Hi everyone, I am gearing up to write some in-depth essays about some urgent topics: Artificial Intelligence, Peace, and the accelerating economic and ecological crises.
I really appreciate what you said about the imperative of re-claiming our human connection to the process of cultivating and preparing food in part 1 your conversation with Shantena Sabbadini and Cruz Mañas. I whole heartedly agree with what you said about how the process of making the production and cooking of food into standardized industrialized commodities means that our health and well being will end up suffering.
I want to offer people sign posts on a path to re-localize and decentralized food production, inviting them to form an intimate connection with the land and nurture food culture locally through embracing the creative process in the garden and in the kitchen.
I think that Sandor Katz said it best when he wrote:
"Reclaiming our food and our participation in cultivation is a means of cultural revival, taking action to break out of the confining and infantilizing dependency of the role of consumer (user) and taking back our dignity and power to become producers and creators. Though affluent people have more food choices than the people of the past could ever dream of, and one persons labor can produce more 'food' today than ever before, the large scale, commercial methods and systems that enable these phenomena are destroying our Earth, destroying our health, and depriving us of dignity. With respect to food, the vast majority of people are completely dependent for survival upon a fragile global infrastructure of monocultures, synthetic chemicals, biotechnology, and transportation.
Moving towards a more harmonious way of life and greater resilience requires our active participation. This means finding ways to become more aware of and connected to the other forms of life that are around us and that constitute our food---plants and animals--- as well as bacteria and fungi--- and to the resources, such as water, fuel, materials, tools and transportation, upon which we depend. We can become creators of a better world, of better and more regenerative food choices, of greater awareness of resources, and of community based upon sharing. For culture to be strong and resilient, it must be a creative realm in which skills, information, and values are engaged and transmitted; culture cannot thrive as a consumer paradise or spectator sport. Daily life offers constant opportunities for participatory action. Seize them."
― Sandor Ellix Katz (Author of "The Art of Fermentation" )
Where I agree for the most part with what you say, what about the reality of the majority of people not having access to land on which to garden and grow? How can we change that? A cultural revival needs the majority or at least a large minority to truly revive anything. There are too many being forced into the role of consumer to survive. Many of those would love to participate in gardening, rewilding, creating...but don't have the opportunity. This needs to change. How I don't know, but I'm working on it. I wish more would give some energy to this dilemma. That being said, I do love all that you write. You're a beautiful soul.
Yes, great suggestions from Gavin. Also look into community gardens and guerilla gardening. Are there any empty lots around you? Possibilities of growing stuff without anyone noticing ? Foraging (but respect the rules!)
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Ann! You make some valid points and I will give that dilemma some thought myself.
The first thing that comes to mind is the Source Temple community in Brazil (which Charles has written about in the past https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/source-temple-and-the-great-reset/). Perhaps we can learn from places like the Source Temple in how we might align the intent and efforts of many individuals to be able to gain access to land that can be re-wilded, regenerated and tended with love and purpose (allowing for those that could not acquire land on their own to be able to as a group)?
Beyond that approach to having access to living soils I feel it is also worth emphasizing that even someone that is living in an apartment can grow a significant amount of food and medicine without any access to land. I did this when I was squeezed into an apartment with 5 other guys in Whistler, BC and grew not only culinary herbs in window sills, but also kale, sprouts and microgreens.
After having that experience when I was younger and then often encountering people that face the dilemma of wanting to grow their own food but having no access to land, I decided to do some research for writing my gardening/recipe book and I experimented with cultivating nutrient dense food and medicine indoors and in containers.
I was able to grow significant amounts of ginger, kale, tulsi (aka “holy basil”), microgreens and protein rich gourmet mushrooms using only a south facing window with pots lined up and some mason jars that I filled with spent coffee grounds (for growing oyster mushrooms). Anyone that is motivated can do that (and more) at the very least, and the health benefits that are offered even by growing a steady supply of those things are non-trivial.
Being able to transform spent coffee grounds, cardboard, woodchips and other free "waste" or byproducts into nutrient dense and medicinal mushrooms is a very powerful skillset to have in this time of financial, agricultural and geopolitical instability.
Some species (such as Oyster mushrooms) are quite forgiving for beginnners and have such aggressive mycelium that they can grow either indoors or outdoors on a wide range of substrates (such as coffee grounds, cardboard, straw, woodchips or even chopped up phragmites stems). Other species (such as Shiitake, Lion's Mane and Reishi) can be cultivated via inoculating hardwood logs outside (or on blocks of enriched sawdust inside).
Inoculated hardwood logs can produce mushrooms from 5-7 years (depending on the size and density/variety of the wood used) and one can even encourage a fully colonized log to produce nutrient dense mushrooms in a matter of days-weeks by soaking them in cold water to simulate spring/fall conditions. That means hardwood logs that have been inoculated with mycelium from choice mushrooms species can effectively serve as a form of long term shelf stable outdoor/indoor emergency 'food storage'.
For more info on mushroom cultivation check out my substack article below:
The Independent National Convention sounds very interesting. And disheartening because that one paragraph talks about uniting independents, depolarizing the country, and finding common ground and then divides and polarizes people into haves and have nots in the process of finding common ground only among the haves.
"Love and Politics" panel? Is that the one followed by "Cooking With Dogsh*t"?
"Love" and "politics" are being discussed as symbiotic. Oh man. We are so far gone at this point.
You know, i used to have to dig around and read through things here before I found something to have fun with. Now they just fall right into my lap at first glance. Heck, I might even get bored and leave all you tepid souls be.
I listened to the "What's the Next Story?" conversation. I found the statistics on modern medicine interesting (12% of children with chronic conditions in the 1980s, 54% now). I definitely believe that the way Western medicine works (fostering a circle of dependence) plays a role in that. But it goes way beyond that, I believe. Part of it is the excessive reliance on technology. While, as someone who works online and makes a living from anywhere in the world thanks to technology, I believe it can bring us a lot of benefits, it is an overused tool. Right now, I see that so many people no longer know how to communicate anything in person. They hide behind a screen. The result, in the long run, is a robot-like existence, with a lot of stuffed emotions underneath. This is a ticking bomb scenario, and from a metaphysical perspective, it also manifests as illness. Of course, not knowing how to deal with it, we then resort to some of the magic pills that pharmaceutical companies offer, and other "conveniences" that gradually diminish our quality of life. What are your ideas as to how we can increase self-awareness in this regard? I believe that, by doing so, more people will wake up on their own, and see technology, medicine, and everything else for what it is, a tool that yes, if used properly, can make our life better, as long as we are mindful and it is us who use it, and not the other way around.
Thank you for providing all those wonderful links -- I’ve bookmarked them for later 😄 Good luck writing your essays, I’m really looking forward to them!
I really appreciate what you said about the imperative of re-claiming our human connection to the process of cultivating and preparing food in part 1 your conversation with Shantena Sabbadini and Cruz Mañas. I whole heartedly agree with what you said about how the process of making the production and cooking of food into standardized industrialized commodities means that our health and well being will end up suffering.
This is the reason why I share posts like this https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/amaranth-seed-trail-of-tears-and
I want to offer people sign posts on a path to re-localize and decentralized food production, inviting them to form an intimate connection with the land and nurture food culture locally through embracing the creative process in the garden and in the kitchen.
I think that Sandor Katz said it best when he wrote:
"Reclaiming our food and our participation in cultivation is a means of cultural revival, taking action to break out of the confining and infantilizing dependency of the role of consumer (user) and taking back our dignity and power to become producers and creators. Though affluent people have more food choices than the people of the past could ever dream of, and one persons labor can produce more 'food' today than ever before, the large scale, commercial methods and systems that enable these phenomena are destroying our Earth, destroying our health, and depriving us of dignity. With respect to food, the vast majority of people are completely dependent for survival upon a fragile global infrastructure of monocultures, synthetic chemicals, biotechnology, and transportation.
Moving towards a more harmonious way of life and greater resilience requires our active participation. This means finding ways to become more aware of and connected to the other forms of life that are around us and that constitute our food---plants and animals--- as well as bacteria and fungi--- and to the resources, such as water, fuel, materials, tools and transportation, upon which we depend. We can become creators of a better world, of better and more regenerative food choices, of greater awareness of resources, and of community based upon sharing. For culture to be strong and resilient, it must be a creative realm in which skills, information, and values are engaged and transmitted; culture cannot thrive as a consumer paradise or spectator sport. Daily life offers constant opportunities for participatory action. Seize them."
― Sandor Ellix Katz (Author of "The Art of Fermentation" )
“culture cannot thrive as a consumer paradise or spectator sport” - sandor ❤️❤️❤️
Where I agree for the most part with what you say, what about the reality of the majority of people not having access to land on which to garden and grow? How can we change that? A cultural revival needs the majority or at least a large minority to truly revive anything. There are too many being forced into the role of consumer to survive. Many of those would love to participate in gardening, rewilding, creating...but don't have the opportunity. This needs to change. How I don't know, but I'm working on it. I wish more would give some energy to this dilemma. That being said, I do love all that you write. You're a beautiful soul.
Yes, great suggestions from Gavin. Also look into community gardens and guerilla gardening. Are there any empty lots around you? Possibilities of growing stuff without anyone noticing ? Foraging (but respect the rules!)
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Ann! You make some valid points and I will give that dilemma some thought myself.
The first thing that comes to mind is the Source Temple community in Brazil (which Charles has written about in the past https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/source-temple-and-the-great-reset/). Perhaps we can learn from places like the Source Temple in how we might align the intent and efforts of many individuals to be able to gain access to land that can be re-wilded, regenerated and tended with love and purpose (allowing for those that could not acquire land on their own to be able to as a group)?
Beyond that approach to having access to living soils I feel it is also worth emphasizing that even someone that is living in an apartment can grow a significant amount of food and medicine without any access to land. I did this when I was squeezed into an apartment with 5 other guys in Whistler, BC and grew not only culinary herbs in window sills, but also kale, sprouts and microgreens.
After having that experience when I was younger and then often encountering people that face the dilemma of wanting to grow their own food but having no access to land, I decided to do some research for writing my gardening/recipe book and I experimented with cultivating nutrient dense food and medicine indoors and in containers.
I was able to grow significant amounts of ginger, kale, tulsi (aka “holy basil”), microgreens and protein rich gourmet mushrooms using only a south facing window with pots lined up and some mason jars that I filled with spent coffee grounds (for growing oyster mushrooms). Anyone that is motivated can do that (and more) at the very least, and the health benefits that are offered even by growing a steady supply of those things are non-trivial.
Being able to transform spent coffee grounds, cardboard, woodchips and other free "waste" or byproducts into nutrient dense and medicinal mushrooms is a very powerful skillset to have in this time of financial, agricultural and geopolitical instability.
Some species (such as Oyster mushrooms) are quite forgiving for beginnners and have such aggressive mycelium that they can grow either indoors or outdoors on a wide range of substrates (such as coffee grounds, cardboard, straw, woodchips or even chopped up phragmites stems). Other species (such as Shiitake, Lion's Mane and Reishi) can be cultivated via inoculating hardwood logs outside (or on blocks of enriched sawdust inside).
Inoculated hardwood logs can produce mushrooms from 5-7 years (depending on the size and density/variety of the wood used) and one can even encourage a fully colonized log to produce nutrient dense mushrooms in a matter of days-weeks by soaking them in cold water to simulate spring/fall conditions. That means hardwood logs that have been inoculated with mycelium from choice mushrooms species can effectively serve as a form of long term shelf stable outdoor/indoor emergency 'food storage'.
For more info on mushroom cultivation check out my substack article below:
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/making-allies-in-the-fungal-queendom?
Thanks again for the thoughtful, candid and kind comment. I am grateful we were guided to cross paths and I hope this info is helpful to you.
The Independent National Convention sounds very interesting. And disheartening because that one paragraph talks about uniting independents, depolarizing the country, and finding common ground and then divides and polarizes people into haves and have nots in the process of finding common ground only among the haves.
Seems to be a reoccurring theme here. But you can have $50 off "the more beautiful world".
Don't take any shot. You can't trust the medical establishment at all.
"Love and Politics" panel? Is that the one followed by "Cooking With Dogsh*t"?
"Love" and "politics" are being discussed as symbiotic. Oh man. We are so far gone at this point.
You know, i used to have to dig around and read through things here before I found something to have fun with. Now they just fall right into my lap at first glance. Heck, I might even get bored and leave all you tepid souls be.
I listened to the "What's the Next Story?" conversation. I found the statistics on modern medicine interesting (12% of children with chronic conditions in the 1980s, 54% now). I definitely believe that the way Western medicine works (fostering a circle of dependence) plays a role in that. But it goes way beyond that, I believe. Part of it is the excessive reliance on technology. While, as someone who works online and makes a living from anywhere in the world thanks to technology, I believe it can bring us a lot of benefits, it is an overused tool. Right now, I see that so many people no longer know how to communicate anything in person. They hide behind a screen. The result, in the long run, is a robot-like existence, with a lot of stuffed emotions underneath. This is a ticking bomb scenario, and from a metaphysical perspective, it also manifests as illness. Of course, not knowing how to deal with it, we then resort to some of the magic pills that pharmaceutical companies offer, and other "conveniences" that gradually diminish our quality of life. What are your ideas as to how we can increase self-awareness in this regard? I believe that, by doing so, more people will wake up on their own, and see technology, medicine, and everything else for what it is, a tool that yes, if used properly, can make our life better, as long as we are mindful and it is us who use it, and not the other way around.
Looking forward to reading your next essays.
Thank you for providing all those wonderful links -- I’ve bookmarked them for later 😄 Good luck writing your essays, I’m really looking forward to them!
Thank you so much for this, I'm delighted to read you'll be thinking deeply about those topics and writing on them.
I'll read/watch the results very intently. And thanks for the waiting room links in the meantime, all much appreciated 🙏🏼
Thank you for all the links!
Thanks for the mention of the EarthCare Summit!! Excited for your presentation on The Body of Earth!