APW: Ecology, Technology and Resilience

Humanity’s heavy footprint has been treading across the globe at an unprecedented rate, evidenced by increasing loss of wilderness and geographically isolated nations’ increasing familiarity with western industry.   Leaps in human evolution, due to agricultural settlements, have led to advances in medicine, science, technology and industry.   However, many production systems have been designed with linear thinking and have had devastating consequences.  Current food production and distribution have created great inequality, exploiting both environmental and human rights.  While modern technology has contributed to humanity’s disconnect with nature, it may also provide appropriate tools to unite us towards regenerating our landscape into a more livable planet.

 The human responsibility can be understood by examining the past to find the appropriate path to the future.  Our impact has changed the conditions of the environment more drastically in the last 200 years than the previous 100,000 years. We also depend on a resource base that is finite.  A shift in our social habits and energy dependence from fossil fuel to solar energy is necessary to promulgate and sustain our food systems.  Utilizing technology and a modern understanding of interdisciplinary environmental sciences, we must create resilient agricultural systems that absorb disturbance (i.e. extreme temperature changes, floods, droughts, and human development).  Some adaptive practices include crop rotations, planting cover crops, cycling nutrients on the farm, and increasing biodiversity to strengthen resilience and produce a consistent yield.

Merging these modern schools with knowledge developed by traditional cultures can allow us to grow regenerative ecosystems, balance human culture, and create socio-economically productive and ecologically responsible food systems.  To support this growth, we would have to reach a groundbreaking level of local and global cooperation, which can be achieved through fostering social media’s ability to create better connections between consumers and local farms. 

A whole system makeover, from production to direct marketing to distribution, is necessary.  Shifts in methodology and culture would include the following:

1)     Reduce food waste produced in America from 35% to below 10%. 

2)     Install perennial polycultures that yield more calories per acre than monocropped fields. 

3)      Educate consumers about how, where and who is growing their daily sustenance and nutrition. 

4)     Affect small shifts in policy, such as allowing cafeterias to serve food grown in school gardens.

5)       Train farmers in majority (known to some as developing) nations to build resilient Agroecosystems. Teach them how to build their soil, not deplete the foundation of their nourishment by exporting our toxic, unsustainable fossil fuel dependent technologies.

Multiple emerging technologies will help transition current practices to organic operations. These technologies and modern scientific understanding of ecology enable us to model food production systems based on nature’s low input design. Social media offer the ability to enact significant change on a relatively small timeframe and share an immense amount of knowledge to the public.  A few future long term goals include: 

1)       Team up with engineers to develop equipment that can harvest multi-layer cropping systems.

2)       Merge traditional knowledge with modern research to create closed loop cycles.

3)       Research and develop educational growing sites that produce high yielding nutritious crops in biodiverse systems resilient to climate change.

The time is ripe for change, and during this formative time period of the planet, humans (a key species in the ecological food web) are opening themselves up to alternative solutions.  While the powers at play are strong and often opposing each other, many brilliant examples of flourishing integrated systems have been sprouting up throughout the world, and the longer they are existence, the stronger they grow.  "Think Globally, Act Locally," has been catching like fire, as it presents a long term solution.  Meanwhile, certain tech companies promote the philosophy, "Go Global or Die Local." Though this has provided a higher quality of life and opportunity for some, it also has devastated the environment and created an enormous amount of social and international inequality.  Will we continue to be the herd of buffalo being driven off of a cliff or will we reroute our path towards one of cooperation, physical and spiritual growth, preparing ourselves for the uncharted territories that lay ahead?

APW: The School of More

If you have trouble identifying with a school of thought, religion, or ideology, perhaps you can find your home here:

Do you belong to the school of more, the never enough?  The school of why can’t the best aspects of the sunlight and shade, fruit and root development, comfort and stimulation, past and future exist all at once, in prime persistent perpetual perfection.  The yearning for this enduring state of mind is what drives us and tortures us simultaneously, excites our stagnant souls from the bedroom.  

The school of more is boundless, shapeless, formless.  Though it may go dormant in the dullest of days, it awaits around the corner, like Hawking’s sleepless nights before black hole revelations, like Kerouac’s jaunt to mosquito filled Mexico, like your future self beckoning your presence at the table of forgotten dreams.

More marks your moves like an inescapable shadow.  Try defying the rhythm, settling for a daily routine, creating an inconsequential secondhand sculpted life, and you’ll find More’s oncoming waves deliver striking blows rather than a soothing caress.  More circulates blood around the body, connects the soil to your sustenance, the crunching leafs to the planet’s axis, the weight of a feather to the speed of sound.

It is more that has followed and pushed me from suburban sprawl, to the tropics, to farms, to the ocean, to the mountains, to the forest, to school, to philosophy and film, to out of school, to the east, to discover love, to science and history, to religion and the brain, to today.  It is more that ties this all together, and more that pushes me away from the present into the realm of the obligatory ‘not here.’  

More has moved me back into the land of seasons, into academia and a garden of overlapping distractions, all en route to decomposition.  And now, more has driven me to wanting less.  To shrink into smallness, to avoid mistakes, to be at mercy of the hands of fate.  More has shut me up and contradicted me, and whispers and taunts.  More muddles distractions into reflections, observations into interactions and intentions into fruition.  

Though it is more that keeps us going, I find that it is in less that we begin to feel whole..

—

"You cannot control your laughter.
You cannot control your love.
You know not to hit the brakes on ice
but do anyway. You bend the nail
but keep hammering because
hammering makes the world.” 

APW: What I didn’t know I was grateful for

All of my camping gear that I’ve collected and traveled over the last 5 years was stolen earlier this week.  Along with my laptop that stored all of my school work, research and writing.  This event brings me to a cross roads and I consider these contrasting points (of view):

1) This happened while I was volunteering at LEAF Festival, a gathering of “building community” and “connecting culture.”  Taking someone else’s belongings is an interesting expression of this, though I prefer to imagine that they need the gear more than I do ,hoping the legacy of my gear will continue on many treks in places I would not have gone.

2) I haven’t experienced anything physically taken from me in a long time.  I have taken things from myself, but that was in my control, though this notion is often difficult to accept.  Not the last few years in Hawai’i, or in my travels around Asia.  This makes me wonder what is in the mentality and ethics of my thief?  Is there consideration for the person’s relationship with the stuff being taken, either sentimentally or economically?   Is it an act of desperation, or is someone being opportunistic at another's expense?  Do most decisions boil down to this more abstractly?

3) I am trying to cultivate a mind without attachments to things.   There are distinctions to be made in the words things and attachments, but I will not turn this into an essay on Buddhism.  That being said, there are few “personal belongings” that I care about.  If I were prompted to make a list, camp gear and my writing would make the top 3. 

4)  I relate to the inherent value of a backpack in its ability to store essentials.  But I identify more with what it represents.  I feel safe with a backpack and my gear, as it allows the ability to go outside at any time in the year for an extended period, and find a space without expectation or obstinate definition.  To be immersed in the ever changing, non-projecting, growing balanced landscape filled with other responsive living organisms.  Strapping on a backpack is a little like a ceremony for me.  And I usually have a small backpack on my person at all times.  Having one taken is akin to missing an essential piece of clothing.

5) I do not have much to show for myself tangibly throughout my life.  I have a lot of relationships that I am grateful for, and of all the people I have known, my aunt is the only person within a 10 hour drive who I have known for more than 2 months.   I am grateful for her for many reasons, among them she has provided a roof over my head this week when I was hoping my former tent would be sufficient.  I also have my writing, or what is left of it.   Though this feeling of starting over is familiar, and as I get older, I wish to experience it less.

6) And on the road to getting elements of my external self back, I have the internet to be grateful for.  Thanks to the internet, the iCloud, this shared network space beyond a local hard drive, I have some of my writing, research and schoolwork stored and saved.

7)  It took years to put together my pack, both realizing what I need and acquiring the gear.  Though in the last 3 days, through visiting second hand stores, used book stores, camping stores, eBay, Craiglist and Amazon, I have been able to compile most of my old pack.  Each item now has a new story and a shorter history, unless the gear is used and then I am continuing the journey of a story already started.

Which is essentially what I am doing or how I am trying to look at this.  I am continuing my own story.  I am not as sad as I expected myself to be from when this first occurred to now.  It is important to go through the emotions of such events, but I have viewed these happenings as chapter breaks rather than writing a whole new book.  I will have to start some things from scratch, but that happens regardless of whether or not someone else takes something from you.  Some time periods of our lives force this process upon us, and others nurture it.

I am often not promoting our cultural dependence on technology.  I observe an interference with learning basic skills and utilizing proper tools around us.  A click of the button to order clothes sewn in a factory across the world, or shopping in our low risk, low cost grocery stores do not accurately represent how food is grown.  Technology has the ability to hide the externalities (hidden consequences) of our choices.  Today though, I am grateful for this convenience, and being back in camping action in under two weeks.   Or am I?

A Closing thought:  Perhaps it would be better to pick up the gear in pieces, create new stories, and grieve for the relationship I had cultivated with my old gear.  Our culture is driven toward forward progress and momentum.  Major emotional events in our lives now may take the shape of speed bumps.  I remain confused, conflicted and have difficulty slowing down.  I am grateful for all the reminders.  Maybe a camping trip will help.

APW: Returning to School

Why did I Resume My Education at Warren Wilson?

The fact that I have difficulty initially trying to answer this question draws me to a state of skepticism. I am not distracted into thinking of where else I could be, but while flipping through the pages of my mind, I stop to consider if this was the right decision to return back to school? 

I write this after completing my first day of classes for Fall Semester 2014.  To elaborate further, it is my first day in a classroom setting since my study abroad semester in Fall 2008 at the U. Melbourne in Australia, though technically there it was Spring.  I had then made the decision, after going on a hike in Tasmania during finals week in November 2008, to seek an alternative lifestyle to traditional education, and pursue a path where I would work the land and travel and learn from the world as my classroom without walls.

I had not the intention to return, but I could not predict any of the events that followed after I broke away from the well paved trail. Flash forward to orientation, where I quickly learned that I was not alone in my prolonged absence from school.  Each of us, on our multifarious paths, discovered something special in WWC.  Something that attracted us towards it like a faint and intriguing light, an interesting scent and an unusually rhythmic sound away from the main event.  We are here, to begin or restart a stage in our lives. 

Even a short semester away from school, an internship or work-study over the summer, has the strong ability to lend some perspective on the world at large, and reflect on this decision to choose to return to Warren Wilson College.  Which, after a week of being here, I have only scratched the surface of understanding this campus functioning as a socio-economic ecosystem with intense microclimates.  I have enjoyed all walks to and fro classes and down to the river, forest and the pasture lands, nestled in Blue Ridge Mountains of Swannanoa, Western North Carolina.

After some Day 1 panicking relating to words and concepts like syllabus, lecture, lab, buying or renting books, assignments due, quizzes, etc. I paused, breathed, and recognized more manifestly that this is what I had signed up for.  I expected such moments to arise, regained composure and brought my attention back to the professor.  After the exploding balloons and conductive pickle in General Chemistry, and seeing the setting sun filter light through the Tulip Poplar across from the bridge to create an artsy and reflective aesthetic, I began to reflect more clearly on why I arrived here.

So why did I come back… here?  I returned for the interdisciplinary integration of the Triad.   For the challenge of the nearly-forgotten academia, for the stimulation of the culture and the forced discipline of the classes.  For the extraordinary biodiversity of this region and the breathtaking views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  To return to a place in EST (Eastern Standard Time) where I could more actively engage with the culture and not just the subculture.  To keep my mind and my body physically committed to goals that can only be achieved with persistence.  To become more aptly equipped  to contribute to a more consciously socio-ecologically designed future.

After 6 years of working, traveling and developing roots and relationships in places I hope to return to one day, I’m back in the classroom, hoping to be empowered with knowledge that will help me engage with work on campus, and other service and learning projects.  I hope to be an asset, I hope to be helpful, I hope to find meaning in my walk between classes and to assist others on their path and to not be overly passive in asking help from all the brilliant minds and able hands around.

We’ve all got a story already told.  Some of us have experienced similar events from different perspectives and others different experiences from similar perspectives.  Now we’ve got a new story beginning together and an ever-changing world that will be awaiting us when we are ready to more actively engage with it.   

Good luck to the entire incoming Freshman, transfers, returning students and Seniors in their final years.  Try to enjoy this part of the process.  Cherish your place as a new or returning student, as you only live this part of your life’s education once.

APW: Consider the Honeycomb

Diaphanous glow rises from the east as we sink into full solar exposure.  Wake up, wake up young ones, the first to rebuke the day for starting the same as it did yesterday.   Ignited by morning light, we are given our first few conscious waking seconds, where individuals emerge like skyscrapers. 

Hear the chickens?  Skipping the yawn, straight into cluck-clucking Seymour’s proverbial “feeeeed me.” Maybe we can find ourselves warmed by their expectance of our presence?  We walk over to their 5 star Coop, the ground filled with delicious bugs thriving in a layer of deep mulch and food scraps, inoculated with EM (effective microorganisms) like a perfect dressing for an endless salad bar.  We small talk for a few and begin our trail away, but they keep on clucking!  Perhaps it is not the hand that feeds whom they adore.  It was the pigs after all that led Orwell’s revolution.

Patterns of relationships with contrary intrinsic behaviors require influence at the edges.    Edges, full of vibrancy, noise, dynamic relationships.  Great areas for observation.  One cannot resist them like one cannot resist the seasons.  In other words, I will accept that my love for the chickens is a one way street.  Gratitude for the eggs, tilling, soil building, waste management program and the timely alarm clock qualities of the bird are still due.  

Change, compromise, and the sun, thus far have been established as the reliable constants in this historically repeating planet.  What else to do but increase resiliency in your life’s design by stacking functions, grow diversity, and increasing the dynamic relationships of all interacting systems?  One can focus and learn from observing and engaging with the relationships and expressions and of patterns, as opposed to individual structure, plants, and animals in a shared space.  How they relate with each other and where they are nestled in the equally affected larger community is a basis for whole systems design.

An introduction of my segue from mornings of waking up from my tent on the windward side of the Ko’olau into a Day 4 reflection of the Permaculture Design Course on Green Rows Farm in Waimanalo.  10 of us with diverse backgrounds absorb our multiple instructors approach to giving us tools to grow our toolbox to take on the world.  Assessing Flows, Patterns, Functional Analysis against a foundation of ethics, a set of design principles and design attitudes with the effort to design and implement appropriate systems to the site, or let the land share its needs… Observe, Learn, Interact… Go!

And of course every word and concept is sinking in, from understanding geological, cultural and historical implications of the landscape to appropriate technology, grey water systems, and renewable energy installations.  Creative vegetative and structural relative placement on site to harness all natural resources goes without saying.  This is enriching our brains and we are embodying the technical and imaginative aspect to become part of the global permaculture army.  Or something like that.  Fortunately, we have designed a reservoir for storing the information overflow to be harvested and recycled through the system at a later date.   All part of the design process.

More to come.

Old faces new Places, New places old Faces

I’m sitting at the San Jose Airport on a chair facing the window in the direction of the plane I will momentarily be boarding to fly across the Pacific Ocean and land in an archipelago, thousands of miles from any substantial land mass, to what Mark Twain dubbed “The Sandwich Islands.”  I am 25 years old.  To some, this is regarded as old, and others young, and in the past, this age may be interpreted contrary to the present. 

We’re always spinning, and it is desirable to have constants such as family, landmarks, arbitrary dates like New Years and holidays, to hold onto.  I have found these helpful with grounding and gaining faith or trust in the world and processes outside of yourself.  I would suggest this as convincing an argument for a reason to choose to believe in a higher power.  In the last year, I have explored the new, in the form of Asia for 8 months and the Middle East for 2 months, and have recently come back to America, where I have attempted to utilize all my abilities and resources to revisit the familiar.   To arrive at a reliable geographical site (that contains a personal history) and to try to understand it within the frame of one’s past context.  And then to examine experiences post being there to discover a healthier, deeper perspective on this life, this world and oneself.   Balancing this with new places and old faces, and old places with new faces has been the crux of the last month on the mainland, from New York to Colorado to California.

I now face Hawai’i.  My home for over 3 years, where I grew to love ecology, observation, getting dirty, plant identification, building and growing (shelter, food and community) from the ground up, appreciation and respect for traditional culture, and formed many lasting relationships with people and place.  It has been a year since I stepped foot on the lava rock, inhaled the coastal tropical sea breeze, and engaged with the vivid and pure sensory experience that has remained with me on my travels and occasionally in my dreams.  I miss it dearly but do not long and weep for Hawai’i, and given that I am here for 3 weeks, it appears to an appropriate length of time.  It is my final escapade before returning to school after a 5+ year absence.  I am very grateful to be returning to education in such a nurturing setting as the Blue Ridge Mountains.

With life, I accept the chaos and randomness, though appreciate when the patterns and symmetry come to the forefront of my attention.  (Both schools of thought are always present, it is what we are drawing our mind and attention to in the moment that dominates our reality.  Also there is scientific proof and debate of both theories existing simultaneously and not being contradictory [thanks Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Everything].) What lays ahead of me is a 2 week Permaculture Design Course (PDC) on Oahu, instructed by a friend of mine who nearly convinced me to take the course 3 years ago.  There are multiple Guest Instructors who I have tremendous respect for, including the woman who helped bring me to the island of Maui in the first place and introduce me to land I would fall in love with and the concept of ecological design, exactly 5 years ago.  Meeting her on the side of the Hana Highway in between Waianapanapa and Airport Road to the present has been a journey.

The upcoming PDC will outline design principles and ethics based on the observation of natural systems, and the integration and implementation of those systems into the functioning of those landscapes and the lives of those interacting with them.  Paraphrased from Introduction to Permaculture, the best way to learn Permaculture is to go through a walk in the forest and observe all the life around you .  After working in sustainable agriculture in the tropics of Hawai’i, the high altitude mountains of Nepal and the desert of Israel and Nevada, I would agree.  I can relate to how all systems are fairly similar with the flow of water, structure of the soil and the functioning of the plants, displaying their disparity mostly in directional flows and names of the species.  The design techniques will help me understand this foundation of nature and apply this knowledge to diverse ecosystems.  I am grateful to take this course in Hawai’i, where I have a familiarity of plants, landscape and function.  This is also the place where my passion for this understanding began to germinate.

I have seen edible forest gardens in the desert with little to no water access, tropical food forests grown in geodesic domes at 8,000 ft, fully self-sustaining communities in the woods in the North East America, 200 edible/medicinal plant species being grown in 1/10^th of an acre (in an area that receives snow), small villages subsistent from the land for their shelter (natural building using the clay deposits in their soil) and high food production and seed saving in Southeast Asia, and people trying to integrate rather than segregate with nature across the globe, based primarily on Permaculture Design Principles (another way to say Ecologically Conscious Design). It began theoretically 40 years ago in Australia, and this and the following generation are aiming to prove or disprove if this is a viable solution to regenerate our society and landscape presently designed without conscious care for the land being farmed (earth), people (farmers and consumers), and community in mind.   The jury is still out, though small-scale solutions have been noted across the globe with favorable to spectacular outcomes.

I will certainly be learning more in the next few weeks, and I will share it here in the future.

---

Highlights on the places I’ve visited since returning to America:

Northeast (Fingerlakes in upstate New York and Western Massachusetts).  Blown away by some artists, potters, woodworkers, major community and co-op vibes, wineries and breweries (Two Goats!), and the beauty of the area (specifically Watkins Glens and the foxes).

Colorado:  Culture of the state whose passions include Eat Good Food, Drink Good Beer, Play Outdoors!  Aspen-Tree with Eden, family vibes, cooking and biking and highway driving!

California: Chico to Mt. Lassen to Bay Area.  The beauty and amazing ecology of the Northern California Forests, a very warmed heart as a result of seeing familiar faces, gardens, family and friends.  Beer drinking, beer brewing, Jazz and Brass/World Live Music, San Francisco’s old style architecture and modern interiors and artisan food makers and bakers.  Brief reunions with friends, More family vibes, Brotherly bonding and Dal Bhat Khane.

Hawai’i:  Kolea Farm on Oahu North Shore.  Green, lush, vibrant topography.  Oahu’s stunning rock faces, green forest, true blue oceans, bursting flowers, towering canopy trees, diversity of plant species, make this, among millions of other reasons, a really special place.   Used the o’o, weedwhacker, machete, sickle, and worked with cut flowers, harvesting, and landscaping in a few short days.  Papaya, White Sapote, Soursop, Lychee, Ice Cream and Apple Banana, Jamaican Liloquoi.  Tropical Fruit, how I missed thee!

APW: Today I Ate a Sandwich

A Short and Crucial Daily Gratitude.

Today I ate a sandwich.  

The bread, which I had baked yesterday and had proofed overnight, began before I mixed the flour water salt and yeast.  We'll have to go back earlier than the long day in the fields when the farmers harvested and threshed the wheat, and before they sowed the seeds.  I would claim too, this bread would not have exited the oven with its spongey chewy center and crispy crust, before the cultivars of wheat were naturally selected and bred into those which we enjoy.  Its inception does not predate beginningless time, though when the evolution of the homo sapiens discovered fermentation and the breaking down of substances to synthesize into new forms of life, thus growing enough food to support more of its kind.  Many thanks for all those conditions to occur, I love a good sandwich.

On the bread was a spread of hummus, which I also made the day before.  After refining many recipes of friends,  tastings at multiple recommendations of those on a life long journey to find the ‘world’s best hummus,' and experimenting on my own, I can now make hummus.  This occurred through the many stories and meals shared during travels with Israelis in both Nepal in Israel.  This adds a great list of places and people to be grateful for besides the farmers, and associate many memories with the sandwich on my plate.

The beans were purchased from the local co-op, with the most impressive bulk section I have come across in the North East (though I am not well traveled in this region of the world).  Members bring their own bags and containers to minimize the packaging and ecological harm plastic creates with its inability to be ‘re’cycled or ‘up’cycled.  Many more people in proximity of being apart of and responsible for the creation of the co-op to express my gratitude to.

Of course I will have to thank the neighbors, for they raised the chickens that popped out what is now the hard boiled eggs that I am currently digesting.  And then there is the cheese.  From another neighboring farm, whose goats are as happy as the grass that they fertilize, and the family farm who is nourished (economically, socially, culturally and spiritually) through the act of nourishing others.

I do not consider each facet every time I consume a sandwich.  But this is an attitude of the integrated nature as opposed to the segregated nature of our culture that I am in the process of cultivating.  Food and all design systems would do best to consider the producers, consumers, the communities and the planet, as they all effect each other.

Why gratitude?   Gratitude -> Compassion -> Kindness -> Happiness

But the real reason…

Pausing for a second, and taking a deep breath, I find myself enjoying a better tasting sandwich!

APW: Observe and Learn

I have difficulty entering through the main entrance.
Though it tends to be the most accessible,
Well paved and immaculately landscaped,
It is also the most expected.

And when one follows the path of what is expected,
The future offers this idea of comfort, familiarity and knowing,
Though concerning what is to come,
Aside from certain organic propensities,
Patterns of growth and general seasonal tides,
Nothing is known.

 

I have been living on a Kibbutz in the Arava Desert in Israel for the last two weeks.  It is the smallest Kibbutz in Israel, and is in the process of privatizing (a trend for nearly all kibbutzim in Israel it would seem), therefore it is losing some of the traditional ideals it was founded on.   It began as many others with the Zionist movement, though this one practices Reform Judaism (very rare in Israel, much more popular in the states), and has evolved into something truly unique and most extraordinary.

Through a handful of Kibbutz Members who had a dream, this place has grown and affected the lives of many visitors who walk through the land, and has created a home and community for those who live here.  It shares a common structure with most Kibbutzim.  They raise cows for Dairy and have multiple large scale Date Orchards.   All the essential and desirable structures of a community, from dining hall to football field (soccer) to pool to bomb shelter (also functioning as a library) to gardens to classrooms are here, and then there is the side that most attracted me to this place.  The Center for Creative Ecology.  There is an Eco-Campus and Eco-Park, along with all the natural (mud) building and alternative energy sources (mostly solar) found throughout the Kibbutz.

Everywhere you look in the Eco Centers on the kibbutz you draw inspiration.  From the parabolic solar ovens to window gardens, to the finely crafted animal playground made from mud and tires to the sheetmulched and seed saving gardens.   Recycled art fills the landscape like beautifully organized scattered trash, and mature trees surrounded by beneficial plants fill up the once barren desert.  A tea house, offering healthy food options utilizes the plants grown on the land for produce and dried herbal teas.  Not to mention the stunning beauty of the Arava in a valley where one watches the sun and moon rise to the east over the vivid red and oranges of the Jordanian Mountains.

I have come here not as a volunteer on the kibbutz or an eco-volunteer, not as a becoming member of the kibbutz or as a visitor from Israel.  I am not a part of the Green Apprenticeship (although I would very much like to be one day) and I am not just passing through for a few days, but instead staying for a month.

I consider myself very fortunate to have this experience.  To become involved in the EcoCampus for a brief period and help contribute in any way I can.  I bring with me a background of organic gardening, nursery work, some alternative building and experience with Permaculture Design, and more experience in community living.   I have found work also at a nearby Kibbutz, where I bike ride to work and help with the growing of arid medicinal plants and erecting a shade structure the size of one dunam. 

After the first week I have found my rhythm and routine here, from watering the plants in the morning, feeding the chickens, feeding the BioGas, stretching and starting the work day at first light.  Then there is either work in the garden, mostly seed saving and maintaining the container gardens as we approach the hot season rendering it very difficult to grow plants in the desert without shade and ample water (both in limited supply), and maintaining all the natural building structures (such as 'painting' on the roof our dome kitchen another layer of mud.  We all live in domes in the EcoCampus, designed with passive solar heating to effectively keep the inside of the structure warm in winter and cool in summer.

I am learning here through observation.  The mode of kibbutz life begins with take what you need, give what you can, and you can see the place thrive and take care of you.  Everyone here wears many hats, one of the head gardeners is also the rabbi, the natural building instructer is also in charge of marketing and networking, people overlap working in the dairy, the orchards, the kitchen and the cleaning crew etc.  And there are some absolutely incredibly individuals who do a little bit of everything.  I am watching the plants too, reacting to the especially hot sun, the unseasonal storm, how they thrive when the spacing is adequate or stretch for the sun when everything is densely compact, how they respond to the compost tea in different dosages, how different varieties of the same plant grow substantially different, and which is best for the next season to save the seeds. 

Everywhere you go, before you so eagerly interact, it is most appropriate and important to take a step back and observe and then you and the environment can both mutually benefit each other.  It is contrary to this attitude that we are at the state we are at with our planet, both socially and environmentally.

You may wonder how did I arrive here in the first place and find myself under these circumstances.  Very simply, I showed up.   I had a contact through a friend who lived here.  I talked to many people.  I observed.  And I saw where I could help, and then I offered it.  Yes, having a skillset is beneficial.  Though when you know the environment you are seeking and have an intention of what you hope to learn, the path to pursuit becomes more clear.  This experience is very rich for me and I do not need to receive money to feel like I am growing from it.

In a sense, I have tried to live my life like this, and I am grateful for who I have become in the last 5 years while following this philosophy.  In a month I will return to the states.  It will be the first time I am going without a plane ticket out in 5 years (not including Hawai'i as the states).  I will observe what has changed and how I have changed.  And I hope to share valuable time with family and friends.  It will certainly be a culture shock, perhaps on the same level as life in Nepal.  I will write more in the future on this. 

Tentative schedule:

Now to June 21 :: Israel -> New York
June 21 to July to Aug :: NY -> Colorado -> California -> New Mexico -> North Carolina (Maybe like this)
August to Dec :: North Carolina - Fall Semester at Warren Wilson College

And a short piece here that I wrote recently concerning affairs in this modern world:

Evolution has brought us this far, and in this last century, we have dangerously chosen to play the role of God with our intelligence. 

I would like to say that nothing is lost, nothing is forgotten, but this would be a lie.  We have lost thousands and thousands of species, languages and cultures in our efforts of becoming conquerors as opposed to harmonious with the natural world.  There are many efforts to unify people, to bring them together, though this is not usually an appropriate measure to take. 

In an ideal world, people would be peaceful and content in their place, feeling strong with their own culture and roots and having the opportunity to travel.  Every region would have a local market that can provide its sustenance and be able to trade for what is beneficial.    If one lives in alpine climates where snow covers the ground in winter and this person feels they cannot live without tropical fruit, they should consider relocating.

We are at interest crux on this planet.  And it is interesting because it is not expected, yet it is created, almost entirely, by man.  Everything in the last century occurred so quickly.  And while damage can be done so quickly, it is a long process to restore something back to its pristine state, and we are not accustomed now for waiting for life to happen.  We have grown to a place where we have found control and urges and we wish to see results and gain satisfaction immediately.  Life ought not to be viewed as a race to the finish, but as an enjoyable walk through a park.

To begin to regenerate landscapes, not only to a state of sustainability, but into a nature as diverse, complex and thriving as a rainforest, it begins with a change of mindset. It begins with small steps and patience, with positive and comprehensive thinking.  Once this mindset is achieved and the principles and ethics are solid, we can begin to approach each unique landscape and culture appropriately, not using the same uniform model because it worked once somewhere else.

We have grown into something larger than we can handle.  Though we have made tremendous leaps in our research, there has been many casualties, and there will continue to be.  If we can begin to eliminate our desire for wanting more and faster results, we can turn around and begin to repair some of what was lost.  However, the trend continues in the opposite direction.  Best advice:  Get children involved in garden classrooms and community service programs with great mentors that will stay with them for the rest of their life, so they in turn will be able to impact the next generation positively.  Teach them how to observe and how to learn instead of what to learn.

Keep it small, keep it local.

Happy growing,

Matthew 

APW: Spring Into...?

Getting older, time continues to behave differently, and perhaps memory too.  Our brains might only have the capacity for so many relationships and interactions and though the passing of time separates people for extended periods, it takes only a recollection of a shared experience to eliminate or overcome such immense emotional and physical distance.  So I'm putting this out there, as a method for myself and for you, to recall experiences you've had in the past and to engage with someone you haven't in years.  For me these exercises help give more purpose to the present, as the present too will become past.  And if the past is neglected, it suggests an element of futility to the present . Often it is a song or a smell that does the trick, or a walk to a forgotten favorite childhood tree, to bring you back to a more agreeable balance with the now.

A reflection and update from my end.

I am well.  My time away from Hawai'i has been very good for me.  As much as I love the island, the culture, the people and all my experiences there, I was very ready to create space and engage with the rest of the world.

My experiences in Asia, mostly in Nepal,have shed a lot of light on the different cultures in the world and the adversities they all face, the deities they believe in, the interactions with the government and the powers of the surrounding nations, and how easy it can be to breathe and smile.  (It is crazy how complicated the developed world and the mind that grows up inside of it as opposed to a developing nation). Each history of these landscapes and each culture that inhabits them are drastically different from the last.  And in this modern world, each puzzle piece fits in differently than it used to, while many are already established on the global network, others' doors are being gently or harshly knocked on to join.

In the last 5 years, I have lived on conservative and liberal farms.  Farms owned by Mormons, Jews and Atheists.  Farms in the desert, in the mountains and the rainforest.  Farms involved in a local,state, national and international agricultural movement.  Farms with money and farms without.  Farms in nations with money and nations without.  Each one has taught me much and brought me to the next place.    

The world is large and diverse and there is much to observe and learn.  There are many ways to pursue these studies.  Some is through a direct classroom, and others through a walk in the woods or planting a seed.  The common thread is showing up.  Being present with the intention of wanting to familiarize yourself and improve your interactions with the surrounding environment, both people and plants.  

Keeping in mind the different approaches to engaging with this world, I am now faced with two paths.  They both commence in August and share many similarities.  I have been accepted into Warren Wilson College in North Carolinato pursue Environmental Studies with a focus on Sustainable Agriculture.  I can also pursue a 5 month program called Sustainable Israel, including a 2 month "Green Apprenticeship /Permaculture Design Course" in the Arava Desert in Israel at Kibbutz Lotan.  Lots of very interesting and impacting research is being done at both of these places.  Both pursuits engage in theoretical and practical work and each affects their local environment positively and invites International Students and Travelers to their campuses to study, learn and apply these skillsback in their homes. (An environment / community that I would love to create and build in the next 10 years)

I will be reaching a decision sometime this week and would love to hear advice or stories of being in a similar situation.  I miss the Hawaiian islands though a trip back does not seem imminent.  I will howeverbe in New York in July if anyone is around.  

Would love to hear how all of you are doing,

Wishing you a warm spring, enjoy the vibrant new growth all around you,

Matthew

All Landscapes Worthwhile

After Annaporna I began a time quite unusual for me.  It was spent
mostly in Suburbs and Cities and around friends and friends’ families.
 I had a vibe of a reluctant and confused tourist being in countries
where I could not speak the native tongue, and was dependent upon
others for directions, ways to occupy my time and translation.  I also
had some great experiences during this time, eating great food and
saying farewell to Nepal and exchanging my rupees (sad day), being
welcomed into Israel with clean cities and clear roads, celebrating
the holidays by spending Pesach Seder camped next to the Sea of
Galilee, seeing friends of friends in the old city of Jerusalem,
visiting an expert in Israel on Post Harvest handling of Vegetables,
Herbs, Fruits and Flowers, and being with a family (embracing the
feeling of family) and having large and delicious meals.

Much of the delights and sensations could be summed up with food.
From Labaneh to Hummus, Eggplants Dishes to Poyke Pots, Baklava to
Kanafe, fresh salad galore and many bread dishes (up until Passover).
And I tasted a good beer finally, my first in over 6 months, in an
arab village, Tarsheha, in the north!  What a moment that was!

And then the next part of the journey began, where we headed South to
the desert, to camp on the beach, float in the dead sea (from world’s
highest lake Tilicho at 5000 meters in Nepal to lowest 400 meters sea
level), swim in fresh pools running through arid canyons, see a music
concert in the middle of night in the middle of nowhere, and then onto
the Eco-Farms and Villages and kibbutzim and research centers studying
and applying sustainable practices that is being implemented
throughout Israel, and in neighboring countries in the world.

It was great timing as I was feeling a bit antsy to get my hands in the dirt!
And ahhhhh, the desert! The stillness that is not really still.  The
blank canvas that is filled with subtle life.  The warm caressing
breezes, and the beating sun that never quits.  The hovering flies,
dry leaves, date palms, desert blossoms, composted thick top soil,
buried drip lines, endless sunsets, digesting biogas bins, mud domes
and earthen walls. Beautiful desert, it is so nice to return to you
from the tropics of Hawaii to the Mountains of Nepal.

But the desert I return to is hardly the one I have recognized in the
past.  It is not like the Bedouin Village I visited 4 years ago and it
is not like the 4 months I spent in Nevada in the Mojave Desert.  It
is not just the artistic designs that are woven beautifully into the
earthen walls either that makes this place unfamiliar.  Nor is it the
large greenhouses and shade structures lining the roads.  It is the
greenery that surrounds this place, the biodiversity and flourishing
of life that strikes me.

Something that happened to me:

My second day on the Kibbutz and I woke up at 6 and even though it was
‘holiday’ I started to work in the nursery area and weed the floor and
the pots and do some organization. I accumulated a large pile of weeds
and left them there as I went over to see who was working in the
chicken run giving them fresh water to find out the schedule for
feeding, and what the diet of the chicks included.

It was Mike, the bad ass English Permaculture guy who my friend had
gotten me in touch with. He told me how it is difficult to accommodate
people who are here for a few days (such as myself) and need to be
baby sat and this and that.  He works around 14 hours a day and still
feels like he is falling behind, so this is a more than understandable
comment.

We talked a bit while I helped him water the container gardens and
clean the bathrooms for the eco-tourists arriving today. Next he began
to search for food for the chickens and I told him about what I did
that morning and he decided the material was perfect food for the
chicks for the next few days.  One man’s problem is another chicken’s
breakfast.  This was all very serendipitous.

We continued our conversation about other kibbutzim and interesting
projects and research happening throughout Israel.  I wrote down a
list of places to visit and then shared over breakfast the history of
agricultural practices and my background in Hawaii.  Both the desert
and the rainforest attract people with certain ideologies determined
to live in extreme conditions.  And they both are isolated in a way
that stresses the importance of togetherness and creating a network
among farmers and communities.

Mike has lived here for 28 years. He grew up with a permaculture
garden and used to be a part of a punk band in England. The younger
guy, Josh, grew up in a dome and gave me the tour of the kibbutz after
picking me up from the junction. He is American who has lived in
Israel for 8 years, has a masters in international development, has
worked with Friends of the Water, and is charge of Natural Building
and Marketing and Networking for Kibbutz. Walking around and learning
of the projects going on from Josh was very inspiring.  You can check
them out at www.kibbutzlotan.com/

There is such a diversity of people and programs here on this kibbutz
and in the Arava. There is a year program here for Israelis before
they join the army, there are continual 2 week, 1 month and 2 month
Ecological and Permaculture Training courses, there are 6 month and
year long green apprenticeships, there is a kibbutz volunteer program,
and there is much expansion to come as well.  The kibbutz also hosts a
large Dairy and a Date Farm.

There are talks of future projects such as creating a food forest
model for a CSA. Building 5-10 more housing structures with natural
building. And they have done much in the past for Israel too. Kibbutz
Lotan hosted the first CSA in Israel, helped install various recycling
methods in practice today, and possibly more soon to be in practice,
including city-wide composting bins across the country.  Their alumni
from the long term programs are out there in the country and around
the world imagining and implementing such practices and systems
learned on the Kibbutz.

I will be in Israel another few months, continuing to check out
innovative projects and communities.  After which, I hope to return
home to North America for July and be with family.  If anyone is on
the East Coast in July or August, please get in touch!  It would be
great to catch up.

And then in August, I buckle down, study, work, learn, and give what I
can back, either to a community in the blue ridge mountains of North
Carolina or a kibbutz in the desert of Israel.  Keeping the doors
open, and letting in the breeze.  All landscapes worthwhile.

APW: Walking in the Himalayas

Unfathomably mammoth mountains, in size, scope and nature, surround your being.  Perceived through two tiny intelligent eyes, gifted to our species, and walked among with a set of deceivingly capable, and rightly determined legs.  Distance and weight take on new meanings when the terrain refuses to be level, and ‘just around the corner’ seems like a most unfair expression.  

The crow bypasses the ground terrain as humans do while in urbanized setting.  Floating by on a gentle wind ignorant of the rock and circumstance below, or rather viewing it with an unaffected countenance.  When walking, one step at a time, one accepts the challenge and is engaged in conscious effort to attain knowledge and growth through the connection of feet on the bare earth.

And while the mind will play tricks and suggest suffering and delude you with memories of sandy sunkissed beaches and playing ball on flat low elevation where breathing was simpler and lemonade was chilling in a fridge, I dare you not to feel the presence of the snow (sometimes ice) covered giants.  It was with a present mind that I tried to stay in with my walk, but it certainly has the tendency to wander: like our feet, our dreams, like all the endless possibilities that await us on down the road.

Landscape and time never fail to define a culture, such as those that lived in the Himalayas for the last thousand years.  It is always apparent in varying degrees – more directly in history before globalization, airplanes, fuel, telephones and the like.  What we need to survive has always been cultivated from the land and within walking distance.  A combination of flowing water year round, availability to cultivate or harvest fresh food and dried food for storage, and timber for shelter and wood for cooking and keeping warm in the cold nights.  In the modern Himalayas, culture with a touristic twist, reigns supreme, and the people added as much warmth to the trek as the sun that peaked the mountains in the mid morning: allowing you once again to recall what it is like to have feeling in your fingers.

15 years ago, when I began dreaming of walking in such a place, this trek would have been completely different.  Though like any walk in life, it is how you approach it and how you are received by it that creates your experience.  The developing world has reached its aggressive hand with large and noisy Chinese Construction sites, and a road that has found its way to around 2500 meters.  Dero, Tshampa Porridge, Chhang (local alcohol), Buckwheat Bread, Rice, Potato Tarkaari, Tibetan tea and Black Tea, and Yak Meat now have company on the menu.  Most of the new guesthouses cater to trekkers with menus that include a breakfast of eggs and potatoes or muesli, as well as french fries and a version of pizza.  These goods are transported through roads on jeeps to their limit and then carried by mules (taking on daily loads of roughly 70 kilo loads at a time), to the villagers and guesthouses at higher altitudes. 

The path may be well walked too, though depending on time of year, the time you leave your previous night’s dwelling, and which trails you traverse, you can find yourself with hardly seeing a tourist for days.  Although part of the interesting international vibe of the trip is meeting incredible people from different backgrounds and sharing in this experience for entirely different or perhaps similar reasons. We were lucky too, to have some knowledge of the culture and language after living in Nepal for a short while.  Nepali culture is very enthusiastic and genuinely receiving to those who have made the effort to learn the language (not merely an action to cater to tourists).  We were able to stay in home stays where the owners did not know any English, and view amazing Gurung (the predominant local caste of this mountain range) communities.

We stayed in a few villages that were well over 500 years established, often the Stupa (temple) would still be standing, and these people, put simply, have figured it out.  The way of life was basically unaffected by advancement of the road, the food was perfect, the villagers were hardworking and the community was simple and peaceful.  It was interesting to view these villages in light of the ones I have worked in with the NGO.  These Gurung communities, though much further away from civilization, would appear to be much more developed.

Some highlights:
We began our walking just before 7 am on longer days or enjoyed the slow mornings and warmer weather when at higher altitudes and took a later start.  We rotated between eating at guesthouses, order small pots (7 cups of tea in each), or cooking up our own oats and nuts or soup and noodles on the campstove.  We had days of 1000 m plus ascends and 1500 m descends, and were on foot with packs for 4 to 7 hours a day.  We encountered many animals, including being surrounded by 100 yaks while trying to enjoy a midday tomato soup, and caught paw prints of what must have been a snow leopard.   We walked to snowed over frozen lakes, and stayed warm by the fire in an unexpected snow storm.  We spent one night at 5,000 meters (16,000 feet) and will be perfectly content if a long period of time elapses before sleeping at such an elevation again.  We watched a film at 3,500 meters in a day of rest to help with acclimatization and always relished the feeling of arriving at the guest house and putting down the pack for the evening.  Viewing ranges of mountains jutting into the sky from 6,000-8000 meters.  Twice staying in a guest house suggested by two different folks named "Karma."

I have put together a gear list.  And a trip itinerary.  Though I will not post it here.  If you find yourself hiking in the Annaporna Range or in subtropical alpine regions, I’d be happy to share my experience and recommend some things you may or may not need, and specific side trails and home stays.

The trip was beautiful and a fulfilled dream of many years of wanting to hike around in the Himalayas.  I am very grateful to have done it.  And feel very lucky to have found someone special and not done it alone.  A dream in a dream.