Dear friends and family,
As you may know I have a
very multidimensional life. I often struggle with how the various parts of my
life fit together. Lately I've been thinking that permaculture might be used as
a thread that can hold together the patchwork quilt of my life. Permaculture is
a complex concept that is interdisciplinary enough to cover the array of
activities that make up my life. A quick definition of permaculture is an
effort to create an ecologically sustainable culture. Although much of
permaculture is oriented towards agriculture, I’m particularly interested in
the urban and social dimensions of permaculture. Here are some patches from my
life this past year.
Permaculture
This past spring I took a 12
week online permaculture design course taught by Geoff Lawton, one of the
world's foremost permaculture teachers. Part of the course involved developing
a permaculture design or a specific site. I developed a 21 page design for my
home and Hei Wa House, the co-op next door. This coming year will begin a 10
year development process for that plan that is geared towards making my little
home maximally sustainable. Stay tuned.
Cooperative culture
I continue to be active with
my local food co-op as the president of the board. This has often taken more
time than I had thought it would. For instance, for a couple of months this
fall I had to meet weekly with a temporary general manager. As president, I
spend a lot of effort trying to build consensus on the board. For all the time
and effort, I find it a valuable experience. I continue to learn and grow, and
I have opportunities to use my best communication skills.
This past year I have been
working with small group of folks who are trying to start a cooperative
assisted-living facility. We would like to create a cooperative organization
that provides housing and assistive services and support for tasks of daily
living such as dressing, bathing, and preparing meals for elderly and disabled.
We would like for the staff and the residents of this organization to be the owners
of it. We are currently looking at a 12 bed facility that is for sale. I’m not
clear that we will be able to pull this project off but for the moment we
continue to try. The next big challenge for the organization will be getting funding.
We may be pursuing micro-financing strategies. If this project sounds
interesting to you, and you might consider making a small loan, contact me for
more information.
Bike culture
A thrill for me this past
year was the hundred mile bike ride that Zev and I took to get to his summer
camp. Our day started out with rainbow in the sky. The roads were good and our spirits never
sagged. We completed the ride in 11 hours. Lucky for me, my beloved Beth came
up by car with Zev’s luggage and was able to bring me and the bikes home the
next day.
Later in the summer we took
a vacation in Montréal. Montréal is a beautiful city for biking. Our hotel was
on a street that goes through the downtown with dedicated two-way bike lanes.
Unlike most bike lanes I've seen, these lanes were partitioned off from the
street with a solid meridian. Imagine these lanes teeming with bicyclists, most
of whom speak French. The down side of the trip was that we got a bit of rain.
Vegan culture
Sometime this year, I
stumbled on something that claimed that if you read an hour a day in your field
of interest in seven years you would be an international expert. I don't know
if there is any validity to that claim, and I haven't reached the one hour a
day mark, but it inspired me to take up reading more medical literature.
Specifically, I've been focusing on reading about the health benefits of plant-based
nutrition. I’ve only very recently taken up reading about the ecological side
of the vegetarian issue. Most permaculture advocates see a place for integrated
livestock. However, animal agriculture generally has a tremendously destructive
environmental impact. Perhaps under optimal conditions my permaculture friends
are correct and perhaps they are not, but as Michael Pollan says, “eat food,
mostly plants, not too much”.
Medical culture
I continue to work part time
as a nurse practitioner in a holistic clinic. I would like this little practice
of mine to be about sharing information, listening to my patients, and helping
them find more balance in their lives. It doesn’t always go this way, but once
in a while I’ll get a clue that I’m doing something right, like a note from one
of my patients: “thank
you for helping me get to the health I am in today . . . . No other place I
have been to actually takes the time to listen to patients and doesn’t try to
rush them out.”
Activist culture
There was a period in the
fall where I seemed to be traveling every other weekend. One of these trips was
with Zev and two friends of mine. We went to New York for the Great Climate Justice
march. For about four hours we stood in a tightly packed crowd adjacent Central
Park, two hours after the march has officially started our section started
moving. Demonstration demographics are never precise but 300,000 is probably a
good approximation. I was glad Zev was at this historic demonstration; it
seemed well worth the day of school he missed.
On one of the weekends
during that period in the fall when I was able to stay in town there was a
reunion of activist friends of mine from my undergraduate college days. We had
been involved in a number of political issues, including the struggle against
militarism and weapons research. It was a great joy for me to reconnect with
these comrades. And it was nice to see that each in their own way continue to
struggle for social justice and a better world.
Kid culture
Zev is growing up to be a
fine young radical. His reading list includes, Emma Goldman, Karl Marx, Noam
Chomsky, Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon, Michael Alpert and Frederick Engels. He is also in an extracurricular
program called mock trial, where he's developing his argument skills. One of
the sweetest things in my life is when Zev and I get a chance to talk political
philosophy.
You might wonder that I wrote about adventures I went on with
Zev, but not Teo. Teo is more home
oriented than his brother, so I’ve spent more time with Teo than Zev this year.
The big adventure that he and I collaborated on this past year was constructing
a 10 foot tall model of the Empire State building as a school project. After getting three or four years ahead of himself in math,
he now has to do the work to prove what he knows through a series of online
classes. Teo has taken up the Rubik’s cube. He has gotten quite fast at solving
this colored puzzle. His best time is something like 33 seconds. Teo also enjoys playing the violin. He has a skill for listening to music and
figuring out how to play it. To me this is just amazing.
In patching together the subcultures in my life I continue to
try to live in a way that is sustainable both for me and for the world. Wishing you all a sustainable and sustaining
life.
With love,
Gaia
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