for over a month now I have have been living off grid and eating local food, most of which I have gathered from the jungle of the island of Hawai'i. I have begun bread labor; climbing coconut trees for my local farm and helping to keep the jungle from taking over (weeding). In exchange I pick from the garden, all the green goodness I need to maintain a healthy life.
For me this is a "dream job". I live in a place most of the world calls paradise, and spend less for my entire needs than the average american spends on gas. I work hard, but have the majority of my time free to refine my life as it were my art. so true is the expression borne of freedom; only by fulfilling the responsibility of your living: food, shelter, excersize, community involvment; only by moving beyond the slave wage economy can one express truth. What is truth? Its whats in your heart.
"Live simple so others can simply live". "Be the change you wish to see in the word".
Someone who I respect asked me if I care too much; that "you can't save all the star fish washed ashore". The anology does not fit; we need not fight nature, but if it were a machine tossing star fish ashore we could unplug it. If I didn;t care as much as I do, and settled for a place in line with the american progression towards fascisim I would be "happy", but I would not be doing anything that nets change. We must all "care too much", so much to understand that today we must stop and return to reason.
We can't love if we don't respect. We can't love with we don't sacrifice. Though I live in paradise, I have left nearly everything behind and learn a new way of life at the age of 35. I care, not too much, but with everything that I am about my actions; the ripples they cause. There is no excuse for today other than greed.
IF you don't do it, it will never be done; change.
Love, good food and music.
5/13/10
3/13/10
back to life
letting go of convention; as an animal that needs to keep moving. Nothing is natural in the east coast; there is so much development and pollution that nature has been compressed into tiny sections and then damaged by air, water and light pollution. There is an essence to life that exists in the sum and when you wipe huge swaths of living energy or force it into submission that essence is lost. Just go to the zoo, you'll see it in the eyes of the animals on display. Then go to a city and spend the day walking around, you'll see it in the eyes of the animals there too.
'Subtlety' would be a defining characteristic of essence. The best tangible example I can give as to the subtle loss of essence in the loss of the night sky. If you've ever wondered where myths/religions came from, and if you were objective enough (free) in your thinking, you would at some point understand that myths come from our nature, both inherent and surrounding habitat. The reason there are so many different myths/religions is because we come form different places but we are all the same. If I don't make sense learn about Joseph Campbell, he put it like this: though [myths] are clothed in the motifs of a particular time and place, they draw nonetheless on universal, eternal themes.
If we take away the night sky, how would that effect the myths told since the dawn of time? How would it effect the imagination of a child if she was inspired, not by nature but by 'urbanized nature'? What if we take away the sacredness of rivers and mountains; if instead of believing there is magic (something unexplainable) in the wild places we choose to believe there is nothing magical about mountains or the wilderness. Or worse, that mountains and rivers and seas were "made for us" and we can do whatever we wish; they are OURS.
'Subtlety' would be a defining characteristic of essence. The best tangible example I can give as to the subtle loss of essence in the loss of the night sky. If you've ever wondered where myths/religions came from, and if you were objective enough (free) in your thinking, you would at some point understand that myths come from our nature, both inherent and surrounding habitat. The reason there are so many different myths/religions is because we come form different places but we are all the same. If I don't make sense learn about Joseph Campbell, he put it like this: though [myths] are clothed in the motifs of a particular time and place, they draw nonetheless on universal, eternal themes.
If we take away the night sky, how would that effect the myths told since the dawn of time? How would it effect the imagination of a child if she was inspired, not by nature but by 'urbanized nature'? What if we take away the sacredness of rivers and mountains; if instead of believing there is magic (something unexplainable) in the wild places we choose to believe there is nothing magical about mountains or the wilderness. Or worse, that mountains and rivers and seas were "made for us" and we can do whatever we wish; they are OURS.
(the mountains of west Virginia are being leveled for coal; the most profound current, the gulf stream, which circles the entire Atlantic ocean is not a waterway for raw crude oil, the air is still being polluted without any sort of decrease ever since. Statistics will say whatever you want to hear. Use your eyes, nose and heart. All this pollution is a result of Our consumption:TV, 24-hour grocery/convience stores, new sushi restaurants, etc. We pay the greedy; we are the greedy).
When you can't see the night sky, and when you don't see the significances of having your nature erased before your eyes, you can't begin to understand what I'm talking about. So leave it to say, that when you loose your nature, you have lost. For instance, anthropogenic global warming is not a challenge, it is a consequence just like a heart attack. The damage is done. Change is no longer a choice but a consequence. In an evolutionairy sense, we enter into a period where our adaptation will be tested, or simply, the demise of a species.
'Back to life' is my direction. I'll die a fool rather than keep living in a zoo. I leave the Continental US to begin a journey in the west. Where? Well as adventures go, I won't know until I get there but my first stop is Hawai'i. I take to the sky and depart for a tropical island where I will live for a few months in the least.
When you can't see the night sky, and when you don't see the significances of having your nature erased before your eyes, you can't begin to understand what I'm talking about. So leave it to say, that when you loose your nature, you have lost. For instance, anthropogenic global warming is not a challenge, it is a consequence just like a heart attack. The damage is done. Change is no longer a choice but a consequence. In an evolutionairy sense, we enter into a period where our adaptation will be tested, or simply, the demise of a species.
'Back to life' is my direction. I'll die a fool rather than keep living in a zoo. I leave the Continental US to begin a journey in the west. Where? Well as adventures go, I won't know until I get there but my first stop is Hawai'i. I take to the sky and depart for a tropical island where I will live for a few months in the least.
This blog is over of a while.
2/25/10
Food Democracy Now; Michelle Obama: Distractions from the Issue
The words of Roscoe Bartlett, House of Representatives: "On July 30, 2009, H.R. 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 was passed in the House by a recorded vote of 283 - 142. The problems in the Georgia peanut processing plant and the concerns with imported foods highlight the need for enhanced food safety laws [but] this bill missed the mark. Instead was aimed at the farming community. Specifically, there were concerns regarding the role of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulating farms which would not contribute to a safer food supply but would rather increase costs to farms and ultimately the American public. I was told that many of my concerns were addressed but since a final version of the bill was not available for serious review before the vote was called, I felt I could not support it".
Michelle Obama's call; "Its time to Make Healthy Food for all America's Children" is nobel. But farmer's know where healthy food comes from: seeds planted in nutrient rich soil. The issue has long since been ignored and America's farms have been neglected by US Government Agriculture Policy, if not targeted for extinction. Where we are today is defending the last of the soil-rich family farms from bills like HR 2749; the increased regulation on community farms.
We do need healthful food in schools and we do need to address childhood obesity, but we need to start with creating a system of agriculture to produce the food that once and for all places importance on the healthfulness of food not the profit it yeilds. One is growing, all on its own right now but in the lihgt of soon to pass legislation we can kiss it good-bye and see a future dominated by the Monsanto Movment. School lunches will work out just fine is we protect and encourage local, chemical free farming.
We can support the growing food movement by buying produce at farmer's markets and from Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). You should be aware however, at Farmer's Markets large food retailers, the ones that sell food to Safeway, Albertsons; National Grocery chains also sell at Farmer's Markets. Its important that everybody be aloud to participate in farmer's market but we need to know who is a farmer and who is a corporation.Capitalism is a means to get food to the table, not the other way around. There is areason people go to farmer's markets and not grocery stores.
Michelle Obama is creating the demand for healthful food while the legislators are increasing the costs. Its classic American Capitalism and no change at all. If we care about the food in our schools we'd look into the reason there is junk in cafeterias in the first place: Healthy Food is TOO EXPENSIVE and the system of Government has invested far more in war than our children's education (fact). New legislation will make healthful food even more expencive, if not gone entirly form the market.
Michelle Obama's call; "Its time to Make Healthy Food for all America's Children" is nobel. But farmer's know where healthy food comes from: seeds planted in nutrient rich soil. The issue has long since been ignored and America's farms have been neglected by US Government Agriculture Policy, if not targeted for extinction. Where we are today is defending the last of the soil-rich family farms from bills like HR 2749; the increased regulation on community farms.
We do need healthful food in schools and we do need to address childhood obesity, but we need to start with creating a system of agriculture to produce the food that once and for all places importance on the healthfulness of food not the profit it yeilds. One is growing, all on its own right now but in the lihgt of soon to pass legislation we can kiss it good-bye and see a future dominated by the Monsanto Movment. School lunches will work out just fine is we protect and encourage local, chemical free farming.
We can support the growing food movement by buying produce at farmer's markets and from Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). You should be aware however, at Farmer's Markets large food retailers, the ones that sell food to Safeway, Albertsons; National Grocery chains also sell at Farmer's Markets. Its important that everybody be aloud to participate in farmer's market but we need to know who is a farmer and who is a corporation.Capitalism is a means to get food to the table, not the other way around. There is areason people go to farmer's markets and not grocery stores.
Michelle Obama is creating the demand for healthful food while the legislators are increasing the costs. Its classic American Capitalism and no change at all. If we care about the food in our schools we'd look into the reason there is junk in cafeterias in the first place: Healthy Food is TOO EXPENSIVE and the system of Government has invested far more in war than our children's education (fact). New legislation will make healthful food even more expencive, if not gone entirly form the market.
2/17/10
I cry
to the promise of tomorrow
from lips of fools; heart true; love
I cry idiots idology and idealsits blindly sigh: Tomorrow will be better; I believe
I die a little bit, think on
intot he oblivous frame illuminated by the same light
a stamp upon the moment: it rots from within; today; tomorrow; for 200 more year, it rots
I lie to myself; I can make something of myself:
A musician
A mountain climber
A lover
A student
I am the manifestation of inspiration; love made and became me
I am not the dreamer
the dream is me
I am not the energy
the energy is me
I loose the percpetion of moon light
I see my present in the sun
I look so hard my eyes, they are ash
and my memories of one thing
"I" never was but a moment
I never became me only something imagined
we were but we never did see the other
it was one eye we had
it was the same picutre we saw
you looking at me
me looking at you
eternity and never was
one sum
1/15/10
On "Climate Change"
"Climate Change" is simply a symptom of the condition of irresponsible consumption. Those who would divert attention from consumption to the argument of the validity of Anthropogenic Global warming are simply contributing to the effort to distract you from the truth.
Conservation is not a far fetched approach to our nation's woes. Just a s cigarette smoker who accepts the habit as unhealthy must deal with the quitting challenge for a better health so too must the culture deal with it's addiction to material and instant gratification. This is manifested in our unquenchable thirst for supply limited/on-demand energy resources like coal and oil. To further express our addiction, we even incorporate these fuels in our proudest conservation effort: Recycling. To pin conservation efforts on fuel prices, such as with the nation/state/local recycling programs is unwise and a complete contradiction in conservation.
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