Three Small Blogs

Austan, from AUSTANSPACE, recently gifted me (and two other bloggers) with the Liebster Blog Award.

The award goes to three blogs with less than 300 followers. The honor of having gotten it goes with the duty of honoring three more small blogs. One of the first blogs I would have honored with it is AUSTANSPACE--but, obviously, that's already been done.

I don't have the time to research to find out which other blogs have already been given this award, so I may be giving this to a blog which has already gotten it in the past, but I am going to simply pick out three favorite small blogs.

And here's my three honorees:

The first is SoapBox Tech. I think Jerry is doing some amazing things out there and I would love to join him in doing some of it but since I'm in New England (USA) and he is in Alberta (Canada)--several thousand miles away--I am glad that he's documenting it in his blog so we can all learn from it. I also enjoy his rants.

Then there is Michaelann Land. Michaelann is a social justice warrior, someone who has spent her life fighting against poverty, exploitation, oppression, and destruction of the environment, and still manages to have the occasional post about theoretical physics.

Finally, there is The Wheeling Traveller. Blues has not written much in the blog yet, but what's there is a deep exploration of the pain of disability. This is a perspective that many of us need to learn. Blues, consider this a nudge toward writing more.

Quote of the Day: "There are beautiful wild forces within us. Let them turn the mills inside and fill the sacks that feed even heaven." - Francis of Assisi

Impermasysteming

I've written several posts on Permaculture. (Permaculture, 7/22/08, and Permaculture Principles, 12/24/09, and one entitled Attitude, 8/31/10.) The word Permaculture is a combination of the words Permanent and Agriculture, or sometimes Permanent and Culture. I think the intent of the word 'permanent' is to imply sustainable.

But the definition I found online for permanent (from Merriam-Webster) was: "continuing or enduring without fundamental or marked change". The trick is that nothing continues without at least some marked change.

I've blogged also on impermanence. (See Impermanence, 7/9/10, and Death, Decay, and Impermanence, 11/1/10.) While this is a basic Buddhist concept, the truth of it quickly becomes apparent to anyone who pays attention. Everything changes, everything is in flux, very little endures without changing.

Everything is also connected, also in relationship to everything else, and also changing everything else. It's all a grand and glorious dance.

To me this all relates to systems thinking. I think of Permaculture as just another way of looking at systems theory--in the same way I think of complexity science, ecology, ecofeminism, etc, as other ways of looking at systems theory. (See my post on Systems, 12/14/09, for more on this.)

The problem with talking about systems is that systems is a noun (a plural noun) and nouns seem static, fixed. Nouns are usually "used to name a person, animal, place, thing," or an "abstract idea." (From an online definition provided by the University of Ottawa.) To me a noun is a snapshot of something--an instant picture that doesn't change in our minds.

I have a snapshot in my room of myself carrying a four year old girl on my shoulders. It's a cute picture--the problem is that neither of us look like that anymore. She's now a twenty-one year old woman and my hair has fallen out since and my beard is now snow white. Everything changes. Everything changes and systems are always changing, always in flux. As I said, it's a dance.

Buckminister Fuller said, "I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process..." As far as I'm concerned, systems are definitely verbs, changing, evolving, processing, unfolding, systeming. Everything is connected, everything is in relationship, everything is moving, everything is unfolding, everything is changing, and nothing is permanent. The trick is to relax and enjoy the ride.


Quote of the Day: "The process nature of reality became clear--its continual flow, the radical impermanence of all things, with no element or entity aloof from change. ... All the factors of our lives subsist, therefore, in a web of mutual causality. ...things do not produce each other or make each other happen, as in a linear causality; they help each other by providing occasion or locus or context, and in doing so, they in turn are affected. There is a mutuality here, a reciprocal dynamic. Power inheres not in any entity, but in the relationship between entities." - Joanna Macy

Watching the Process Unfold

For the last two months I have been living in this quirky, interesting building, trying to be patient. Finding housemates has been a slow process and even slower has been the waiting for them to actually live here.

One person did move in and I also found a sublet for the summer to cover the rent and to have people around until others were ready to move in. Both are folks that needed a lot of time to themselves and so until recently, I have not been seeing much of either. Recently, I have been connecting with my new long-term housemate and, as of today, two more of my housemates are scheduled to move in.

We have been conducting group interviews while looking for our last housemate and this has been a good process for us. In the process of telling our stories to the people we are interviewing we have been learning about each other.

This is all such a wild gamble. I don't really know any of these people and we have no systems in place--not even how we make decisions, let alone whether we do meetings or food sharing or how we manage chores. My anxiety has occasionally been really up, wondering whether this all has been a big mistake.

I put a sign up in my room that says "I can relax and see what unfolds". Doing it, however, is another matter.

My goal is to really listen to and learn about each of these precious people, each of whom bring something to the house, each of whom have hidden gifts that will only appear as we begin to trust one another. Community will emerge as the connections slowly happen. I just need to be patient.


Quote of the Day: "The aspiration to communicate with another person--to be able to listen and speak from the heart--is what changes our old stuck patterns." - Pema Chödrön

Doing it!

Sorry for the sudden change in plans, but it looks like I will be taking a break at this point. It could be permanent but probably not. I really do have a lot of stuff I still want to blog on, but there are things that are much better than blogging.

One of the best is to do a lot of the stuff that I've been blogging on. Out of the blue (almost) someone who had noticed all the workshops I'd been offering on intentional communities offered to rent her house to me to create an intentional community in. (She and her family are actually moving to a rural community in another state.) How could I turn that down?

So now I have the opportunity to do a lot of what I've been blogging on--starting with doing it with love and compassion. (I write this as a reminder for myself as much as anything.)

Yes, this will be about Simplicity, Equality, Community, and Sustainability. Yes, I will try to find ways of embracing Complexity, Diversity, Individuality, and Practicality. Yes, this will be about starting Small and Local. Of course, I will try to apply Permaculture and NonViolent Communication and anything else I can think of to our situation. Of course, I want us to be eating locally, growing food (at least sprouts), conserving energy and water, and most importantly, taking care of each other, learning from each other, and listening to each other.

This house comes with a host of quirky things and a big bunch of challenges. The location is very urban and there isn't a lot of space for a garden--or much of anything. But as I wrote in my post on Attitude (8/31/10), a Permaculture Principle is: "Every resource is either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on the use made of it. ... Disadvantages can be viewed as 'problems' and we can take an energy-expensive approach to 'get rid of the problem', or we can think of everything as being a positive resource: it is up to us to work out just how we can make use of it." The other Attitudinal Principle is "Permaculture is Information and Imagination-Intensive". We will need creativity and imagination (and some information as well) to deal with the challenges of this house, but if I can get a good mix of people for this community, we should be able to do it. Now I just need to find them.

Maybe my next post will be an update of how this is working out. Meanwhile, if anyone reading this is interested in being a part of this emerging community (or might know someone who is), please email me.

Wish me luck.


Quote of the Day: "How are you practicing what you preach--whatever you preach, and who exactly is listening? ... It is not going to be easy, but we have what we have learned and what we have been given that is useful. We have the power those who came before us have given us, to move beyond the place where they were standing. We have the trees, and water, and sun, and our children. ... We are making the future..." - Audre Lorde

Survival Resources 13: Survival Summary

At this point, I am going to end this particular series on Survival Resources. It's not that I won't discuss this stuff again, it's just that it's time to go onto other things. I have a long list of other topics I want to blog about--of course the biggest problem is finding time to write about it all...

So what conclusions do I have? What have I learned? What have you learned?

I think most of this falls into three categories: things we can do something about now, things we can learn (better and better over time), and things that we won't know until we get there.

The two things anyone can do now: 1) Get (or get out from the library) and read some some of the books about survival. My top recommendations are When Technology Fails (see When Technology Fails, 2/13/10) and Deep Survival (see my post on Wilderness Survival, 3/11/11). While you are at it, work on developing a survival attitude. And 2) Create a 'survival kit' (see Survival Kits, 5/6/11).

Most of the rest of what's in these posts are skills you can learn over time: foraging (see Foraging, 1/11/11), winter tree identification (see Winter Tree ID, 1/18/11) and tracking (see Tracking, 2/9/11), studying and learning the land around you (see Learning the Land, 2/27/11) as well as learning 'primitive skills' (see Primitive Skills, 4/13/11) for wilderness survival (see Wilderness Survival, 3/11/11). The only way to learn these things is practice, practice, practice. (I said this in the posts too.) Also, some of these skill can only be practiced at certain times--I've been joking with my friend who I studied buds and winter tree identification that it's too late to practice learning the buds now--it's May and all the trees are in bloom. But winter will come around again--and it's a very good time to start practicing foraging.

Finally, there are some things we will only know when we get there. Reinventing Collapse (see Reinventing Collapse, 5/12/11) is good to read and think about, and the lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union may prove useful to our survival if and when collapse happens here, but unfortunately we won't know anything for certain until something like that happens.

The frustrating thing about emergencies, technology failing, sudden crises, and even complete collapse is that none of it is predictable. Certainly the thing that you really want to do is try to avoid any of this happening in the first place. Still, being prepared is always useful. I hope this series helps some folks to think about preparations they could be taking--and maybe this will help if they find themselves in a crisis.

Meanwhile, I think that the best way to prepare for collapse is to live as if it has already happened. I want to think about what life would be like in a 'Post-Carbon' world--a world without oil or fossil fuels. What skills would we need to learn, not only to survive but to thrive in a very different world? The ideas and skills involved in that is another whole series that I hope to write in the future.


Quote of the Day: “We all need food, water and shelter, but the needs of a family in west Texas in July are vastly different than the needs of a family in western Massachusetts in January. You have to think about what you’re preparing for.” - Kathy Harrison

Survival Resources 12: Reinventing Collapse

Of course, part of the reason I am doing this series on Survival Resources is that there is a good chance at some point in the future, the corporate-industrial, oil maintained US society will collapse. (See my posts on Collapse, 7/5/10, and Peak Everything, 7/20/08.) Being prepared for this possibility and having some idea how it might happen would certainly help increase our chances for survival.

Dmitry Orlov has a unique perspective on the question of social collapse. Having grown up in the Soviet Union (he immigrated to the US at age 12) he understands the culture and the way the society worked. He visited Russia several times in the 1980's and 1990's after the fall of the USSR. In his book, Reinventing Collapse, Orlov talks about the parallels between the collapse of one 'superpower' and the impending collapse of the other--the US. (He talks about the question of when "the second superpower shoe would be dropping".)

This is a perceptive, cynical, and often very funny book. Orlov has a dark Russian sense of humor that is usually on target. (Sample: "I have had a chance to observe quite a few companies in the US from the inside and have spotted a certain constancy in the staffing profile. At the top, there is a group of highly compensated senior lunch-eaters. ... They often hold advance degrees in disciplines such as Technical Schmoozing and Relativistic Beancounting. ... Somewhat further down the hierarchy are the people who actually do the work. They tend to have fewer social graces and communication skills, but they do know how to get the work done. ... More often than not, the senior lunch-eaters at the top are native-born Americans and, more often than not, the ones lower down are either visiting foreigners or immigrants.")

The book has a bunch of useful insights. An early one is "when faced with a collapsing economy, one should stop thinking of wealth as money. Access to actual physical resources and assets, as well as intangibles such as connections and relationships, quickly becomes much more valuable than mere cash." He backs this up with stories from his visits to Russia around 1990.

He also suggests that a nomadic lifestyle with several 'bases of operation' may be safer and more secure than one permanent location. He even suggests life on a boat, saying "there is no such thing as 'waterway rage'" and "Having a moat around you provides a remarkable amount of both privacy and security". He gives ideas about how to adapt to rapidly declining circumstances and talks about what skills and working conditions might prove useful in a collapse.

While I hardly agree with everything in the book (I know I can be critical of American society, but I think he downplays even some its more useful aspects while extolling what he sees as the Russian character--but, of course, he is Russian), nevertheless I think it is really worth reading. There are lots of books about different people's ideas about social collapse. Dmitry Orlov is reporting from experience.


Quote of the Day: "True necessities are those few items found at the base of Maslow's hierarchy: oxygen, water and food, in that order. The order is determined by seeing how long someone can stay alive when deprived of any of these: a few minutes for oxygen; a few days for water; a few weeks for food. These are followed by non-necessities such as shelter, companionship, opportunities for sexual release and meaningful activities, such as exercise, play or work. Most people can survive without these for months, perhaps years; I even know some people who have survived for their entire lifetime without work. Cars, water heaters and flush toilets are not anywhere on this list." - Dmitry Orlov

Survival Resources 11: Survival Kits

Almost by definition, emergencies come unexpectedly. The trick for survival in such situations is to plan ahead. A very useful tool, especially in the event of an unexpected emergency is a survival kit.

Yes, you can buy survival kits online or in stores, but you can also put one together yourself. The advantage of doing this is that not only will you save money, but you are more aware of your own needs than any manufacturer.

In a plastic bag in the library in my house, I have tossed together a bunch of things that I think would be useful in an emergency. I know where it is and I know what's in it and so I know where to go for stuff if something goes wrong.

Here is a list of what's in my kit. As I said, your kit should reflect what you think you might need--my list is only an example.

Inside my bag:
Britta filters (see my lastpost on Safe, Clean Water)
Candles (and candle holders)
Matches
A magnesium fire starting kit (in retrospect, I am not sure how useful this is)
Twine
Fishing line
A Swiss-army knife
A compass/whistle pendant

Nearby I have two oil lanterns with oil in them.

I also have a Swiss-army knife, a CPR shield, and a micro LED flashlight on the key chain that I always carry in my pocket.

Some things I would like to add to my survival kit include a small first aid kit (fortunately one of my housemates keeps first aid supplies near the kitchen) and one of those reflective 'space blankets'.

Matthew Stein has a whole chapter in his book When Technology Fails devoted to 'Supplies and Preparations'. (See When Technology Fails, 12/13/10 for more about the book.) It's a good source for figuring out what you should have in your survival kit.


Quote of the Day: "No one really knows what the future will bring. You can't plan for all possible scenarios, but a wise person plans for several of the most likely possibilities and stores at least a few basic supplies for emergencies." - Matthew Stein