barefooting it

             I forgot about walking barefoot.  My kids walk around the house barefoot all the time.  And my sister reminded me when she came to visit recently.  Walking barefoot frees the feet of their unnatural shoesy confines.  Walking barefoot is grounding.  Walking barefoot outside is even more grounding.  Grounding techniques do just that - connecting us to the ground in order to rebalance the mind and reconnect us with the earth.  In addition, walking barefoot outdoors - on grass, sand, or even more adventurous ground - lets us absorb negative ions.  Negative ions counter all the positive ions electronics spew out (Himalayan salt lamps also generate negative ions and counter the effects of electronics - see a recent post on that).

            So, take your shoes and socks off while the weather is warm, and go for a barefoot walk outside.  As little as five minutes a day is beneficial.

white man to green man

           There was so much symbolism, albeit subconscious, in what my daughter said at lunchtime as we sat outside, looking at our faded-to-almost-white, plaster cast of the Green Man.  She said "The white man needs to become the green man again," simply meaning we ought to give him a fresh coat of green stain.

            Today's NY Times article about a draft report by federal agencies that we are already experiencing climate change here in the US, that human activities are the primary culprit, and that temperatures have risen dramatically since 1980, reminds us how interwoven with Nature we really are - we can't escape it.

            It is high time that we white men return from feeling superior to Nature to respecting it, working with it, recognizing that we humans are Nature, too, and cannot exist without it.  Nature is what surrounds us, provides us with everything we need to live - food to nourish ourselves, fiber to clothe ourselves, building materials, plants for medicine to heal ourselves, and materials to express ourselves creatively via music and the visual arts. 

            The Green Man is an ancient, mostly Celtic, symbol for man's symbiosis with Nature.  While indigenous cultures have steadfastly maintained their intertwined relationship with Nature, as much they were able to through the long assault period by Western culture, we whites completely forgot that we are Nature, that we owe everything to it, that we cannot live without it.

            May the White Man become the Green Man again.

in awe

           I am always in total awe when I see big creatures out there in the wild. Seeing a bear (two days ago at lunchtime out my office window), a fox (same thing, out my office window), even a deer, a flock of turkeys, or a moose (last year in Alaska), seems not only exotic to me, but twists my reality back into place.  These magnificent creatures show me how awesome nature is, that we must respect their magnitude, their sheer force and power.  There is always a bit of incredulity at their sight, maybe feeling privileged that they show themselves, and awe that we are part of the same environment that sustains them too.

            It touches something deep down in me.

unlimited energy

            And by this I don't mean your personal level of energy, I mean energy to produce electricity for transportation and machinery/electronics as a basis for our economy. 

            Rob Hopkins founded his Transition Movement in England in 2005 based on the idea that we are coming to the end of the fossil-fuel era and need to revert to local economies to reduce our reliance on oil.   One element of this reasoning, the suggested need to decrease our energy requirements, is now changing.  While the local economies movement is stronger than ever, it is for different reasons than the potential lack of energy. 

            We are now seeing a strong movement towards renewable energies, much of it based on solar and hydrogen, but also wind, geothermal, and others.  My prediction is that we will actually have way more energy than we have available now, an overabundance of energy, and that geopolitical alliances will shift because everybody will have access to enough energy, not just a few.  We will never ever run out of sunlight and hydrogen.  So even if a country didn't have enough sunshine, well - nobody will ever run out of hydrogen.  Iceland is such an example that is already energy independent and produces all of its energy from hydro and geothermal sources.

            Volvo, no longer Swedish but long owned by the Chinese, bets on the future of electric cars, and is throwing their Chinese power and money behind it.  Hydrogen is unlimited and may become one of our foremost energy sources in the form of hydrogen fuel cells.  Meanwhile the return to local economies, away from globalization, will remain a strong movement because people want agency, they want responsibility for, and involvement in, their local politics, be it for reasons of local customs and culture, sustainability, landuse, or general policies.  But the return to village life will no longer happen due to a lack of energy.

H2O

             Fresh water will be the next oil in terms of governing our economies of the future.  A few decades ago I thought for sure that we would have run out of oil by now, or almost. And even though we haven't yet, we are in the last throws of the oil age, regardless of desperate fracking efforts and attempts to get to the Alaska oil reserves.  Our energy needs will eventually be met with renewable energies.

            More worrisome than the oil situation is the water situation.  With climate change we are getting too much of it in some areas, to the point of coastal areas and islands becoming submerged and diluvian rain storms, and too little in others.   On the one hand sea levels are rising due to melting glaciers and polar ice caps, while other areas are becoming more prone to temporary droughts, as we have seen in California for the past years, and downright desertification.  In the US our fresh water tables have sunk to half the 1960s levels, due to agricultural and economic activity. 

            Ocean water desalination will become the new  hot ticket in terms of investments and developments. The Middle East is currently leading with over 50% of the world's desalination capacity.   While you won't need to curtail your shower time anywhere soon the price of produce is likely to go up, and the mix of your investment portfolio could change.  Oil is out, water is in.

no waste

         Nature leaves no waste, only people do. Nature's waste is sustainable because its decomposition follows a sustainable cycle in which every part feeds the next step in the cycle endlessly.  Animal waste and dead plant material compost back into the soil, carrion eating birds and little critters take care of animal carcasses, trees absorb the carbon dioxide that animals and humans exhale.  It is only us humans who have devised production processes that transform natural materials into stuff that is either itself not recyclable (think plastics) and creates trash that way, or whose manufacturing produces side effects in the form of waste and pollution (any industrial process).

            Worldwide many towns and cities strive to become zero-waste by 2020.  The goal of zero-waste is to recycle and compost everything so nothing goes into the landfill.  It takes a strong commitment from the city and a persistent education effort to overcome people's initial resistance and learning curve - take a look at this video of a Japanese town that's almost there.  Then take a look at your household trash and recycling logistics.  Can you do better?  You may also want to re-read an older post - trash-free?    Since Nature leaves no waste let's remember that we, actually, are Nature, too.

so exquisite

             Is there anything more beautiful than these water drops that glitter like Swarovski crystals in the sun?  Nature creates this kind of perfection effortlessly, without trying - naturally.  So different from us, when we try to create beauty.  We have to apply skill and technology.  We need to work at it, spending years of practicing and perfecting a skill, before something becomes naturally beautiful without trying too hard.

            Here - another blog post - on nature's effortless perfection.

it's ok

I am so frustrated with these compostable trash bags.  They rip easily, humidity seeps through them, I can only fill them about halfways before they fall apart, and many times I need to double them up before bringing them out to the trash can.  Yet, I bought a big box of sixty twice - out of guilt, figured I couldn't give up so easily.  The environment is really important to me, I want to be responsible, be a good example, and do my share to save the world.   Plastic is an environmental

           I am so frustrated with these compostable trash bags.  They rip easily, humidity seeps through them, I can only fill them about halfways before they fall apart, and many times I need to double them up before bringing them out to the trash can.  Yet, I bought a big box of fifty twice - out of guilt, figured I couldn't give up so easily.  The environment is really important to me, I want to be responsible, lead by example, and do my share to save the world.   Plastic is an environmental nightmare that never (well, at least almost never) decomposes!  It swirls the Pacific in plastic islands the size of Texas, plastic shopping bags hang from our trees like rags and fly across roadways and fields, softdrink loops ensnare fish and seabirds, and fish and marine mammals ingest plastic bits and pieces that float in the ocean.  I don't want to be yet another contributor to this horror show. 

            Remember the days when we didn't care because we didn't know?  But sometimes life, and practicality, takes over and I think I'm done with these compostable trash bags because they just don't work and I really have tried and done my very best. For now I will settle for sturdy bags that are made from recycled plastic (at least something good), but, alas, are not compostable.  And I think the world will survive, and I will be ok.  What are your thoughts?

the importance of rhizobia

          I'm not much of a fiction reader but I just finished Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees and enjoyed it a lot.  The story conveys what I keep saying, that life is all about relationships.  And life is all about relationships because life is about experiencing love in its many forms, as well as through its lack and absence.  The Bean Trees' metaphor for this realization is the wisteria vine, whose root system attracts rhizobia, small bugs that attract nitrogen to the roots and assure the wisteria's survival even in poor soil.  Bug and wisteria live in a mutually beneficial and interdependent relationship.  One cannot survive without the other.

            We may think that we can go it alone, get off the grid and be self-sufficient, but nature is not like that.  Nature is an entirely interdependent and mutually beneficent interrelational web of support that we humans are an integral part of.  The more we care for each other, the more we enjoy love, life and happiness. 

            We go to restaurants every once in a while and enjoy the experience.  But what we enjoy a whole lot more is having people over or going over to friends' homes and sharing good food and good conversation.  It costs a whole lot less and it cultivates relationships.   That's what it's all about.

            Read here a previous post on nature's interdependence, piranhas and the eco-mind.

learning to lose

         It is time to move aside and consider the rest of our planet's inhabitants.  It is time to shrink our economies.  It is time to leave some nature unraped. British philosopher Alan Watts wrote

".......a permanently victorious species destroys, not only itself,

but all other life in its environment."

        We depend on all other life on this planet.  Without trees for oxygen, without plants for food, without wood and fiber for building and clothing, without water for drinking, without the animal kingdom for balance of our ecosystems, we do not exist.  We have already destroyed so much of life on earth, let's not keep winning to the bitter end.