back to basics

Storm King

A few years ago our electric lawn mower broke and we replaced it with a little mechanical push mower, of the kind I remember my dad using in the 1960s.  It takes a bit of arm muscle and some double mowing when the grass is longer (and I am getting blisters on my hands), but the mowing is really quiet and non-polluting, and you are bound to spend an hour or so out in the beautiful sunshine - exercise and fresh air all in one.  Granted, the push mower doesn't work for a large field sized lawn.  But then, I saw years ago at the Storm King Art Center outdoor sculpture park that lawns can be partially mowed to great effect (and less energy) - just mow a circulation path and where a sculpture or a sitting are is located, and leave the rest to the wild grasses (the insects will be happy, too). More basics - I recently read that some new age farmers are going back to plowing their fields with the help of horses.  Horses don't break down, they don't pollute, their manure is free and environmentally friendly fertilizer.

Not that everything was better then, but not all innovations are good simply because they are new.  New York City is finally jumping on the cycling bandwagon with its newly inaugurated Citibike rental program.  Biking was never out-of-fashion in Europe, but it's finally in fashion again on this side of the Atlantic.  Also see my previous related post "sitting and more sitting."  Just saying - some of this older and slower technology is not so bad, and provides a bit of exercise in fresh air all-the-while accomplishing something - transportation, plowing, mowing - beats the gym for sure.

the fat myth

Food research of the past years has revealed that food is healthiest when we eat it the way nature made it.  When food becomes a "product," meaning when it comes from a factory and they've done stuff to it, it's no longer so healthy and in many instances even harmful. There are a lot of food myths out there that we/our culture created from the ill gotten belief that man-made stuff would surpass what nature makes because it is based on science.  But the food industry pushes under the rug that it's really after the profit, not your health, and that's what they apply their science to.

So here goes the fat myth:

FAT IS BAD FOR YOU  - "lite products" are better for you.

Hence low fat and no fat everything, cheese, milk, yogurt.  The absurd and unhealthy culminations of this misguided belief system of course are butter substitute and margarine, not much nature left in those.  Hence also the French Paradox - why the northern French don't get fat on all their cream and butter and delicious camembert, and the southern French thrive on the olive oil rich Mediterranean diet.  Sally Fallon, one of my nouveau food idols, has all the scientific back-up information for the skeptics in her oft cited food myth debunker and cookbook Nourishing Traditions.

I switched our whole family back to full fat everything a few years ago (I am only a few steps ahead) and we have neither gained weight nor become sick; as a matter-of-fact, we are all very healthy, love to eat, and never spare a thought on the fat question. 

pill or self-heal, or the power of beliefs

We used to believe, truly believe, that the earth is flat and that we would fall over the edge if we went too close.  We also believed, truly believed, that we were at the center of the universe.   Heck, we even burnt someone at the stake for saying otherwise.  We believe other things now, but they are as firmly embedded in our minds as those from earlier times we now call silly.  One of them concerns self-healing. We currently don't really believe that we can self-heal, or let's say that we only believe it under certain circumstances (which makes no sense; it either works, or it doesn't).  Usually we quickly run for outside help, doctors, pills, tests, and so forth.  But think about this:  When you have a cold and eat chicken soup or drink tea to feel better, you don't believe that the chicken soup or tea actually heals the cold.  You understand that you/your body heals the cold and the tea or soup simply helps. When you break a leg and get a cast you don't actually believe that the cast is what heals the bone, you do understand that you/your body heals the bone and the cast simply keeps the limb from moving to aid the body in the healing process.  Under those circumstances we all actually agree that we self-heal and that tea, chicken soup and cast are aids or props.   But the belief system is shaky because we still need an outside "expert" with "expert" methods to help us heal more "serious" ailments.  When we take pills or resort to various treatments, we believe all of a sudden that they actually caused the healing. (Yet, when the treatment doesn't work so well, as is often the case, then we are at a loss - but we wouldn't doubt or adjust our belief system).

You may have heard of voodoo deaths, whereby someone actually ends up dying from a combination of their own fear and the combined energy of the village community that does the condemning.  You may have read about the study on placebo knee surgery for arthritic patients, that ended up treating pain as well as actual surgery (!).  The fact is - our beliefs are enormously powerful!  And when we don't heal, it is usually because negative beliefs or residual trauma are in the way and counteract the process (there are a few exceptions, such as afflictions we are born with).  When they get cleared, the body can heal itself.  Check out the recent book Use Your Body to Heal Your Mind by psychologist Henry Grayson to explore this subject further.

what's holistic anyway?

Some people who I have spoken to about Holistic Living think it just means eating your veggies and going to the gym, sort of just leading a pretty healthy life.  But it's more than that. The word "holistic" is a cross between "whole" and "holy." Why "whole?"  Or we could ask: what is not whole and needs to be put together again? Life consists of both the invisible and the visible, the spiritual and the material, soul/mind and body, thought and matter.  These last few centuries we have been living as if the spiritual or invisible part of life (our emotions, beliefs, feelings, spirituality) did not exist.  And we felt proud of it, proud of being "rational" and "analytical," proud of focusing on the "real" stuff we can see, touch, feel, smell and hear, not that wishy washy airy-fairy emotional stuff no one can see and that's not really "real."

Turns out, though, that that stuff we tended to push under the rug is pretty important.  Without it we mistreat and rape nature (because we think it's separate from us), we make war (because we think "they" are different from us), we don't vote (because we think it makes no difference), we treat animals worse than things (because we think they are not sentient beings), we buy as cheap as possible (because we don't think of the people behind the product, i.e. Bangladesh) - or maybe we don't even think at all.

Holistic means putting the two sides together again, the way they belong, the way they are, the way we forgot they always were.

the meat quandary - last installment

That meat eating has become a potential ethical dilemma indicates a change in our awareness.  As we can see from the Inuit (who eat mostly fish protein) or the Masaai (who subsist mostly on the meat, milk and blood of the cattle they raise) on the one hand, and the Hindus, most of who have been vegetarian for a few millenia, there is a cultural context to any diet that arose in no small part from the geographical surroundings and inherent food potentials. As we have been struggling with the health implications of the big-ag industrial diet that makes for-profit "products," not food, (remember, they don't make this stuff for your benefit, but for theirs: $), and which are made out of geographical context altogether, we have wrestled with the "diet of the day" out of confusion.  The Atkins Diet, the South Beach Diet, the Paleo Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, and what not, have all been hailed as an epiphany at one point or another.

In my view diet has to be considered not only within an ethnico-cultural-geographical context, but also in the context of consciousness evolution.  What I mean by that is that a diet reflects our current understanding of things, our beliefs, our culture, our state-of-affairs.

I believe that it is perfectly ok to eat honey and eggs and some meat and some fish If we live in a context of respect and mutual benefit for all. Check out Sally Fallon's "Nourishing Traditions" for a well researched reversal on some of our common food myths.   Most important is to eat real food - the rest is up to your personal convictions, state of mind and stomach (listen to your body; when you exit a fast food place or a steakhouse and feel heavy and stuffed and as if you couldn't eat anything for the next 24 hours, maybe that food wasn't so beneficial for you).  Food should energize you, physically and spiritually.

Your views and diet evolve as you become better informed, mine continually do.  And if you believe from the bottom of your heart that a candy bar is really really good for your body  (not just to fulfill an emotional need), then it will be.

Please see installments 1. and 2. for the complete picture on the meat quandary.

anti war or pro peace?

Perhaps surprisingly it’s not the same!  It is not the same to be anti big-ag/anti pesticides or pro organic.  It’s not the same to be anti abortion or pro life.  Why not?  Because energetically being anti anything perpetuates that which we protest, since that is what we keep thinking about (the energy doesn’t get the “not” part).  If you keep protesting against war, war is the energy that gets perpetuated, whereas if you lobby for peace, peace is the energy that is being strengthened. Being pro something turns our mind to that which we favor, that which we wish to manifest. That’s why it is so important to formulate what you do want in life, not what you don’t want, although defining what you don’t want first helps you to define better what it is you actually do want.

So next time you are angry with something out there – perhaps the politicians, the terrible meat industry, your coworker, your child for something s/he did – turn your thinking around and emphasize what you’d like to see instead – vote for something, buy meat that has been raised the way you prefer, talk to your coworker about the feelings his/her behavior elicits in you and what can be done about it, encourage and reward your child for the behavior you’d like to reinforce.

voting with your $

When you pay for something you not only send dollars but also energy its way, you vote for it, you strengthen it and its cause.  Say you shop at Walmart, or Whole Foods, or Amazon, or your local farmer (I know these are opposites in a way, that’s on purpose), you literally fill their pot with money. While it may not be immediately evident, remember that there is strength in numbers.  When a few thousand people take their food dollars away from Tyson and send them their local farmer’s way, it does make a difference.  When thousands of people become tired of built-in obsolence and take their household dollars away from shoddily made appliances and buy something well engineered that lasts, it does make a difference.  Why do you think big-ag and big-food businesses are so afraid of GMO labeling?  Because we make a statement with our money.

Today, a friend mentioned that it wasn’t necessary to buy organic avocados because they are not on the Dirty Dozen list of produce most contaminated by pesticides.  I explained that not only was the price difference only slight, but more importantly that I voted for a healthier environment and farm workers' health by buying the organic kind.

So next time you open your purse or your checkbook, remember it's a two-way street. It's not just about saving a few bucks, it's also about the cause you support.

stuff, stuff, and more stuff

 

Not sure whether you have ever given trash, your’s or that of others, much thought. But here are some statistics.  The average amount of waste each person generates has increased from 2.68lbs in 1960 to 4.5lbs in 1990.  Luckily that number has held steady due to recycling efforts.   However, it still totals about 1.35billion lbs/day or 251 million tons per year!!! Now wait - this is only personal trash, which constitutes 2% of the waste stream – yikes for the industrial waste stream!  But let’s stay with our personal garbage, because that's where we can make a difference.

The first rule of thumb is that recycling and composting are good, but buying less stuff is better.  Besides, it’s been documented that we can’t gain happiness through consumption.  Elizabeth Royte, who wrote a very enlightening book on garbage, says that “We don’t need better ways to get rid of things. We need to not get rid of things, either by keeping them cycling through the system or not… desiring them in the first place.”

But once we have garbage, what are our choices? They are dumping, incinerating, and recycling.  FYI - in untreated landfills waste can take 40 to 50 years to decompose, in treated landfills between 5 and 10 years.  Yet, plastics may take hundreds of years to decompose!   And there are other problems with landfills: their toxicity (supposedly landfills are the largest source of human generated greenhouse gases, although CAFO’s, those enormous industrial animal feeding operations that make supermarket meat are also huge culprits), and the ever increasing amounts of garbage and landfill space needed (1.because of population increase, and 2.because our consumer society model is based on ever increasing consumption– the system breaks down if we stop consuming, and then the politicians scream “recession” - stop screaming with them).

So, what can you do?

• Don’t pick up any more plastic bags from the supermarket, bring your own cloth bags
• Consume less, recycle and compost more
• Use compostable garbage bags, recycled paper products, and products made from recycled plastic
• Buy more groceries and cleaning supplies in bulk, reuse your glass jars and Chinese takeout plastic containers (I wish they would take them back, since I don’t like plastic in the first place), reuse your Ziplock bags a few times
• Subscribe to Freecycle (they are all about giving and getting for free)
• Donate your gently used unwanted stuff instead of throwing it away
• Buy clothes at 2^nd-hand stores (I am a huge fan)
• Most of all – stop wanting, wanting, wanting stuff.

social arrangements on the move

The world is changing fast and society opening up to a greater variety of family arrangements and social expressions is just one manifestation of it; what with single moms, single dads, gay and lesbian parents, and the complex family structures of divorced and remarried parents.  It became so clear to me when I read Saturday’s NY Times. On p. A9 I learned that for the first time in Cuba  (of all countries) a transgender person was just elected a municipal representative.  And on p. A11 I read that a republican senator, who was previously opposed to same-sex marriage, reversed himself on the matter when he found out his son was gay (this position now makes him at odds with his party).  Amazing how quickly things can change.  And our still relatively conservative little town (mind you, we are only 50 miles north of NYC) has now its very own LGBTQ Center of the Warwick Valley, at least online.

what do you want to do that for?

That is what we’ve heard many times since beginning the planning process for our new energy efficient house.  The most extensive argument may well have been around the merits of triple-pane windows.  In northern Europe triple-pane windows are now standard for new construction, and Canadians use them already extensively.  But here in the US energy awareness is still in its infancy and we kept being asked “what do you want to do that for?” In comparing windows, I found that Canadians build better frames, which makes a big difference, and they use orientation and climate specific glazing for optimal energy savings.  European casement windows have a much tighter fit than the double-hung windows typical for here because of the different frame design.  Passiv-Haus windows are the platinum standard, it tops them all (price included!).

Thinking ahead, Germans are already talking about quadruple windows!