Protests and Permaculture. Comments and my Wwoofing experience

January 29th, 2012

It seemed to be a busy world this weekend with the Oakland protests causing what I hope to be a reinvigorated protest burst.

Occupy Oakland  - 300 arrests, now they say 400. American citizens burning the United States flag,WOW.  Why hasn't Barrak Obama said anything abouth this? Maybe he has. Does anyone know?

Innnn other news....

My weekend  was much more subdued. After one week at the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia (in the Channon) where 111mm of rain fell in 5 days it was a huge relief to have half a day of no rain. During the weekend 2 permaculture interns and myself decided to hitch hike to a local village to check out the sites and get some food for the weekend.  We were picked up in no time on the way out and easily made it into town with two hitches.  The town of Nimbin - $70,000 (AUS) changes hands there everyday - and the population is not large.  Magic this, tasty-herbs that, Jim Morrison and tie die its all still happening  in blessed little Nimbin.  We chatted with the locals, I think Jerry Garcia was there, ate some good food from an organic shop and then got out of dodge before anything too interesting happened.

Geoff Lawton with his daughter Latifa

Home Sweet Home - My lovely and spacious tent at PRI Australia. Photo taken in the morning mist, my tent is on the left. 

January 30th, 2012

first day of full sunshine and people are feeling good.  Very humid.  Saw a few interesting movies this past week - The first one is called 'The Real Dirt on Farmer John' about an eccentric farmer from the Midwest  who goes organic despite much social scrutiny.  The next was a film by Geoff Lawton about Urban Permaculture - inspiring and creative approach to solving some of our economic and food security issues through intelligently designed gardens aka permaculture.  The Earth Works course just started.  Off to Sydney in two weeks.

Australia and the Patriots

Hello All.

January 23, 2012 (Sydney Airport)

Time is flying and holy small world I am in Australia!

Firstly, congratulations to the New England Patriots. Sounds like I missed an amazing game over the Raven's. I am currently drooling over the highlights. There is not much NFL news in this hemisphere but it would be interesting to see a Giants vs. Patriots rematch in February.  Though I would much rather see my childhood favorite 49-ers up against the Brady-Bunch.

Where am I currently?  After a whirlwind 2 days of travel which included a scenic train ride, a night at random house with some very gracious Kiwi's, and two plane rides into Australia I am still making my way to Ballina  where I have a three week Wwoof lined up at the Australian Permaculture Research Institute.  I have a basic understanding of permaculture but this is where the concept all started. I am excited to learn from some of the best and I am hoping to glean some insights into the application of permaculture design and local farming into more urban settings.  Healthy food, produced locally and on a big scale for high density areas will be an important aspect in the development of modern cities/communities. Roof top gardens, urban farms and yada-yada.   I am new to these musings but I am excited to see what the next three weeks have in store. There are some pretty passionate local conscience people at this farm (known by some as hippies) but I think they make some pretty valid points about the future of our Earth's eco-system, food supply, and our costs of living.  A lot of which can be made for the better by smarter, more local based initiatives.

Some tales from the journey......I was hosted by an awesome Bellingham, WA couple two nights ago, Dawn and Hudson Dobb.  They just immigrated to New Zealand and are making a new life for themselves in Nelson.  Among the many good conversations we had ranging from Activism to Bonaroo, the evolution of slang came up as well.   We noted the linguistic change of the phrase "I am UP for it" to the more contemporary version of "I am down for that" or "I am down" for short.   Hudson seemed to think the switch happened somewhere in the mid 80's.  What do you think reader?  And, why?
 
The phrase was probably used by people who associated themselves with Boy Scout troop leader enthusiasm - What do you think Scotty my boy! Are you UP for a hike today?  And was subsequently phased out by the way too cool Disco-tech goers -who changed it to the more dead pan; I am down version we know today.  People were too informed during the 80's to be "UP" for anything, the world was getting smaller and being "UP" for anything seems to imply sUPrise. We may not be UP anymore but are we really down?  Down to Earth?  I think not.

Lastly, I must say that I did not feel too nostalgic leaving New Zealand It would have been nice to have a bit more time there as there is so much to explore.   I would love to get back some day - motorbike trip anyone?

Signing off.  Thanks for reading.

Scott the Wwoofer host and Natalie the German Wwoofer  enjoying some travel pictures. 

Spent one night here with my Canadian friends.  A Rainbow Valley house in a settlement outside of Takaka - stunning!

Dominique the German Wwoofer making some brick fired pizza - yum!

Nelson - Final days of New Zealand

I have been residing with a Wwoof host just outside of Nelson, New Zealand at home/business called Solid Earth.  (Picture of their home is below, adobe finish with natural paints) Last week I had the pleasure of assisting in the build of a small partition wall using a recycled rug.  We plan on putting two recycled windows in the wall with some natural plaster to give it a nice natural finish.  It was great building with recycled materials!

As I wind down my days in New Zealand I am figuring out ways to make the most of time. Two days ago was spent in a community called Rainbow Valley - essential an almost self sustaininbg community of about 12 families, they have been their 35 years in one of the most pictureseque and well preserved natural vallies I have ever been in.  The forest surrounding them is tropic. I will make my own knife next week as a souviener.

Ironically a lot of of my time down time has been spent preparing for my Australian experience- I leave for the big down under in 7 days time.  After much begrugging of the Wwoof experience I think I will continue to participate in the program for another couple of weeks and hopefully begin to learn more about permaculture at the Permaculture Research Institute.  I am eager to learn about this concept as I think it will become an increasingly vital part of our communites in the next couple of decades. 

How am I doing?  I am continuing to strive to be in the present, focusing my energy and I am beginning to establish a heatlhty relationship with my ego.  I am excited to read a book that just came out titled - Ego: The Fall of the Twin Towers and the Rise of an Enlightened Humanity.  It speaks to a lot of what I have been feeling about our communities and the menatality of our current/future generation.  I do have hope in the future and in mankinds' ability to have compasion and empathy towards each other.  I think IT and Web 2.0 will help us get to a more sustainable place by helping us become more efficienct - utilizing resources/wastes better and by collaborating on more localcentric ideas).  Speaking of local centric I our food supply is going to be a big part of this change (it is more economic and of course healthy and sustainable for us humans and our dear Mother). My current determination is to see how I can make a living and to fit into this changing world by doing something I am passionate about (still working on this).   I think everyone should follow the Occupy Wall Street movement and if you get a chance think deeply about what it means for our society and how we each (within our own spheres of influence) can work to diminish electronic money, outsourcing, and over sized corporations, as well as an over abundance of credit.  This is not an effort to resign our current responsibilities but to act towards a vision of a better future.  If not to act then at least this movement is getting people to talk about it.   I think it is a very historic moment.

(Pondering passion and the present above Nelson Lakes National Park - day 2/3 hiking trip, January 2012)