As a wide-eyed teenager, I set out on my first adventure with an older friend called Gavin Cree; a courageous 'hippy'-Scot who had already roughed-it overland through some of the wilder parts of our Earth. He was full of incredible stories to relate to the eager ears of this incredulous teenager, still ‘wet behind the ears’!
What fun Gavin had ‘showing me round’, when we started hitch-hiking around France with our backpacks and camping gear; this first journey abroad was a big eye-opener. We traveled where fate took us to find seasonal jobs on farm and orchards to keep us going: French francs cooked sausages on our camping stoves, as we fell over after one too many glasses of red wine!
Many years on now, I still feel inspired by my journeying and I am ever grateful to Gavin for instilling that love of adventure in my heart.
What follows is a brief account of my philosophy.
Indeed it seems simple, when one ponders why we are in the throes of epidemics of illness and dissatisfaction with our lives: "When we've distanced ourselves from the Soil and the Trees, Do we hear the Life in the Birds and the Bees?"
We have upset the balance in our most fundamental and vital relationship; that with our Mother and Her Earth that nurtures us. We take out more than we put in; and what we put in is destructive and disrespectful.
Many have raised their voices in this regard; four and a half decades ago it was Walter Yellowlees - http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/medtest/medtest_iftl.html delivering his "Ill Fares the Land" lecture: "The new epidemics of degenerative disease are not inevitable; nor is their cause mysterious. They are nature's language, telling eloquently of our failure to understand the supreme importance of nature's laws... the strength of a nation depends on a flourishing rural economy..."
And perhaps the most thorough and exhaustive research ever performed was by Weston Price during an even earlier epoch, when there were still many folk living non-industrialized lives. Admirably, he travelled extensively through many continents together with his wife in order to study and examine the health, the traditions and the diets of these still, (fortunately in my opinion), 'isolated' peoples; and his conclusions are as timeless and valid today as ever.
"Dr. Price’s research demonstrated that isolated peoples lacked dental caries, deformities and degenerative disease. In comparison to the Western diet of his day, their diets provided at least FOUR TIMES the water-soluble vitamins, calcium and other minerals, and at least TEN TIMES the fat-soluble vitamins, from animal foods such as butter, fish eggs, shellfish, organ meats, eggs and animal fats - the very cholesterol-rich foods now shunned by the public as unhealthful. Human beings achieve perfect physical form and perfect health, generation after generation, only when they consume nutrient-dense, whole foods and the vital fat-soluble activators found exclusively in animal fats."
http://www.westonaprice.org/about-the-foundation/about-the-foundation/
One should make the pertinent observation of course, that these were peoples who were also, as seems likely, still living relatively harmonious and unmolested lives; with none of the 'unnecessary stresses of modern living', which we so 'enjoy'!
I am in full accord with the 'Mission Statement' of the Foundation: "The Foundation is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism. It supports a number of movements that contribute to this objective including accurate nutrition instruction; organic and biodynamic farming; pasture-feeding of livestock; community-supported farms; honest and informative labelling; prepared parenting and nurturing therapies..."
The ethno-paleontological discoveries are as valid as Dr.Price’s research – especially the conclusions they arrive at after their forensic examinations of the skeletal remains of paleo-folk; the hunters and gatherers, which clearly distinguish them as people who had superb, uncompromised health.
Yet when we start moving into the subsequent epoch of the early agriculturalists, (currently our epoch) – the skeletal remains paint a far different and more disturbing picture; marked as they are by disease and decay, coincident with our more restrictive and monocultural diets, along with our more enforced sedentarism.
So this whole debate must be part of who we are; but did ancient hunter-gatherers have to contend with the environmentally and politically compromised world we inhabit today? Modern hunter-gatherers do; and while they fight to keep their integrity and their territories – the essence of their lives and their spiritual-physical health, we struggle to regain ours. This may well be the great battle and paradox of our epoch – how crucial truths and expertise in how to ‘live right’, which we have buried and cast aside, could well be the indispensable crux in helping to put us right where we have gone wrong and thus make our own human soul whole again.
How we can help in this process is, I believe, firstly by reaching a deep understanding of the issues involved in this fight for survival of our ancient-modern kin: I visited Sumatra many years back already, with the intention of helping out with the fight for survival of the Mentawai tribal peoples, (see www.nativeplanet.org ), but I found the situation too disheartening and I dropped out of this particular debacle. So I know full well what it is to fail in the lofty goals you may dream up for yourself, and it is certainly not the first failure I have had. Yet I can see in my own development that I am more mature and aware now, and thus I approach things differently. ‘Success and failure’ are not absolute and it’s enough for me to live, learn and to adapt.
Thus, I certainly do not believe the ‘jaded propaganda’ that we live in ‘progressive societies’ in the ‘industrialised West’: In my minds’ eye it appears that age-old abuses of power, enslavement and enclosure grow more sneaky – there is so much of a concerted cover-up by so many vested interests that I certainly often have neither had the eyes to see nor the ears to hear: ‘Emancipate yourself from mental slavery...’!
Many of us are at least somewhat aware of how we are all the unwilling victims of Hegemonic tendencies; battles waged both domestically and internationally – indeed the lines between the two are blurred: I raise this issue at the end, when I address some of the deleterious influence of vested interests – indeed I am in full accord with George Monbiots’ exposé in ‘Captive State’ and in his ‘Land Reform Manifesto’: http://www.monbiot.com/1995/02/22/a-land-reform-manifesto.
Putting the above into perspective; I sometimes watch the following video to remind me of the recent history of some of the events, which have shaped my own life in this country, the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWkD3ZggMp8
"Judge our notions of freedom and diversity by the way we treat dissident and minority groups":
Can you honestly believe we live within a 'free' or 'just' or 'democratic' world?! Rubbish. It’s a Plutocracy staged-managed by a rotten elite.
It will only ever embody true freedom and diversity when we make the effort to make the changes...
There is a beautiful song, 'Tag along vagabond gypsy' at 35.55, and many prophetic and poignant comments from harassed travelers, including at 42.40: "no matter what we do, they are going to do what they want to do... so therefore it's up to us to do what we want to do at the same time!"
Never a truer word spoken; which indeed brings me onto a sobering, yet optimistic summation by Kenny Ausubel: 'The wealth-gap between rich and poor is bigger than at any other time in history'; 'our world is being buggered by a perverse elite'; and 'we are not in control'! 'Yet the grassroots movement fighting this is growing exponentially'! This was a speech he gave at the 2014 Festival of Faiths conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwhEnINLVqI Kenny Ausubel is the CEO of Bioneers, an organization that he co-founded in 1990 with his wife and partner, Nina Simons, for the purpose of disseminating sustainable alternatives to practices that contribute to climate change and to social injustice. In pursuit of this goal, he not only supports and encourages scientific and social innovation, but he communicates with a broad audience through several media outlets. He produces an international radio series, has written four books, contributes to The Huffington Post, and has made an award-winning documentary, Hoxsey: How Healing Becomes a Crime, which screened at the Kennedy Center for members of Congress.
Is it indeed our ‘duty’ to ‘have fun’, collectively and personally, confronting and amending such imbalance and injustice, which is plaguing our lives: Life should indeed be a celebration of what is right for us and our Planet.
So what follows are some of my own experiences; not in any particular chronological order: I hope in sharing to help others to achieve more freedom and self-reliance in their endeavours, as there are too many prisons in this Matrix.
1a. I recently paid a visit to an unusual 'Homa-Therapy' farm in Poland where I learned the ancient Vedic science of Agnihotra and its practical applications in so many and diverse fields including tackling environmental pollution and healing. I have since started Agnihotra with my own copper pyramid!
http://itsrainmakingtime.com/richard-powers-agnihotra-ancient-healing-ceremony/ Although it was discovered in ancient India and written in Sanskrit, Agnihotra does not require one to be a part of any religion or culture. Agnihotra has been reported to reduce stress, increase energy, fill one’s mind with love, and aid in breaking drug and alcohol addiction. It is also known to nourish plant life, improve water retention in soil, purify water resources, neutralize radiation, and harmonize the functioning of prana or chi (life energy). Join us as Richard Powers offers insight into this ancient science, and learn how it can benefit your home, your life, and the planet!
1b. Early in 2015 I returned from the Sahara desert region of southern Morocco, which has just had record rains and thus floods for many. I created small gardens and sowed some seeds; the owner of the small auberge where I was staying was happy for me to experiment with this interesting technology: http://agni-culture.weebly.com/electroculture.html labour intensive to run the wires through the ground, but I hope it brings good results: Looking at the photos Saliha has sent the plants seem to be enjoying the Sun!... update; most of the gardens were claimed by the searing heat! Long-term shade would need to be created through tree-cover for more annual-type plants to succeed!
1c. In the summer of 2012, together with my friend and travelling buddy Wayne, along with Manu, an assistant teacher at the ‘Reinfelder Schule’ for kids with special needs in Berlin, and a large group of kids, teachers and parents, we took the opportunity to transform a lack-lustre lawn into a multi-purpose, aesthetically beautiful Forest Garden!
Nature teaches us a clear lesson: Everything grows better in association = our guiding blueprint; choosing appropriate species to mimic the seven ‘dimensions’ of a natural forest, thus combining as much natural diversity as we could manage into the garden.
Young apple, pear, medlar, cherry trees define the tallest ‘canopy’ layer - at the base of these we planted hardy Actinidias - (Kiwi fruits), Schisandras and Vitis - (Grapes), which will all twine around the trunks and spread up throughout the branches to form the vertical layer.
Local fruit and nut bushes such as currants, gooseberries, raspberries and hazels form our ‘lower-middle’ canopy: We found many of these already growing near to our site, so we dug them up and transplanted them as appropriate, and saved time and money of course.
For the ‘middle-lower’ canopy we chose various species of the Elaeagnaceae, such as Elaeagnus cordifolia: The Elaeagnaceae come from a hardy family of nitrogen-fixing, pioneer plants. Such plants, fortunately one of the Plant Kingdoms’ largest families, improve soil condition and fertility; also thus the health and growth of other nearby trees and plants, with whom they interact through their root zones, such as fruit and nut trees in our design. This is something I learned volunteering at the awesome ‘Plants For a Future’ site in Lostwithiel, Cornwall - http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Elaeagnus+cordifolia
The Elaeagnaceae also often produce their own edible fruits and seeds - nutritionally rich and healthy: The Sea Buckthorn is justly famous for such attributes, yet how much we have lost that the ancients knew?! Its name, ‘Hippophae’, or ‘Shining Horse’ in Greek testifies to an ancient pastoral use to keep horses who fed on the plant plump and healthy. Fodder trees are coming back in vogue in agriculture for their multiple benefits.
We found it difficult to source some of the Elaeagnaceae at the local nurseries, so this is a species to plant into the garden when opportunity and budget allows it – the beauty of designing a natural ecosystem = plenty of room for trial and error and fluidity.
For the herbaceous layer, we chose perennial companion plants that attract beneficial insects, leaning heavily on aromatic herbs.
We also managed to find a Houttuynia at a local nursery: http://www.pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?latinname=Houttuynia+cordata , which tolerates shade and should spread out along the form one of the ground covers for the horizontal layer.
Houttuynia is a ‘multi-purpose’ plant: A ground-cover, a pot-herb, and a root crop. It is also an ancient and respected Traditional Chinese Medicine called Yu-xing-cao; an official herb of the Chinese Pharmacopeia: (Refer to Steven Foster/YueChongxi, “Herbal Emissaries, BRINGING CHINESE HERBS TO THE WEST, A guide to gardening, herbal wisdom and well-being”).
Local “weeds”, such as Dandelion and Burdock, form part of the seventh dimension, the rhizosphere or root-zone. Their nutritious roots are two of the best food-medicines we have.
The best description as 'weeds' actually serving as our best allies is on the excellent journey to forever site, where you find many pearls of wisdom: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/weeds/WeedsToC.html
Designing this garden was a formative experience as you realize just how many plants are intrinsically 'multi-purpose' and cross over through the 'different zones'.
2. Robert Harts’ great book, “Forest Gardening” made me more aware of a better way of doing things; indeed it inspired me to make a personal pilgrimage to Wenlock Edge in Shropshire to see his Forest Garden with my own eyes. Unsurprisingly, I was not the first ‘pilgrim’ who has made such a journey.
Robert’s gravestone, in the nearby village cemetery, is etched with the words ‘Love is All’. This aptly describes his unselfish devotion and dedication to the care of his handicapped brother; his primary motivation for nurturing his FG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_gardening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXVnAMQRGbI - "Permaculture Trio" - Forest Gardening, Edible Landscapes & Urban Permaculture
Robert Harts’ book calls to our attention how Forest Gardens are undoubtedly one of human kinds’ oldest forms of deliberate land and natural resource manipulation; they thus represent one of our most intelligent and resilient human agro-ecosystem designs. These designs are being rediscovered by many today as offering the solutions to sustainable food production and natural resource regeneration and management:
http://www.onestrawrevolution.net/One_Straw_Revolution/Videos.html - watch "An interesting adaptation of natural farming in India" – shot at the Auroville eco-village, (http://www.auroville.org); and the video of natural farming in Greece, showing restoration of degraded land using clay pellets full of seed...
Great work regreening the desert in Jordan: "We can solve all of the world's 'problems' in a GARDEN" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk
http://www.eden-foundation.org/project/index.html - the Garvi’s vital work in Niger at Edenland: Their admirable exposure of the ‘dirty-business’ of phoney ‘International Aid’ is something I highlight at the end. Eden has perhaps the most extensive seedbank of edible trees and plants that grow in the harsh desert climate of the Sahara WITHOUT IRRIGATION. They have been working thirty years on this. This is accessible to local farmers, but whether this is accessible to others, I do not know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnzIg3XdcjY, http://www.seawaterfoundation.org/video-eritrea.htm - awesome project using halophytes and seawater to halt poverty and starvation by regreening coastal deserts.
I met the sister of the environmental journalist Daniel Elkan at a Permaculture event in Portugal, and thus learned about the great work of Mike Hands in helping to save the Rainforest from the destructive methods of ‘slash and burn’. What is outstanding about these techniques are their practical, sympathetic, and non-prejudgemental characteristics: The main actors are rather helped to achieve the quality of life they so desire, without having to destroy their environment:
http://www.theecologist.org/campaigning/climate_change_and_energy/980578/the_rainforest_saver.html http://www.rainforestsaver.org/step-step-guide-inga-alley-cropping - Step by step guide to Inga alley cropping...
http://permaculture.org.au/2008/09/24/the-development-of-farmer-managed-natural-regeneration - recognizing the importance of the underground forest in bringing life back to the desert...
Such global pioneers recognize the primary importance of trees and increased biodiversity for our survival in harmony with our Earth and Robert Hart intuitively designed diversity into his FG, following nature’s blueprint.
This is the success, past and present, of Forest Gardening.
3. I thank the humble genius of Robert Hart for his inspiration: pushing me to find a volunteer placement at Gami Seva Sevana; an excellent organization in the Kandyan Hills region of Sri Lanka.
GSS staff embody an egalitarian-unifying-community spirit of diverse, organic farming methods: In direct opposition to the parasitic-aggressive encroachments of profiteering agribusiness. The clear agenda of the latter is to impoverish and divide.
Its role - an organic community demonstration farm and training centre; its practices and ethics - of global significance:
http://permaculturenews.org/2010/10/29/letters-from-sri-lanka-ranjith-de-silva-bastion-of-biological-defense/
Animal husbandry - an integral part of their farm: Bright-eyed and sleek Brahman cows lick you with big, rough tongues when you come to give them a pet. All of their animals are glossy, healthy and well-kept. Cowpats dropped in the shed simply brushed into an adjacent slurry pit; the methane gas is piped up to the communal kitchen, where it cooked the spicy meals we shared together - simple ingenuity neither difficult, nor costly to build into any small farm.
GSS = zero-waste strategies and composting; they grow a diversity of plants - old rice varieties which satisfy you with every mouthful; heritage seeds and plants keep us and our food healthy and vibrant.
With GSS, we travelled to an "agricultural exhibition": The glaring neon-signs of ‘Agribiz stalls’; their bottles of nasty chemicals, packets of ‘patent seeds’ and hulking, destructive machinery - a combination to plough and burn the life out of any soil.
Our humble stall - the only one with handwritten banners extolling the importance of soil biodiversity/health; the only ones selling vermicasts/natural medicines; the only ones offering anything worthwhile...
4. Many effective sewage-management designs; Anna Edeys’ amongst the best:
http://www.solviva.com/
Her practical-simple greenhouse design is 2nd-to-none; she managed it as a successful business for many years – throughout the harsh/cold winter seasons of a continental-temperate climate. No recourse to any external source of heating = ingenuity and good design.
Helped build enviro-friendly ‘humanure’ management systems: First at beautiful Otamatea Eco-village, New Zealand - instead of the precious ‘wastes’ channelled away to pollute, we can use these to effectively enrich our own lands. Otamatea system = simple, gravity-fed installation; neither difficult nor costly to install nor maintain.
Such systems do not need to be 'sophisticated' - the good ole longdrop is as good as any!
5. Managing significant volumes of organic food wastes from kitchens, etc.- to re-use as good compost; no better method than Keith Mikkelson’s of Aloha House organic farm-orphanage. http://www.alohahouse.org/
http://www.agrowingculture.org/2011/04/the-aloha-natural-farm-puerto-princesa-city-palawan-philippines/
Yet another inspirational/pioneering leader of Sustainable Farming methods. I wrote a review of his book, which is, available on this site as a free download:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/keith-mikkelson/sustainable-agriculture/ebook/product-17560992.html
Mikk’s zero-waste approach recycles every resource, organic and inorganic that he can lay hold of - even sourced outside his own farm; excellent blueprint to follow = Harvests of dozens of kilos huge, luscious papayas from ‘shrubs’ growing in 20 litre pails of recycled/composted kitchen ‘waste’ - obvious implications for urban food production within confines of limited space.
His anaerobic composting techniques use Teruo Higa’s ‘Effective Micro-organisms’, (http://www.emrojapan.com/ ); the enabling factor unlocking fertility within such compost and making it bio-available to any plant growing in such a medium.
Takes on huge responsibility for welfare of young orphans, many of whom arrive malnourished: Confident to quickly/effectively restore the health of these children = feeding them fresh fruit and veg; meat and dairy grown/reared on his own land- free from poisonous chemicals, bursting with nutritional potency. Aloha babies become robust and healthy on these natural foods. What an achievement!
Positive energy/dedication = doing great things for vulnerable people – reversing ill-health, ignorance and social injustice by example he sets and the training in sustainable farming he offers to so many, including the poor.
Like me, Mikk is not from a ‘farming background’; but it is often the “dedicated amateur” who despises the lies and dogma of vested interests who achieves the greatest results.
6. Dan “Anubuddha” McKee took me under his wing when I first came to the Philippine Islands; at his ‘Destiny Wellness Centre’ I met Eric Hanquinet of SABGI. Dan is a very popular and knowledgeable natural healer-nutritionist: http://www.pyroenergen.com/articles08/pyramid-house.htm - this article contains some beautiful photos and a good description of Dan’s special place.
I have never met Junji Takano, the founder of ‘Pyro-Energen’; yet the principles of the healing energy he highlights appears to tie-in with the work of:
Lakhovsky - http://altered-states.net/barry/newsletter174/
Budwig - http://www.budwigcenter.com/ , http://www.3e-centre.com/
Caton - http://www.meditopia.org/index_ing.htm
Simpson - http://phoenixtears.ca/ ‘Run from the Cure’
All of whom I admire as effective-dedicated healers of serious afflictions, including cancers: Their real power to facilitate healing is based upon a profound understanding of natural energetic processes, as well as an intuitive faith in Nature.
Cancer Tutor is also an excellent source of useful, lifesaving information: http://www.cancertutor.com/black_cumin/
Dan cooks delicious local foods with fresh virgin coconut oil, pressed by hand at a nearby workers co-operative called BLISCOFA: http://pianegros.blogspot.com/2012_04_18_archive.html
We paid a couple of visits to BLISCOFA – the workers showed us around the processes that go into making natural virgin coconut oil; a world away in flavour and nutritional potency from the bleached-devitalised-refined coconut oil sold cheaply everywhere in the PI. It’s important to know and understand the differences between poisonous refined oils and the healthy unrefined oils, which was a large part of the wisdom of Johanna Budwig’s work.
I was impressed by the fair ethics of BLISCOFA and their zero-waste policy: they make beautiful coco-jewellery from the shells; and they now have a machine to make coir from the husks - a very useful material used in many different applications.
By using all parts of coconut, they are able to generate new products and there is no waste; therefore their enterprise can only benefit as a result.
7. Eric Hanquinet is the Curator and co-founder of SABGI Ethnobotanical Gardens:
http://www.bgci.org/garden.php?id=3614
Eric proposed I stay at SABGI to help the garden improve, so I submitted a report of my research to BGCI in the hope of receiving funding to train and become formally qualified as a Curator in my own right, but more importantly, I was motivated to carry on with this ethnobotanical work as it opened my eyes to its potential and importance: How trees and plants are innately vital to our very survival!
This is the key theme of SABGI’s raison d’être and Eric has written a knowledgeable Ethnobotanical Guidebook about the plant collections growing on site.
SABGI’s pragmatic and practical approach highlights the multiple uses of so many species, and the groups which visit on educational tours, including parties of school children and University students, can learn all about these: for example the Bamboo, which grows everywhere and makes everything; the Moringa oleifera tree – amazing nutrition, lamp-oil, medicine, anti-parasitic, water-purifier…
This tree grows like a weed in the PI and is seen everywhere. There is still a limited demand for its leaves, which were being sold in the local food market in Dumaguete, yet many Filipino people today have forgotten its innate usefulness. As Filipino life becomes increasingly urbane, such fundamental knowledge of how the natural world is our best friend and ally becomes the preserve of ‘specialists’; instead of being the common knowledge of a folk still rooted in their lands as it used to be not so long ago. So instead of ‘seeing’ the cures and ‘medicines’, which are found all around them in nature, they will go into a ‘pharmacy’ to BUY a petrochemical drug with poisonous side effects as they have been conditioned into doing by the ‘West’s propaganda’!
Ethnobotanical medicines - I learned how to tincture ‘Pau d’Arco’ from the Tabebuia impetiginosa trees growing on site: An elderly local villager suffering from debilitating arthritis says it has given him his life back. He now walks and functions again without feeling crippled by pain, as Pau d’Arco works to detoxify and clean out the poisons from our bodies: http://www.rain-tree.com/paudarco.htm#.UZkuiKJayul
8. At SABGI, networking reaped dividends: associations with BLISCOFA; Aloha; Phil Alts - senior researcher at Dumaguete city's Organic Research Farm into better land-use/more sustainable farming practices.
Also liaised with other organizations: Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization, ECHO; The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid-Tropics, ICRISAT.
Obtained seeds of two cultivars of Pigeon Pea, Cajanus Cajan; previously trialled in the PI and found to be productive in the climate of the SABGI region.
Another useful plant: http://www.tropicalforages.info/key/Forages/Media/Html/Cajanus_cajan.htm
Getting involved at SABGI was a big education for me.
I also managed to help Eric out with his bee-keeping, which I carried on doing when I left SABGI to go stay on an eco-village in Australia.
Bee-keeping interests me a lot: I recently read Tim Rowes book http://www.rosebeehives.com/ - his success lies in his simplified hive design, allowing the bees to live and love as they do in nature.
9. Do you fancy a stay in “The Field”? Robert Hart also inspired the transformational efforts of the Plants For A Future folk in Lostwithiel, Cornwall. The ‘old potato field’ is now a green oasis of biodiversity: over a thousand different species of flora thrive within this small acreage; several thousands more on their famous database, www.pfaf.org
Exceptional pioneers and a beautiful place to stay as a volunteer - dream come true to work with Ariadne Fern, whose botanical knowledge is encyclopaedic!
The future of British farming blundering on as the dogmatic and destructive pursuit of chemical-industrial monocultures must be thoroughly reappraised in the light of much more sensible and productive enterprises.
This re-creational celebration of the huge diversity of life is what I aspire to.
10. Scandinavia is one of Europes’ most beautiful regions. I travelled there to camp out and experience the space, the natural beauty and the “White Nights”; the Sun never sets – an incredibly energizing experience.
I also found a volunteer opportunity growing Cannabis sativa with young WWOOF hosts in quiet Åmmeberg in Sweden. Unfortunately not the smoking kind, but a majestic plant and one of the most useful mankind has ever known!
In the spring we prepared the fields with rich muck and straw, and then sowed the seeds. By the time I had returned in the autumn to help scythe the harvest, the Hemp plants had grown tall, thick and strong, and they smelled great! What an incredible plant this is, with so many uses and health benefits. It is shameful that its use and reputation have been deliberately suppressed and sullied. Our plant-allies cure cancers and heal our afflictions, so why are they outlawed?!
I bought the late Jack Herer's excellent, well-researched and compelling book on the subject many years ago - which is what pushed me to find a cannabis grower to work with. He updated it and made it available for everyone to read for free online: http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/chapter-fifteen/
“The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety... It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record. IN STRICT MEDICAL TERMS, MARIJUANA IS FAR SAFER THAN MANY FOODS WE COMMONLY CONSUME MARIJUANA IN ITS NATURAL FORM IS ONE OF THE SAFEST THERAPEUTICALLY ACTIVE SUBSTANCES KNOWN TO MAN.”
If you still doubt the incredible healing powers of this sacred plant, (or the 'multi-billion dollar' vested interests still actively working against it), then take a look at the revelations of Rick Simpson in 'Run From The Cure':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0psJhQHk_Gl
http://phoenixtears.ca/
"The upside-down world rewards in reverse: it scorns honesty, punishes work, prizes lack of scruples, and feeds cannibalism. Its professors slander nature: injustice, they say, is a law of nature." Eduardo Galeano in “Upside Down, A Primer for the Looking-Glass World ...”: http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/books.php?id=2490
Gustav is a fan of Fukuoka's 'One Straw Revolution', and when he borrowed me his copy of this book to read, it also changed my perspective on not just agriculture and farming, but on life itself. Marc Bonfils was a French experimental farmer, whose incredible success in growing old varieties of wheat in a no-dig, no-machine, no-chemical system similar to Fukuoka's again exposes the lie of modern pharming. Bonfils' wheat harvests were 150 quintals/hectare = 15,000 kilos/hectare. That is far greater than conventional modern harvests; and of course the wheat grains themselves are far more wholesome and are grown within a benign system as these harvests increase soil fertility and biodiversity!
http://www.agriculturesnetwork.org/magazines/global/monocultures-towards-sustainability/how-to-grow-winter-wheat-the-fukuoka-bonfils/at_download/article_pdf
or www.metafro.be/leisa/2000/164-13.pdf
Sweden heaves with clean-green forests and clear, blue lakes. If you’re a water-lover like me, then you’re in Paradise. Find your own spot to strip down, have a cool dip, and then warm up again by a crackling fire...! It’s magic.
11. Pinakarri eco-village in Fremantle, Western Australia likewise offers an antidote and a fresh alternative to the bleak and monotone urbane environments that now sprawl, concrete and steel grey, across much of our world.
Innovative, ecologically mindful architectural design within an urban setting creates sympathetic communal living spaces, both indoors and outdoors; spaces for gardening and areas for growing food and raising livestock - makes a huge difference to peoples’ quality of life.
Lively intentional communities like Pinakarri are oases of community action and sharing. You will find little room for isolation or despair here. To the contrary, I found plenty of opportunity for sharing, warmth and lots of joy. http://www.pinakarri.org.au/ “Through Pinakarri, (Deep Listening), we learn to love.” From my experience, it lives up to its motto.
I have deliberately chosen to stay at other eco-villages with intentional communities before, to experience firsthand just how such communities function and how it feels to live your life there.
Sometimes I was disappointed, as you inevitably will be when petty personality politics predominate! The Pinakarri community grasps this thorny branch: Differences in peoples’ characters will always cause problems, but fostering a spirit of openness and sharing; mutual acceptance and understanding will resolve these issues.
Life in a sympathetic community can often help to address some of the underlying spiritual issues of loneliness and other spiritual diseases we suffer from, and indeed healers like Rosita Arvigo also addresses such important topics in her books: http://rositaarvigo.com/books/rainforest-home-remedies/
As a traveller I have relished my encounters with all sorts of folk and I love to meet people who, like me, thrive on the celebration of each others’ differences. They are beautiful, necessary and are a part of life.
12. I started learning how to ride, (badly!), and groom rare horses called Caspians at a small stables, situated in a scenic part of France close to the rugged Pyrénées. Besides the mucking out and grooming, we went for regular rides through quiet forest and hill trails and my confidence increased with every ride. Being of fairly short stature, I enjoyed riding the small Caspians which look like a "full-size" horse, but are as small as a pony.
On the same trip I worked on an organic sheep and wheat farm in le Gers and there I tried my hand at shearing for the first time. I love working with farm animals and as my competency developed, it was a great feeling to feel the woolly sheep relax underneath me. I am by no means an experienced shearer, but I became fairly proficient; much to the relief of the sheep!
13. In 2012, I stayed with a very welcoming family who live on the shores of the beautiful Pomeroon river in Guyana, South America. They make a modest living from raising and selling chickens to their neighbours along the river and making beautiful furniture from the vines that grow in the surrounding jungle. It is an exotic and wild place and their land is visited by the Jaguar. I kept myself busy planting out a small garden with some seeds I had brought with me – so I hope they now have ‘Queensland Blue’ pumpkins and Macadamia nuts on their dinner table! I sampled plenty of delicious river fish, and Jai took me up the river into the Amerindian reservation lands, where we got drunk with his friend on the local, bright orange and sickly-sweet hooch brewed from a sweet potato! I also got the chance to hold a hunting bow, made from the Pau d’Arco tree, (the same one which makes the medicine), which is still in use today. I came home with the leaves of the Kalanchoe Pinnata plant which grows in the jungles there - (http://www.rain-tree.com/coirama.htm#.U-pm8I5wY6U); known by many different names in different parts of the world, including the 'Miracle leaf', for its amazing powers to rejuvenate. I use the leaves as a medicine and from just one leaf, it has now grown into several 'monster' plants in pots indoors, and adorns the houses of many friends!
14. In the summer of 2013, I was hitch-hiking, camping, and adventuring around the wild Carpathian mountains of Transylvania in Romania. It's still a beautiful, wild place full of bears and wolves, but I did not meet Dracula or any of his friends!
I did taste a lot of delicious, fresh food such as milk and cheese, fresh from the cow and the hospitality of the folk in the mountain villages was a welcome surprise. I was allowed to park my tent in a villager's back garden, so I helped out scything the hay and feeding the cow and pigs. I also stayed in an Orthodox Christian monastery in the mountains and the monks, who work hard towards self-sufficiency enjoy an excellent diet, which they were more than happy to share with weary pilgrims like me! A heart-warming welcome from genuine gypsies who gave me shelter while I was out on the road will not be forgotten.
15. I have just returned from a rewarding trip around Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay. I started off volunteering for the great hosts Eilif and Carola in the highlands of the Andes in Peru: A remote place, far from 'civilisation', and a place to tune into nature and natural farming. Eilif is a former farmer from Norway, and has a lot to teach. Again, I found how ‘vested interests’ are running amuck and ruining peoples’ lives all over the globe: Eilif related to me the baneful tale of how he was deliberately hounded and persecuted by a corrupt circle of ‘official’ people led by a veterinary doctor back in his native Norway. He was driven out of his homeland and deprived of the right to keep sheep because he stood up to their abusive power by refusing to treat his animals with ineffective and harmful pharmaceutical preparations and chose instead to use much more effective and benign natural methods. If this is not State Terrorism on behalf of corporate vested interests then what is? It reminds me of the vital work of Mark Purdey and Georgina Downs; I discuss this issue in more detail below. A lady farmer I worked with in Canada had a similar tale to tell and there are many, many more...
Bolivia is another incredible country, with so much to discover and likewise Paraguay. The friendly and hospitable nature of the Paraguayan people was a welcome surprise. I spent some weeks in Ybytyruzu national park near to Melgarejo, helping to work the land and plant many seeds when I was asked to help out with a sustainable agriculture project. I was disappointed to find the devastation of the slash-and-burn agriculture they were practising, but I saw it as a good opportunity to show them a better method, and I felt it was rewarding to be able to get stuck in with a mattock out in their steeply-sloping fields, and to share what I had learned before about how to create more sustainable methods by using “Sloping Agricultural Land Technology”; basically creating rows of terraces held in place and permanently sheltered and fertilized by planting useful and hardy leguminous trees such as Leucaena and Tagasaste. Leucaena leucocephala grows wild there so it was easy to gather the seeds, and I already had Tagasaste seeds with me. There were also many other leguminous species to choose from growing naturally in the area, and when working out in the fields and explaining your technique, you achieve the best results. I planted the ‘four-sisters’ combination of corn, sunflower, pumpkin and beans along the terraces, and I explained to them the benefits of this interplanting of species and I could see that some of those working with me were taking it in!
Ybytyruzu national park is a real paradise and a beautiful place to pitch a tent and appreciate the beauty of the natural world!
On this same ‘farming tour’ in South America, I learned of an ancient Earth-healing ceremony called Agnihotra: The testimonials on www.homafarming.com are inspiring.
I was debating whether or not to include the following information, or to leave it out – it is, after all, ‘only a helpx profile’! But I have decided to include it as it is important information, which has helped me in my own awareness of the differences between right and wrong. I also really despise the current ‘predominant philosophy’ of ‘Might is always Right’, which is fascist and Hegemonic.
Thus I feel that it is admirable how the Garvis have helped to EXPOSE the PHONEY 'INTERNATIONAL AID' SCAM of 2005; they were right on the spot to be able to shed true light upon this devious and pernicious practice: The UN, with the complicity of the International Media-Circus, (most notably the BBC and their STAGED-PROPAGANDA), as well as several 'famous' “International Aid Organisations”, orchestrated a ‘FAMINE’, WHICH NEVER TOOK PLACE. These organisations thus received untold TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS worth of 'Aid'. This did far more harm than good to the people, and it rightly calls into question the whole, CORPORATIZED AID-INDUSTRY.
Watch for yourself how this 'sophisticated scam' evolved; an excellent documentary was made about it by a Swedish television company, which Esther Garvi has posted on her website, http://www.esthergarvi.org - under 'The Famine Scam'; parts 1 to 6. This is part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4SYM8JsDg4
All such activities are absolutely shameful: short-term meddling and financial profiteering from the exploitation of the gullible; both in the West who give, and in 'the developing world', towards whom this financial giving is supposed to be 'helping'. It really jars me as I have contributed my own time and expenses to help out all over the world, and I always ‘happily’ end up being out-of-pocket afterwards; yet the deceitful ‘corporate rich’ are given carte blanche for their white elephants - I was very angry to find exactly the same scamming going on over in Sri Lanka in 2007, a few years after the Tsunami, while working for a locally-run NGO; (who were in no way involved in such activities). ‘Big money’ from ‘remote sources’ creates ‘Big corruption’; this exacerbates underlying social injustice and creates a bigger wealth gap, as the ‘Aid money’ gets siphoned off by the rich, and does not get to the people who need the help. People need to really understand the realities and mechanisms of global corruption before giving.
This ‘deceitful phenomenon’ is also internationally active in many other ‘lucrative’ areas – Cancer/Vaccination/HIV HOAXES are likewise loathsome and long-running MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR ‘scams’: We should applaud the life-work of many who are our contemporaries, who have dedicated much time and energy into exposing these dreadful ‘scams’; so insidiously woven into the fabric-Matrix of our own societies. Here are just some of the many, many examples; but I hope they serve as good examples:
Dr.Muhammed Al-Bayati www.aids-science.blogspot.co.uk
www.virusmyth.com/aids/news/prtoxhi.htm
AIDS IS NOT CAUSED BY A VIRUS - IT IS A SYSTEMIC ILLNESS CAUSED BY MULTIPLE FACTORS INCLUDING POLLUTION AND OTHER FORMS OF CHEMICAL POISONING
Dr.Archie Kalokerinos www.amazon.co.uk/Every-Second-Child-Archie-Kalokerinos/dp/0879832509
KALOKERINOS WROTE THIS BOOK TO EXPOSE THE GENOCIDAL AGENDAS OF THOSE WHO MAKE HUGE PROFITS FROM THE PHONEY SCIENCE CALLED VACCINATION - MY FINAL CONCLUSION AFTER FORTY YEARS OR MORE IN THIS BUSINESS IS THAT THE UNOFFICIAL POLICY OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION AND THE UNOFFICIAL POLICY OF SAVE THE CHILDREN FUND AND ALMOST ALL THOSE ORGANIZATIONS IS ONE OF MURDER AND GENOCIDE. THE WHOLE VACCINE BUSINESS IS INDEED A GIGANTIC HOAX…
Cristina England http://vactruth.com/2014/03/19/tissue-scurvy-not-child-abuse
PARENTS ACCUSED AND JAILED FOR 'CHILD ABUSE' AFTER BABIES AND INFANTS SUFFER FROM ADVERSE REACTIONS TO VACCINATIONS GIVING THE APPEARANCE THEY ARE BEATEN ABOUT HEAD AND BODY... you can appreciate this vividly in the picture below
Greg Caton www.meditopia.org/chap3-3.htm truly one of the modern-day heroes of herbalism and plant-based medicine and his in-depth exposure of just how rotten-to-the-core Western 'medicine' really is deserves a Nobel prize in itself
Rick Simpson http://phoenixtears.ca
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuQVeeZki_E ‘Run From The Cure’... another man worthy of the Nobel prize currently 'on the run' from corrupt Canadian 'authorities' who tried to fit him up
Linus Pauling: "EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THAT THE 'WAR ON CANCER' IS LARGELY A FRAUD"
www.silentbetrayal.com/cancer.htm
Mike Adams www.naturalnews.com/033847_chemotherapy_cancer_treatments.html great truth-telling website
Georgina Downs is a contemporary fighter for our birth-right to live unmolested by pernicious chemicals and a warrior in what is ALL our responsibility to change this debacle http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2344079/pesticides_can_cause_cancer_so_why_does_cruk_ignore_them.html http://www.pesticidescampaign.co.uk
Mark Purdey proved, much like Al-Bayati with AIDS, that 'mad-cow disease' is/was caused by the multi-billion dollar organophosphate chemical industry, thus disproving government and industry lies... those who backed Purdey were murdered...
http://www.cultureshop.org.uk/details.php?code=PURDEY
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/madcow/madcow.htm
and SO MANY OTHERS!
Such truth-tellers have been persecuted like many before them, and the persecution of whistle-blowers is as ruthless today as it has ever been. You thus see exactly the same pattern emerging: The suppression of truth and the abuse of power by vested interests, ‘with too much to lose’. The problem for us is that we also have ‘too much to lose’ by such practices – these people are amoral leeches, who threaten our communal wealth and health. It is also a sobering thought to conclude how we are ‘imperilled’ at every turn; yet I know from my own life, that when we seek the truth we find it, and we realize we do have choices. I can only be eternally grateful and thank such stoic and brave folk from the bottom of my heart for having the moral fortitude to stick up for truth and enlighten us; if it was not for the likes of Dr.Kalokerinos and Cristina England so many more children would be dying horribly or being gravely injured or their parents being accused of abuse and jailed, and Kalokerinos in no way exaggerates when he states: “They want to make it appear as if they are saving these kids, but in actual fact they don’t. I am talking of those at the very top. Beneath that level is another level of doctors and health workers, like myself, who don’t really understand what they are doing.”
The last admission by Kalokerinos is one we should take to heart, as it is this ‘division of labour’, or rather the abdication of responsibility by being blind to realities, which is commonplace in our non-culture; we cannot call ourselves ‘cultured’ if we ‘do not really understand’.
Many of the best truth-tellers will highlight this ‘division of labour’; we should be careful of who and what we represent. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7278.htm - “Normalization of the unthinkable comes easily when money, status, power, and jobs are at stake. Companies and workers can always be found to manufacture poison gases, napalm, or instruments of torture, and intellectuals will be dredged up to justify their production and use...”
And, in this regard, I love how John Pilger exposes all the crookedness and corruption of the ‘High and Mighty’, and what he calls, “the babbling brook of bullshit” - http://johnpilger.com/articles/britain-the-depth-of-corruption and I absolutely agree with him in summing up: “Something is changing in Britain that gives cause for optimism. The British people have probably never been more politically aware and prepared to clear out decrepit myths and other rubbish while stepping angrily over the babbling brook of bullshit.”
I would say from my own personal experience that this increased awareness and the initiatives taken to act positively to counter this corruption is happening the world over.
“Man is neither mere intellect, nor the gross animal body, nor the heart or soul alone. A proper and harmonious combination of all is required for the making of the whole man and constitutes the true economics of education.” Quotes from the Mahatma Gandhi.
http://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/g_edu.htm
North American Indian poetry: There was a time, when I saw the world Coyote lives in. I had walked up, with a friend – once upon a time, behind the rocks; the big ones that rise up, mossy-greened, and cradle the forest-shadowed ponds that the ducks and moose love, to seek the slight-sloping, grassy meadow hidden behind them. We half-lay for hours in the tall emerald grass among the ancient trees that towered over the drifting textures of the land. While our elbows supported us we talked of plants, and stones, and the wisdom of moss. Slowly we began, as humans sometimes do, to slip into the wildness of the world. Our language began to slow down, pause and falter. Into silence we drifted and for some reason that only our souls understood that day we flowed with it, not talking. Colours became more vivid and the air began to sparkle. Our breathing and the sounds of the forest took on a luminous quality. And into this silence Coyote ambled, following a game trail that flowed, brown runnel, near our feet. Her tongue lolled out the side of her mouth, and she was laughing that crazy laugh Coyote has, while her eyes spun as she watched the dancing bones that lie under the fabric of the world. Crazy, gambolling Coyote. Third force in Universe. I said under my breath, “Turn your head to the right.” And my friend sat up and said, “What?” And in so doing, lost her chance to see. I, still watching, saw Coyote’s eyes shift out of that crazy, spinning universe and shocked, no, betrayed, by the secrecy of our immersion she flipped straight over and ran, tail between her legs, only some strange kind of dog, up the trail. What I glimpsed through Coyote’s eyes lodged in a part of my brain I did not know I had. I can reach out and touch it sometimes. My eyes begin to spin, and I feel a bit dizzy, and I can see dancing bones under the fabric of the world. I still do not know what the world that Coyote lives in does when no one is watching but I do know it is ancient, far beyond the species lifetime of humans and that next to it our world is only a chip of wood floating on the ocean.
Self References: Growing up!
My adult life has been a belligerent battle of limited successes and gigantic failures, "trying to make sense of it all"!
Many of my formative years as a child were spent near Liverpool where the community spirit was palpable, and where we ran around all day without our parents having to worry. It was a great, carefree childhood.
But as a troubled teenager during the violence and unrest; the premeditated SOCIAL DEMOLITION engineered by Thatcher's vampires, made me question the futility and injustice I saw all around me.
Unfortunately, such 'trashy politics' is still predominant today.
So largely without knowing it, I became a seeker after truth and social justice... when you have been knocked around a bit by life, and made to feel marginalized, it comes naturally.
Yet look just a little and great alternatives and role models often fall down from heaven, as did my friend Gavin and other beautiful people after him.
Gavin was no saint! But he had a heart of gold.
In younger days, eager to change the world for the better, I experimented with the political activism of revolutionary communism, followed by becoming ‘born again’ into evangelical Christianity.
Both of which I outgrew - but my ‘first love' has always remained, as it always makes sense; that love of the great outdoors and a quiet, hardworking life.
Although happy to have made my way as a 'Jack-of-all-trades'; (and master of none!), speaking from the heart, it has lost its shine.
Travelling has been my 'University of the big-wide-world'... and it has also made me ponder profoundly about the intrinsic connections between the way we live and provide for our needs and sustenance, with our health and the human condition.
Leslie Taylor has a great take on this; http://www.leslietaylor.net/herbal/herbal.htm ...literally everything that exists has a soul - without division into organic and inorganic. There is no hierarchical structuring of consciousness with humans resting comfortably at the top and rocks and trees at the bottom. They recognize and respect all forms of life as soulful living beings - even a rock and even a tree. Maybe if we learned this one lesson, conservation of our forests, wildlife, and natural resources would become the standard and the rule and not so difficult after all... The role of the shaman rises out of a recognition, seemingly long lost to modern humankind, of humanity as disruption. In making its way, humankind is killing for food, clothing and shelter, thereby bringing disorder where there was none. To the shaman falls the task of righting the wrongs, appeasing the offended, of repairing the harm his/her people bring upon themselves through both unavoidable as well as intemperate and disrespectful action. In considering the shaman as healer, as restorer of balance, it is not farfetched to think of him/her as an environmentalist or even as an ecologist of the group psyche.
I agree with her; we should be far more humble and show reverence and respect for all life.
The human race will eventually figure out how to be saner and more honourable guardians of our Mother, Earth.
This is our natural heritage, but only if we are worthy of it!
I hope that you can see from my profile, some of the many people who have inspired me and the skills I have learned.
I hope this does not come across as me 'blowing my own trumpet', as a self-reference is no reference at all, but after many volunteering experiences, I believe there is a value in making that known... indeed many folk have contacted me spontaneously...
Here is one of my poems called, “Wild...”
Born to be Wild, we are of the Earth, Yet I well understand how we've given birth, To a system of death, within it life dies, But we give it life, as we give it our lives. What happened to peace, to love for our brother, To love for an Earth we should see as our Mother? When we've distanced ourselves from the soil and the trees, Do we hear the life in the birds and the bees? When we give life to objects, not even alive, Polluters, destroyers, the machines that we drive; The machines that we cherish; the machines in our lives. Or do they drive us - can you not see, That without them our lives would be truly free? We're born into freedom, why make ourselves slaves, To a futile Hell, to help dig our own graves? When we poison our waters, our air and our lands, Then we poison ourselves, and from our own hands! I'd rather see trees, as my living friends, Than drive long roads, in a Mercedes Benz! Yea I know in my heart it's the ignorant few, Who still feel we're “right” to pollute as we do: This Spirit of Power, of Industrial Greed, Of Military Might, and Media Need, In abiding by these we imprison our souls, Great folly and madness is out of control, But there's plenty I know, who are not so bent, On senseless destruction and whose time is spent, In the knowledge that quiet, resides at our door, At Peace with our Mother, turning once more, Her turns are our Soul, our Spirit, our Home... As no slave to man, no slave to his dock, To his silly laws, or his ticking clock, For my law is Nature, and She says to me, That I have Her Spirit and She makes me Free.
What fun Gavin had ‘showing me round’, when we started hitch-hiking around France with our backpacks and camping gear; this first journey abroad was a big eye-opener. We traveled where fate took us to find seasonal jobs on farm and orchards to keep us going: French francs cooked sausages on our camping stoves, as we fell over after one too many glasses of red wine!
Many years on now, I still feel inspired by my journeying and I am ever grateful to Gavin for instilling that love of adventure in my heart.
What follows is a brief account of my philosophy.
Indeed it seems simple, when one ponders why we are in the throes of epidemics of illness and dissatisfaction with our lives: "When we've distanced ourselves from the Soil and the Trees, Do we hear the Life in the Birds and the Bees?"
We have upset the balance in our most fundamental and vital relationship; that with our Mother and Her Earth that nurtures us. We take out more than we put in; and what we put in is destructive and disrespectful.
Many have raised their voices in this regard; four and a half decades ago it was Walter Yellowlees - http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/medtest/medtest_iftl.html delivering his "Ill Fares the Land" lecture: "The new epidemics of degenerative disease are not inevitable; nor is their cause mysterious. They are nature's language, telling eloquently of our failure to understand the supreme importance of nature's laws... the strength of a nation depends on a flourishing rural economy..."
And perhaps the most thorough and exhaustive research ever performed was by Weston Price during an even earlier epoch, when there were still many folk living non-industrialized lives. Admirably, he travelled extensively through many continents together with his wife in order to study and examine the health, the traditions and the diets of these still, (fortunately in my opinion), 'isolated' peoples; and his conclusions are as timeless and valid today as ever.
"Dr. Price’s research demonstrated that isolated peoples lacked dental caries, deformities and degenerative disease. In comparison to the Western diet of his day, their diets provided at least FOUR TIMES the water-soluble vitamins, calcium and other minerals, and at least TEN TIMES the fat-soluble vitamins, from animal foods such as butter, fish eggs, shellfish, organ meats, eggs and animal fats - the very cholesterol-rich foods now shunned by the public as unhealthful. Human beings achieve perfect physical form and perfect health, generation after generation, only when they consume nutrient-dense, whole foods and the vital fat-soluble activators found exclusively in animal fats."
http://www.westonaprice.org/about-the-foundation/about-the-foundation/
One should make the pertinent observation of course, that these were peoples who were also, as seems likely, still living relatively harmonious and unmolested lives; with none of the 'unnecessary stresses of modern living', which we so 'enjoy'!
I am in full accord with the 'Mission Statement' of the Foundation: "The Foundation is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to the human diet through education, research and activism. It supports a number of movements that contribute to this objective including accurate nutrition instruction; organic and biodynamic farming; pasture-feeding of livestock; community-supported farms; honest and informative labelling; prepared parenting and nurturing therapies..."
The ethno-paleontological discoveries are as valid as Dr.Price’s research – especially the conclusions they arrive at after their forensic examinations of the skeletal remains of paleo-folk; the hunters and gatherers, which clearly distinguish them as people who had superb, uncompromised health.
Yet when we start moving into the subsequent epoch of the early agriculturalists, (currently our epoch) – the skeletal remains paint a far different and more disturbing picture; marked as they are by disease and decay, coincident with our more restrictive and monocultural diets, along with our more enforced sedentarism.
So this whole debate must be part of who we are; but did ancient hunter-gatherers have to contend with the environmentally and politically compromised world we inhabit today? Modern hunter-gatherers do; and while they fight to keep their integrity and their territories – the essence of their lives and their spiritual-physical health, we struggle to regain ours. This may well be the great battle and paradox of our epoch – how crucial truths and expertise in how to ‘live right’, which we have buried and cast aside, could well be the indispensable crux in helping to put us right where we have gone wrong and thus make our own human soul whole again.
How we can help in this process is, I believe, firstly by reaching a deep understanding of the issues involved in this fight for survival of our ancient-modern kin: I visited Sumatra many years back already, with the intention of helping out with the fight for survival of the Mentawai tribal peoples, (see www.nativeplanet.org ), but I found the situation too disheartening and I dropped out of this particular debacle. So I know full well what it is to fail in the lofty goals you may dream up for yourself, and it is certainly not the first failure I have had. Yet I can see in my own development that I am more mature and aware now, and thus I approach things differently. ‘Success and failure’ are not absolute and it’s enough for me to live, learn and to adapt.
Thus, I certainly do not believe the ‘jaded propaganda’ that we live in ‘progressive societies’ in the ‘industrialised West’: In my minds’ eye it appears that age-old abuses of power, enslavement and enclosure grow more sneaky – there is so much of a concerted cover-up by so many vested interests that I certainly often have neither had the eyes to see nor the ears to hear: ‘Emancipate yourself from mental slavery...’!
Many of us are at least somewhat aware of how we are all the unwilling victims of Hegemonic tendencies; battles waged both domestically and internationally – indeed the lines between the two are blurred: I raise this issue at the end, when I address some of the deleterious influence of vested interests – indeed I am in full accord with George Monbiots’ exposé in ‘Captive State’ and in his ‘Land Reform Manifesto’: http://www.monbiot.com/1995/02/22/a-land-reform-manifesto.
Putting the above into perspective; I sometimes watch the following video to remind me of the recent history of some of the events, which have shaped my own life in this country, the UK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWkD3ZggMp8
"Judge our notions of freedom and diversity by the way we treat dissident and minority groups":
Can you honestly believe we live within a 'free' or 'just' or 'democratic' world?! Rubbish. It’s a Plutocracy staged-managed by a rotten elite.
It will only ever embody true freedom and diversity when we make the effort to make the changes...
There is a beautiful song, 'Tag along vagabond gypsy' at 35.55, and many prophetic and poignant comments from harassed travelers, including at 42.40: "no matter what we do, they are going to do what they want to do... so therefore it's up to us to do what we want to do at the same time!"
Never a truer word spoken; which indeed brings me onto a sobering, yet optimistic summation by Kenny Ausubel: 'The wealth-gap between rich and poor is bigger than at any other time in history'; 'our world is being buggered by a perverse elite'; and 'we are not in control'! 'Yet the grassroots movement fighting this is growing exponentially'! This was a speech he gave at the 2014 Festival of Faiths conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwhEnINLVqI Kenny Ausubel is the CEO of Bioneers, an organization that he co-founded in 1990 with his wife and partner, Nina Simons, for the purpose of disseminating sustainable alternatives to practices that contribute to climate change and to social injustice. In pursuit of this goal, he not only supports and encourages scientific and social innovation, but he communicates with a broad audience through several media outlets. He produces an international radio series, has written four books, contributes to The Huffington Post, and has made an award-winning documentary, Hoxsey: How Healing Becomes a Crime, which screened at the Kennedy Center for members of Congress.
Is it indeed our ‘duty’ to ‘have fun’, collectively and personally, confronting and amending such imbalance and injustice, which is plaguing our lives: Life should indeed be a celebration of what is right for us and our Planet.
So what follows are some of my own experiences; not in any particular chronological order: I hope in sharing to help others to achieve more freedom and self-reliance in their endeavours, as there are too many prisons in this Matrix.
1a. I recently paid a visit to an unusual 'Homa-Therapy' farm in Poland where I learned the ancient Vedic science of Agnihotra and its practical applications in so many and diverse fields including tackling environmental pollution and healing. I have since started Agnihotra with my own copper pyramid!
http://itsrainmakingtime.com/richard-powers-agnihotra-ancient-healing-ceremony/ Although it was discovered in ancient India and written in Sanskrit, Agnihotra does not require one to be a part of any religion or culture. Agnihotra has been reported to reduce stress, increase energy, fill one’s mind with love, and aid in breaking drug and alcohol addiction. It is also known to nourish plant life, improve water retention in soil, purify water resources, neutralize radiation, and harmonize the functioning of prana or chi (life energy). Join us as Richard Powers offers insight into this ancient science, and learn how it can benefit your home, your life, and the planet!
1b. Early in 2015 I returned from the Sahara desert region of southern Morocco, which has just had record rains and thus floods for many. I created small gardens and sowed some seeds; the owner of the small auberge where I was staying was happy for me to experiment with this interesting technology: http://agni-culture.weebly.com/electroculture.html labour intensive to run the wires through the ground, but I hope it brings good results: Looking at the photos Saliha has sent the plants seem to be enjoying the Sun!... update; most of the gardens were claimed by the searing heat! Long-term shade would need to be created through tree-cover for more annual-type plants to succeed!
1c. In the summer of 2012, together with my friend and travelling buddy Wayne, along with Manu, an assistant teacher at the ‘Reinfelder Schule’ for kids with special needs in Berlin, and a large group of kids, teachers and parents, we took the opportunity to transform a lack-lustre lawn into a multi-purpose, aesthetically beautiful Forest Garden!
Nature teaches us a clear lesson: Everything grows better in association = our guiding blueprint; choosing appropriate species to mimic the seven ‘dimensions’ of a natural forest, thus combining as much natural diversity as we could manage into the garden.
Young apple, pear, medlar, cherry trees define the tallest ‘canopy’ layer - at the base of these we planted hardy Actinidias - (Kiwi fruits), Schisandras and Vitis - (Grapes), which will all twine around the trunks and spread up throughout the branches to form the vertical layer.
Local fruit and nut bushes such as currants, gooseberries, raspberries and hazels form our ‘lower-middle’ canopy: We found many of these already growing near to our site, so we dug them up and transplanted them as appropriate, and saved time and money of course.
For the ‘middle-lower’ canopy we chose various species of the Elaeagnaceae, such as Elaeagnus cordifolia: The Elaeagnaceae come from a hardy family of nitrogen-fixing, pioneer plants. Such plants, fortunately one of the Plant Kingdoms’ largest families, improve soil condition and fertility; also thus the health and growth of other nearby trees and plants, with whom they interact through their root zones, such as fruit and nut trees in our design. This is something I learned volunteering at the awesome ‘Plants For a Future’ site in Lostwithiel, Cornwall - http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Elaeagnus+cordifolia
The Elaeagnaceae also often produce their own edible fruits and seeds - nutritionally rich and healthy: The Sea Buckthorn is justly famous for such attributes, yet how much we have lost that the ancients knew?! Its name, ‘Hippophae’, or ‘Shining Horse’ in Greek testifies to an ancient pastoral use to keep horses who fed on the plant plump and healthy. Fodder trees are coming back in vogue in agriculture for their multiple benefits.
We found it difficult to source some of the Elaeagnaceae at the local nurseries, so this is a species to plant into the garden when opportunity and budget allows it – the beauty of designing a natural ecosystem = plenty of room for trial and error and fluidity.
For the herbaceous layer, we chose perennial companion plants that attract beneficial insects, leaning heavily on aromatic herbs.
We also managed to find a Houttuynia at a local nursery: http://www.pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?latinname=Houttuynia+cordata , which tolerates shade and should spread out along the form one of the ground covers for the horizontal layer.
Houttuynia is a ‘multi-purpose’ plant: A ground-cover, a pot-herb, and a root crop. It is also an ancient and respected Traditional Chinese Medicine called Yu-xing-cao; an official herb of the Chinese Pharmacopeia: (Refer to Steven Foster/YueChongxi, “Herbal Emissaries, BRINGING CHINESE HERBS TO THE WEST, A guide to gardening, herbal wisdom and well-being”).
Local “weeds”, such as Dandelion and Burdock, form part of the seventh dimension, the rhizosphere or root-zone. Their nutritious roots are two of the best food-medicines we have.
The best description as 'weeds' actually serving as our best allies is on the excellent journey to forever site, where you find many pearls of wisdom: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/weeds/WeedsToC.html
Designing this garden was a formative experience as you realize just how many plants are intrinsically 'multi-purpose' and cross over through the 'different zones'.
2. Robert Harts’ great book, “Forest Gardening” made me more aware of a better way of doing things; indeed it inspired me to make a personal pilgrimage to Wenlock Edge in Shropshire to see his Forest Garden with my own eyes. Unsurprisingly, I was not the first ‘pilgrim’ who has made such a journey.
Robert’s gravestone, in the nearby village cemetery, is etched with the words ‘Love is All’. This aptly describes his unselfish devotion and dedication to the care of his handicapped brother; his primary motivation for nurturing his FG.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_gardening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXVnAMQRGbI - "Permaculture Trio" - Forest Gardening, Edible Landscapes & Urban Permaculture
Robert Harts’ book calls to our attention how Forest Gardens are undoubtedly one of human kinds’ oldest forms of deliberate land and natural resource manipulation; they thus represent one of our most intelligent and resilient human agro-ecosystem designs. These designs are being rediscovered by many today as offering the solutions to sustainable food production and natural resource regeneration and management:
http://www.onestrawrevolution.net/One_Straw_Revolution/Videos.html - watch "An interesting adaptation of natural farming in India" – shot at the Auroville eco-village, (http://www.auroville.org); and the video of natural farming in Greece, showing restoration of degraded land using clay pellets full of seed...
Great work regreening the desert in Jordan: "We can solve all of the world's 'problems' in a GARDEN" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk
http://www.eden-foundation.org/project/index.html - the Garvi’s vital work in Niger at Edenland: Their admirable exposure of the ‘dirty-business’ of phoney ‘International Aid’ is something I highlight at the end. Eden has perhaps the most extensive seedbank of edible trees and plants that grow in the harsh desert climate of the Sahara WITHOUT IRRIGATION. They have been working thirty years on this. This is accessible to local farmers, but whether this is accessible to others, I do not know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnzIg3XdcjY, http://www.seawaterfoundation.org/video-eritrea.htm - awesome project using halophytes and seawater to halt poverty and starvation by regreening coastal deserts.
I met the sister of the environmental journalist Daniel Elkan at a Permaculture event in Portugal, and thus learned about the great work of Mike Hands in helping to save the Rainforest from the destructive methods of ‘slash and burn’. What is outstanding about these techniques are their practical, sympathetic, and non-prejudgemental characteristics: The main actors are rather helped to achieve the quality of life they so desire, without having to destroy their environment:
http://www.theecologist.org/campaigning/climate_change_and_energy/980578/the_rainforest_saver.html http://www.rainforestsaver.org/step-step-guide-inga-alley-cropping - Step by step guide to Inga alley cropping...
http://permaculture.org.au/2008/09/24/the-development-of-farmer-managed-natural-regeneration - recognizing the importance of the underground forest in bringing life back to the desert...
Such global pioneers recognize the primary importance of trees and increased biodiversity for our survival in harmony with our Earth and Robert Hart intuitively designed diversity into his FG, following nature’s blueprint.
This is the success, past and present, of Forest Gardening.
3. I thank the humble genius of Robert Hart for his inspiration: pushing me to find a volunteer placement at Gami Seva Sevana; an excellent organization in the Kandyan Hills region of Sri Lanka.
GSS staff embody an egalitarian-unifying-community spirit of diverse, organic farming methods: In direct opposition to the parasitic-aggressive encroachments of profiteering agribusiness. The clear agenda of the latter is to impoverish and divide.
Its role - an organic community demonstration farm and training centre; its practices and ethics - of global significance:
http://permaculturenews.org/2010/10/29/letters-from-sri-lanka-ranjith-de-silva-bastion-of-biological-defense/
Animal husbandry - an integral part of their farm: Bright-eyed and sleek Brahman cows lick you with big, rough tongues when you come to give them a pet. All of their animals are glossy, healthy and well-kept. Cowpats dropped in the shed simply brushed into an adjacent slurry pit; the methane gas is piped up to the communal kitchen, where it cooked the spicy meals we shared together - simple ingenuity neither difficult, nor costly to build into any small farm.
GSS = zero-waste strategies and composting; they grow a diversity of plants - old rice varieties which satisfy you with every mouthful; heritage seeds and plants keep us and our food healthy and vibrant.
With GSS, we travelled to an "agricultural exhibition": The glaring neon-signs of ‘Agribiz stalls’; their bottles of nasty chemicals, packets of ‘patent seeds’ and hulking, destructive machinery - a combination to plough and burn the life out of any soil.
Our humble stall - the only one with handwritten banners extolling the importance of soil biodiversity/health; the only ones selling vermicasts/natural medicines; the only ones offering anything worthwhile...
4. Many effective sewage-management designs; Anna Edeys’ amongst the best:
http://www.solviva.com/
Her practical-simple greenhouse design is 2nd-to-none; she managed it as a successful business for many years – throughout the harsh/cold winter seasons of a continental-temperate climate. No recourse to any external source of heating = ingenuity and good design.
Helped build enviro-friendly ‘humanure’ management systems: First at beautiful Otamatea Eco-village, New Zealand - instead of the precious ‘wastes’ channelled away to pollute, we can use these to effectively enrich our own lands. Otamatea system = simple, gravity-fed installation; neither difficult nor costly to install nor maintain.
Such systems do not need to be 'sophisticated' - the good ole longdrop is as good as any!
5. Managing significant volumes of organic food wastes from kitchens, etc.- to re-use as good compost; no better method than Keith Mikkelson’s of Aloha House organic farm-orphanage. http://www.alohahouse.org/
http://www.agrowingculture.org/2011/04/the-aloha-natural-farm-puerto-princesa-city-palawan-philippines/
Yet another inspirational/pioneering leader of Sustainable Farming methods. I wrote a review of his book, which is, available on this site as a free download:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/keith-mikkelson/sustainable-agriculture/ebook/product-17560992.html
Mikk’s zero-waste approach recycles every resource, organic and inorganic that he can lay hold of - even sourced outside his own farm; excellent blueprint to follow = Harvests of dozens of kilos huge, luscious papayas from ‘shrubs’ growing in 20 litre pails of recycled/composted kitchen ‘waste’ - obvious implications for urban food production within confines of limited space.
His anaerobic composting techniques use Teruo Higa’s ‘Effective Micro-organisms’, (http://www.emrojapan.com/ ); the enabling factor unlocking fertility within such compost and making it bio-available to any plant growing in such a medium.
Takes on huge responsibility for welfare of young orphans, many of whom arrive malnourished: Confident to quickly/effectively restore the health of these children = feeding them fresh fruit and veg; meat and dairy grown/reared on his own land- free from poisonous chemicals, bursting with nutritional potency. Aloha babies become robust and healthy on these natural foods. What an achievement!
Positive energy/dedication = doing great things for vulnerable people – reversing ill-health, ignorance and social injustice by example he sets and the training in sustainable farming he offers to so many, including the poor.
Like me, Mikk is not from a ‘farming background’; but it is often the “dedicated amateur” who despises the lies and dogma of vested interests who achieves the greatest results.
6. Dan “Anubuddha” McKee took me under his wing when I first came to the Philippine Islands; at his ‘Destiny Wellness Centre’ I met Eric Hanquinet of SABGI. Dan is a very popular and knowledgeable natural healer-nutritionist: http://www.pyroenergen.com/articles08/pyramid-house.htm - this article contains some beautiful photos and a good description of Dan’s special place.
I have never met Junji Takano, the founder of ‘Pyro-Energen’; yet the principles of the healing energy he highlights appears to tie-in with the work of:
Lakhovsky - http://altered-states.net/barry/newsletter174/
Budwig - http://www.budwigcenter.com/ , http://www.3e-centre.com/
Caton - http://www.meditopia.org/index_ing.htm
Simpson - http://phoenixtears.ca/ ‘Run from the Cure’
All of whom I admire as effective-dedicated healers of serious afflictions, including cancers: Their real power to facilitate healing is based upon a profound understanding of natural energetic processes, as well as an intuitive faith in Nature.
Cancer Tutor is also an excellent source of useful, lifesaving information: http://www.cancertutor.com/black_cumin/
Dan cooks delicious local foods with fresh virgin coconut oil, pressed by hand at a nearby workers co-operative called BLISCOFA: http://pianegros.blogspot.com/2012_04_18_archive.html
We paid a couple of visits to BLISCOFA – the workers showed us around the processes that go into making natural virgin coconut oil; a world away in flavour and nutritional potency from the bleached-devitalised-refined coconut oil sold cheaply everywhere in the PI. It’s important to know and understand the differences between poisonous refined oils and the healthy unrefined oils, which was a large part of the wisdom of Johanna Budwig’s work.
I was impressed by the fair ethics of BLISCOFA and their zero-waste policy: they make beautiful coco-jewellery from the shells; and they now have a machine to make coir from the husks - a very useful material used in many different applications.
By using all parts of coconut, they are able to generate new products and there is no waste; therefore their enterprise can only benefit as a result.
7. Eric Hanquinet is the Curator and co-founder of SABGI Ethnobotanical Gardens:
http://www.bgci.org/garden.php?id=3614
Eric proposed I stay at SABGI to help the garden improve, so I submitted a report of my research to BGCI in the hope of receiving funding to train and become formally qualified as a Curator in my own right, but more importantly, I was motivated to carry on with this ethnobotanical work as it opened my eyes to its potential and importance: How trees and plants are innately vital to our very survival!
This is the key theme of SABGI’s raison d’être and Eric has written a knowledgeable Ethnobotanical Guidebook about the plant collections growing on site.
SABGI’s pragmatic and practical approach highlights the multiple uses of so many species, and the groups which visit on educational tours, including parties of school children and University students, can learn all about these: for example the Bamboo, which grows everywhere and makes everything; the Moringa oleifera tree – amazing nutrition, lamp-oil, medicine, anti-parasitic, water-purifier…
This tree grows like a weed in the PI and is seen everywhere. There is still a limited demand for its leaves, which were being sold in the local food market in Dumaguete, yet many Filipino people today have forgotten its innate usefulness. As Filipino life becomes increasingly urbane, such fundamental knowledge of how the natural world is our best friend and ally becomes the preserve of ‘specialists’; instead of being the common knowledge of a folk still rooted in their lands as it used to be not so long ago. So instead of ‘seeing’ the cures and ‘medicines’, which are found all around them in nature, they will go into a ‘pharmacy’ to BUY a petrochemical drug with poisonous side effects as they have been conditioned into doing by the ‘West’s propaganda’!
Ethnobotanical medicines - I learned how to tincture ‘Pau d’Arco’ from the Tabebuia impetiginosa trees growing on site: An elderly local villager suffering from debilitating arthritis says it has given him his life back. He now walks and functions again without feeling crippled by pain, as Pau d’Arco works to detoxify and clean out the poisons from our bodies: http://www.rain-tree.com/paudarco.htm#.UZkuiKJayul
8. At SABGI, networking reaped dividends: associations with BLISCOFA; Aloha; Phil Alts - senior researcher at Dumaguete city's Organic Research Farm into better land-use/more sustainable farming practices.
Also liaised with other organizations: Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization, ECHO; The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid-Tropics, ICRISAT.
Obtained seeds of two cultivars of Pigeon Pea, Cajanus Cajan; previously trialled in the PI and found to be productive in the climate of the SABGI region.
Another useful plant: http://www.tropicalforages.info/key/Forages/Media/Html/Cajanus_cajan.htm
Getting involved at SABGI was a big education for me.
I also managed to help Eric out with his bee-keeping, which I carried on doing when I left SABGI to go stay on an eco-village in Australia.
Bee-keeping interests me a lot: I recently read Tim Rowes book http://www.rosebeehives.com/ - his success lies in his simplified hive design, allowing the bees to live and love as they do in nature.
9. Do you fancy a stay in “The Field”? Robert Hart also inspired the transformational efforts of the Plants For A Future folk in Lostwithiel, Cornwall. The ‘old potato field’ is now a green oasis of biodiversity: over a thousand different species of flora thrive within this small acreage; several thousands more on their famous database, www.pfaf.org
Exceptional pioneers and a beautiful place to stay as a volunteer - dream come true to work with Ariadne Fern, whose botanical knowledge is encyclopaedic!
The future of British farming blundering on as the dogmatic and destructive pursuit of chemical-industrial monocultures must be thoroughly reappraised in the light of much more sensible and productive enterprises.
This re-creational celebration of the huge diversity of life is what I aspire to.
10. Scandinavia is one of Europes’ most beautiful regions. I travelled there to camp out and experience the space, the natural beauty and the “White Nights”; the Sun never sets – an incredibly energizing experience.
I also found a volunteer opportunity growing Cannabis sativa with young WWOOF hosts in quiet Åmmeberg in Sweden. Unfortunately not the smoking kind, but a majestic plant and one of the most useful mankind has ever known!
In the spring we prepared the fields with rich muck and straw, and then sowed the seeds. By the time I had returned in the autumn to help scythe the harvest, the Hemp plants had grown tall, thick and strong, and they smelled great! What an incredible plant this is, with so many uses and health benefits. It is shameful that its use and reputation have been deliberately suppressed and sullied. Our plant-allies cure cancers and heal our afflictions, so why are they outlawed?!
I bought the late Jack Herer's excellent, well-researched and compelling book on the subject many years ago - which is what pushed me to find a cannabis grower to work with. He updated it and made it available for everyone to read for free online: http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/chapter-fifteen/
“The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety... It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record. IN STRICT MEDICAL TERMS, MARIJUANA IS FAR SAFER THAN MANY FOODS WE COMMONLY CONSUME MARIJUANA IN ITS NATURAL FORM IS ONE OF THE SAFEST THERAPEUTICALLY ACTIVE SUBSTANCES KNOWN TO MAN.”
If you still doubt the incredible healing powers of this sacred plant, (or the 'multi-billion dollar' vested interests still actively working against it), then take a look at the revelations of Rick Simpson in 'Run From The Cure':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0psJhQHk_Gl
http://phoenixtears.ca/
"The upside-down world rewards in reverse: it scorns honesty, punishes work, prizes lack of scruples, and feeds cannibalism. Its professors slander nature: injustice, they say, is a law of nature." Eduardo Galeano in “Upside Down, A Primer for the Looking-Glass World ...”: http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/books.php?id=2490
Gustav is a fan of Fukuoka's 'One Straw Revolution', and when he borrowed me his copy of this book to read, it also changed my perspective on not just agriculture and farming, but on life itself. Marc Bonfils was a French experimental farmer, whose incredible success in growing old varieties of wheat in a no-dig, no-machine, no-chemical system similar to Fukuoka's again exposes the lie of modern pharming. Bonfils' wheat harvests were 150 quintals/hectare = 15,000 kilos/hectare. That is far greater than conventional modern harvests; and of course the wheat grains themselves are far more wholesome and are grown within a benign system as these harvests increase soil fertility and biodiversity!
http://www.agriculturesnetwork.org/magazines/global/monocultures-towards-sustainability/how-to-grow-winter-wheat-the-fukuoka-bonfils/at_download/article_pdf
or www.metafro.be/leisa/2000/164-13.pdf
Sweden heaves with clean-green forests and clear, blue lakes. If you’re a water-lover like me, then you’re in Paradise. Find your own spot to strip down, have a cool dip, and then warm up again by a crackling fire...! It’s magic.
11. Pinakarri eco-village in Fremantle, Western Australia likewise offers an antidote and a fresh alternative to the bleak and monotone urbane environments that now sprawl, concrete and steel grey, across much of our world.
Innovative, ecologically mindful architectural design within an urban setting creates sympathetic communal living spaces, both indoors and outdoors; spaces for gardening and areas for growing food and raising livestock - makes a huge difference to peoples’ quality of life.
Lively intentional communities like Pinakarri are oases of community action and sharing. You will find little room for isolation or despair here. To the contrary, I found plenty of opportunity for sharing, warmth and lots of joy. http://www.pinakarri.org.au/ “Through Pinakarri, (Deep Listening), we learn to love.” From my experience, it lives up to its motto.
I have deliberately chosen to stay at other eco-villages with intentional communities before, to experience firsthand just how such communities function and how it feels to live your life there.
Sometimes I was disappointed, as you inevitably will be when petty personality politics predominate! The Pinakarri community grasps this thorny branch: Differences in peoples’ characters will always cause problems, but fostering a spirit of openness and sharing; mutual acceptance and understanding will resolve these issues.
Life in a sympathetic community can often help to address some of the underlying spiritual issues of loneliness and other spiritual diseases we suffer from, and indeed healers like Rosita Arvigo also addresses such important topics in her books: http://rositaarvigo.com/books/rainforest-home-remedies/
As a traveller I have relished my encounters with all sorts of folk and I love to meet people who, like me, thrive on the celebration of each others’ differences. They are beautiful, necessary and are a part of life.
12. I started learning how to ride, (badly!), and groom rare horses called Caspians at a small stables, situated in a scenic part of France close to the rugged Pyrénées. Besides the mucking out and grooming, we went for regular rides through quiet forest and hill trails and my confidence increased with every ride. Being of fairly short stature, I enjoyed riding the small Caspians which look like a "full-size" horse, but are as small as a pony.
On the same trip I worked on an organic sheep and wheat farm in le Gers and there I tried my hand at shearing for the first time. I love working with farm animals and as my competency developed, it was a great feeling to feel the woolly sheep relax underneath me. I am by no means an experienced shearer, but I became fairly proficient; much to the relief of the sheep!
13. In 2012, I stayed with a very welcoming family who live on the shores of the beautiful Pomeroon river in Guyana, South America. They make a modest living from raising and selling chickens to their neighbours along the river and making beautiful furniture from the vines that grow in the surrounding jungle. It is an exotic and wild place and their land is visited by the Jaguar. I kept myself busy planting out a small garden with some seeds I had brought with me – so I hope they now have ‘Queensland Blue’ pumpkins and Macadamia nuts on their dinner table! I sampled plenty of delicious river fish, and Jai took me up the river into the Amerindian reservation lands, where we got drunk with his friend on the local, bright orange and sickly-sweet hooch brewed from a sweet potato! I also got the chance to hold a hunting bow, made from the Pau d’Arco tree, (the same one which makes the medicine), which is still in use today. I came home with the leaves of the Kalanchoe Pinnata plant which grows in the jungles there - (http://www.rain-tree.com/coirama.htm#.U-pm8I5wY6U); known by many different names in different parts of the world, including the 'Miracle leaf', for its amazing powers to rejuvenate. I use the leaves as a medicine and from just one leaf, it has now grown into several 'monster' plants in pots indoors, and adorns the houses of many friends!
14. In the summer of 2013, I was hitch-hiking, camping, and adventuring around the wild Carpathian mountains of Transylvania in Romania. It's still a beautiful, wild place full of bears and wolves, but I did not meet Dracula or any of his friends!
I did taste a lot of delicious, fresh food such as milk and cheese, fresh from the cow and the hospitality of the folk in the mountain villages was a welcome surprise. I was allowed to park my tent in a villager's back garden, so I helped out scything the hay and feeding the cow and pigs. I also stayed in an Orthodox Christian monastery in the mountains and the monks, who work hard towards self-sufficiency enjoy an excellent diet, which they were more than happy to share with weary pilgrims like me! A heart-warming welcome from genuine gypsies who gave me shelter while I was out on the road will not be forgotten.
15. I have just returned from a rewarding trip around Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay. I started off volunteering for the great hosts Eilif and Carola in the highlands of the Andes in Peru: A remote place, far from 'civilisation', and a place to tune into nature and natural farming. Eilif is a former farmer from Norway, and has a lot to teach. Again, I found how ‘vested interests’ are running amuck and ruining peoples’ lives all over the globe: Eilif related to me the baneful tale of how he was deliberately hounded and persecuted by a corrupt circle of ‘official’ people led by a veterinary doctor back in his native Norway. He was driven out of his homeland and deprived of the right to keep sheep because he stood up to their abusive power by refusing to treat his animals with ineffective and harmful pharmaceutical preparations and chose instead to use much more effective and benign natural methods. If this is not State Terrorism on behalf of corporate vested interests then what is? It reminds me of the vital work of Mark Purdey and Georgina Downs; I discuss this issue in more detail below. A lady farmer I worked with in Canada had a similar tale to tell and there are many, many more...
Bolivia is another incredible country, with so much to discover and likewise Paraguay. The friendly and hospitable nature of the Paraguayan people was a welcome surprise. I spent some weeks in Ybytyruzu national park near to Melgarejo, helping to work the land and plant many seeds when I was asked to help out with a sustainable agriculture project. I was disappointed to find the devastation of the slash-and-burn agriculture they were practising, but I saw it as a good opportunity to show them a better method, and I felt it was rewarding to be able to get stuck in with a mattock out in their steeply-sloping fields, and to share what I had learned before about how to create more sustainable methods by using “Sloping Agricultural Land Technology”; basically creating rows of terraces held in place and permanently sheltered and fertilized by planting useful and hardy leguminous trees such as Leucaena and Tagasaste. Leucaena leucocephala grows wild there so it was easy to gather the seeds, and I already had Tagasaste seeds with me. There were also many other leguminous species to choose from growing naturally in the area, and when working out in the fields and explaining your technique, you achieve the best results. I planted the ‘four-sisters’ combination of corn, sunflower, pumpkin and beans along the terraces, and I explained to them the benefits of this interplanting of species and I could see that some of those working with me were taking it in!
Ybytyruzu national park is a real paradise and a beautiful place to pitch a tent and appreciate the beauty of the natural world!
On this same ‘farming tour’ in South America, I learned of an ancient Earth-healing ceremony called Agnihotra: The testimonials on www.homafarming.com are inspiring.
I was debating whether or not to include the following information, or to leave it out – it is, after all, ‘only a helpx profile’! But I have decided to include it as it is important information, which has helped me in my own awareness of the differences between right and wrong. I also really despise the current ‘predominant philosophy’ of ‘Might is always Right’, which is fascist and Hegemonic.
Thus I feel that it is admirable how the Garvis have helped to EXPOSE the PHONEY 'INTERNATIONAL AID' SCAM of 2005; they were right on the spot to be able to shed true light upon this devious and pernicious practice: The UN, with the complicity of the International Media-Circus, (most notably the BBC and their STAGED-PROPAGANDA), as well as several 'famous' “International Aid Organisations”, orchestrated a ‘FAMINE’, WHICH NEVER TOOK PLACE. These organisations thus received untold TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS worth of 'Aid'. This did far more harm than good to the people, and it rightly calls into question the whole, CORPORATIZED AID-INDUSTRY.
Watch for yourself how this 'sophisticated scam' evolved; an excellent documentary was made about it by a Swedish television company, which Esther Garvi has posted on her website, http://www.esthergarvi.org - under 'The Famine Scam'; parts 1 to 6. This is part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4SYM8JsDg4
All such activities are absolutely shameful: short-term meddling and financial profiteering from the exploitation of the gullible; both in the West who give, and in 'the developing world', towards whom this financial giving is supposed to be 'helping'. It really jars me as I have contributed my own time and expenses to help out all over the world, and I always ‘happily’ end up being out-of-pocket afterwards; yet the deceitful ‘corporate rich’ are given carte blanche for their white elephants - I was very angry to find exactly the same scamming going on over in Sri Lanka in 2007, a few years after the Tsunami, while working for a locally-run NGO; (who were in no way involved in such activities). ‘Big money’ from ‘remote sources’ creates ‘Big corruption’; this exacerbates underlying social injustice and creates a bigger wealth gap, as the ‘Aid money’ gets siphoned off by the rich, and does not get to the people who need the help. People need to really understand the realities and mechanisms of global corruption before giving.
This ‘deceitful phenomenon’ is also internationally active in many other ‘lucrative’ areas – Cancer/Vaccination/HIV HOAXES are likewise loathsome and long-running MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR ‘scams’: We should applaud the life-work of many who are our contemporaries, who have dedicated much time and energy into exposing these dreadful ‘scams’; so insidiously woven into the fabric-Matrix of our own societies. Here are just some of the many, many examples; but I hope they serve as good examples:
Dr.Muhammed Al-Bayati www.aids-science.blogspot.co.uk
www.virusmyth.com/aids/news/prtoxhi.htm
AIDS IS NOT CAUSED BY A VIRUS - IT IS A SYSTEMIC ILLNESS CAUSED BY MULTIPLE FACTORS INCLUDING POLLUTION AND OTHER FORMS OF CHEMICAL POISONING
Dr.Archie Kalokerinos www.amazon.co.uk/Every-Second-Child-Archie-Kalokerinos/dp/0879832509
KALOKERINOS WROTE THIS BOOK TO EXPOSE THE GENOCIDAL AGENDAS OF THOSE WHO MAKE HUGE PROFITS FROM THE PHONEY SCIENCE CALLED VACCINATION - MY FINAL CONCLUSION AFTER FORTY YEARS OR MORE IN THIS BUSINESS IS THAT THE UNOFFICIAL POLICY OF THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION AND THE UNOFFICIAL POLICY OF SAVE THE CHILDREN FUND AND ALMOST ALL THOSE ORGANIZATIONS IS ONE OF MURDER AND GENOCIDE. THE WHOLE VACCINE BUSINESS IS INDEED A GIGANTIC HOAX…
Cristina England http://vactruth.com/2014/03/19/tissue-scurvy-not-child-abuse
PARENTS ACCUSED AND JAILED FOR 'CHILD ABUSE' AFTER BABIES AND INFANTS SUFFER FROM ADVERSE REACTIONS TO VACCINATIONS GIVING THE APPEARANCE THEY ARE BEATEN ABOUT HEAD AND BODY... you can appreciate this vividly in the picture below
Greg Caton www.meditopia.org/chap3-3.htm truly one of the modern-day heroes of herbalism and plant-based medicine and his in-depth exposure of just how rotten-to-the-core Western 'medicine' really is deserves a Nobel prize in itself
Rick Simpson http://phoenixtears.ca
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuQVeeZki_E ‘Run From The Cure’... another man worthy of the Nobel prize currently 'on the run' from corrupt Canadian 'authorities' who tried to fit him up
Linus Pauling: "EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW THAT THE 'WAR ON CANCER' IS LARGELY A FRAUD"
www.silentbetrayal.com/cancer.htm
Mike Adams www.naturalnews.com/033847_chemotherapy_cancer_treatments.html great truth-telling website
Georgina Downs is a contemporary fighter for our birth-right to live unmolested by pernicious chemicals and a warrior in what is ALL our responsibility to change this debacle http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/commentators/2344079/pesticides_can_cause_cancer_so_why_does_cruk_ignore_them.html http://www.pesticidescampaign.co.uk
Mark Purdey proved, much like Al-Bayati with AIDS, that 'mad-cow disease' is/was caused by the multi-billion dollar organophosphate chemical industry, thus disproving government and industry lies... those who backed Purdey were murdered...
http://www.cultureshop.org.uk/details.php?code=PURDEY
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/madcow/madcow.htm
and SO MANY OTHERS!
Such truth-tellers have been persecuted like many before them, and the persecution of whistle-blowers is as ruthless today as it has ever been. You thus see exactly the same pattern emerging: The suppression of truth and the abuse of power by vested interests, ‘with too much to lose’. The problem for us is that we also have ‘too much to lose’ by such practices – these people are amoral leeches, who threaten our communal wealth and health. It is also a sobering thought to conclude how we are ‘imperilled’ at every turn; yet I know from my own life, that when we seek the truth we find it, and we realize we do have choices. I can only be eternally grateful and thank such stoic and brave folk from the bottom of my heart for having the moral fortitude to stick up for truth and enlighten us; if it was not for the likes of Dr.Kalokerinos and Cristina England so many more children would be dying horribly or being gravely injured or their parents being accused of abuse and jailed, and Kalokerinos in no way exaggerates when he states: “They want to make it appear as if they are saving these kids, but in actual fact they don’t. I am talking of those at the very top. Beneath that level is another level of doctors and health workers, like myself, who don’t really understand what they are doing.”
The last admission by Kalokerinos is one we should take to heart, as it is this ‘division of labour’, or rather the abdication of responsibility by being blind to realities, which is commonplace in our non-culture; we cannot call ourselves ‘cultured’ if we ‘do not really understand’.
Many of the best truth-tellers will highlight this ‘division of labour’; we should be careful of who and what we represent. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7278.htm - “Normalization of the unthinkable comes easily when money, status, power, and jobs are at stake. Companies and workers can always be found to manufacture poison gases, napalm, or instruments of torture, and intellectuals will be dredged up to justify their production and use...”
And, in this regard, I love how John Pilger exposes all the crookedness and corruption of the ‘High and Mighty’, and what he calls, “the babbling brook of bullshit” - http://johnpilger.com/articles/britain-the-depth-of-corruption and I absolutely agree with him in summing up: “Something is changing in Britain that gives cause for optimism. The British people have probably never been more politically aware and prepared to clear out decrepit myths and other rubbish while stepping angrily over the babbling brook of bullshit.”
I would say from my own personal experience that this increased awareness and the initiatives taken to act positively to counter this corruption is happening the world over.
“Man is neither mere intellect, nor the gross animal body, nor the heart or soul alone. A proper and harmonious combination of all is required for the making of the whole man and constitutes the true economics of education.” Quotes from the Mahatma Gandhi.
http://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/g_edu.htm
North American Indian poetry: There was a time, when I saw the world Coyote lives in. I had walked up, with a friend – once upon a time, behind the rocks; the big ones that rise up, mossy-greened, and cradle the forest-shadowed ponds that the ducks and moose love, to seek the slight-sloping, grassy meadow hidden behind them. We half-lay for hours in the tall emerald grass among the ancient trees that towered over the drifting textures of the land. While our elbows supported us we talked of plants, and stones, and the wisdom of moss. Slowly we began, as humans sometimes do, to slip into the wildness of the world. Our language began to slow down, pause and falter. Into silence we drifted and for some reason that only our souls understood that day we flowed with it, not talking. Colours became more vivid and the air began to sparkle. Our breathing and the sounds of the forest took on a luminous quality. And into this silence Coyote ambled, following a game trail that flowed, brown runnel, near our feet. Her tongue lolled out the side of her mouth, and she was laughing that crazy laugh Coyote has, while her eyes spun as she watched the dancing bones that lie under the fabric of the world. Crazy, gambolling Coyote. Third force in Universe. I said under my breath, “Turn your head to the right.” And my friend sat up and said, “What?” And in so doing, lost her chance to see. I, still watching, saw Coyote’s eyes shift out of that crazy, spinning universe and shocked, no, betrayed, by the secrecy of our immersion she flipped straight over and ran, tail between her legs, only some strange kind of dog, up the trail. What I glimpsed through Coyote’s eyes lodged in a part of my brain I did not know I had. I can reach out and touch it sometimes. My eyes begin to spin, and I feel a bit dizzy, and I can see dancing bones under the fabric of the world. I still do not know what the world that Coyote lives in does when no one is watching but I do know it is ancient, far beyond the species lifetime of humans and that next to it our world is only a chip of wood floating on the ocean.
Self References: Growing up!
My adult life has been a belligerent battle of limited successes and gigantic failures, "trying to make sense of it all"!
Many of my formative years as a child were spent near Liverpool where the community spirit was palpable, and where we ran around all day without our parents having to worry. It was a great, carefree childhood.
But as a troubled teenager during the violence and unrest; the premeditated SOCIAL DEMOLITION engineered by Thatcher's vampires, made me question the futility and injustice I saw all around me.
Unfortunately, such 'trashy politics' is still predominant today.
So largely without knowing it, I became a seeker after truth and social justice... when you have been knocked around a bit by life, and made to feel marginalized, it comes naturally.
Yet look just a little and great alternatives and role models often fall down from heaven, as did my friend Gavin and other beautiful people after him.
Gavin was no saint! But he had a heart of gold.
In younger days, eager to change the world for the better, I experimented with the political activism of revolutionary communism, followed by becoming ‘born again’ into evangelical Christianity.
Both of which I outgrew - but my ‘first love' has always remained, as it always makes sense; that love of the great outdoors and a quiet, hardworking life.
Although happy to have made my way as a 'Jack-of-all-trades'; (and master of none!), speaking from the heart, it has lost its shine.
Travelling has been my 'University of the big-wide-world'... and it has also made me ponder profoundly about the intrinsic connections between the way we live and provide for our needs and sustenance, with our health and the human condition.
Leslie Taylor has a great take on this; http://www.leslietaylor.net/herbal/herbal.htm ...literally everything that exists has a soul - without division into organic and inorganic. There is no hierarchical structuring of consciousness with humans resting comfortably at the top and rocks and trees at the bottom. They recognize and respect all forms of life as soulful living beings - even a rock and even a tree. Maybe if we learned this one lesson, conservation of our forests, wildlife, and natural resources would become the standard and the rule and not so difficult after all... The role of the shaman rises out of a recognition, seemingly long lost to modern humankind, of humanity as disruption. In making its way, humankind is killing for food, clothing and shelter, thereby bringing disorder where there was none. To the shaman falls the task of righting the wrongs, appeasing the offended, of repairing the harm his/her people bring upon themselves through both unavoidable as well as intemperate and disrespectful action. In considering the shaman as healer, as restorer of balance, it is not farfetched to think of him/her as an environmentalist or even as an ecologist of the group psyche.
I agree with her; we should be far more humble and show reverence and respect for all life.
The human race will eventually figure out how to be saner and more honourable guardians of our Mother, Earth.
This is our natural heritage, but only if we are worthy of it!
I hope that you can see from my profile, some of the many people who have inspired me and the skills I have learned.
I hope this does not come across as me 'blowing my own trumpet', as a self-reference is no reference at all, but after many volunteering experiences, I believe there is a value in making that known... indeed many folk have contacted me spontaneously...
Here is one of my poems called, “Wild...”
Born to be Wild, we are of the Earth, Yet I well understand how we've given birth, To a system of death, within it life dies, But we give it life, as we give it our lives. What happened to peace, to love for our brother, To love for an Earth we should see as our Mother? When we've distanced ourselves from the soil and the trees, Do we hear the life in the birds and the bees? When we give life to objects, not even alive, Polluters, destroyers, the machines that we drive; The machines that we cherish; the machines in our lives. Or do they drive us - can you not see, That without them our lives would be truly free? We're born into freedom, why make ourselves slaves, To a futile Hell, to help dig our own graves? When we poison our waters, our air and our lands, Then we poison ourselves, and from our own hands! I'd rather see trees, as my living friends, Than drive long roads, in a Mercedes Benz! Yea I know in my heart it's the ignorant few, Who still feel we're “right” to pollute as we do: This Spirit of Power, of Industrial Greed, Of Military Might, and Media Need, In abiding by these we imprison our souls, Great folly and madness is out of control, But there's plenty I know, who are not so bent, On senseless destruction and whose time is spent, In the knowledge that quiet, resides at our door, At Peace with our Mother, turning once more, Her turns are our Soul, our Spirit, our Home... As no slave to man, no slave to his dock, To his silly laws, or his ticking clock, For my law is Nature, and She says to me, That I have Her Spirit and She makes me Free.