Starhawk on Permaculture & Paganism

Let us ban hunger and poverty from the world

Banning all hunger and poverty from the world seems an impossible task, but we can empower ourselves and others by doing some small contributions.

"We don’t ask you any money.
Only send, when it suits you, the seeds you find in the fruits you eat yourself.
Just rinse these seeds in water and dry them on a plate (not on a piece of paper as it would stick to the seeds).
As soon as the seeds are thoroughly dried, put them in a paper envelope and put the name of the species on it.
The more we gather seeds the more families we can help."

Source: Seeds for Food

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." (Daodejing, 64.12)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The Skills for the New Millennium Tour

Here is a link to a project happening in the United States, The Skills for the New Millennium Tour. Check it out! This is a traveling road show teaching permaculture and life skills. Their motto is "Cultivating revolutionary ways of living."

100 Mile Diet: Local Eating for Global Change

There is some logic in eating only food that's locally raised and produced in a radius of 100 Mile...
Of course, in a heavy urbanized setting you'll have to be creative!

In 2005, Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon began a one-year experiment in local eating.
Their 100-Mile Diet struck a deeper chord than anyone could have predicted, inspiring thousands of individuals, and even whole communities, to change the way they eat.
Locally raised and produced food has been called “the new organic" — better tasting, better for the environment, better for local economies, and better for your health.
From reviving the family farm to reconnecting with the seasons, the local foods movement is turning good eating into a revolution.

100 Mile Diet: Local Eating for Global Change

Transition Towns

Recently I discovered an interesting article on Transition Towns with the following mission statement:

The mission of our embryonic charity is:

* to inspire
* to encourage
* to network
* to support and
* to train

communities as they consider, adopt, adapt and implement the transition model in order to establish a Transition Initiative in their locale.

The transition model emboldens communities to look peak oil and climate change squarely in the eye and unleash the collective genius of their own people to find the answers to this big question:

for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how are we going to:

- significantly rebuild resilience (in response to peak oil)
- drastically reduce carbon emissions (in response to climate change)?

Typically, self-determined solutions will involve some flavour of relocalisation.

Permaculture in Amsterdam Saturday 160808

Permaculture in Amsterdam Saturday 160808 (full moon in aquarius, partial eclips) 18.00
Baruch loves to offer a permaculture talk for whoever is interested.
The ethics and principles can be covered in an evening with a combination of discussion and games, can be fun and very useful. Anyone interested?
Date/time: Saturday 160808 (full moon in aquarius, partial eclips) 18.00
Costs: potluck & donation for Baruch
Location: Amsterdam
Info: dreamcat@xs4all.nl

Upgrading my tiny garden

After removing some tiles and the hortensia, my garden looked like a desert...
Watch that corner in the triangle, that's the place to start a small 'cold' compost-heap.









Now, a few months later, my garden is running wild!
Even the potatoes are flowering.
Now I have to figure out how to keep the potatoes in check; having potatoes in my garden for a long time will deplete the ground unless I find some other plants that will remedy this...

The Fukuoka Farming website

Masanobu Fukuoka was a Japanese farmer who developed what many consider to be a revolutionary method of sustainable agriculture. He is also the author of "The One-Straw Revolution" and several other books examining both his philosophy and his method of farming.
This website is an outgrowth and extension of The Fukuoka Farming Mailing List. Both were created as a place where people interested in Fukuoka's method can network and share resources and experiences.

INFORMATION ON:

• Identifying and using plants
• Trees, forest gardens, and agroforestry
• Bioremediation
• Using plants to detoxify soils and water
• Edible wild foods
• Foraging, growing, and using wild plants
• Making and using seedballs

Mulching

"Cold Outdoor Pile

Pro:
Easy to start. Can add material continuously.
Very low maintenance and the resulting compost is very rich in soil organisms.

Contra:
Takes more than a year to decompose. Some nutrients are leached and can also attract animals."

Intrepreting the system mentioned above, I just started piling up 'grown' waste (old straw, tough vegetable stems and hedge clippings) and 'green' waste (fruit, coffee grounds, cut flowers, grass clippings) in small amounts every week.
It looks I have to be very patient... that'll teach me for being a lazy gardener!

Sour Mulch

Beware of Sour Mulch

"..both drought and excess water can cause similar symptoms -- both damage roots, and the plant wilts and turns brown....When organic material used for mulch has been composted improperly, the result can be "sour mulch," which is toxic to lawns, bedding plants, and newly planted shrubs. "

Oops! There is a brown spot in my garden, just in the corner where I left a large pile of compost for a while...

Bokashi Composting

Bokashi (Japanese for "fermented organic matter") is a method of intensive composting.
It can use an aerobic or anaerobic inoculation to produce the compost.
Once a starter culture is made, it can be re-used, like yogurt culture.
Since the popular introduction of effective microorganisms (EM), Bokashi is commonly made with only molasses, water, EM, and wheat bran.
However, Bokashi can be made by inoculating any organic matter with a variety of hosts of beneficial bacteria/microbes.
This includes manures, spent mushroom compost, mushroom spores, worm-casting tea, forest soil tea, yeast, pickles, sake, miso, natto, wine and beer.
Molasses feeds the microbial cultures as they inoculate the organic matter.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi
Some more discussion on Bokashi: http://dirtbyamystewart.blogspot.com/2006/02/bokashi.html

Comment: I would like to learn how to make a Bokashi starter-set in a easy way, as in...Bokashi for dummies!

Illustration on youtube:

Rediscovering food

Do you know how your ancestors planted, reaped and prepared their food?
Most people consider themselves lucky if they still have grandmothers handwritten cookbook, but how about the really traditional dishes from older times?
Have a look at:

Food museum
Food timeline
Historic food
De Historische Groentenhof & De Kookboerderij
Vergeten Groenten

Looking at a medium-sized Urban Garden

Now this is what I call a medium-sized garden in Amsterdam; in comparison with gardens in the countryside it is still tiny of course.

Brainstorm:
Which aspects of Permaculture can we apply at this place in one day's work with a few people?

Are there any specific topics we would like to learn about in this workshop? Do we have other places in mind for gardening?

Urban Permaculture in a tiny garden

Since 2005 I live in a part of Amsterdam that used to be a independent village. The small houses were made for the laborers at the wharves nearby; the gardens are really tiny. It took me a year to settle down, putting down my roots here, relating with my garden. For the first time in my whole live I felt really at home in a place! Working at my garden helps me to connect to this land, gives me a real rooting here and now. It heals some childhood-trauma's on having to pull out weeds as a punishment.

Starhawk's book 'Earth Path' inspired me to try some experiments on Urban Permaculture, beginning with a compost-heap, relocating plants etc. Starting to apply Urban Permaculture in my small garden is a real challenge!

How much Urban Permaculture can I apply in a small spot? I really feel strongly, these type of small gardens need Urban Permaculture. The greater challenge makes the need greater to do this at these spots. See those three tiles bordering the garden and also the hortensia? They had to go, to make space. Opposite the triangle, there is a small spot, usable for herbs. And after the change...Still a lot of work to be done on this site...

Food Shortages in the news

Every news outlet is reporting on food shortages and huge profits by multinationals who "own" the food supply.
Right now these events are reported from "developing" nations but soon they will be occuring in Europe and North America as well.
Just two weeks ago Japan ran out of butter!

What to do? Grow food! Save seed! Grow soil!

Now is the time to learn permaculture.
Now is the time to return to the ancient ways of honoring Earth, protecting soil, growing food, saving seed, and sharing!

We are heading into times of upheaval and change.
Many of us have seen this coming.
For some it is scary, for some it is exciting, for all of us it is an opportunity to learn to be what Human Beings really can be; in harmony with nature and with each other, in harmony with ourselves.

Whatever your spiritual background or beliefs, wherever you live, your survival and the survival of your descendants rests upon your actions now.
This summer, 2008, will be a time that is remembered for many years to come as the summer when the global economic system really began to show it's collapse, when capitalist militarism really "came out of the closet" and when millions of people remembered what they already knew, how to really LIVE!

Why & How about Urban Permaculture?

Most of us live in cities – crowded and ‘far from the farm’
So how can we apply the principles of permaculture to our lives?

In URBAN PERMACULTURE we will learn some permaculture basics and as a team, develop a hands-on project in a small, urban back yard in a major Dutch city.

We will learn the Permaculture Ethics and Principles, come to understand some basics of site observation, assessment, and planning.

In addition, we’ll informally share such al resources as best books, videos, local seed banks and other support for the urban permie.

We will explain and demonstrate as many of the following activities as we can based on our demo site: basics of sheet-mulching composting, vermiculture (composting with worms), creating an herb spiral/tower, bioremediation to remove toxins from soil.

AND we will make sacred seedballs to take home and for guerilla gardening

Urban Permaculture

If you live in a city, you may wonder if it is possible to live a life in connection with Nature.
Is it possible to grow your own food?
Is the earth in your small garden healthy?
How do you compost if you live in an apartment?
What sort of edible, native plants will thrive in the changing Lowlands climate, on our balconies or in our backyard?
In URBAN PERMACULTURE, you’ll get a fast overview of the entire scope of Permaculture (from collecting and managing water to creating a ‘food forest’ to bioremediation).
Then we’ll work hands-on in a city garden or two to put the basic strategies of soil-building, food growth and composting into action.
URBAN PERMACULTURE is not a replacement for a permaculture design certificate.
It is a very practical way to ‘jump start’ your knowledge and abilities in growing food within the city, to gain confidence and to meet community!

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture is a holistic system of working with water and soil, energy and plants.The ideal is to create ‘sustainable hedonism’ – healthy, delicious and local organic food we grow for ourselves, for example.
Wikipedia includes a full description of Permaculture in many languages.
Permaculture was pioneered by Bill Mollison, David Holmgren and Geoff Lawton in the 1970s.
Today it is one of the passions of Starhawk, whose book THE EARTH PATH is about using permaculture principles; the Earth Activist Training (EAT) is a 2-week intensive in beginning permaculture.