There is always a reason to celebrate...
So that went well… my new year resolution to write every day failed at day 2. Many would call that pathetic, but I (after a short period agreeing with them), have decided to celebrate it instead. Am I mad? Some might say so, but there is reason in my apparent insanity.
You see, everything I have really learned in my life has come from trial and error. Sure, I have a lot of stuff in my head that has got there from books & TV etc., but that isn’t genuine learning. That stuff might not actually be true. Or it might be true for others, but not for me. The only things I really know are those I have learned from my own personal experiences.
And those understandings have come from trial and error. Starting with the likes of how to make sounds, then crawl, walk and so on, to the present day. To discovering that it just isn’t realistic, given my current situation, to expect to be able to write every day.
So OK, I’ve discovered something that I wasn’t doing before my resolution; but what’s new?
Well, the difference is that now I have examined the reasons behind my failure. I have more understanding. I have more patience. I can set more realistic goals.
I’ve certainly learned how well I have been programmed to beat myself up for ‘failing’.
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Tags: celebrate, failure, permaculture, resolution, success, transition
Habits can have long term effects...
So what’s your new year resolution? Have you thought of one yet?
The turning of the year always provides us with a great incentive for a fresh start, but what is the secret to maintaining any new habits?
Well for me, it has to be something important, or I lack the helping hand of my conscience. Those past habits that I have successfully changed have been those where the benefits were to more than just myself.
Which is why last year I finally decided to give up hot drinks for the environment… A pretty contentious thing to do I know, especially at the time of year when a nice cup of tea is one of our favourite ways of getting warm. Why such a drastic step?
Putting on the kettle for a cup of tea has long been a British institution, but all our habits were once new behaviours. We probably started boiling water simply because it was the only way to be sure it was safe to drink. Tea (& later coffee) was a habit born out of British colonialisation, & one that was initially affordable only to the upper classes. No doubt, like those energy hungry & unproductive lawns we now all have, it was seen as a sign of affluence & so ultimately adopted by us all as a result. Indeed we have adopted a great number of energy wasting habits over the years. The big question (& one posed by transition culture) is ‘would we rather give them up one by one in our own time, or have a massive change forced on us at once?‘ Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: downshifting, electricity, energy, energy saving, footprint, habits, transition
We are making a risky crossing...
Last weekend, on my way to teaching one of my weekends-based permaculture design courses, I was offered a leap of faith. It had rained heavily the night before, so I encountered areas of flooding on the first half of my journey which I carefully negotiated. It all seemed manageable, but then I came across the big one…
Ahead of me lay about 150 metres of road flooded by a river; one which normally flowed several feet below, under a bridge. How deep was it? Thankfully I had a guide; a 4×4 driver was fording from the other direction. It looked touch & go, but I wasn’t sure there would be any way around & 25 people were going to be waiting for me…
I decided to plunge in. My car is a diesel, which I figured made her a bit less vulnerable to the flood water, but how much depth could she cope with? Of course once committed, there really isn’t any way back. It was only then that I pondered such things as ‘what about the exhaust?‘. I guessed that moving forwards & the pressure of gases through the exhaust would keep the water out, but what if she stalled? And if she did, how long before the interior flooded? I began pondering the bravery of my decision to not purchase breakdown cover ~ one based upon me always being in the right place with the right information & tools whenever a problem had occurred in the past. At this point though, it seemed courageous, but crazy! Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: flooding, food, peak oil, permaculture, water
Life can be enjoyed right to the last drop...
Having just put another couple of logs on the fire on this chilly night, I am once again reminded of our total reliance upon winter warmth. As I mentioned last time, we’ve developed an adapted hibernation strategy to get us through the cold months, but our dependency on fossil fuels of late has made us very vulnerable.
I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy though, & like most permaculture advocates, see a lot of opportunities in this situation for positive change & creative solutions. Permaculture was originally developed in response to the oil crisis of the 1970’s - looking at solutions that didn’t rely upon the availability of such easy energy. Since then our whole way of life has become more & more dependent upon the supply of oil & we are more vulnerable than ever to a reduction in its availability. Just think of all the things that we now take for granted & that rely upon oil in some form or another for its production or transportation.
Permaculture was always about looking beyond oil & as time goes on its solutions become more & more relevant to our lives.
Tags: peak oil, permaculture, positivity, solutions, transition
Birds often migrate incredible distances
It’s unusual to get to the end of the day at the moment, without hearing the word ‘recession’ (look there I go mentioning it again!). But these cycles are to be expected as they are a completely natural thing. Each year we enter a different kind of recession, but one that we are always much more prepared for ~ winter.
Life employs two main strategies to get through these lean times; migration & hibernation. Plants don’t have a lot of choice as they are rooted to the ground, but being mobile gives animals & birds an extra option.
Migration is an effective way for many species to cope with the ups & downs of the natural economy. When one habitat goes into recession, they just head off to another that is about to b(l)oom again. Instead, over centuries we humans have opted for an adapted hibernation option, but has this been a crucial error that has led us into the environmental mess we now find ourselves in?
Tags: ecology, economics, fungi, hibernation, migration, mycorrhiza, nature, peak oil, permaculture, seasons, trees
The soil is a complex and dynamic organism
The soil is vital to everything that lives on Earth; if we want healthy bodies & a healthy planet then we need healthy soil. So we must make choices that encourage this & support farming systems that feed the soil rather than deplete it. Soil is a miraculous substance, a place where air, water, minerals & micro-organisms can work together to nourish plant growth, but they must be present in the right proportions. A healthy soil has good structure & consists of approximately 25% air, 25% water, around 40% minerals & up to 10% organic matter. Natural systems build such soils & modern farming practices degrade them. The normal rate at which nature builds soil is around 0.2 tonnes per hectare per year, yet the rate at which it was recently being lost on US farmland was measured at around 40 tonnes per hectare per year! The reasons for this dramatic loss lies in the increased wind & water erosion facilitated by the removal of surface matter (mulch & cover vegetation), natural windbreaks & the effect of ploughing (& digging) in particular.
Tags: food, gardening, organics, permaculture, soil
Money doesnt grow on trees, but sometimes food does!
The daily choices that we make have either a positive or a negative effect upon our environment & believe me, those choices are significant. Have you ever considered how much of your income (& time) that you spend each week on just obtaining food? Now multiply this up for a whole year. Then multiply that by the number of people in our country alone. It’s a big number isn’t it?
So, where do you currently choose to spend that money (at the supermarket or from local producers & family businesses)? How do you spend that time (travelling back & forth from the shops & queueing at checkouts or growing your own in your garden)? These are choices that we can decide to change in any moment. We can decide to do that now. Every little thing that we change for the better makes a difference & is always worth doing. Is it clear now that we are not as powerless as we have all been led to believe?
Tags: environment, food, local, permaculture, trees
Winter mist on our local lake ~ a perfect place for reflection
In the great seasonal cycle of the year, Winter; when there is little for us to do outside, is the time that nature has offered us for reflection. Yet instead, our artificially-created busyness keeps us pre-occupied (working all hours to earn enough money to pay the mortgage* & keep on top of our debts) & this, as far as I’m concerned is happening for a particular reason. If we were actually allowed the time to think, to feel… most of us would quickly see through the way that we are all being manipulated & demand significant change.
Tags: choice, consciousness, food, local, nature, permaculture, reflection
All the junk currently orbiting our world...
Could we all be suffering from brain damage? Tony Wright certainly thinks so, pointing out that the world we’ve created is clearly the product of a disconnected consciousness. The idea that we can keep on using up Earth’s resources and polluting her soil and water without consequence is insanity.
But it seems there was a time when we lived much more in balance. A time before the ‘Fall’ spoken of in the stories of many of the world’s cultures. Anthropologists now tell us that 150,000 years ago our brains were 10% heavier than they are today. So what happened?
Tony Wright thinks he knows. His new book ‘Left in the Dark‘ challenges the common idea that we are now at the peak of our evolution. He argues that if we do now have significant brain dysfunction, then how would we know, when the instrument we use to judge this is the very thing we are observing?
Tags: consciousness, environment, food, human evolution, nutrition, raw food diet, sleep
Its nothing to be ashamed of...
I guess that going to the loo just isn’t dramatic enough to be discussed in the new BBC1 series of Survivors.
But don’t you just want to know all the details?
We’ve seen plenty of the cast foraging for food and water from abandoned shops, but nothing of the way they are managing to keep their toilet going. With no mains water to flush with, they would have to be using rainwater and then only flushing when they really have to. It must be pretty smelly by now with so many of them sharing facilities.
Tags: bbc, compost, fiction, food, gardening, seeds, survivors, television, toilets, transition, water
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