Tuesday 27 May 2008

Permaculture - Leadership: Organisations as Organisms

We had a great guest speaker come in - Adam Wolpert - who is a consultant to organisations and communities on facilitation. Too bad our classes take place from 8-10pm when my eyelids are struggling to stay open. I do good until the sky gets dark. Once that happens, the lull of the ocean and the waning of the day pulls me to slumber. So, sadly, I slept through some information.

Here is what I gleaned while still alert!

A good facilitator:
- humbly serves the process
- watches, listens, learns
- keeps the meeting focused and on track
- creates a safe container
- works with the energy in the room
- includes everyone
- quickly and gracefully finds the points of friction/ tension
- remains calm and neutral
- catalyses decision making
- summarises regularly

Organisations are similar to organisms in that they need to adapt to change and evolve in order to survive. It's important that organisations make decisions that are durable and sustainable.

it's important to decentralise power in an organisation/ group. Very often power tends to concentrate itself into the hands of a few. This makes the structure power-centric, with many getting marginalised. A good facilitator will always work to adjust imbalances of power. Traditionally, power is associated with privilege. If this equation is knocked down and power becomes associated with responsibility, people will be keener to share their power as power is then about having extra work to do!

Where does the real power lie in groups?

- With the agenda (who controls what gets addressed?)
- With the speaker (who is given a voice?)
- With information (do only a few people have access to key knowledge?)
- With organisation (efficient people often become very valuable and take on multiple leadership roles)
- With emotion/ drama
- With relationships (the one with the most personal connections to others in the group holds the most power)
- With process literacy (being familiar with how the organisation works and does its business is a form of power)

Internal Power (empowerment) vs External Power (power over)

flexible rigid
agile slow
adaptive immutable
stable unstable
creative (dynamic) prescribed (stagnant)
resourceful resource depleting
non violent violent
inclusive exclusive
decentralised centralised
collaboration control
love fear

Hope you got something useful out of these college style notes : )

Monday 26 May 2008

Raw food hidey-hole

I've joined around 50 others here to do a week long cleanse. So that we are not tempted by the excellent Esalen fare, our raw delights are served in another building (Fritz) way on the far side of the property. I tottered up the hill this morning and was greeted by the smell of woodsmoke. A log fire had been lit in the carpeted room. Cushions abounded to chill out on, books on healthy living and intimacy were scattered around the hearth and there was a beautiful silence as people were sitting around meditatively or digesting a book.

As I'm ill (ish) the leaders put me on a special diet for the morning. No solids, just smoothies and hot drinks with ginger and lemon juice. My orange, apricot, ginger and coconut smoothie was quite divine. Lunch was a raw veggie burger (equally delicious) and I took a coconut to work for the afternoon stint. Great multi-purpose snack! Stuck a drinking straw in and slurped up the juice (lying down next to the swimming pool) and then scooped out the innards when hunger struck in the afternoon.

Dinner was - oh so delicious - roasted nori with avocadoes and all sorts of other things to roll up inside - a little like sushi, but without the fish and rice. And there was a chocolate mousse desert made out of cocoa beans, avocado, raisins and other goodies - all blended together. No sugar, no nasties, 100 per cent pure yum!

Nice Quote

"It's not your duty to seek for love, but to notice where you refuse it."

Permaculture -- Climates

Some interesting morsels from our class on climate ..

In tropical climates, 80-90 per cent of the nutrients needed to sustain a plant are found within the plant. In temperate climates, most of the beneficial nutrients are found in the soil.

Tropical and arid environments require more management when designing a home/ garden/ farm etc to make best use of the natural resources. In the tropics, we need to take into consideration that there will be more bugs and pests and more rainfall. In the desert, we need to be really smart about catching the rainwater that falls during flash floods. FYI, the official definition of a desert is a place where there is less than 10 inches of rain per annum.

I've become a bit of a climate geek! Maybe it comes from growing up in a place where the climate is so unpredictable and a nice weather day is rarely guaranteed. So, knowledge is power. Here on the California coast it can be very foggy and this is all to do with hot air rising. We have mountains behind us and the temperature up there is hot, hot, hot. When this hot air meets the coolness of the ocean, fog is the result.

I also learnt that Redwood trees (of which there are plenty round here) are natural cooling towers as the Redwoods here are pulling in 2000 gallons of water daily. It's very true that there is a micro-climate here in the area where the Redwoods grow as the air is far cooler. When forest fires strike, Redwood trees tend to only get liked by flames, due to their high water content.

Sunday 25 May 2008

Permaculture - Turning straw and sand into a loveseat!

On Saturday, we were told by our visiting teacher, Massey, to write a name badge for ourselves. 'Write down whatever you want to be known by for the next 36 hours." I've always thought it would be interesting to try on a new name. To will on some better weather, my weekend name became "Sunbeam". I responded well to it as did the weather!!

We were learning about alternative building. Some clay-based soil, some straw and some sand from a nearby beach were going to transform themselves - with the help of our hands - into a bench for the Esalen garden! After some discussion, it was decided that there was a lack of discretely placed benches for snuggles around the property - so we'd create a love seat. Alas, the spot we were given to install our creation, is close to the garbage and when the wind blows a certain way the fragrance of decomposing garden mulch wafts over. I suggested planting some aphrodisiac plants, such as jasmine, close to our love bench, so that sweet, heady, romantic aromas would permeate the air.

Massey showed us how to create cob - the natural building material we would form the bench with. The recipe goes something like this ..

1 - The mixing bowl is a piece of tarp laid out flat on the ground
2 - Ingredients are 1 part clay-based soil to 1 part sand (this may vary according to the texture of the local sand/ soil). Water and straw are added to get the texture just right.
3 - First of all, the dry ingredients of the sand and soil are mixed together. This was done by kicking it around with our bare feet - and then doing interesting shaking and folding manoeuvres with the tarp.
4 - Next buckets of water were added until the goo was the texture of cheesecake. It was a total sensual delight to be mixing the mud with our bare feet. We spontaneously ended up doing tribal dances and singing African rhythms to help us with the task.
5 - The final ingredient to add was the straw. More mixing with the feet and tarp folding followed. By this stage feet and ankles were mudbaked with the straw attaching itself like feathers. We were told that when the mixture looks like "a dead seal" (or more recognisably, to those not familiar with dead seals, a giant poo) we were getting there. The next step was to see whether the material was dense enough. To test we stood on top of the dead seal/ giant poo to see if the structure would support us or swallow our feet like quicksand. When all four of my group were able to stand on top of the mound with our arms around each other, we knew we'd succeeded!!

So, now we had our raw material. Our leaders guided us on how to shape it into a bench. Twenty-four hours later, our bench has a flowing curve to it and the start of a backrest. A design team are working on finding the perfect angle and curve for the back of the bench to ensure optimum comfort.

Working so physically in the sun was exhausting! I have newfound respect for all those who work in the building industry. Much though I love the look and feel of natural building, I think at this stage of my permaculture studies, I'll be hiring someone else to do the heavy work for me!

scratchy throat : (

There's a scratchy throat thing doing the rounds and I seem to have succumbed! Everyone is being very nice - my work department (bless them!) told me to have as many naps as I need and that i don't have to come back to work tonight. My one coursemate gave me essential oil of lemon to gargle with. My spirits are good - it's a little sore when I talk too much and my energy is good - so I have no desire to nap! We're having a chilly snap, so I'm wondering what to do this evening - too social in the indoor spaces to get by without talking and too chilly to sit outdoors and watch the sun set into the ocean. I am confident that something sweet will come my way! Actually , someone on a massage course volunteered to practice on me - so some gentle massage may be part of the recuperation plan!

Wednesday 21 May 2008

Permaculture - Being The Change You Seek

Last night's speaker was a community activist whose words rolled from his tongue like persuasive poetry- here are a few choice quotes about being the change you seek in the world:

"When you know different - you do different"
"When you show up lit, other people who are lit are drawn to you and you find your people"
"Find your highest light and schedule it and live it"

I'm still unsure if I'm burnt out on being a trailblazer (and am in need of recharging batteries) - or whether a lazier, quieter life is more for me ... at the end of last night's class, my primary agenda was to pull up the covers and go to sleep ...

Night class, plus day job is taking its toll .. thank crunchie for day's off ....

Permaculture - Food Gardens of Eden

I've been learning how to munch on plant life I find along the wayside - during a hike into an area of Redwoods, I discoverd that clove leaves are oh-so-tasty (surprised they don't find their way into more salad bowls!!) and the guy who has arrived to lead a 7 day cleanse introduced me to flowers as food. I'm very smitten by the juice from passion flowers (which we are lucky to have plenty of on the property). I sampled nasturtium (good for salad) and calendula (bleeeuuurghhh !!! not for my palette).

Permaculture keeps on feeding me these Garden of Eden images where plant life is lush and bountiful and we walk around plucking tasty morsels off the foliage. Happy to have started living it a little!!! I believe the correct terminology for this is "a food forest". We've seen interesting footage of food forests being created in poor areas - such as rural Zimbabwe and India - and how bare earth became a thriving, teeming food-abundant garden feeding whole communities. I am still clueless about how to create this .. but it's good to see possibilities in the world!

Permaculture - Oil Peak

So, I'd never heard of the term "oil peak" before, so possibly you haven't either. Basically oil production in the world is beyond its peak. We've used more than we've got left. Infact, for every 5 barrels of oil that we use - we are only finding one barrel of new oil. So, we definitely need to get smart about energy alternatives.

We saw an interesting documentary about life in Cuba. During the early 90s, trade embargos to Cuba meant that the country received hardly any oil - so had to totally adapt. Environmentalists believe that we can look at what happened in Cuba then to get models for how we can adapt to the oil peak.

Things were pretty grim in Cuba to start with.. power cuts lasting 16 hours per day - no refrigeration for food - no air-conditioning - busses that were out of fuel and unable to run.

As nothing was reaching Cuba from the outside, solutions had to come from the inside. People began to use bicycles and grow their own food. The country started to develop organic methods and everyone became a gardener or farmer - with plentiful produce being grown on rooftops and in all available urban space. Today the country is 80 per cent organic.

I think the message is clear. It's time to become resourceful and trade in consumerism for something more wholesome. Every little thing we do is something positive!

I'm thinking of how much money I could save if I grew all my own produce (as my diet is about 80 per cent fruit and veggie and grain based - my food shopping needs would be very minimal). If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend Barbara Kingslover's "Animal, Vegetable, Mineral" - all about a year of eating only local food.

Out in the big, wide world

I've taken an afternoon trip out of Esalen (my first!) and am already totally excited about going back! Sometimes it's good to step out of my life for an hour or two to really appreciate everything that I have.

I'm thinking of all the great people there I know and am yet to know, the powerful sound of the water as it rushes down the creek and hits the ocean, the pound of the surf, the womb-like feeling of being wrapped in the steaming hot tub waters, the beauty of the plants ... and I know I am very lucky!

Carmel By The Sea (where I am now) is pretty neat too!!!

We have 53 people doing a 5 rhythms class this week - so I go to bed at night hearing pounding music (as the dance hall is just below my room). It feels like a great party is going on that I'm not invited to!

I did a great dance class this morning. the teacher did it in honour of her father who passed away exactly a year ago. She quoted us some beautiful lines (I think from Hafiz):

This dance of life is a few magic moments -
How damn lucky we are

So enjoy life - cease it - be it !!!!!

Saturday 17 May 2008

creating life

I make lots of holes in the soil with my fingertips and plop two to three seeds into each - seed for amaranth and dill. Then I sprinkle a light layer of soil on top. I feel like a scientist at a reproductive medicine centre as I pat the soil down in the seed tray. In this little action, I am creating the beginnings of life. It's my first experience in memory of planting food. A historic and potentially lifechanging moment! (Friday morning 10.30am)

permaculture - nature is the best design teacher!

One of the principles of permaculture is that good design of buildings, infrastructure and so forth will mimic the patterns of nature.


To get us attuned to the patterns of the natural world, we were sent out at sunset to collect natural items with a pattern that appealed to us. I picked two beautiful pink petals with a burgundy splodge in the middle of them and a hint of sunshine yellow. Their texture was the kind of silk you want next to your skin when you sleep.. and they reminded me of butterflies' wings. "Nothing in nature is similar randomly," says our teacher Benjamin. "It's all for a reason". Pressed to think harder I realise that the butterfly and the flower petals are both trying to do the same job - to attract, so that they can reproduce themselves. I wonder if I doll up in a bright pink garment with a silky texture whether it will have the same effect?? I catch myself smiling as I see what t-shirt I have on today - it is bright pink and depicts 3 butterflies. There are no accidents in nature ...

* * *

So, back to the patterns of nature .. we have many patterns going on within our human bodies. When these are reflected in the external world, they are soothing to us (eg - the drumbeat is like a heartbeat, wallowing in a hot tub is womb-like and so on ..).

It was pointed out that we are 80 percent water, so it's good to look at the patterns of water flow..and mimic these when we design environments for ourselves. Water meanders when it cuts a path across land. It doesn't go in a straight line from A to B. For that reason, when creating a garden path, it will feel much more pleasing to us if it curves and meanders in the way that a river does. This made me think of feng shui, where angles and points are "bad' and curves are "good". I'm very excited to observe more about the overlap between feng shui and permaculture and to see how nature is replicated in architecture. The artist in me looks forward to learning more about people-friendly interior and exterior design tips..

Thursday 15 May 2008

Pumpkin Power

Tip: If you think that because of pollution your garden soil may be toxic, plant pumpkins!! These veggies draw out heavy metals from the soil. Please refrain from eating the pumpkins when you harvest them as they'll contain all the nasies you wanted to remove from the soil (they can be used for Hallowe'en carving instead!) Once you've harvested your first batch of pumpkins, feel free to grow and eat whatever you desire!

Permaculture - meet Heather - an amazing community activist!

We had the pleasure of a visit by Heather Flores, author or "Food Not Lawns" www.foodnotlawns.com

Heather said that for her "permaculture was a means to a higher quality of life and it doesn't have to be about saving the world." One of the high spots for her about permaculture is the amazing community and relationships it brings. She is a community activist and has been part of some amazing projects such as:

1 ORGANISING SEED SWAPS - We had a little seed swap on the lawn and oh boy was it fun!! It reminded me of going into a bead store and marvelling at the variety of beautiful shapes, colours and textures. I never knew that runner bean seeds were so pretty! We had little envelopes and helped ourselves to seeds for everything from tomatoes to poppies to kale.

Heather said the first time she organised a seed swap, 6 folks came along and none of them bought seeds with them - but they had a great chat about seeds and shared some drinks. pardon the pun, but the seeds had been sown as the next year over 100 people came along, of all ages. Many of them bought packets of unfinished seeds they'd bought in stores to swap. The next year people bought seeds from the plants they'd grown themselves (apparently one lettuce can contain many thousands of seeds). There was a total abundance of plant seeds - no need to go to a store and buy expensive seeds and everyone was sharing and doling their seeds out lovingly. Self-sufficiency and community were being created!

Btw, there are plans for an International Seed Swap Day on Jan 31, 2009 - in 100+ cities - if you'd like to be involved or to start one where you live, drop Heather a line via her website.

2 FEEDING FOLKS - Heather and friends approached farmers markets, health food stores, farms and box schemes and asked for donations of any surplus organic produce that was going to get thrown out. Her gang then set up a cooking spot in a local park and served vegan, healthy food to all who wanted it for free!

3 CREATING NICER COMMUNITIES - Here are some ideas you may like to apply (all have been done in the Pacific North West).
- Install a bulletin board in your front garden for people to post info about local things
- Have a 'Random Acts Of Kindness Day" - dress up as superheroes, get on your bicycle and go around town being a kindness hero, actively seeking out people to help
- Think of one skill you'd like to offer to your community and donate it for free once a year
- Create communal pizza ovens on street corners (this is being done in Portland, Oregon). Organise street parties and street beautification projects.

4 GROWING VEGGIES IN FRONT GARDENS AND STREETS - Heather said that our culture has a huge separation between landscaping (which is seen as pretty and for residential areas) and growing things to eat (which is seen to belong to the world of agriculture and takes place for city dwellers in the invisible countryside, far, far away). She is here to mix things up and is an advocate of using front gardens and lawns on the street to grow fruit and veggies. Her world is one, where you can be walking along the street and pick a pear off a neighbourhood tree to munch on (no need to pop into a convenience store for a snack!) She showed us slides of a work party that took place in Southern California where in 4 hours a gathering of 40 people turned one front lawn into a veggie growing area. There are other stories of veggie growing pioneers who began to grow in their front gardens and then the neighbours got inspired and followed suit. The slides showed how with nice design features, a veggie growing garden can have its own kind of beauty.

**
There are countless numbers of plants that have come into the world thanks to Heather - and probably lots of people who have built friendships through planting and gardening together!! I loved the passion she has for what she is doing - she lived in a chicken shed and cleaned houses for a living while writing her book!! She then completed her book in a home that a woman had built completely from things she found at the rubbish tip where she worked (and we saw the slides and it was a magnificent structure!!) So many alternatives in life to getting a mortgage and being conventional!

As someone who is yet to plant a vegetable, I look forward to what lies ahead!

Wednesday 14 May 2008

another lovely day in paradise ...

For anyone with a background in psychology, there is a building here named Fritz (after Fritz Perls - father of gestalt therapy). Apparently, Esalen was very much the birthplace of gestalt practices and Mr Perls spent alot of time here. There are also buildings named after other old Esalen teachers - Rolf building for Ida Rolf the bodyworker and creator of rolfing (very painful massage that changes the body's structure), Huxley building after the author Aldous Huxley and Maslow after Abraham (?) Maslow who came up with the hierarchy of human needs pyramid which I rmember from my psychology 101 textbooks .

Anyway, back to Fritz Perls.. Esalen is still very big on gestalt practices and if my timetable was not already overflowing with an abundance of juicy offerings, i can now attend a gestalt practice group twice a week. I went along yesterday, to see what it was all about and along with hot tubs, good food and interactive learning, it presents something else I can see myself getting addicted to more of!

Got chatting in the hot tubs today to a lady who is the lifecoach for Google (and am excited as I can probably go and workshadow her when all this is over) - and over a breakfast of live muesli a sweet Brazilian gentleman was telling us about his job - to help people die. Another lady at the breakfast table said she had a near death experience when she was 19. she described "heaven" or wherever it is we go to post-living as feeling like a warm bath at just the right temperature - nothing to be afraid of and very nice! I'll leave you with that thought ..

Day off activities for today are going to include receiving a massage from a friend I took a massage workshop with here sometime back and going on a nature hike. The rest is all chill out and make it up as I go along.. I really feel like I've landed here and am loving it!

Tuesday 13 May 2008

permaculture - how to design your life!

We've been looking at how to design environments, so let me share a nice common sense principle with you called zoning. The idea behind this is that you want to place the things you use most often close to you, so you spend minimum time, energy and travel in your journeys.

This is going to read like a map of the London underground, as we have 5 zones. let me explain more!

Zone 1 includes the places and things in our home we use at least 3 times per day. If you get on your bicycle 3 times a day - you want it in an easily accessible place, where you can shoot out with ease - rather than in a shed at the end of the garden where it's a hassle to get it out. We can also take a holistic look at zone 1 and say that ourselves and our inner state make up zone one and to be really in this zone, we need to be centred.

So, make a list of locations you visit 3x plus a day for certain needs. Make sure these are close to you!

Zone 2 is for functions that we perform once or twice a day. Make a list of 3 locations you visit to do these. In terms of proximity to you, this should be in the next zone - again fairly accessible.

Zone 3 is for places you may visit once or twice a week for your functions (eg supermarket - shed for the lawnmower) and these can be physically further away.

Zone 4 can be quite remote. These are the places you need to get to no more than once a month - maybe a few times a year.

The theory here is energy efficiency - put the things you need most in your life closest to you. I know from my personal experience that when I made the conscious choice in 1999 to live within walking distance of work - it freed up huge amounts of energy for me as this was a zone 2 function. Working from home and within the community where I'm living is the ultimate!

And if you're saying, what about zone 5? I'll explain more here! Zone 5 is the wilderness. Instead of being able to manage and control this zone - we are visitors here. This is where we go for inspiration. In some cases, we can spend as much time in zone 5 as in zone 1. In class, it was suggested that zone 5 can also be an inner state and that meditation can be a zone 5 activity if this is what we do to get our peace and inspiration.

So, to summarise - when planning anything from how to organise your office space to a move to a new location, put things in the right zones, according to how much you're going to use them or need them.

sleepy permaculturist seeks hammock

spent too long soaking in the hot tub last night after class - although it was awesome to lie back in the warm waters while getting a shoulder massage and marvel at all the stars. I had some stuff keeping my mind awake, so probably only got 3 or 4 hours sleep last night, so am a little sleep deprived! I sense my lunch hour will be spent catching up on zzzz napping in the sun on the lawn.

so ..onto my learnings!!

I have a new permaculture philosophy to meditate on these next few days. It's called protracted and thoughtful observation. It means don't just jump in there with action, but use time to observe and evaluate what is going on and then act. In a natural setting, this would mean looking at the land over a period of time and looking for patterns in the elements, before planning any design. It would not be fun to build a house and then find that it's in a spot where it gets wind-battered, sun deprived, gets the smells from the local rubbish dump going through and so on. One of our projects is to befriend a spot in nature and spend 30 mins every week sitting there, drawing sketches, taking notes and getting to know the spot very well. Apparently, lying back on a hammock and watching the land is a legitimate permaculture activity! I remember ordering a mattress without actually measuring how long I am and when it arrived, my feet dangled off the end. This would be an example of jumping in there without enough prior observation.

I have a personal situation going on right now, which I am applying some thoughtful observation to before taking action. In some ways it's nice to be able to take a step back and wait rather than responding out of emotion in the heat of the moment. Feels calmer, wiser ..

Monday 12 May 2008

Brain Food

My time here continues to be intellectually stimulating .. a true mind, body experience! At the weekend a guy who was Clinton's secretary of state for labour (William Reich??) came to speak to us. Amazing speaker - very witty! Apparently, he once went on a date with Hillary C. a long time ago in his student days ... he believes that Hillary will be dropping out of the race soon as her funding is running out and that she'll strike up a behind the scenes deal with Obama - whereby she'll drop out on the condition Obama pays off all her campaign debts and that he appoints her as head of the supreme court (can't remember the correct title for the role).. Anyway, if it happens - you heard it here first!! The guy appeared to be very astute and bright, so I'm curious to see..

Last night there were some guest teachers who'd taught various well known psychlogists such as Nathaniel Brandon - doing a piece on money and mindfulness and our psychological relationship to money. Fascinating stuff!! They are doing a 5-part series. If it wasn't for the fact I had permaculture class the rest of this week, I'd be back for more..

there is definitely an abundance of learning and good food to be had at this place. At some point soon, I'll share the most amazing chocolate dessert recipe with you ..

weirdly, I've had conversations with people who're just not all that into this place .. to me it's a little slice of heaven - but I guess that our slices of heaven all look different...

Permaculture in the city

Last week's guest speaker, Kat Steele is an urban permaculturist. As half of the world's population now lives in the city - what goes on there environmentally is so important.

A few things I heard about that excited me ..

1) Sharing schemes where people in the neighbourhood share resources. No need for everyone to own their own lawnmower (as it spends most of its time sitting in the shed doing nothing apart from taking up space) - have one for a collective of people and share it around. So many ways to share and build community. eg - someone may have a garden, but may not have the physical health to look after it. Someone else may want to grow vegetables, but not have their own land - so person A invites person B to look after their land and they share the veggie harvest 50:50. Other schemes involve the group going each week or month to someone else's home and helping them with a project that would be too big for them to do alone. eg - one group member gets everyone to paint their hallway - with the whole team working it takes half a day and is a fun social event for everyone. The next time - a group member asks for help to clear out their attic and take unwanted goods to a charity store - the next group member may ask for help in planting a vegetable garden and on it goes ... Sounds like a great way to make new friends, be fit and make nice improvements to your environment.

2) Neighbourhood harvesting scheme. I believe this took place in Oakland. Some community activists took note of people who had fruit trees. The fruit tree owners were approached to see if they wanted to come on board. If they said "yes" then a group of people came round to help pick all the fruit. the harvest was divided up between the fruit-pickers and all the tree owners (so people got a variety of fruit) with an agreed percentage going to homeless projects.

3) Neighbourhood healthy eating scheme. Believe it or not, many disadvantaged people in urban areas do not have access to fresh fruit and vegetables. When I was working in Newham, I met a man who set up a project to deal with this. He went early in the morning to a fresh fruit and veg market, bought a lot of fresh produce and then went into "fresh food deserts" (places where there were no veggie shops in walking distance) and set up shop. Most of his selling points were in the middle of big, concrete housing estates. I met him at a healthy living project where we were introducing many people to smoothies for the first time. Most of the tasters were in raptures and one drinker claimed he felt "almost tipsy".

In the Bay Area, something similar is going on. A non-profit bought an ice-cream van, painted it in funky colours, filled it with organic produce from local growers, blasted out hip-hop music and went into deprived neighbourhoods. As well as distributing fresh food, the team also do healthy eating education. Sounds like one cool project!

4) Green roofs. OK, even my mum had heard of this one. So maybe I've had my eyes closed recently! A green roof is a roof where grasses and plants grow - basically like having a park or lawn on top of your house. It helps neutralise the co2 emissions in big cities and cool down city temperatures (caused by all that asphalt and concrete that hold the heat in). Apparently, large municipal buildings in the US are starting to go green on top - places such as museums and municipalities (I believe the mayor of Chicago is currently working on a green roof). I have a vision one day of being on a plane as it comes into land in a big urban area and seeing this amazing layer of green as we get closer to the ground - with city workers sitting on the roof, lazing in the grass, enjoying their lunchbreaks.. a whole new layer of green and nature above the ground .. yum !!!!

Permaculture - some stats that woke me up!

The US uses 1.14 million paper bags every hour.

The US uses 60,000 plastic bags every 5 seconds. Pause for a second and think of what this figure may be like globally, especially in countries with little environmental awareness. The US does have a few progressive towns that have banned free plastic bags in their stores..

It takes 98,000 tons of ancient plant matter to create 1 gallon of petrol. i was told that the average American car takes about 18 gallons. Do the maths and think of how many tons of ancient material is being depleted each time you fill the car.

Sunday 11 May 2008

Permaculture

So! The whole purpose of me being here is to learn about permaculture and I do that every night from 8-10pm with the lovely Benjamin and his guest leaders. It's probably about time I share some learnings with you..

So.. what is permaculture? Basically it's a whole range of systems and philosophies that look at creating not just environmental sustainability, but something that goes beyond it - rather than just putting back what we've taken out - permaculture looks at creating systems that regenerate and give back more than was taken out and in a way that is as effortless as possible. The principles can be applied not only to land stewardship and gardening/ farming but to everything in life from finance to health.

One of the co-founders of permaculture was a teenager - something that I find very exciting - as it's proof that everyone can be a mover and shaker on this planet.

We're being taught in a very experiential way (my favourite!) so every 3 days we have a different permaculture principle to meditate on. Mine is something called "stacking functions" - or in plain old English killing two (or 3 or 4) birds with one stone ..

Let me give you some examples .. rain falls anyway from the sky. If a household sets up a system for collecting rainwater, they can use it for washing the dishes and can then create a system to use the runoff water from washing the dishes to water the plants with. So, no water is being used from the tap and two needs are being taken care of ..

Another great example .. there's a plant that grows here called poison oak which many people are highly allergic to. It's growing around the kindergarten here. Rather than getting a gardener in to hack it away (expending human energy) the farmyard goats were moved to that part of the property. The goats enjoy eating this plant - so they got rid of it. And if we were to milk those particular goats and consume their milk (in the form of cheese, yoghurt whatever) we would in turn get immunity to poison oak through the antibodies in their milk. No gardeners required! No allergy medicine required!! And the byproduct of some tasty dairy foods.

I have yet to develop such bright systems in my own life - although one idea is making me excited. Every class, I have to turn in a response to what I learnt in the class before. I've been told everything from an essay to a piece of interpretive dance is fine .. So, dear readers - how would you feel if I use my blog to share with you what I learnt the night before? In that way, I'm doing my homework, sharing my learning with a wider audience and not wasting paper. I think as long as I'm able to find a free computer each day (this is the hard part!) I will be doing this .. I'll write something in the headline, so you'll get an idea about whether the post is going to be about permaculture or more general stuff.

Still lots of permaculture things I want to share with you - but this post is getting long and I've used up my 15 mins on the computer! Let me conclude by saying that one thing I love about it is that it is totally solution-focused and uses problems to find solutions (rather than getting bogged down in negativity). This sits very nicely with my lifecoach hat.

A quote here from our visiting teacher Kat Steele - an urban permaculturist. "There's a seed of a solution in every problem. Permaculture is about taking responsibility for our world."

Nice Life

I've been off work these last two days and it has been such a vacation! On my days off, I have all the advantages of being a guest here .. so in the last two days I've .. soaked at least 5 times in the hot tubs, chatting to all sorts of interesting people (ranging from a local farmer to a guest on the "Richard and Judy" show). It's a great socialising spot - just a shame that my body can only take the 118f waters for so long - otherwise I'd be in there all day chatting and watching the ocean. Yesterday, some dolphins swam by below while we were soaking. Beautiful!! I've started each morning off with great yoga classes, ended last night with a 2 hour freestyle dance class (if the world danced for 2 hours every day it would be a much happier planet). My body feels stress free and carefree - have also been taking afternoon naps in the sun!
There was drumming and dancing this afternoon out on the deck in the sun and yesterday I got summoned into the office for a piece of chocolate cake!! My workplace here and my last workplace in London have both been so lovely - so I feel very blessed. I had to hand in a document for next month saying where I want to work. I told my current boss, I would love to stay with them doing front of house stuff and she got so excited that she drew smily faces all over my application form and wrote comments such as "I am very (smily face) that Sam wants to stay with us (then a whole row of smily faces). Nothing like feeling wanted and valued! Despite my gorgeous two days off, I'm equally excited about returning to work tmw!

Thursday 8 May 2008

IMPORTANT re: contacting me!

I discovered today (when my job was to check the messages on the answerphone here) that the recording quality isn't always the best - a colleague said that sometimes they aren't able to figure out what the person is saying .. or who the message is for ...

So .. if you've left me a message and wondered why I've not called back, it's because the message machine may have garbled it - so do please try again or send me an e-mail.

If I like you enough to have you on my blog list, I wouldn't be ignoring your phonecalls (promise!)

Did I tell you about my view from work. Big fat window overlooking the shimmering ocean. I am scenically spoilt!

I'm off to do some Tai-Chi on the lawn before dinner and tonight's permaculture class.

Here's one learning I liked from our intro class (the class where we got folders and schedules and so forth...

COMMUNITY = common + unity

The nice thing about coming out of class at 10pm is the amazing night sky. Being in the middle of nowhere means that the stars are fabulous..

Tuesday 6 May 2008

first day on the job ...

Let me tell you about my first day ...

7-7.25 - a great meditation class with exercises to do based on the Chinese tradition to wake up all our organs
7.30-8 - dipping into a yoga class which was great for stiff shoulders
8 - report to work. the reception/ office area doesn't open til 9 - so the first half hour of the day is quite meditative - vacuum the space, tidy up etc
8.30-8.45 - grab a bowl of granola and oatmeal and have a quick chat with a friend at breakfast
8.45-9 - still munching our breakfasts we have a "sharing" time in the office where everyone goes round and says how they are doing
9 - doors open! as I'm training today, I'm basically workshadowing. I love front of house/ people work - so I'm in a good place (although initially I was sad not to be chopping veggies in the kitchen - I think my new role is going to be fun). I successfully sell a few bits and bobs and book people in for massages! The team are laid back, but professional and are very supportive of "taking breaks".
11.30ish - I do just that! Go outside to look at the ocean and have a nice catch up with Anna from my road trip and eat some raisin toast)
12.30-1.30 - more sumptuous food by the ocean and time for a power nap
1.30-5 - my time at work flies by pleasantly
5-6 - head down to the hot tubs to soak away the day. a classmate offers me a shoulder massage in the tubs - oh joy! it's sunny and bright and the coastline is stunning, the sea below, sparkling. Post tubs - I find a massage table to lie out on to enjoy the sunshine on my body and the sound of the crashing surf below.
6-6.45 - food which is so delicious it's indescribable (an indian feast followed by the most amazing chocolate, ginger and almond tart). The food here is very wholesome - mainly vegetable and grain based and most of it grown organically on the grounds. very easy to have about 20 kinds of fruit and veg a day - an amazing salad bar as well!
6.45-7.45 - I need some me-time, so take a stroll and go sit in some of my favourite peaceful places by the ocean and snap lots of amazing wildflowers.
7.45-10 - An evening orientation for my permaculture group and the other group which is operating alongside us. I forget it's name, but it's a personal growth kind of course aimed at getting participants to know themselves better and tap into their personal magnificence. It's led by a family counsellor who has a great sense of humour. We play lots of fun get-to-know each other games which have us moving around the room, chatting and laughing. Although, I've not started my permaculture course yet, I love our leader - he's really sweet.
Esalen being Esalen the group members and leaders are finding lots of points of cross-fertilisation between our two courses and I think we'll be doing lots of learning from one another. I remember when I was working at the Isabella Freedman Retreat Ctr last year there were lots of discussions about whether we start by healing ourselves and then once we're whole we're in a position to affect planetary change - or whether it works the other way round - people throw themselves into activism out of idealism and then burn out and from this place start to address their inner selves. The dance between inner and outer worlds always fascinates me and I'm sure by the end of my 2 months here, I'll have learnt alot more about this dance.
10.15pm - ooh and aah at the amazing stars as I walk my sleepy self home.

Tonight my permaculture study course officially begins. Right now I have the choice - tun up 10 mins late for meditation or do some class reading by the ocean!!! Looking forward to another magical day ....

Monday 5 May 2008

the journey - leg 2

For reasons, too complicated and not exciting enough to go into, I was continuing my journey with a new road companion. At midday Lala rolled in with her white car which smelt of lavender and was jam-packed with provisions. She is a free-spirited, Japanese artist and a bundle of sunny energy.

We were off the big highway now and taking smaller country roads. I lost count of the times I said "this is so beautiful!" The land we passed was semi-familiar to me and full of memories - the last time I saw it, it was thirsty and yellow - this time it was lush and green and at times the spring wildflowers were so intense it looked like someone had thrown pots of orange or purple paint over the grassy hills.

Normally, as I approach Esalen I get incredibly light and excited - this time I felt a little apprehensive - there was a taste of bittersweetness. The gatekeeper told me I'd been assigned to a fabulously located room - it is the nearest room to everything - a rustic cabin with a good, woody smell and four bunks. I was the first one there and in no time had made myself very at home and grabbed a top bunk which felt like a little hideaway as it's close to the eaves in the roof. I found out I was working in the gift store/ reception - which was a surprise as I was all psyched up to be chopping veggies and learning the secrets of Esalen cooking. I'll trust that whatever is - is meant to be!

After chatting to people at dinner and doing some fun dance and movement with the other 40 or so people on the work study programme, I was getting into my Esalen groove!!! The ocean sounds and the scents of the flowers, herbs and trees were intoxicating me and working their heady magic. At 5am this morning, I bounced out of my bunk - with a bring-it-on attitude towards the day ..

the journey - leg 1

My first roadtrip buddies were Steve (a retired lawyer with 3 grown-up kids, a 40-year marriage and a wish to do something deeper with his retirement years) and Anna (a Belgian chic-lit authoress who has a column in Belgian Elle and is taking off soon to travel in Central and South America and write a new book). I tell you, the people I meet at Esalen and en route are always very interesting and so diverse!

We broke our journey overnight at a hilarious place called Lost Hills (where there were no hills - I guess they were lost). The place consists of motels, fast food places, petrol stations and a few Mexican style convenience stores. Nothing else. It's a temporary home to the truckers who use it as a resting stop. The most prominently positioned items on sale in all the stores were stay-awake formulas. Being a truck driver on Interstate 5 cannot be fun as the scenery is very monotonous once the drive hits the flat agricultural land. I had a very bizarre encounter with the sales assistant in the interestingly named "Love" petrol station. It was that time of the month and some panty liners were required, so I plop my purchase on the counter.

"Waste of money," says the lady with a scowl, "better to spend that money on food."
I try to dissolve her bitterness with an explanation.
"PERIOD," she yells! It's a stupid word - it's spelt weird. I hate that word!"
I will keep that as a fond memory of the utter weirdness of Lost Hills!

We all squished into a motel room, found semi-healthy nutrition at Dennys in the shape of an omelette and some veggies and took a dawn stroll past the blasting trucks. In the middle of all this fluorescent nastiness, we stumbled on a peach orchard. It was a magical find - we crept a few aisles into the orchard. I stroked the fuzzy little green peaches which were no bigger than almonds, sunlight sparkled on the cobwebs and life was still and sweet.

Saturday 3 May 2008

green

It's no accident that this blog is coloured green as that's what I'm here to learn about this summer - so I'll be sharing some environmental tidbits with you ..

1 - Apparently, a tyre track in the desert can take 50 years to disappear - that's how sensitive the environment is (and why the Joshua Tree prohibits off road driving). Wow!

2 - Was impressed on my way down here to see valleys filled with windmills for alternative energy (apparently there are 4000 of them here) - they are tall (400ft) and spiky - so look like some thorny desert plant. However, I'd not considered there was an environmental flipside .. a local magazine was saying they end up scaring birds away (and killing birds that get too close). This has resulted in lots of mice infestation as previously bird would eat the mice ..

Conclusion: the systems we are in are so complex and delicate that even when we do something with good, conscious intentions, we have no idea what the repercussions may be. I think this applies to humans as much as to nature.

into the desert

I love the high desert - it feels like home - with its dry heat, cloudless sky and vastness of land. These past few days I've been staying near the Joshua Tree National Monument. For any U2 fans (hello Nikki, hello Claire!) the motel I chose www.harmonymotel.com just happened to be the one that U2 stayed in when they got inspired to do their Joshua Tree album. I'm in room 4. Apparently the band stayed in room 5 - just one thin wall away from me!! I say thin as I was hearing the man in there cough last night!

The Joshua Tree National monument is stupendous - I may have to go back there for one last look before I zoom off shortly. The Lonely Planet described Joshua Trees as looking like an illustration from a Dr Seuss book. In the park there are valleys full of these funky, twisted trees - set amid the most amazing boulder formations which are just made for clambering on. April and May are wonderful months to be in the park as it's not too crazily hot yet (temperature in the 70s-90s), the cacti are flowering and the desert floor is carpeted with wildflowers. My first hour in the park was indescribable as it was so wonderful - going hiking on my own in a national park was also a first (parents - I hope you're not reading this bit!!). It was so fun to be totally on my own agenda stopping at whatever bit of warm rock called me to sit on it, walking meditatively slowly - sniffing the plants - watching the lizards - spinning round in circles. In a bid to avoid the strong midday rays, I was in the park by 8am and for the first few hours felt like I had this vast expanse of land all to myself.

In the Joshua Tree giftstore I came across an interesting looking book entitled: "Last Child In The Woods" by Richard Louv. The book argues that many problems affecting today's children, such as ADHD, depression and obesity are directly linked to children's lack of connection to and playtime in nature. I'm already sold by his argument. Being in nature makes me so exhilerated, happy and at one with myself and everything around me - that to be cut off from this life force cannot be healthy. I think when we're exposed to the life that teems around us, our bodies are reminded that we're part of this wonderful eco-system and our aliveness wakes up. I think I need to go back to Joshua Tree for one last hurrah - before returning the rental car and embarking on the next part of my journey.

My journey to Esalen begins with returning Cherry to Dollar rentals in Palm Springs for 10am and then a new road trip begins!

PS - If anyone is travelling here, may I recommend the Crossroads Cafe for tasty, healthy food at great prices and with a great atmosphere.

really here ..

You may have been asked the question before - how will you know when X is really happening? In my case, how will I really know I'm here? At the airport, there was a little sense of "oh - I'm going somewhere" - sitting and chatting on the flight with a lovely retired couple next to me about travel plans made it seem a little more real. Returning to hosts who'd put me up just a few months ago and catching up reminded me that I was back somewhere I'd been before. But I didn't get that "wow - this is real feeling" until the next morning after my jetlagged head had rested all night on a pillow.

Before hitting the scary interstate (big fast road with lots of rumbling trailer homes and articulated vehichles thundering past) i thought I'd go to a favourite spot and do a few yoga stretches. In Santa Monica, there is a beautiful, landscaped walkway which overlooks the beach many hundreds of feet below. As I stretch out my hamstrings on the railings and look down at the wide sands and lapping waves below, the bright wildflowers and palms around me, I feel so light with the sunshine brightness of everything. At that moment I enter my summer. Finally here!

introducing Cherry ..

It's definitely good once in a while to do something that petrifies you - and then you realise it's quite do-able! Driving on LA was on my list of scary things - all that traffic (how does the average LA person deal with spending 3 hours per day behind the wheel?) and those huge spaghetti piles of freeway (how do I figure out what lane to drive in - won't I get lost???)

Anyway, the good news is that driving in LA seems far more daunting from the passenger seat than behind the wheel.

I picked up my new friend for the start of my trip from the Dollar car rental place at the airport. A shiny red Chrysler car which I named "Cherry" - got to give the car a name! Anyway, we were soon cruising from the airport to Santa Monica with thanks to mapquest for the printed directions and I broke out into song and a huge grin. Conquering demons always feels great.