shhhhh

              We lived right by the road for over twenty years and didn't realize how much all that background noise affected us - until we moved.  Now we live in a very quiet place and it is heavenly peaceful all the time. 

            The machine age is only about one hundred and fifty years old.  Before that the world was quiet.  Imagine for a moment a world without engines - no cars, no airplanes, no kitchen machines and appliances, no noisy farm equipment.  With the development of electric cars we may actually be heading back in that direction, as my husband noted the other day.    Have you sat in an electric car?  You can't even hear that the engine is running.  Generating electricity from solar panels is completely silent as well.  I remember the roar of the furnace in our old house when the thermostat switched it on, the geothermal system in our new place is almost noiseless.

            Quietness is grounding.  Alone-time is important to reboot your mind.  Are we headed back to a quieter world?  Will it help us to become more grounded and less frazzled?  When our children were small we reminded them every once in a while that they needed to stop chattering for a bit and said "It is quiet time now."  Find some quiet time every once in a while, it brings peacefulness. 

small is beautiful

         Ice cream servings in a cone are small in Europe, probably a bit less than half the size of the big scoops we are used to over here.  Generally we equate big with good because bigger is better, right? Cars used to be the size of boats in this country until people became more energy aware.  "How was the food at that new restaurant?"  "It was great, we had a lot of food."  Huh?  But how did it taste?  May be the portion was too large if you need to take half your meal home in a doggy bag.  

            E.F. Schumacher was way ahead in 1973 when he argued in his economic classic Small is Beautiful that building our economy on eternal growth is not sustainable.  Indeed, our planet doesn't expand.  Around the same time Frances Moore Lappé wrote Diet for a Small Planet.  She pioneered the discussion around the terrible environmental impact our industrial "meat production" causes and argued for vegetarianism.

            Interest rates have been shrinking, they are even lower in Europe than here,  and discussions on negative interest rates are popping up - getting penalized for leaving your money in the bank.  So spend it or put it under the mattress. 

            All of these are signs that small is beautiful, bigger is not sustainable, our economies need to shrink to halt the consumerist excess and environmental damage we have created.  Think quality over quantity.  "How delicious was that meal?" not "How big was it?"  "What beautiful material is that dress made of?" not "Buy 2 for the price of 1."

the earth is all we have

             Let's not throw her to the dogs, let's not pollute her any longer, or blow her up to smithereens, we can't go live on the Moon or Mars.  Besides, I kind of like it here.  Do you?

            Without the Earth we're nothing.  We do not exist without her, at least not in our human form.  The Earth furnishes us with everything we need, food, fuel, material for shelter and clothing, and beyond those basics beauty and wonder.  Gaia and you and I are one.  She exists so we can experience her and all of us together.  

            On this Earth Day consider becoming aware of what you see and experience, then unravel it backwards to unearth what beliefs lie behind it, under it, buried.   What you experience and see is based on your thoughts and beliefs.  On this Earth Day the second phase of our solar installation is being completed so we can produce 100% of the energy we consume.  Zero footprint.  It's about mutual respect, and it's an investment in the future of our planet.

            Also take a look at this one and that previous Earth Day posts.

dull Jack

            The well known proverb "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is something to contemplate in our culture that is so focused on making the next buck, answering your work cell on week-ends, and generally racing towards retirement when you can finally collapse.  Not so fast!  Actually, please come to a screeching halt. 

            In general, Europeans don't have to be taught to go play, have fun, go on vacation, attend cultural events and read a book every once in a while.  But here, where it's virtuous to be a good corporate soldier, we need a reality check every once in a while. 

            When you're in a rut your productivity goes down, your motivation goes down, and the excitement of waking up every morning and creating a brand new day with a million possibilities vanishes.  If your stress level is always on HIGH, if you're always ON, your pleasure hormones can't get through because the stress hormones are on a chronic ON.  Not only that, you become a dull person with a single focus - work. 

            Instead, why not develop an activity or an interest that intrigues you?  Research it, immerse yourself, become an expert.  Something else to talk about when you get together with friends.    Always work talk is boring.  When you meet someone new in Europe the first question will almost never be "so what do you do?"  In fact, people usually talk about everything but work when they get together socially.  

            Something to consider.

simply amazing

            It's an amazing time we live in. Things are developing so fast, changing at lightning speed, and so much information has become available in the past few decades with the advent of the internet that it's just mind boggling.  I love the internet. 

            My Encyclopedia Britannica set from 1966 is collecting dust and taking up bookshelf space (although filled bookshelves look nice, and people think you're smart when you have lots of books).  My parents are holding on to, and still use, three sets of encyclopedias (one from the early 20th century, one from the mid-20th century, and one from the end of the last century).  An encyclopedia is what you needed way back when - but no longer.          

            Knowledge is power, as they say, and the internet has exponentially increased the availability of information in an incredibly short amount of time.  Everything and everyone gets reviewed and evaluated.  You can read reviews and you can write reviews.  The power lies in the two-way street.  Bad products, bad restaurants, bad schools, bad doctors, bad professors and teachers can no longer hide, and good ones are rewarded quickly.

            Doctors are no longer the sole keepers of medical information.  Instead they have become your co-treaters in the healing process as the internet has empowered us with information on symptoms, treatment methods, options and alternatives.  Amazing!

            Universities post free online lectures and courses, and free education is available in many different forms and formats.  Encyclopedias have become obsolete as the latest information on anything is available and updated in real time at the touch of your smart phone, anytime, anywhere.  Amazing!

            Living in the countryside I used to have limited access to many food items and other products.  No longer.  You can buy practically anything over the internet and have it shipped practically anywhere - and it comes fast.  Amazing!

            With increasing visual content on the internet how-to information is now available in the form of videos - how to make an eggplant parm, how to lay tile or install carpet, how to make a birdhouse or apply make-up, how to block annoying callers on your particular phone model, anything and everything.  Amazing!

            For once let's be amazed and grateful and awed.

super crop

         You can eat it in seed, flour or oil form, you can make clothes and rope out of it as well as biodiesel fuel, paper and building materials.   Meet hemp, the old/new super crop.   Pretty much the only thing you can't do with hemp is get high on it because it's not the same as marijuana, although they both belong to the cannabis family.   It's a super plant and super food that withstands drought, thrives in poor soil, and grows fast.

            Hemp oil is extremely rich in essential fatty acids, and according to David Wolfe of Superfood fame "the only known food with ideal ratios of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids."  The oil is also used in body care products.  Hempseed is a complete protein, the leaves are edible and you can make tea out of them.  The seeds can be made into butter, bread, beer and milk, similar to a nut milk.  Hemp's fiber is one of the strongest fibers on earth, hence its use for rope.  But it can also be made into clothing.  Hemp clothing is better than cotton in every way - warmer, more absorbent, stronger and more resilient, accepts dye better, extremely durable and it becomes softer and more comfortable the longer you wear it.   Hemp can grow pretty much anywhere in the world and yields 2.5 times the fiber the same area planted with cotton would yield. A biodegradable plastic can be made from the stalk as well as building materials like insulation, fiberboard, and hempcrete, all non-toxic and non-off-gasing.

             Hopefully, the silly hemp ban in the US that dates back to the 1930s and was engineered around political and monetary interests will be lifted soon as people become more aware of this super crop.  

aesthetic shift

           Our cultural values and beliefs define what we find beautiful.    Mattel  recently had to redesign Barbie to keep pace with a shifting feminine body image, away from the anorexic long legged 60s model to a somewhat more realistically curvy one,  although Rubens' buxom female bodies would still be considered overweight. Someone in our small town had a problem with the looks of a solar panel array in the midst of a field off a local country road.  But with changing times and changing values what is perceived as beautiful or ugly changes as well.

            I have always liked the juxtaposition of old and new, such as an old building that has been renovated and to which contemporary elements have been added, like the glass pyramid in the Parisian Louvre courtyard.  The Europeans are very good at melding old and new elements so the old elements don't seem stuck in the past.  On the contrary, in juxtaposition the new elements looks more new and the old elements looks more old.  They both inform each other in a very attractive way.

            I love the traditional looks of our charming little Norman Rockwellish town.  Yet, I find the mini solar panels, newly added to the downtown street lanterns, really cool because they fuse old charm with new technology, a layering of values expressed in the streetscape.  Respect for the old with the recognition that things must change and evolve.  What do you think?

face-to-face is best

                  Phone conversations and Go-To Meetings are one thing.  Sure, they save time, money and energy, and permit easy communication across long distances.  Facetime, Skype and other apps that permit you to see your communication partner are better.  But nothing beats an actual face-to-face, whether in a business or private situation. 

               Real people, deep communication.  There is simply no substitute for experiencing your partner's emotions, facial expressions, body language and, dare I say, vibes.  We pick up so much information subconsciously from eye expressions, gestures, body language and energetic qualities that simply gets lost otherwise.  Without face-to-face contact we easily misconstrue and misunderstand because we literally don't get the full picture.  When we are together face-to-face we experience the whole person, seen and unseen aspects, and get the complete picture.  Would you rather have dinner with a screen apparition of your friend or the real thing?  There is a reason for business lunches and dinners, for meetings, for business travel.  A virtual  experience will never be the same as the real thing and the cost savings may not always be worth it.

super superfoods

                      A lot has been written in the past two decades on the need to return to real food, which consists of one-ingredient foods from nature put together in a meal (i.e. fresh spinach sautéed with garlic and olive oil), as opposed to manufactured foods that come in boxes and packages (i.e. breakfast cereal or Western omelet mix).  But evolution is always about shifts and new developments in order to evolve to higher levels.  Going "back" to grandmother's foods is a good thing but not necessarily sufficient and the end-all.  Our soils, even organic soils, have been depleted of minerals and trace elements resulting in less nourishing produce, and our bodies are subject to more pollution than ever.

       superfood dried goji berries

              Superfoods to the rescue.  These are foods that are only now available to us outside their geographic growing area, both because enlightened interest and scientific research have brought them to our awareness, and because modern transportation logistics make them accessible.  Superfoods are foods with an incredible amount and array of nutritional components.  David Wolfe, Renaissance man and superfood guru, has been researching superfoods for over twenty year and has written many books on greater nutrional subjects.  I hadn't even heard of some of his superfoods such as maca, AFA blue-green algae, or marine phytoplankton.  The others on his list of 10 were more familiar to me: goji berries, cacao, all bee products, spirulina, aloe vera, hempseed and coconut.  From radiation protection to cleansing the body from toxins and metals, to immune system rebuilding and activating the body's own healing powers, these new and not-so-new foods are exciting to learn about and incorporate into your meals. 

superfood AFA algae

library of things

            Perhaps a better way to understand the new sharing economy than using Uber or Airbnb's services (after all these businesses are for-profit) is through a "library of things." I really like the idea.  A similar principle already exists in the form of seed banks, from which you can obtain seeds as long as you bring back seeds from your harvest at the end of the season to replenish the seed bank.

            Libraries of Things go beyond lending books, movies and magazines, as a recent NY Times article explained.  They lend tools, equipment or things to community members.  The benefits are multifold.  For one, you as an individual won't need to invest in the cost of say an expensive 3-D printer to experiment with, or buy a pair of snowshoes for that once-in-a-while winter hike.  The investment happens at the community level, for which we all chip in via our local taxes.  At the same time an economy in manufacturing develops because less stuff needs to get made.  Moreover, access to such a library reduces the stuff you need to store and upkeep.  It is likely that you only use your hedge clippers or power drill a few times a year.  Why not borrow one from a tool library instead of buying a brand new expensive tool that sits idle most of the time, collects dust and takes up real estate in your garage?

            Along similar lines there are hour exchanges, where you get time, help and experience from others for services you need against time for your expertise, as well as babysitting services.  All neat ideas to explore sharing and meeting new people.