Tag Archives: Sustainability

To be Fueled by Love

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Browsing the shelves of Point Reyes Books last month, I picked up Mary Pipher’s latest book. Her Reviving Ophelia illuminated the struggles of adolescent girls. Now she has a book called The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in our Capsized Culture, detailing her progression from despair to activism.

A Nebraskan, Pipher was on the front lines of early campaigns to stop the Keystone XL Pipeline from going through the Sandhills. (Three years later, the pipeline is still in limbo, and has become a symbol of the fossil fuel industry’s disastrous impact on the planet.)

Dismal River, Nebraska Sandhills. Photo by USFWS Mountain Prairie, via Wikimedia Commons

Dismal River, Nebraska Sandhills. Photo by USFWS Mountain Prairie, via Wikimedia Commons

Even before opening it, I knew this book would return me to grounding.

I’d been talking with Richard Heinberg about his book The End of Growth, which describes a trajectory that I understand and yet can’t quite face head-on. Seeing it spelled out and hearing him expound on it left me feeling quite scared.

I know that many are pulling together for a better world. But our governmental policies favor the monied corporations running the show. I was starting to doubt that community action could effect change on that level.

Along comes Pipher, describing an activism that’s joyful and even fun. Example: grandmothers gave weekly “thank you in advance” pies to the Nebraska governor until he agreed to meet. This brand of protesting, fueled by love of the land and concern for tomorrow’s denizens, seems the perfect antidote to despair.

A chapter called All Hands on Deck begins with this quote from Frederick Buechner:

“God calls you to the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

To be glad in the face of the world’s rending sometimes seems impossible. Yet I remember opening the church basement doors on the day of our SkillShare and seeing the space instantly fill with participants, their faces alight with curiosity. I think of the heart-cracking instant when a resonant phrase finds my fingers on the keyboard. I recall the joy of putting a garden trowel in the hands of a preschooler.

There’s an expansiveness when I reflect on these moments, a sense of the heart opening that lifts me from powerlessness.

Explaining vermiculture at the Irvington SkillShare. Photo by Jeff Echols.

Explaining vermiculture at the Irvington SkillShare. Photo by Jeff Echols.

Pipher acknowledges the “experts” who downplay the importance of individual actions. They say systemic economic and political changes are necessary to change this trajectory. True enough, but this reasoning is incomplete, says Pipher—for “who is it that is in charge of systemic change?”

She argues that individuals have always been the source of world-changing actions, and what else can one person do but start with herself? And join others in common cause, as did the abolitionists. It’s said that they had no hope of success, at the start.

My small self is quick to tell me what I’m not. I’m no naturalist, no doctor of philosophy, no career activist, no farmer, no wisewoman in a mountain hut. I am just myself. Sometimes I question: What do I have to offer?

I only own this experience, this deep heart of pain and care, grief and fear—and love. 

What do I have to offer? All of it. I offer it up.

[More from Mary Pipher: Read her interview on how to wake up and take action on climate change (and stay sane).]

Three Luminaries: Hopkins, Hemenway, Heinberg

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While in northern California I had the chance to meet three powerful voices in the movement for positive change. Call them the Three H’s, or Tres Hermanos.

Hermano One, Richard Heinberg of the Post-Carbon Institute, schooled me about the inevitability of a global economic crash. This eventuality is currently held at bay in part by the dubious practice of quantitative easing. (No, I don’t really know how that works, but apparently governments and banks are creating money out of thin air to prop up our ailing economic system.)

When asked how he stayed grounded, immersed as he is in researching the unraveling of life as we know it, he spoke of living with gratitude. He spends time in precious company and places. He plays the violin a couple hours a day, and tends his garden and chickens.

Richard Heinberg in his garden, photographed by Nicolas Boullosa, via Flickr Commons

Richard Heinberg in his garden, photographed by Nicolas Boullosa, via Flickr Commons

Heinberg has been the bearer of bad news for years now, absorbing and presenting material that would leave me immobilized if I were in his shoes. He takes a balanced perspective, noting, “We need to talk about the potential benefits of reorganizing our material economy and doing more with less, and having more cooperation, and sharing and voluntarism—all of those things are good and make life better, more interesting, more fun.”

“And yet, at the end of the day it’s going to be a materially less opulent way of life, bottom line.”

In light of that trajectory, Hermano Two, Toby Hemenway, reined me in from fear mode by sharing the robustness of permaculture-based solutions. He echoed Heinberg on the most basic, square one action, no matter what happens next: Get to know your neighbors.

That means now, not in some perfect future living situation. He told me, “People say, “Someday I’m going to move to a community where I’m going to do that’ (live sustainably). And you’re already in a community right here, with your neighbors.”

Permaculture instructor Toby Hemenway, with Buddha, in his garden.

Permaculture instructor Toby Hemenway, with Buddha, in his garden.

Far better than a theoretical “someday” eco-topia is identifying and building that community right here, where we are. It can start as simply as: “Who will walk my dog when I’m gone? Who will help me water my garden when I’m sick?”

Taking the concept of community even further was Hermano Three, Rob Hopkins.  He spoke of hearing Heinberg speak about the end of growth a few years ago and feeling galvanized to take action. He wanted his fellow permaculturists to join him, but instead “found that lots of permaculture people are very happy living up little misty lanes making chairs out of sticks.”

He wanted more. He wanted to get moving, spread the word. Out of this urgency was born the Transition Town movement.

Rob Hopkins. Photo by Tulane Publications, via Flickr Commons.

Rob Hopkins. Photo by Tulane Publications, via Flickr Commons.

These are groups that aren’t waiting for permission, but instead starting where they are to build a new, localized economy (the REconomy). There’s tremendous energy in this movement. It may not always be called Transition. It may not get much press. But it’s rolling like a wave across the globe.

For more info, check out Hopkins’ book The Power of Just Doing Stuff,  Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden, and Heinberg’s eye-opening End of Growth.

Sierra Murdoch, Writing the Gritty Truth

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First in a Series on my Mesa Refuge Cohorts

Here’s a young writer to watch: Sierra Murdoch.

I met Sierra at Mesa Refuge, where we shared meals, stories, laughs, and a love of tea trays. We commiserated about the perils of writing, and encouraged each other to keep going. She inspired me with her focus and stamina—often the first one to get to work in the morning and last one still at it after supper.

Sierra Murdoch. Photo taken at writing residency, Banff Centre for the Arts, 2012.

Sierra Murdoch. Photo taken at writing residency, Banff Centre for the Arts, 2012.

Her project was a long article about a childhood cancer cluster in a small Nevada town. She conducted extensive research in the months leading up to our time at Mesa Refuge.

Sierra’s first foray into journalism was as a 2009-10 Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Journalism. For a little over a year, she lived in Wise County, VA, where more than a third of the county had been stripped by mountaintop removal coal mining. Sierra wrote about retired union coal miners fighting mountaintop removal, which was polluting wells, causing flooding, and destroying forests and streams.

Mountaintop Removal, Wise County, VA, via flickr Commons. Photo by David Hoffman

Mountaintop Removal, Wise County, VA, via flickr Commons. Photo by David Hoffman

Since 2011, she’s been on staff at High Country News, a well-respected magazine about the environment of the American West. Her biggest project there, and also for The Atlantic, chronicled the economic and social impacts of oil development on a Native American tribe living in the middle of the Bakken oil field—and a growing culture of violence against women there.

“I’m most drawn to communities living in extracted landscapes,” she says.

We had many conversations, but one in particular stands out. I told Sierra how much I admire activists who hold the line against things like mountaintop removal. The same goes for journalists like her who write about tough stuff, the gritty truth.

I sometimes feel guilty that I write feel-good stories of people building the new world while corporate giants prey on vulnerable communities and ecosystems. Aren’t I sort of slacking, happily profiling what’s going right, when there are so many wrongdoings to be exposed? Do I need to spend more time on a bullhorn instead of a cozy little blog?

But Sierra had a different take on it. She pointed out that the feel-good stories are nourishing not only to “the movement,” but also to people deeply invested in the status quo. These folks are usually turned off by angry protests. They might associate corporate actions with jobs and a way of life. So they feel threatened by protesters, disgusted with media attention.

Photo by D.D. Meighen, via flickr Commons

Photo by D.D. Meighen, via flickr Commons

“But the coal miner’s wife might like to go to the farmers market,” Sierra said. “She might want to garden, and she might like to be involved in community projects too.” Perhaps hearing about a group quietly working toward greater community resilience will bring her into the tribe. (Surely we need all stripes of people in this tribe now.)

This made me feel better.

Sierra is thoughtful, disciplined, kind, and curious—traits that make an excellent journalist. She radiates integrity. I can imagine that her subjects would trust her implicitly.

I look forward to watching her accomplish great things in years to come.

Julia Butterfly Hill: What our Hearts Know

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Belated postcard from Hopland, CA: It was a thrill to hear Julia Butterfly Hill speak at the Building Resilient Communities Convergence. This is the woman who spent most of 1998 and 1999 living in the canopy of an ancient redwood tree named Luna. Her extended protest brought attention to the plight of ancient forests and resulted in a three-acre buffer zone around Luna.

Julia Butterfly Hill in 2005, via flickr Creative Commons, by Scott Schumacher

Julia Butterfly Hill in 2005, via flickr Creative Commons, by Scott Schumacher

Now she calls herself a wholistic healthcare practitioner instead of an activist, because she is working on the “disease of disconnect.” What struck me about Julia is how much she embodied a heart-centered ethic. She began by expressing a commitment to affirming “what our hearts know: That we are all one.”

There’s little in our culture that supports the kind of inner transformation needed now. Julia called this era a time of spiritual crisis. “That place inside ourselves that is just ancient and knows only connection is in crisis.”

Methuselah, an 1800-year-old redwood in Woodside, CA

Methuselah, an 1800-year-old redwood in Woodside, CA

“What is it going to take to rebirth ourselves in this world where we are?” was her central question. She said it is a courageous act to keep our hearts open, because it means being open to the suffering of beloved creatures, communities, and ecosystems.

I appreciated that she called us to stay aware of our own tendency to rigidity, cautioning: “Any time we are passionate about anything, we are one breath away from being a fundamentalist.”

She invited us to “live so fully and presently in love that there is no room for anything else to exist.” To ask, What would love do in this space? What would love say in this room?

She said we need to bring all our integrity to bear in modeling a positive vision for the world. “We are so good at defining what we are against that what we are against begins to define us.” But it is also crucial to stand firm against wrongdoing. Even the campaigns that failed, she said, she would go back and do again.

It’s a matter of offering ourselves “in loving and joyous service to our world.”

Truly a transformative figure.

Respite

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I’m back from Mesa Refuge,* where I had 10 days to write, read, reflect, and draw inward. It was heavenly to leave the smartphone in a drawer for most of that time, and to let my social media accounts languish.

It was a time of exploration. I explored through my writing every day, starting early in the morning and working late into the night in my private writing shed. From this window I spied deer, quail, rabbits, hummingbirds, juncos, redtailed hawks, vultures, egrets, white pelicans, and many other waterbirds and songbirds I couldn’t identify.

My writing shed overlooked a Tomales Bay tidal estuary, where San Andreas fault lies.

The shed overlooks a Tomales Bay tidal estuary. San Andreas fault runs through this wetland. Mesa Refuge is “a place for writing on the edge”–and this shed is situated on the edge of the North American Plate, looking across to the Pacific Plate.

I explored the nearby town of Point Reyes Station. Not one but two yoga studios serve the tiny populace, and the farmers market brings everyone out each Saturday.

Point Reyes Station Farmers Market

Point Reyes Station Farmers Market

And once I ventured out in a borrowed pickup truck to one of the many wild places near the refuge.

Path to Abbott's Lagoon, Point Reyes National Seashore

Path to Abbott’s Lagoon, Point Reyes National Seashore

This was one of my favorite days.

Abbott's Lagoon

Abbott’s Lagoon

I relished the solitude and quiet that are so rare in workaday life. It felt like a privilege.

Beyond Abbott's Lagoon: The Pacific.

Beyond Abbott’s Lagoon: The Pacific.

But there was conviviality along with the solitude. I spent many of the evenings in conversation with the brilliant writers who were in residence with me. In coming weeks I plan to feature each of these writers and their crucial work.

I also decided to spend some time sitting in nature each day, now that I’m home. Here in my city, the hummingbirds are long gone and there are no dramatic cliffs or hypnotic ocean waves, but the leaves are turning and the songbirds are still as vociferous as ever. Heartland beauty may be subtler than West Coast beauty, but it still fills me.

*Are you a nonfiction writer whose work touches on nature, economics, and social justice? I would encourage you to apply for a residency at Mesa Refuge. It is a phenomenal place to write.

Radical Fungi Are My Favorite Teachers

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Guest Post by Peter McCoy

When I get asked why I started the Radical Mycology project, I often say that it was to share the lessons that mushrooms have taught me.

Turkey tail logs

Turkey tail logs

Since I started studying mushrooms as a teenager, I have always seen mycology (the study of fungal biology) as an endlessly fascinating and thought-provoking science. Whether I am using them as a nutritious food source or as a potent medicine, I am always honored to taste their wonderful flavors and alluring textures. Hunting mushrooms in the woods, I love to watch them grow, knowing that they are cleaning the forest soil, protecting plants from disease, and turning decaying matter into fresh topsoil so new plants can thrive.

And using them as remediators, I am awed by the mushrooms’ ability to break down and eliminate some of the most toxic industrial compounds in the world.

Grassroots Bioeremediation workshop with Leila Darwish at the Radical Mycology Convergence

Grassroots Bioremediation workshop with Leila Darwish at the Radical Mycology Convergence

Seeing how the densely branched mycelial networks of mushrooms share nutrients among plants, I also find a wonderful example for humans to follow when working to collaborate with their communities. Further, the incredible spore loads that mushrooms drop in the fall are designed to adapt to any given environment, demonstrating the ability to adjust to challenges and remain resilient during hard times.

These same attributes provide a model for how humans can best relate to each other, whether on a personal or societal level. By mimicking mushroom mycelium, cooperative businesses and housing projects work more efficiently by spreading out tasks and networking with affiliated organizations.

Fungi are also highly symbiotic with most organisms on the planet, so we find, yet again, the importance of collaboration among creatures throughout the fungal kingdom. In essence, fungi act in countless ways as grand harmonizers of the Earth, something that humans can aspire toward to live in balance with their surroundings.

King Stropharia bed installation at Peter's Mushroom Cultivation & Application Course in Olympia, WA

King Stropharia bed installation at Peter’s Mushroom Cultivation & Application Course in Olympia, WA

The Radical Mycology project revolves around just this philosophy: that by studying, working with, and learning from the fungal kingdom, humans can best find solutions to problems of personal, societal, and ecological health. To this end Radical Mycology has put a lot of energy into providing free education to the public on the benefits of fungi.

Our website (radicalmycology.com) is a database of all things mycological. We offer two free publications we have written, Radical Mycology and Mushroom Cultivation For Remediation, as well as instructional videos and protocols for mushroom cultivation.

Nameko Bed installation at Demeter's Permaculture Garden in Olympia, WA

Nameko Bed installation at Demeter’s Permaculture Garden in Olympia, WA

We organize regular multi-day events on mushroom cultivation and its practical applications (the Radical Mycology Convergences), with another being planned for the spring of 2014. And since 2011, two Radical Mycology-inspired volunteer clubs have sprung up in San Francisco, CA and Olympia, WA. These groups teach free workshops about simple and practical mushroom cultivation and community resilience.

The next and biggest project for Radical Mycology is writing a book exploring the theory, practice, and applications of mushrooms for personal, societal, and ecological change. We are currently in the midst of an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to fund the book. Our campaign page will soon be up and running. Stop by the Radical Mycology website to learn more about our work.

Update: The Radical Mycology Book fundraiser is underway! This unique book on the uses of mushrooms and other fungi for personal, societal, and ecological wellbeing will be a powerful resource for the geek and do-gooder inside us all and we are excited to bring this dream to the rest of the world.

You can view the live campaign here:
http://bit.ly/radmycogogo

Stealing the Future

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Photo credit: Kim Seng, via flickr Commons

Photo credit: Kim Seng, via flickr Commons

At present, we are stealing the future, selling it in the present, and calling it GDP. We can just as easily have a future that is based on healing the future instead of stealing it.

—Paul Hawken, Commencement Address, University of Portland, 2009

Protection

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A turtle among the Roman ruins at Pergamon, Turkey. Photo by Nick Leonard, via flickr Commons


A turtle among the Roman ruins at Pergamon, Turkey. Photo by Nick Leonard, via flickr Commons

Nothing protects us but our constant awareness and rededication to embody our values as much as we possibly can, and to be gentle with ourselves and others when we fail in this.

—Michael Lerner

Postcard from Hopland, CA

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This weekend was the big Building Resilient Communities Convergence in Hopland, CA. I was excited to be there for part of the action.

A highlight was the mycology skillshare, during which Fungaia Farm‘s Levon Durr demonstrated several methods for home mushroom cultivation.

Teaching how to cultivate oyster mushrooms at home using the stem butt/cardboard technique to grow your own spawn. Sweet!

I didn’t know until recently that shrooms actually are a source of protein. This makes me even more determined to try cultivating my own.

I thought Levon was going to levitate when he got to the part about mycoremediation. His enthusiasm is not misplaced: Mushrooms can clean petroleum from drainage ditches and aid in riparian zone restoration. They even eat heavy metals and bacteria.

The practice of using fungi to clean our beleaguered earth of toxins is one of the most hopeful stories I’ve heard. It is also the subject of an upcoming guest post from Radical Mycology, so stay tuned.

Vacant Lot Becomes Community Space

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Guest post by Lisa Boyles

My vision is to give purpose to a vacant lot. Where once stood abandoned houses, there will be a reflection space with a labyrinth and a community art installation.

In June 2013, we brought light to this space on the longest day of the year with a circle gathering and a modified sun salutation series. The children at this gathering helped decorate a stepping stone for the labyrinth entrance.

Since the summer, various people have joined me at this lot on the Near Eastside of Indianapolis. We have prepared the ground, moved bricks, unloaded wood, and removed trees. It is enlivening to get in touch with the dirt and have ruddy cheeks from working so hard outside.

Gordon removing an invasive tree.

The transformation from empty lot to Rivoli Park Labyrinth is primarily funded through a community action grant from Peace Learning Center‘s Focus2020 initiative.

The vision of Focus2020 is to create an engaged and inclusive city. I was one of several grant awardees at the beginning of September. The collective effect of these grants will be seen throughout the city over the course of the next year. The Peace Learning Center offers workshops so that more people can become Focus 2020 graduates.

John Ridder of Paxworks: the Labyrinth Shop created the triune focus design of the Rivoli Park Labyrinth. Logo by Susan Williams Boyles.

John Ridder of Paxworks: the Labyrinth Shop created the triune focus design of the Rivoli Park Labyrinth. Logo by Susan Williams Boyles.

The Rivoli Park Labyrinth project brings the international labyrinth movement to an urban neighborhood setting. Our space will be listed in the worldwide labyrinth locator, putting the eastside of Indianapolis on the labyrinth map.

To offset the often solitary nature of walking a labyrinth, this project also includes a healthy dose of community celebrations. For example, on May 3, 2014, we will celebrate World Labyrinth Day. And workdays at the site include a potluck to celebrate our growing community.

Aaron, James and the neighborhood cat moving a young tree to a new place to make room for the labyrinth.

Aaron, James and the neighborhood cat moving a young tree to make room for the winding path of the labyrinth.

Many partnerships are arising from this effort to give purpose to a vacant lot. One example of that synergy involves the documentation of the upcoming Oct. 10 workday (part of Indy Do Day). A KI EcoCenter videography intern is mentoring another young man that he met through this project. We can’t wait to see their collaborative videography of the workday, when volunteers will place bricks outlining the labyrinth path.

Meanwhile, the soil needs repairing and we plan to use hugelkultur to do it. We’ll mound soil and compost over woody debris and put our plantings on top of that mass. Permaculture designer Katherine Boyles Ogawa says, “Hugelkultur is an ideal method for urban lots where the soils are usually very compacted and often contaminated with heavy metals.”

Permaculture designer Katherine supervises unloading of logs for hugelkultur.

Permaculture designer Katherine supervises unloading of logs for hugelkultur.

We hope to eventually make the space into a certified wildlife habitat through the National Wildlife Federation.

Another goal is to display artwork and illustrated quotes along the fence. Panels would be created by special education students at the nearby public school and the art group at Midtown Community Mental Health Center.

Sarah donating paint for the community art wall

Sarah, a fellow Focus 2020 workshop participant, donating paint for the community art wall.

The community art aspect of the project is being funded through this crowdsourcing site.

We would love to have you join us in celebrating a year of this project coming into being on the summer solstice, June 21, 2014.

Like the Rivoli Park Labyrinth Indianapolis Facebook page to see project news. Join the Rivoli Park Labyrinth community group to collaborate with others and be invited to the annual celebration. We will post monthly featurettes and more detailed updates on our blog.