that would reduce it to about $15 per month. And
if I was able to grow all of my wheat then all I would need to buy would be spices
and exotic things I couldn’t grow myself—plus maybe some other types of meat
for variety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So,
when I get back to Pennsylvania, even if I’m only able to buy an acre or two, I
feel confident that I could easily disengage from the system.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Next
year I might try devoting 100 square feet to oats (the hulless variety) just so
I can get a little experience growing grain. I forget what John Jeavons says is
the expected yield per 100 square feet for oats, but I’m thinking it’s about
10lbs. (I could be wrong—it might only be about 4lbs). At any rate, that would
provide enough for the year, I think. We don’t currently go through a whole lot
of oats. The nice thing is that it would also provide me with some free straw,
which I use for mulch and I’ll need for chicken bedding. I’ll need to get a
grain roller though, but that’s okay because it’s on the master list.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Next
year I want to go vertical much more--picking pole beans instead of bush beans
and climbing varieties of the cucurbits. Growing potatoes in a bin or a couple
of bins, getting pole peas. Building a good tall climbing structure for my
indeterminate tomatoes. I’m already using space quite efficiently with the bio-intensive
beds, but I could do even better. The three 100 square foot beds I put in this
year beside the house are such a hoot—it’s just one massive wall of vegetation
right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A jungle out there! I love
it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
been thinking a lot about land lately—how I’m going to afford to buy a piece of
land in five years. If I give up on the idea of Pennsylvania (where land seems
to be fairly pricey) I open up for myself many more possibilities. I noticed on
the web that many five acre plots in the San Luis valley of Colorado sell for
$5,000. Sure some of them are on the valley floor (i.e. the treeless desert)
but other parcels are up in the hills. It’s not exactly the climate or place I’d
ideally want to be, but if it could be had for $5,000 and I could raise all of
my own food there it might not be a bad idea. Property taxes for a plot that
size are about $75 per year and building codes are unenforced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Think
about it. Five thousand dollars would put me on a piece of land. I could erect
a small temporary shack right away with a wood stove, a composting toilet and I
could haul in my water to start. As I was able I could have a well drilled,
start improving the land’s fertility, putting in the gardens, building the
animal pens, eventually building the main house. It seems quite attainable.</span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-78884460439586221222009-08-11T09:36:00.000-06:002011-12-07T09:38:02.158-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
was reading up on soil mineralization on the web yesterday. Next year I want to
get my garden soil re-mineralized, but I’ll need to get a soil test done first.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
one site gave me some food for thought. It was talking about all of the
elements and how carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen come from the
atmosphere and the rest come from the earth (of course, oxygen is also bound up
as oxides in the earth). Ninety-five percent of our bodies and the bodies of
all living things are made up of these atmospheric elements while only five
percent of our bodies are comprised of the remaining elements and yet those
elements are absolutely vital for our well-being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This
got me thinking about my insights (or glimmerings of insights) from earlier
this year about the meeting of earth and sky within us. If the mineral elements
have largely been leached out of the soils, then we are unbalanced in favor of
sky influences. To be healthy and the fullest expressions of ourselves we need
to feed on mineralized soils.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We
are globules of earth and must carry the earth within us. The earth elements root
us to the land. But instead of insuring our adequate intake of earth elements,
we gorge ourselves on sky foods--carbohydrates, especially.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Healthy
people need to eat from mineralized soils. They need to eat a diverse diet of
plant foods—vegetables, fruits, herbs, nuts, grains and other seeds—as well as
healthy animal foods. Each living thing concentrates its own unique spectrum of
elements. By eating diversely we ensure that our own unique spectrum of
elemental needs will be met.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m
eager to remineralize the soil here and begin to become a healthier and fuller
expression of my humanness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Another
thing that interested me on this website was the mention that ocean animals are
always fully immersed in all of the natural elements, and that before we fouled
the oceans with our toxic pollutants, sea creatures did not suffer disease or
degeneration the way land creatures do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
realized that water is where earth and sky meet. They can’t mingle otherwise, or
not readily. Our bodies are containers for holding water—the necessary medium for
earth and sky to meet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Sea
creatures are bathed in the ideal medium. We land creatures are vulnerable to
deficiencies because we are not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
website mentioned the work of Dr. William Albrecht. He was the soil scientist
who first recognized the importance of minerals for healthy soils and healthy
people. Anyway, the website said Albrecht called foods comprised of the
atmospheric elements “go foods” because they gave the body energy (which
indirectly comes from the sun through photosynthesis). He called the foods
comprised of earth-bound elements “grow foods” because they are necessary for
the growth and maintenance of healthy bodies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
find all of the earth and sky metaphors really fascinating because there seems
to be truth lurking here. The sky is cerebral, ethereal, mental. The sky is
about energy and Doing. The earth is grounded, rooted, about bodies and health
and Being. Sky foods give you energy to Do, earth foods give you health to Be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">An
imbalance which brings too much of the sky within us causes too much Doing, too
much cogitating, too much ungrounded, disconnected action.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If
we all ate properly balanced, mineralized foods would we all become more
grounded and more balanced? If you fed the CEO of Monsanto healthy foods would
he suddenly mend his ways? I’m sure it’s not so simple—the patterns of a
lifetime probably could not so easily be changed—but I’ve no doubt he would see
changes, in health, in mood and attitude, and possibly, just possibly, in more
fundamental ways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">To
really see changes would probably take a few generations. We raise our children
from the day they’re born on healthy mineralized foods (well, okay breast milk
from day one—hopefully mineralized breast milk),but we may still pass on some
deficiencies to them because of our years of eating unhealthy, unbalanced
foods, but their children stand a chance of achieving optimal well-being, and of
expressing their fullest potential.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-72747387420780029542009-07-28T09:34:00.000-06:002011-12-07T09:35:19.464-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
struggle financially in this world because the global marketplace is at a scale
that is too large for me to handle. The global marketplace hides cause and
effect relationships and is destructive and dehumanizing.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
need to operate within a much smaller economy—a homestead with some local
exchanges. I just need to figure out a way to earn enough money to buy some
good land, build a good cabin and outbuildings, and supply it with all the
tools I’d need to live self-sufficiently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then I’d be able to live in a proper-sized economy. The majority of our
physical needs should be supplied locally. From the rest of the world we should
only trade inspiration, love, beauty, culture, art, spirituality, knowledge,
stories, dance, wisdom, dreams, myths, friendship, peace, kinship, sun, moon,
stars, wild imaginings, and only those physical commodities that spring uniquely
from the locale. Spices from the Spice Islands, Vidallia onions from Georgia, ginger
and tea from China, maple syrup from Vermont, olive oil and balsamic vinegar
from Italy, etc. The unique expressions of particular places should be our only
commodities, and with limits. Certainly the earth should be left intact as much
as possible—not ripped apart for diamonds and coal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-28630426883293615302009-07-27T09:30:00.000-06:002011-12-07T09:31:15.438-07:00<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There’s
a metaphysical aspect to gardening and eating fresh healthy foods. I’ve been
experiencing this most strongly with the herbs—I feel like each one has its own
personality and each one shapes human expression when ingested. Plants are
powerful. It seems important to take in a wide variety of plant essences—not
just for generic health but because in a metaphysical way we absorb their
attributes. We will be sickly humans as long as we continue to eat the standard
American diet—we will be physically sickly, but more than that, we will be
diminished humans, unable to reach our full potential.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-84056971067840269882009-07-26T09:27:00.000-06:002011-12-07T09:30:09.540-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">A
few nights ago I had a dream that is still lingering in my mind. I had moved
back east. In the dream it was Kentucky, but it looked just like Pennsylvania.
I was moving into a simple, pleasant-looking house that sat on the edge of a
forest. There was a front lawn that would be perfect for gardening and the
woods would offer lots of wild foods and materials for crafting. I was going to
be working at a Folk School of some sort. The whole feeling of the dream was
one of coming home to my destiny, being where I belonged and doing what I was
meant to do. And also of finally being a part of a like-minded community. I
felt such deep contentment.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In
my mind I can immerse myself in the setting of this dream and when I’m snapped
back to reality here by some practical concern like having to move the water in
the garden, the whole aura of the dream lingers and I feel like I’m a different
person. If I lived in that landscape I would be the fullest expression of
myself. For those fleeting moments where I’m transitioning back to reality here
I am that fuller self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s beautiful
while it lasts, but it leaves such an ache in my heart. For a few moments, the
aura of that land gets superimposed on the land here and it feels like anything
is possible. I so desperately need to get back home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
Folk School reference in the dream was interesting—and totally unexpected. It
made me realize that a very core part of me is my love of traditional skills
and crafts. Also it was clear that this love of mine is an expression of the
energy of the whole Appalachian region, as evidenced by the Folk Schools that
sprang up there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Maybe
part of my destiny there will be to teach classes. First, I will have to learn
all the skills involved in self-sufficiency, but eventually I should have a
wide range of hands-on knowledge to pass along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It would be neat one day to have my own mini Folk School.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Last
night I had a strange dream. I was in a forest with some other people in these
wildcats chased us up the trees. These were mountain lions, leopards, panthers,
etc.—the big cats except these either weren’t full grown or were just smaller
varieties of each species—like medium-sized dogs, maybe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, there was a person above me in the tree
I had climbed so I was blocked from going any higher. A cat climbed up and
started clawing at me. I grabbed it by the neck and kept punching and kept
punching it in the face and head until it was disoriented enough that I could
toss it to the ground. Then another one came up after me. This one I grabbed by
the scruff of the neck and swung it around and around in circles to get it
dizzy, then I tossed it. They kept coming up and I kept abusing them and tossing
them away. In the end I had bloody hands but no other apparent injuries. I
sensed that the cats were not going to allow themselves to continue to be
harassed but would simply move on to new territory to get away from us humans.
I felt sorry that we had entered their territory and forced them out—all I had
intended was simply to save my own life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
dream might simply be a metaphor for what we’ve done to so many animal
habitats, but I wonder if there isn’t more to it than that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-26981200513781641332009-07-25T13:50:00.000-06:002011-12-07T06:36:56.273-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
garden is now up to about 500 square feet, since I added a new bed for some of
the fall crops—fall peas and beets are in already and there’s room for a
little more of something.<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I'm
still thinking about expanding next year. Eight hundred square feet is sounding about
right to me now. I think I could pull that off without making the whole yard look like one big garden. (If I owned the place that wouldn't be a concern.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Next
year I want to get some bean towers or rig up some bean trellises. I want to be
able to grow a lot of dried beans for use in the winter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Herbs have begun to preoccupy me a bit. When I move back to PA, I want to have an
enormous herb garden. It’s been great this year having nine different herbs
growing, but I want much more than that. I really believe fresh herbs are vital
for good health.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Most
mornings Collin and I have been enjoying a cup of oregano and rosemary tea. It
sounds a little odd, I know, but it’s really delicious. I make a decoction—just steeping the herbs isn’t enough to release the flavor—and it gets a really
wonderful full-bodied flavor. It’s so wonderful to go out to that big bed of oregano every morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I've added a small still to my wish list now. I want it so I'd be able to distill
essential oils from all of my herbs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That would cost
several hundred dollars, so it’s got to go lower down my priority list.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This
month I bought a food strainer to help with the upcoming tomato harvest. And once
I buy the optional screens it will be good for other things like pumpkins,
berries, grapes, and making salsa.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Bit
by bit I’m making progress—I expand the garden a bit, get a few more tools,
learn new recipes and preserving techniques, try new varieties of veggies and
herbs. By the time I move back east I should be fairly well set. It’s nice
to be doing something productive while I’m here in <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Colorado</st1:place></st1:state>. There’s a lot I can do already as I work towards self-sufficiency.</span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-74366585442027041572009-06-28T13:48:00.000-06:002011-12-07T06:40:23.711-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
garden is really starting to go crazy, even though I was so late in planting
a lot of it. We've got a grand total of 448 square feet of garden this year—four 4' x 25' beds and two 3' x 8' beds. I've been having small salads every
day—mostly just lettuce, spinach and chard plus a few radishes and green onions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The potatoes and tomatoes have started to
blossom, although I pinched off the first tomato blossoms. I think we have at
least 30 different things growing this year: potatoes, radishes, parsley,
garlic, zucchini, carrots, lima beans, oregano, red onions, cantaloupe, white
onions, cilantro, chives, spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard, beets, green beans,
watermelon, Roma tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, and a mix of heirloom tomatoes,
gourds, butternut squash, basil, hot peppers, bell peppers, dill, chamomile,
and pumpkins. In the house there’s also catnip and rosemary and more basil,
plus some cabbage seedlings. Oh, and I forgot the two kinds of sweet corn and
the pickling cucumbers (out in the garden of course!)</span>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
keep praying a hailstorm doesn’t come and wipe it all out. We should have
quite a bounty otherwise. The only major problem so far has been a plague of
baby grasshoppers. They decimated the basil so I planted some more, but now the
ones I thought were total goners look like they might survive. The new batch of
basil has sprouted, so we could be totally overwhelmed with basil this year (or get
nothing at all). We already have an absurd amount of oregano and parsley.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Next
year I want to add still more types of veggies. I don’t know where I'll put
them, though. I'll have to expand even more!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I still haven’t had luck getting any broccoli seedlings going.
Either they don’t sprout at all or they die off as seedlings. This is the second year
in a row I’ve had issues with broccoli. So I’d like to get some broccoli next year.
Also, rutabagas, turnips, and parsnips, Brussels sprouts, maybe start some
rhubarb and strawberries. Grow kale, collards, bok choy and celery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Try Spanish peanuts and horseradish. Okay, so
all of this would require at least one other whole bed, maybe even more
space. If I could just get the side yard fertile enough to grow herbs, I could
move all the herbs there. Not that that would free up a huge amount of space,
but it’d make a dent.</span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4448718702945189000.post-88335961116231371012009-06-20T13:44:00.000-06:002011-12-07T06:43:04.705-07:00<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve
been in another King Solomon phase again lately—what is there under the sun that
is new? What hasn’t been done before and why do we keep doing the same inane
things over and over again?<o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We
went over to John's to watch movies last week and I realized there are really only a
few plots out there—the great themes of human existence—just done over and over
ad nauseam with infinite variations. Why do people want to watch the same thing
over and over? So few of the major plots apply to me anymore so there’s
really little appeal. Movies about money, riches, stealing, greed,
materialism, envy, treasures, collections, fancy this, fancy that—no appeal.
Murder, betrayal, jealousy, violence, war, brutality, gore—no appeal.
Love, lust, sex, winning the girl (or boy), tragedy, loss. All of these basic themes
over and over and over again. And none of them represent real life that sits waiting to be lived once you get off the couch. I just don’t get it. And once
you do get off the couch and live the real themes of live—what’s really the
point when they’ve already been lived over and over and over again in the real
world just as they have been in the movies? There has to be more to it than this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I’m
at the point where I realize it doesn’t matter a bit if I live or die. I’m
just one of an infinite number of processes unfolding on the earth and in the
universe and death is just a transformation of my energy. I don't cling to my
life because in and of itself it's not all that significant. I think it’s the ongoing
process of life and transformation that matters much more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Probably
the fact that I wear my life loosely is an asset or could be if I knew how to use
it. It gets back to fearlessness and freedom. With no fear of death I should be
able to live fearlessly and radically. But what are these times really calling
for?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are the radical, free, and fearless
acts that are needed?<o:p></o:p></span></div>Melanie Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06034189354730902887noreply@blogger.com0