tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22682205868054947292024-03-13T11:44:31.539-07:00Dharma Gaia BlogTom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.comBlogger183125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-14563987475155774202022-12-16T14:29:00.003-08:002022-12-16T14:29:54.432-08:00The Four Noble Truths - Revisited<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWYx9muPUmd8Mqjv104Tyksfa-KvACbblIAejnWE8rgczCbzUCDWHQwIjVQ4db1_gUkbV_xnv2vWWLUyyXiPNclOJQxhAz60_nBfzdDXVfGWPRvqTbsikb279xx8E-NkGTIU3RhjR_45jdMeNAwj4LiUmhtt41fRLQYX39IWecVgzTTFhaO1AmoQqedQ/s4032/IMG_2058%20(1).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="437" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWYx9muPUmd8Mqjv104Tyksfa-KvACbblIAejnWE8rgczCbzUCDWHQwIjVQ4db1_gUkbV_xnv2vWWLUyyXiPNclOJQxhAz60_nBfzdDXVfGWPRvqTbsikb279xx8E-NkGTIU3RhjR_45jdMeNAwj4LiUmhtt41fRLQYX39IWecVgzTTFhaO1AmoQqedQ/w328-h437/IMG_2058%20(1).JPG" width="328" /></a></div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p>A few months ago, my wife and I had a wonderful visit from an old college buddy and his wife. As they approached our front door, they spotted the Buddha figurine we have right outside (see above). At that point, my friend remarked, "I'm not a Buddhist because I don't believe that life is nothing but suffering..."<br /></p><p>This is a common misunderstanding that many people have about the Buddha's teaching: that it is essentially pessimistic, because its first principle is that "life is suffering." So I felt that this was a good time to share my own understanding of the Four Noble Truths, which, according to tradition, were the first teaching the Buddha gave to his disciples after his enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree. These are usually translated as something like the following:</p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Life is characterized by suffering (<i>Dukkha);</i></li><li>Suffering is rooted in craving;</li><li>Craving can be abandoned (through awakening or enlightenment);</li><li>The path to awakening is eightfold:</li><ol><li>Right Understanding;</li><li>Right Intention (or aspiration);</li><li>Right Speech;</li><li>Right Action;</li><li>Right Livelihood</li><li>Right Effort;</li><li>Right Mindfulness;</li><li>Right Concentration (<i>Samadhi</i>)</li></ol></ol><p></p><p>While the commentary on this teaching is immense, and I do not pretend to grasp these teachings in any depth, I nevertheless like to review these core teachings to enhance my own understanding of them, and ideally to help others (including my friend) to gain a clearer understanding of what the Buddha was teaching us. </p><p>Let's start with the problem of translation. Normally a single English word will not do justice to the range of connotations in the original language, so it is best to provide several possibilities for each. The key terms in the original Sanskrit/ Pali languages were as follows:</p><p><i>Dukkha</i> (pain, suffering, or dissatisfaction or frustration)</p><p><i>Samudaya</i> (arising)</p><p><i>Nirodha</i> (ending)</p><p><i>Marga</i> (path)</p><p><i>Dukkha </i>has a broad range of connotations. It does not simply refer to physical pain nor extreme mental anguish, as many assume. Rather, it refers more broadly to dissatisfaction, and it arises from craving, or wanting things to be other than they are. This is something we share with all other animate beings--at least those of sufficient complexity to have emotional lives. Quite simply, the natural state of being alive entails wanting, and seeking out, the things we don't currently have, whether it is food, water, sex, comfort, safety, or in our own case, relief from boredom through entertainment or consumerism. </p><p>More fundamentally, once we attain self-awareness through human language, we have more primordial kinds of existential anguish or frustration. We all wish we could live forever, but we all die; we all wish we could enjoy perfect health, but we all get sick, sooner or later; and we all enjoy and wish to keep the people and things we have in our lives--our spouses, families, homes, possessions, and so forth--yet sooner or later, we lose them all. So the deepest root cause of <i>Dukkha</i> is simply impermanence--or in physics, the Second Law of Thermodynamics (entropy). As George Harrison sings, "All things must pass..."</p><p>So <i>Dukkha </i>of all kinds is directly linked to <i>Samudaya</i> the root cause that gives rise to it: craving or wishing things were other than they are. But is this our fate? Most of us already share this basic pessimism, of which the Buddha is often accused; this is why many recoil from these teachings, like my friend. Who, after all, wants to be reminded, again and again, that "life's a bitch, and then you die."</p><p>But the Buddha did not stop there. Having succinctly diagnosed our shared existential plight, he goes on to offer a promise, and then a way to get there. </p><p>The promise, of course, is the Third Noble Truth: It is possible to abandon, or rise above, the perpetual craving that causes our grief and suffering, both trivial and profound. We don't <i>have</i> to remain in a state of frustration, of wanting what we can't have, or wishing things were other than they are. But how do we escape from this existential plight into which we, like all other sentient beings, were born?</p><p>The recipe or "path" he gives us for dealing with this innately dissatisfied condition of life is quite simple, but far-reaching in its implications. Let's review the Eightfold Path briefly.</p><p>Right Understanding (often translated, incorrectly in my eyes, as "right views"). This begins recursively by referring back to the first three truths: that we are born into dissatisfaction because life and all of its conditions are impermanent; that our suffering is rooted in craving what we don't have; and that we have the potential to let go of this craving, and hence of our suffering. At a deeper level Right Understanding is the insight reflected in the Three Dharma Seals--which Thich Nhat Hanh succinctly renders as Impermanence, Interbeing and Oneness (Nirvana). </p><p>The first--Impermanence--is already the cause of the problem set forth in the first two of the Four Noble Truths: the fact that we crave things we either do not have yet, or will lose eventually--our health, our possessions, those we love, and our very lives. The second, Interbeing, refers to the deeper truth often translated as "nonself"--that is, that we are all deeply interconnected, and that without everyone and everything else in the universe, there would be no one and nothing in the universe. More specifically, in Gaian terms, without sunlight, oxygenated air, fresh water, topsoil, minerals, photosynthetic biomass, and the hard work and sexual lives of all our ancestors, and the hard work and training of all who grow our food, build our houses, and provide our possessions, none of us would be here. As Thich Nhat Hanh puts it concisely, "to be is to inter-be." And grasping this insight--and living it--is the key to the ultimate goal of Nirvana, which does not denote "nonexistence" or "heaven" as often misunderstood, but rather translates literally as "extinction"--that is, extinction of the delusion of separateness we carry around with ourselves, and the emerging awareness of our Oneness with all others, all life, and all the universe.</p><p>But that "Right Understanding" is only the beginning of the path to awakening. It is followed by realizing this understanding through ethical behavior, beginning with Right Aspiration--setting the intention to awaken to our true nature of interbeing, and then acting accordingly (Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, and Right Effort).</p><p>The last two steps of the path refer to the fruition of these efforts: Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration <i>(Samadhi) </i>which in turn cycle back in to, and reinforce, Right Understanding, Right Aspiration, and the rest, so that the Eightfold Path is less of a ladder than a spiral; with enlightenment not a "place" you reach and rest, but rather an asymptotic goal--one for which you continually strive without ever deluding yourself into thinking "I've made it." (If you think you're enlightened, you're not.)</p><p>So Right Effort is ultimately what the Buddhist path boils down to: breathing, observing, letting go, (abiding in equanimity); being well, doing good work, keeping in touch, (abiding in equanimity); learning, teaching, healing, and creating (and, as always, abiding in equanimity, no matter what happens).</p><p>May we all tread this path, in accordance with our own understanding.</p><p><br /></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-86646656061190182432022-12-16T12:21:00.000-08:002022-12-16T12:21:02.612-08:00After life?<div id="copyPaste" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: lft_eticaregular, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; height: 1px; left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow: hidden; top: 0px; width: 1px; word-break: break-word;"><span id="line-3.1.133" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.133">Ay, but to die, and go we know not where,</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.134" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.134">To lie in cold obstruction and to rot,</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.135" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.135">This sensible warm motion to become</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.136" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.136">A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.137" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.137">To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.138" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.138">In thrilling region of thick-ribbèd ice,</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.139" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.139">To be imprisoned in the viewless winds</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.140" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.140">And blown with restless violence round about</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.141" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.141">The pendent world; or to be worse than worst</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.142" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.142">Of those that lawless and incertain thought</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.143" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.143">Imagine howling—’tis too horrible.</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.144" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.144">The weariest and most loathèd worldly life</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.145" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.145">That age, ache, penury</span><span class="deadspan" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.145">,</span><span class="deadspan" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.145"> and imprisonment</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.146" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.146">Can lay on nature is a paradise</span><br style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; clear: both; word-break: break-word;" /><span id="line-3.1.147" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; word-break: break-word;" title="3.1.147">To what we fear of death.</span></div><p>My neighbor Bob died recently. He was 89, but hale and hearty, a good, decent man, who lived across the street. He was looking forward to flying his private plane once more on his 90th birthday, some three months hence, but...oh well...</p><p>Everyone expected that his wife Ramona would go first, since she is in poor health, confined to a wheelchair, and was recently taken to a care facility since Bob could no longer manage her care all by himself. But then--Bob died instead--of an aneurism.</p><p>All this left me pondering, yet again, the great mystery of death; something that people over 70 like myself get used to, as our friends and neighbors our age or older fall away, one by one, and simply cease to exist. </p><p>While cultures and religious traditions throughout the world have beliefs about the afterlife, a closer inquiry into these beliefs reveals that they have little, if anything, in common with one another. To take a simple example, both ancient Egyptians and modern Christians believed in some form of Divine judgment after we die, for our conduct while alive. But while Christians hold that we must confess our sins and beg for mercy before the throne of God, in order to go to heaven instead of being consigned to eternal torment in hell, Egyptians believed, conversely, that they should recite examples of their virtuous conduct to the divine judge(s), in order to be rewarded with a good afterlife (for which they had to preserve their bodies intact as mummies, as well as their possessions to take along with them). And of course far eastern Dharmic religions--Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, etc.--all generally believe in some form of reincarnation--that our present lifetime is one in an endless series, from past to future, generated by our karma--the net consequences of our actions while alive--and that this will go on until we pay off our accumulated karmic debts by virtuous conduct and meditation to achieve enlightenment, also called "Nirvana" (which literally means "extinction"). </p><p>Who is right? Anyone? Or are these all simply wish-fulfillment fantasies, while actually, there will be nothing at all after death, other than the decay, putrification, and ultimate recycling of our bodies, while our consciousness, that inner viewpoint behind our eyes, and restless chain of thoughts, feelings, and memories we call "ourselves" will simply vanish, in the same way as a computer screen goes dark when we pull the plug or take out the battery.</p><p>That is, as Hamlet says, the question: "To die, to sleep, no more..." or "To sleep--perchance to dream..."</p><p>I have no idea, of course, any more than anyone else. I incline, however, toward the view that this unique sense of self that I nurture from behind my eyes is more like a computer screen than anything else; it depends on a continuous source of solar energy, water, and carbon transformed into biomass, to power my physical, neural, and mental processes that model the environment around me, and all these processes take a unique form, based on my genotype, that never existed before and will never exist again. I will simply wink out, that is, when I draw my last breath and my brain, starved of oxygen and water, goes dark. From a purely physiological perspective, I do not see where there is any other possibility.</p><p>But this is only a problem to the extent that we remain attached to this mental formation we call our "self." But what if that "self" is nothing more than a moire pattern, engendered by crosscurrents of air, earth (minerals), water, solar energy, and information, shaped by genetic predispositions inherited from our exponentially expanding array of ancestors? In which case, it will not just cease to exist--it never existed to begin with, as anything other than a convenient verbal construct, a way for a body, endowed with language, to maintain the membrane, both physical and social, necessary for it to function autonomously in an environment full of both things we crave (food, sex, toys, experiences, etc.) and things we fear (enemies, dangers, poisons, etc.) So when our bodies meet their predestined end, we need not worry about losing ourselves--since we never existed to begin with as anything separate from the world we look out on through our eyes and other senses. We ARE Gaia...and when we die, we will simply melt back into Gaia, as the constituents of our bodies go on to become other beings...</p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-65661692576983345942022-12-02T09:32:00.000-08:002022-12-02T09:32:00.466-08:00Glomart, Gaia, and Garden Guilds<p> Let's start with the basics, in the form of a catechism: </p><p>Q: What is the biggest single problem in the world today?</p><p>A: The fundamental incompatibility between the production rules of Glomart and Gaia.</p><p>Q: What is "Glomart"?</p><p>A: The Global Market Economy, a self-organizing and self-propagating complex adaptive system based on the arithmetical logic (i.e. production rules) of money.</p><p>Q: What is the logic of money?</p><p>A: Basic arithmetic: (1) More is always better; (2) What's mine is not yours, and vice versa.</p><p>Q: What's wrong with that?</p><p>A: These two production rules engender an economy that has the following characteristics:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Nothing has value until it has a price.</li><li>Therefore, nature has no value at all until it is transformed into commodities.</li><li>Commodities must have discrete boundaries in order to be assigned a financial value.</li><li>The system depends on the endless growth of production and consumption of commodities.</li><li>As resources diminish, the rich get richer while the poor get poorer--inevitably--since possession of resources increases one's ability to raise prices for those who lack them.</li></ul><div>Q: What is Gaia?</div><div>A: The living Earth, a self-organizing and self-propagating complex adaptive system based on the logic (i.e. production rules) of living organisms and their ecosystems interacting with their mineral, hydrological, and atmospheric systems, which provides the fresh water we drink, the food we eat, and the oxygenated air we breathe, and the climate (and shelter) we need to survive and propagate.</div><div><br /></div><div>Q: What are those production rules?</div><div>A: These consist of the following:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Enough is enough; all biological values are optimizing, rather than maximizing--too much or too little of any biological value is toxic to the system, whether that value is personal (e.g. body temperature or blood pressure) or collective (e.g. population density within an ecosystem). </li><li>There are no discrete "commodities" in Gaia; the value of any biological entity depends on its interactions with its environment and with other biological organisms.</li><li>No matter what we may believe, we humans are a part of Gaia, and are every bit as dependent on these Gaian systems as every other organism on the planet.</li></ul><div>Hence we have our predicament: Glomart--an inherently maximizing system that depends on endless growth of population, production, and consumption--is fundamentally incompatible with Gaia, an inherently optimizing system that is not growing any bigger, and in fact is already collapsing from overuse (via climate change, desertification, flooding, pollution, etc.) And as the vast store of net energy (the very foundation of any material economy) available from fossil fuels is depleted, and its byproducts cause accelerated heating and chaotic fluctuations in our global climate, this basic contradiction between an "endless growth" economy and a finite biological support system is coming to a head. As we overshoot the limits of our energetic and biological support system, our global market economy is collapsing, first gradually, but then at an accelerating pace. There is no way out of this, at least collectively.</div><div><br /></div><div>What about individually? It's not certain, but here is one possibility.</div><div><br /></div><div>What would happen if people with small bits of land at their disposal--front or back yards--started growing at least some of their own food. They would shortly find that there is much they don't know--much to learn--so (in addition to reading garden books or watching YouTube tutorials) they strike up a chat with their more experienced neighbors, as they are out in their gardens.</div><div><br /></div><div>Then suppose a group of neighbors with interest in, or expertise in, growing their own food started forming neighborhood Garden Guilds, where they met once a month for potluck dinners, to share dishes, recipes, and ideas about gardening. On this basis, they started collaborating, so that people could expand their range of homegrown produce by trading it with their neighbors. As the garden guilds evolve, they could start holding reciprocal work parties as well, so that garden projects that exceed the strength or skills of one neighbor could be achieved by collaboration with others.</div><div><br /></div><div>Multiple other benefits could arise from contiguous neighbors collaborating in this way. If, for example, a disaster struck--an earthquake, a drought, a wildfire, a flood, or a collapsing economy with hyperinflation, people would be surrounded by friends, rather than strangers, to whom they could reach out, whether to solicit or offer assistance. Ditto for external threats to the neighborhood, such as crime or violence.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now imagine that city governments, Master Gardener chapters, churches, and civic organizations all jumped onboard, creating community-wide Garden Guild networks to promote and support the creation of Garden Guilds in adjoining neighborhoods, who all exchanged information and ideas with others. And imagine if the dominant theme of these Guilds was the study and practice of permaculture, based on the core ethics of Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. The mission of the Garden Guild movement, therefore, is as follows:</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Grow Gardens, Grow Community, Grow Awareness by Learning, Teaching, Healing, and Creating. </b></div><div><br /></div><div>This would be a gift economy, rather than a zero-sum money economy where the rich get steadily richer at everyone else's expense. In short, it would resemble the indigenous, pre-Glomart economies of our ancestors, with the added benefits of scientific inquiry, technological know-how, and global awareness and responsibility.</div><div><br /></div><div>While such a development will not prevent the inevitable collapse of Glomart, it could nevertheless sow the seeds of a Gaian culture to replace it eventually--a culture based on creating a symbiotic, rather than parasitic, relationship between humanity and our biological support system, our unique living planet Gaia. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><p></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-73243080508038007122022-12-02T08:24:00.003-08:002022-12-02T08:24:37.268-08:00The Enigma of "Nonself"<p> </p><p><i>When you've seen beyond yourself then you will find peace of mind is waiting there./And the time will come when you see we're all One and life goes on within you and without you..."</i></p><p style="text-align: right;"><i>--George Harrison</i></p><p>Nonself--or No-Self--is one of the most perplexing and enigmatic themes in Buddhist teachings. Most people initially see the concept of "no self" as utterly absurd: "Of course there is a self. Look in the mirror!"</p><p>And in fact, most of us are completely obsessed with ourselves, most of the time: "How do I look?" "Why am I so sad today?" "I wish I were..." "I want that..." "I remember..." "Why am I so...?" and so forth. Such thoughts seem to swarm into our mindstream nonstop--except during those rare moments when we are "in the zone," completely absorbed with a present task: a musician playing a solo, a dancer doing a pirouette, an eye surgeon operating on a patient, a baseball player at bat. At such moments, self-awareness can become a hindrance, or even a danger. But at most other times, our "selves" are often our constant obsession. How could there possibly be "no self"?</p><p>This obsessive sense of self that we carry around with us behind our eyes most likely has deep biological roots. Every living organism, after all--from single-celled all the way up to the most complex multicellular being (such as us)--depends for its survival on maintaining a permeable membrane between itself and the world, to protect its own complex and delicate cellular or organic systems from threats to its survival, while letting in essential forms of sustenance (water, oxygen, carbon, solar energy converted into edible biomass), and also processing information about the world around them: edibles, water sources, potential mates, rivals, young, nesting materials or hiding places, and threats from predators. With the evolution of language in humans, this well-developed instinct for survival and propagation that is essential for all living organisms was reified in our linguistic head space as the concept of "me." So what is wrong with that? </p><p>Nothing is "wrong" with it, per se--especially if it is just a survival instinct reified in our minds as a sense of "self." We are, after all, animals, who like all others, must eat safe food, breathe good air, drink potable water, take shelter, find mates, raise children, and make decisions on our own behalf in order to survive. But the Buddha (and many other sages as well), through intense and prolonged meditation and introspection, discovered that this "self" we all cherish has no objective reality at all--it is simply a mental formation, like a moire pattern in an ongoing flux of matter, energy, and information within us and without us.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">"But if this were true, we'd all be the same. But I'm unique!" We all think so. But how unique are we, really? On one hand, we <i>are</i> unique in the sense that each of us has a unique genotype, derived from both our parents' chromosomes, and thereafter our personalities are shaped, uniquely, by the interaction of our genetic predispositions and our personal experiences. But despite these differences, we are made of exactly the same basic stuff, both physically and emotionally, and this commonality enables us to empathize, both with those close to us, and with complete strangers, and with other animals as well. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">At a deeper level, of course, we all share the same basic genetic machinery as all other living organisms--the self-replicating interaction of DNA, RNA, and protein molecules. In this respect, we are "the same" as bacteria, protists, fungi, plants, and all other animals. Deeper still, we are all made out of ever-changing combinations of the same 100-odd basic elements (118 at last count, though approximately 20% of these are synthetic). And deepest of all (perhaps) we may all be nothing but vibrating strings of pure information...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikbA5jAHLVXJbOVI3VFZPddFGX5MOS8AgsCBEh_ydGio0D8QgDclaaxrTUlH6sG9NSO133TMYplgCRqUl-tpPI5WY7YpscHCvoeNJRQ-dfa1q585o3Jd5DOhoTcGRone54Az0y5WjNVWrqgRvGCyWOXnCXVimxLesx0eEtTMuk5GcBerV2FtlDgriLgQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1390" data-original-width="1300" height="465" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEikbA5jAHLVXJbOVI3VFZPddFGX5MOS8AgsCBEh_ydGio0D8QgDclaaxrTUlH6sG9NSO133TMYplgCRqUl-tpPI5WY7YpscHCvoeNJRQ-dfa1q585o3Jd5DOhoTcGRone54Az0y5WjNVWrqgRvGCyWOXnCXVimxLesx0eEtTMuk5GcBerV2FtlDgriLgQ=w434-h465" width="434" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So this is how I have come to understand this counterintuitive notion of "nonself." Not that "you and I don't exist," but rather, that you and I (and everyone and everything else) exist (temporarily) only because of ongoing interaction and interrelation with everyone and everything else in the universe. Or, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, "we are caught in an "inescapable network of mutuality" where "whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. ". And just as every snowflake is different but they are all hexagonal because they are fractal expressions of the H2O molecule, so we are likewise all different, yet the same, as expressions one particular genotype that makes us human, differentiating us from other animals. Yet at the same time, we and all other animals, plants, fungi, protists, and bacteria are variations on a theme of the self-replicating interaction of DNA, RNA, and Protein--another moire pattern, made possible by the far larger moire patterns of matter/energy that have manifested, since the primordial event of the "big bang," as stars, galaxies, supernovas, planets, and black holes...</div>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-53040840638175680012022-07-01T11:34:00.004-07:002022-07-01T11:34:23.148-07:00What is Meditation, Really?<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In recent
decades, our western consumer society, both here in North America and in
Europe, has wholeheartedly embraced the East Asian core practices of meditation
and mindfulness, but as with all such cultural borrowings, we have dramatically
simplified and commercialized these practices, turning them into commodities
for consumption in popular magazines, self-help books, TV programs, psychotherapy
clinics, and even sessions at corporate conferences or stress reduction sessions
for workers in the Pentagon! In the process, we have often stripped these practices
of the richness of their original cultural contexts—and in the process,
bastardized them.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In part,
this is an entirely normal process; as it was with Christianity or Islam, Hindu
and (primarily) Buddhist spiritual traditions have adapted themselves to the
pre-existent sensibilities of other cultures as they have spread out from their
cultures of origin, often losing much in the translation, but sometimes gaining
in clarity and simplicity as they shed their original cultural trappings and constraints
as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Very few American Buddhists,
for example, practice with the rigorous discipline of Japanese Zen monks, the asceticism
of Southeast Asian traditions, or the philosophical subtlety and ritual
complexity of Indo-Tibetan traditions. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At their
best, such simplifications (as with Thich Nhat Hanh’s stripped-down Buddhism or
the Dalai Lama’s charismatic wisdom, simplicity, and humor) have inspired
widespread adoption of very useful, effective methods for realizing the
benefits of meditative practices, cultivating inner equanimity, and becoming
more compassionate, and more actively and effectively involved in healing our
social and ecological pathologies throughout the world.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But the widespread
commercialization of “mindfulness” and “meditation” has also led, quite
frequently, to narcissistic, self-serving attitudes like those found on the “Insight
Timer” app (which opens with the query “How are you feeling today?” and
features innumerable sappy recordings to play while cultivating self-absorption).
This attitude has led to some ludicrous extremes, like one ad from an
investment firm promoting “mindful money management” so that participants can
get even richer, more quickly, with calm and deep concentration on their
portfolios. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What is
missing here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One word: Ethics. Every
authentic spiritual tradition on the planet, whether Indigenous; Western-Abrahamic
(Judaism, Christianity, Islam—and their offshoots); or Eastern-Dharmic (Hindu,
Buddhism, Taoism—and their offshoots) has had ethics at its core, rooted in the
recognition that, as Martin Luther King, Jr. memorably put it, “We are caught
in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or as the Buddhists put it, “This is because
that is.” You will not find a single (authentic) religious sage, in any
tradition on the planet, who would disagree with this basic insight, from which
all ethical responsibility arises. This “inescapable network of mutuality” is, indeed,
inescapable. It is our own living planet, and beyond that, the universe.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Hence another
beautiful articulation of this core Dharmic insight: “Everything that lives is
Holy” (William Blake). <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So what does
this have to do with mindfulness or meditation?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Simply this: Unless meditation is grounded in this fundamental awareness
of the “inescapable network of mutuality,” it is just self-indulgence, no more “spiritual”
than a prize fighter taking three deep breaths between rounds. It helps him—but
nobody else.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So what
exactly is meditation? There are, of course, many definitions, and to a
considerable extent, those who practice meditation need to discover, for
themselves, what it is—through their own practice, whether alone or under the
guidance of a teacher or mentor. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So here
is my own definition, which you can take or leave as you will: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Meditation is breathing, observing, and
letting go. Again and again.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s unpack
these. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">BREATHE: </span></b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Whenever we talk of “spiritual” traditions
or “spirituality,” the question arises (whether we visit this question or not),
“What do we mean by ‘spirit?’”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many,
especially modern Christians, “spirit” refers to something nebulous and
supernatural, the “Holy Ghost” that is somehow connected in the Trinity with
God the Father and with Jesus the Son. Hence it is, for many, something they “believe
in” just as they have been taught all their lives to believe in God and in Jesus
as the Son of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in fact, “spirit”
is rooted in the Latin verb “spiro, spirare” which means “to breathe.” Not
surprisingly, the same exact equivalence of “spirit” and “breath” can be found
in other languages and religious cultures as well: “ruach” in Hebrew, “pneuma”
in Greek, “prana” in Sanskrit, “chi” in Chinese, “ki” in Japanese—and so on. So
we can safely say that spirit = breath.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But breath
is not a thing; it is a process. From a biophysical perspective, the free oxygen
we breathe is a transform of solar energy, released from plants as an
energy-rich waste product of photosynthesis, and inhaled into our lungs to power
our metabolism. And the Carbon Dioxide we exhale is essential plant food,
enabling them, through photosynthesis, to manufacture simple sugars (C6-H12-O6)
that serve as storage batteries for the energy they need to grow from seed to
flower and fruit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, our breathing in
and out is deeply connected with the breathing out and in of plants, another
instance of that “inescapable network of mutuality” that entwines us all…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So breath is
spirit because it connects us, literally, with everyone and everything else. If
we breathe in that spirit (if you will pardon the word play), we are meditating.
If not, we are simply doing what someone else told us to do, without knowing
why.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>OBSERVE: </b>One immediate benefit of simply following
your breath with your awareness—the core instruction of meditation—is that you
stop thinking about anything else, if only for that moment. And this enables
you to <i>observe</i>—to look deeply, first at your own breath, in and out;
then at the body which is doing the breathing; then at whatever physical and
emotional sensations are playing in and around your body and mind; then (with
more practice) at your own mental processes, and finally, at your inner narrative—the
things you are thinking about, dreaming about, fantasizing about, or fretting
about. Simply stepping back, as it were, and observing these things from a
place of calm induced by slow and steady breathing means that you are no longer
obsessed with them, whether it is a pain in your left leg, a disturbing memory,
a flare-up of anger with your spouse or children, or a craving for chocolate.
Observing them detaches you from them; you learn to simply acknowledge their
presence, with compassion for yourself and others—and with practice, even for those
who may have triggered the anger, desire, or obsessive thoughts and feelings.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>LET GO: </b>Just as attentive breathing is a prerequisite
to observing yourself and others with insight and compassion, observing, in
turn, is a prerequisite to letting go. You know you have let go, as Thich Nhat
Hanh points out, when you can gently smile at your own passing thoughts and
obsessions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Putting it simply, we
breathe in order to observe, observe in order to let go, and let go in order to
breathe.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It takes a lot of regular practice—you will not “get it” right
away. All of us—even experienced meditators—get distracted, all the time. But
rather than beating yourself up for getting distracted yet again, the key—once again—is
compassion, first toward yourself and then toward others—especially those who
may have triggered you with obsessive feelings of anger, rage, or even the converse,
like lust.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And then—once you have forgiven yourself for getting
distracted (and other people, memories, or things for having distracted you)—simply
go back to your breath and start again.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Here is a simple mantra you can use as “training wheels” for
meditation: BREATHING, OBSERVING, LETTING GO, ABIDING.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did
not bother expanding on “Abiding” because it is not a practice in itself—it is
the goal of practice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We BREATHE with
gratitude and benevolence; we OBSERVE with insight and compassion; we LET GO
with joy and relief, and at that moment, we are ABIDING in equanimity and
peace. Repeat as often as necessary.<o:p></o:p></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-33850090421851246782022-04-30T10:52:00.003-07:002022-04-30T10:59:12.800-07:00Life without hope<p> </p><p><i><span style="font-size: large;">"We all sit here stranded, though we're all doing our best to deny it." --Bob Dylan</span></i></p><p>This is a difficult post to write. Despite everything, I have always been a congenital optimist, even though I have prided myself on my ability to look unblinkingly into the vortex and still find a reason to hope. My habitual metaphor has been my ardent hope for some viral, self-replicating "butterfly effect" that would trigger the "spontaneous remission of the Cancer of the Earth." But there comes a time...and for me, that time has come. Let me begin with a quote from a writer I follow on Medium named Richard Crim, who is very proficient in climate science:</p><p><em class="agd" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">The last time CO2 levels like this were seen on Earth, was three million years ago, according to the most detailed reconstruction of the Earth’s climate by researchers at the </em><a class="ay qt" href="https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/more-co2-than-ever-before-in-3-million-years-shows-unprecedented-computer-simulation" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;" target="_blank"><em class="agd" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research</em></a><em class="agd" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"> (PIK) and published in </em><a class="ay qt" href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaav7337" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;" target="_blank"><em class="agd" style="box-sizing: inherit;">Science Advances</em></a><em class="agd" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">.</em></p><p><em class="agd" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">At that time, there were no ice sheets covering either Greenland or West Antarctica, and much of the East Antarctic ice sheet was gone. Beech forests were growing in Antarctica and temperatures were up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (4.℃) warmer globally, at least double that at the poles, with sea levels some 20 meters (65 feet) higher than today.</em></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.048px;">This quote says it all. By raising CO2 levels to their current level, closing in on 450 ppm, we have initiated a host of irreversible, interlocking feedback loops that will dramatically accelerate the heating of the Earth, regardless of what we do to stop carbon emissions. But unlike the last time (3 million years ago), this heating will not be gradual, and hence will not enable the biota to adapt over hundreds of thousands--or millions--of years. Crim has coined the apt term "bomb time" to describe our current predicament.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.048px;">Think of it this way: human time scales, compared to geological time scales, are infinitesimal--like the blink of an eye. Yet in the last 70 years--my lifetime--the CO2 level in our atmosphere has risen from roughly 300 ppm--slightly higher than the average high of 280 ppm over the previous 800,000 years (as measured in the bubbles of antarctic ice cores)--to the current, utterly unprecedented level of 420 ppm and rising steadily. When you graph my lifetime onto a geological time scale, it is the merest blip. </span></span><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.048px;">Yet within this blip of time, the atmospheric CO2 level has shot up, almost vertically, as seen on this graph:</span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.048px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY9WgY6BC3rhpLnGO3w90iIwG5Pk0doRne2qUkoX6tlmVRzNbe_2qweRDghaCIsrcu_OBkmip0IXoubjrxezMXfWa-PoOmYcpfYEBfY9bhW7zbTEGkyvva9c-2Ci3TV4LMpU0AQR8DZ4MUbqEia0fRQVYEulrxbdayOBydq_UEqei1MGyhbxlpGCTmEg/s875/0_WVmHHIDj1FSh9qUk.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="812" data-original-width="875" height="370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY9WgY6BC3rhpLnGO3w90iIwG5Pk0doRne2qUkoX6tlmVRzNbe_2qweRDghaCIsrcu_OBkmip0IXoubjrxezMXfWa-PoOmYcpfYEBfY9bhW7zbTEGkyvva9c-2Ci3TV4LMpU0AQR8DZ4MUbqEia0fRQVYEulrxbdayOBydq_UEqei1MGyhbxlpGCTmEg/w399-h370/0_WVmHHIDj1FSh9qUk.png" width="399" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.048px;">In short, the fossil fuel age of the last 150-200 years looks, on a geological time scale, like a brief spike in energy release that could be compared to a volcano or a meteor impact--or a bomb. This means that this explosion of energy released into the atmosphere from the global proliferation of fossil fuels will play out inexorably in the next few decades, as the convergent feedback effects of loss of albedo from melting ice at both poles and all mountain ranges, methane release from melting permafrost, carbon release from wildfires and logging, ocean heating and acidification (and carbon release the calcium carbonate that builds dying coral reefs and shellfish), sea level rise, loss of (carbon-sequestering) vegetation due to prolonged drought, violent storms and floods, wildfires and so on. All of these destructive trends are strongly predicted to accelerate in the coming years, until the global climate reaches a new homeostasis, a new, higher set point, that is well beyond the tolerance of most of today's biota--at least large multicellular organisms like ourselves, or the food we eat. (Bacteria and fungi will do fine, no doubt, since they reproduce and evolve far faster than we do, and can already withstand temperature extremes far beyond our own tolerance.)</span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.048px;">When you put all these (fully validated) climate data together, the conclusion is inescapable: we are <i>fucked</i>, and any effort to reduce climate emissions, convert to electicity, stop eating meat, or launch vastly expensive (and energy-intensive) geoengineering schemes--will be like arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Or to cite another, perhaps more apt cliche, our goose is cooked, regardless of what we do.</span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.048px;">So how do we live without hope? That is the question for this generation--which may well be the very last generation of humans--ever. I don't pretend to have a satisfactory answer to this conundrum, but these thoughts may help somewhat.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.048px;">First, remember that the present is all there is. The future is just a mental formation, enabled by the unique gift of human language, which enables us to imagine such a thing. It does not actually exist, however, except in our minds. </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.048px;">I learned this lesson from a hummingbird I saw hovering and feeding on a hanging fuchsia on the shady side of our house, during the utterly unprecedented heat wave of last summer, when the temperature here in the (normally cool and pleasant) Willamette Valley rose to an ungodly 114 degrees. The hummingbird, like me, was suffering from the heat--and like me, he is doomed. But he needed to eat, to sip the lifegiving nectar of that fuchsia, and the sight of him sipping from the flowers despite the torrid heat gave me a transport of grace, a moment of pure joy, that has stayed in my memory ever since. Having no concept of "the future," the hummingbird was enthusiastically embracing the present moment--the delicious, life-sustaining nectar--despite the appalling temperature. So should we all embrace such moments of grace as they arise: the laughter of children, the eyes of our beloved, a delightful symphony or string quartet, the rising sun over a misty lake... they are truly all that matter, impermanent though they may be.</span></span></p><p><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.048px;">So here are a few humble suggestions for coping with a world without hope, with no future at all.</span></span></p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.048px;"><b>Breathe, Observe, and Let Go.</b> Cultivate a spiritual practice every day. It does not matter which brand you choose, or what you "believe;" they all have useful practices for facing and enduring the traumas and vicissitudes of life. The main benefit of all such practices is that they help you accept that that is, to let go of wishing things were other than they are </span></span>(such longing is the source of all human vices and all human suffering). If you are a "believer," try "Thy Will be done" as a good mantra; if you are not, try the old Walter Cronkite sign-off, "That's the way it is." Whatever works best for you. </li><li><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.048px;"><b>Be well, Do Good Work, Keep in Touch. </b>Take care of everyone and everything, and abandon no one and nothing. Starting with yourself, take good care of your body, feelings, and mental state; then turn to your livelihood and daily tasks, and attend to them mindfully; finally (and most importantly) be there for those closest to you--spouse, family, friends--expanding your circle of care to include everyone you encounter, and ultimately, all living beings, including even your enemies. My own favorite mantra for this is a line from William Blake: "Everything that lives is holy"--however impermanent.</span></span></li><li><span style="color: #292929; font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, Times New Roman, Times, serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.048px;"><b>Learn, Teach, Heal, and Create. </b>No matter what happens as the momentum builds in the ongoing and accelerating collapse of our civilization and biological support system, organize your life around these four standing goals: to cultivate resilience through the constant learning of new knowledge and skills; to teach what you know to others; to heal, as best you can, your own and others' physical and emotional distress, and to take care of the portions of our living planet entrusted to us--our own gardens, farms, and communities; and finally, to use your creative gifts in whatever ways nourish your own life and that of others. Hence the slogan I have put on my own self-designed bumper-sticker that sums up all of the above, a succinct recipe for cultivating resilience in a time of growing chaos and catastrophe: <b>Grow Gardens, Grow Community, Grow Awareness.</b></span></span></li></ol><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuDYY0YZ2iOZrcSZ0UlbnNFMHcsGOjJ3--R1sjAS47wWjRYLJdpX8NlWmiAyAl_AaWknBBKzuE2Y-FB335MeJoH7ptqOMscZg3cKMzDp3wCkBJHVHKZr58QJAy9ILNh1RlT-49bqbDXRZOWr6uUdhA_yih3-5nuAKhUCaSywPL-KRdnS8Bn_Wt_3hk_A/s4032/IMG_0799.JPG" style="font-family: charter, Georgia, Cambria, "Times New Roman", Times, serif; letter-spacing: -0.048px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="422" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuDYY0YZ2iOZrcSZ0UlbnNFMHcsGOjJ3--R1sjAS47wWjRYLJdpX8NlWmiAyAl_AaWknBBKzuE2Y-FB335MeJoH7ptqOMscZg3cKMzDp3wCkBJHVHKZr58QJAy9ILNh1RlT-49bqbDXRZOWr6uUdhA_yih3-5nuAKhUCaSywPL-KRdnS8Bn_Wt_3hk_A/w563-h422/IMG_0799.JPG" width="563" /></a></div><p></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-51068486783666579842022-04-13T11:08:00.001-07:002022-04-13T11:24:16.750-07:00Tetrads<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9xO-d2c9Gl7N3jnpW7JuNVkxvmEIymCh8FVteDAHNAaBlr4d_L9RDQpb83lFUy3i6YqzhsX6xR75fHj9uLMRA39_5X_47a411L1CfyFZS27Hg1eJ9Z-hKK5m4sakJWz115yslFQZw3ZTCn6vHope97tIxvseKEc4FtjP9cs5HZ3wvsaHxtMMiE6EtzA/s341/The-CSG-graph-on-the-left-represents-the-Sierpinski-tetrahedron-and-can-be-used-for-ray.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="295" data-original-width="341" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9xO-d2c9Gl7N3jnpW7JuNVkxvmEIymCh8FVteDAHNAaBlr4d_L9RDQpb83lFUy3i6YqzhsX6xR75fHj9uLMRA39_5X_47a411L1CfyFZS27Hg1eJ9Z-hKK5m4sakJWz115yslFQZw3ZTCn6vHope97tIxvseKEc4FtjP9cs5HZ3wvsaHxtMMiE6EtzA/s320/The-CSG-graph-on-the-left-represents-the-Sierpinski-tetrahedron-and-can-be-used-for-ray.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhsobP2cAuKYJhXfFKaS9Z8qL8705q13s7nkTg2yPOOET8YHqGZHzOkFR-UkOjNqCq0NWzR5t8VvdZk5lEB2j-dMbebRxqIr5_R1MiO0RlBlmLyBm8--7QIiiPUyNkWpUcIDnULFPyfmEQcajp6Jgq3v83fExKCiW0xFbA-1kADPRTt0219TQFbmcodxg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="192" data-original-width="263" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhsobP2cAuKYJhXfFKaS9Z8qL8705q13s7nkTg2yPOOET8YHqGZHzOkFR-UkOjNqCq0NWzR5t8VvdZk5lEB2j-dMbebRxqIr5_R1MiO0RlBlmLyBm8--7QIiiPUyNkWpUcIDnULFPyfmEQcajp6Jgq3v83fExKCiW0xFbA-1kADPRTt0219TQFbmcodxg" width="320" /></a></div><br />The above two symbols, the tetrahedron and the solar cross, are both sacred images based on the number four--the Tetrad--associated with the Earth, or Gaia, and symbolizing manifest stability and totality; hence we have the four seasons; the four classical elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water) which are also the four basic requirements for life; the four limbs of vertebrates; the four corners of most buildings; and the four dimensions of space-time (length,width, depth, and time).<p></p><p> In Buddhism, the number four also has many foundational uses, including the Four Noble Truths, the Four Brahmaviharas ("Abodes of God" or adaptive mental attitudes), the fourfold mantra (Om Mani Padme Hum) representing the totality of the Dharma. For today's Dharma Talk, I would like to map these Buddhist tetrads onto one another, and onto my favorite mantra, or core injunctions of meditation (Breathe, Observe, Let Go, Abide) in order to investigate the insights that arise from this superposition. The correlations are as follows:</p><p><b>OM</b>--<b><i>Breathe</i></b>--First Noble Truth (Suffering)--Benevolence</p><p><b>MANI</b>--<b><i>Observe</i></b>--Second Noble Truth (The Causes of Suffering)--Compassion</p><p><b>PADME</b>--<b><i>Let Go</i></b>--the Third Noble Truth (Realization or liberation)--Sympathetic Joy</p><p><b>HUM--</b><i><b>Abide</b></i>--the Fourth Noble Truth (The Path of awakening)--Equanimity.</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhtsmzk93q5JG9C-1L-M5O4KllmlQkYeJFX602N6-OZRsFQcdhOfpswQLNUjmXpkx3xybGyOX2J6HwrC4ybq737uHhlDCbovKH3BT1zbxEFl6n-jiztk7Egzw_lIFuaD8uS-itT-LHz6d0ABH5hCh-gjOTxh_Cuyr6ClVP2a5Ic95R-kPRSeIld2Q885g" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="280" data-original-width="260" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhtsmzk93q5JG9C-1L-M5O4KllmlQkYeJFX602N6-OZRsFQcdhOfpswQLNUjmXpkx3xybGyOX2J6HwrC4ybq737uHhlDCbovKH3BT1zbxEFl6n-jiztk7Egzw_lIFuaD8uS-itT-LHz6d0ABH5hCh-gjOTxh_Cuyr6ClVP2a5Ic95R-kPRSeIld2Q885g=w162-h175" width="162" /></a></div><br /><br /></div> <br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">OM, the seed syllable of the Cosmos.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p>Om (sometimes rendered "AUM") is the sacred seed syllable in all Dharmic religions--Hindu, Buddhist, and all others. It is often described as both the name and the voice of God, or the Sacred itself, and reciting it with full attention is said to achieve ineffable communion with the Divine--with all that is. Therefore, it can aptly be correlated with the first injunction: BREATHE, since "breath" and "spirit" share the same root meaning (Latin <i>spiritu </i>from <i>spiro, spirare--</i>to breathe) and are synonyms in most other languages (e.g. <i>ruach (</i>Hebrew), <i>prana </i>(Sanskrit), and <i>Qi </i>(Chinese) or <i>Ki </i>(Japanese). </p><p>Hence, both OM and BREATHE correlate with the first of the Brahmaviharas, <i>Maitri (</i>Pali <i>Metta), </i>whose meanings combine gratitude and benevolence--the default attitude we should take toward everyone and every other living being when we encounter them, and more deeply, gratitude for the sacred miracle of life itself, as we take each breath.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSGOWPiXxudW8LqHfzPrT7iN4GpdxbC_nwdLrokoQRINaRseVo9X1zAuJHxlZon3PBRfu_zRwqv3ipzn_nYrt8AXhD2KjmEGss5raW1vEU4LaSMx-IYjNYo0Vpxo1GvinLS8X8fMxgan-Xl8HpDJYDAvWpPUoEeYArh-04zC88DOHUW9ywNXXzattRNg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSGOWPiXxudW8LqHfzPrT7iN4GpdxbC_nwdLrokoQRINaRseVo9X1zAuJHxlZon3PBRfu_zRwqv3ipzn_nYrt8AXhD2KjmEGss5raW1vEU4LaSMx-IYjNYo0Vpxo1GvinLS8X8fMxgan-Xl8HpDJYDAvWpPUoEeYArh-04zC88DOHUW9ywNXXzattRNg=w293-h165" width="293" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;">MANI, the Sanskrit word for the Jewel of Karuna or compassion. </span><p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Whereas Maitri is the default attitude we should cultivate toward everyone, Karuna or compassion is the attitude we assume toward all who suffer. It is not, simply "pity," however. It refers to active identification with all who suffer (including ourselves), coupled with an authentic determination to help alleviate their suffering in any ways we can. Hence it is correlated with the second injunction, OBSERVE, to look deeply into the suffering of ourselves and all other beings.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIUSgLUKaiwd6crTh1F0DwQZSqoGJ_AIxR9bO5Fu9IvrmBILN0y_vioXxyqw7ckLEd3p6uJqXmcgnfXd0aTnh7YRMdoWPLUQ_EyjctEV-px66hhH6xgQco_yuv0ohtAEf0fpgnfu2E0IR4pSofJ2vEoM-Fmj4czblH9TqCdnkNgsiGA2wiSS7-6HMu3Q" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="500" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIUSgLUKaiwd6crTh1F0DwQZSqoGJ_AIxR9bO5Fu9IvrmBILN0y_vioXxyqw7ckLEd3p6uJqXmcgnfXd0aTnh7YRMdoWPLUQ_EyjctEV-px66hhH6xgQco_yuv0ohtAEf0fpgnfu2E0IR4pSofJ2vEoM-Fmj4czblH9TqCdnkNgsiGA2wiSS7-6HMu3Q=w291-h178" width="291" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">Padme, the Lotus of full awakening.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><b>Padma</b> (or Padme) refers to the Lotus--a sacred symbol throughout the Far East--as a symbol of full awakening or enlightenment--rising pristine above the muck, like a magnificent flower in a wetland. Hence it is correlated with the third injunction--LET GO, or to free oneself from all afflictive attachments, all "wishing things were other than they are."</p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgb9vbxp9hX1Yb-JffykK_gubib0nmfx3Zy85PG2gYRYG7U3hgvOyUkAnEwGi3lJrTI3-vDcNHgRSd6hhjFqsxWLhS0KqFiGzKaxqAiMf_-ellJgwB6P0teYJaiHZxvIBFtX-udqCu2TIE-sBu5RZxIo5MiDpVoBoJqasq1u_k46mf3j_MBGN4RWZWdnw" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="549" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgb9vbxp9hX1Yb-JffykK_gubib0nmfx3Zy85PG2gYRYG7U3hgvOyUkAnEwGi3lJrTI3-vDcNHgRSd6hhjFqsxWLhS0KqFiGzKaxqAiMf_-ellJgwB6P0teYJaiHZxvIBFtX-udqCu2TIE-sBu5RZxIo5MiDpVoBoJqasq1u_k46mf3j_MBGN4RWZWdnw" width="132" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: x-large;">HUM, the "Peace that passeth all understanding."</span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p><br /></p><p>The Fourth seed syllable wraps up all the others, and hence symbolizes the fourth Brahmavihara: Equanimity. It also can be correlated with the Fourth Noble Truth--the Path of Awakening, which the Buddha outlined, in his inaugural Sermon at Benares, as the Eightfold Path: Right Understanding, Right Aspiration, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. And it can be invoked nicely by the injunction "Abide."</p><p>There are many meditative practices that can be derived from this superposition of Buddhist tetrads. For example, one could start by inwardly reciting, on four consecutive breaths, the following mantras or injunctions in any sequence you wish:</p><p>1. <i>Breathe </i>with gratitude, <i>Observe </i>with compassion, <i>Let Go</i> with selfless joy, <i>Abide</i> in equanimity;</p><p>2. Suffering, the Roots of Suffering, the Release from Suffering, the Path of Cultivation;</p><p>3. Benevolence, Compassion, Joy, Equanimity</p><p>4. <b><i>Om Mani Padme Hum</i></b></p><p>Improvise as you wish, but also remember that Mantras are simply training wheels, which you can let go of when you no longer need them...</p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-31117935503935876612022-03-07T09:28:00.000-08:002022-03-07T09:28:14.717-08:00This could be it.<p><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span class="quote_sign" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.69); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6);">“</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.69);">He who is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death.</span><span class="quote_sign" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.69); color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6);">”--</span><span class="quote_sign" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.69);">Thomas Paine</span></span></i></p><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">All changed, changed utterly: <br /></span></i></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">A terrible beauty is born. --W.B. Yeats</span></i></div><p>As everyone now knows, Putin has invaded Ukraine, and it is not going well for him, despite his overwhelming advantage in firepower, as he steadily escalates the mass murder and mayhem he is inflicting on the Ukranian people. The entire world has condemned and isolated him, cutting off Russia from commerce, the performing arts, and sports, and sequestering their finances... As a result, the Russian economy is now in a nosedive, his currency essentially worthless, and his hapless citizens, increasingly destitute, desperate, and disillusioned. Meanwhile the Ukrainian people, despite his relentless and increasing bombardment, are united against him, inspired by their heroic leader Zelenskyy, and are willing to fight to the death no matter how much horror and suffering he inflicts on them.</p><p>What worries me most is that Putin has burned his bridges; like Macbeth, he is "...<b style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er</b><span face="Roboto, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #202124; font-size: 16px;"> (III. 4.136–8) </span></p><p>He cannot possibly "win" in Ukraine without destroying the entire nation and terrorizing its population, and making yet more enemies around the world (a Pyrrhic victory indeed!). And he'll have his hands full trying to subjugate a population of 40 million who loathe and despise him (as they discovered to their cost in Afghanistan). But on the other hand, he cannot withdraw, without losing face, and hence--in Russia especially--losing power and most likely, his life as well. Furthermore, narcissistic thugs like Putin (and Trump) are incapable of admitting failure, for that is tantamount to the death of their own bloated ego, which they worship as a deity, and which he equates with the tribal deity he shares with his people: "Mother Russia."</p><p>His only other option is nuclear war--with which he has already darkly threatened the West, and which he knows (with whatever rational faculties remain in his fevered brain) is tantamount to suicide, not only for himself, but for all the rest of us. And herein lies the true peril of this moment. This could be it--the end of human civilization, the end of most if not all of us, the end of most larger living beings, and the end of Gaia as a habitat for human life. Will it come to this?</p><p>Who knows? Anything can happen. But the odds of this unimaginably horrific outcome are becoming more likely by the day. My one remaining hope is that a cabal of his own oligarchic cronies will conceive of a multipronged strategy to dispatch him, before it is too late. As a Buddhist, I am not supposed to wish ill, and especially to wish death, on anyone--but then one of the Jataka tales of the Buddha's earlier incarnations featured the protagonist willingly taking on a karmic debt by murdering a ship captain who was plotting to drown all 200 of his passengers--and this might be an analogous case.</p><p>The real challenge here, however, is that up to now, Putin has gained wide popularity in Russia by being a strong leader who restored Russia's economy after the Soviet collapse and thereby restored their global standing, and who weakened and humiliated Russia's historical adversaries in Europe and the US in particular, by scheming to appeal to British nationalism and undercut the EU by organizing the Brexit campaign behind the scenes, and to elect his own "useful idiot" Donald Trump to the presidency, and dividing the nation. (These were all actions for subverting his enemies that would impress Machiavelli!) However, with this bloody and brutal invasion of Ukraine, Putin has stepped over the line (as Hitler did), making the fatal transition from steely, competent authoritarian to paranoid, ruthless, and dangerous thug.</p><p>But if anyone dispatches Putin, it <i>must</i> be Russians themselves--for if we in the West were to attempt such a thing, it would simply unite the Russians against us, make Putin a martyr to Russian nationalism, and most likely trigger a nuclear war that will end everything. Nontheless, as a highly intelligent, subtle, and crafty people, some of the high-placed Russian oligarchs might already have considered this option. We can only hope. (I hold out some hope for a Brutus-like figure--a high-placed Russian oligarch who is Putin's trusted confidante, to realize the danger he poses to all civilization and life on Earth, and plot a quick way to dispatch him...) </p><p>Otherwise the best we can do is (1) practice Tonglen for the Ukrainian people (breathe in their vast suffering and fears; breathe out solidarity, determination, and hope); (2) even try Tonglen for Putin himself (breathing in the inner fears, resentments, and insecurities that engender his desperate and neurotic lust for power and restoration of empire, and breathing out the wisdom he has abandoned--awakening his dormant Buddha-nature from underneath all the layers of fatuous egocentricity. (3) practice the Gesthemane Prayer (Matt: 26: 36-56): </p><p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 16px;">O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.</span></p><p>These are the best antidotes I know for paralytic anxiety about the world.</p><p>And if, indeed, all is lost--if our only remaining options are a quick and ugly death by nuclear holocaust, or a slow and excruciating death by global heating, starvation, endemic warfare, and ecocide--</p><p>"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Ubuntu, Cantarell, "Noto Sans", sans-serif, Arial; font-size: 16px;">O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done."</span></p><p>And meanwhile, let us all take care of everyone and every being, and abandon no one and no other living thing. Let us therefore, for now...</p><p>Breathe, observe, let go;</p><p>Be well, do good work, keep in touch;</p><p>Learn Gaia, Teach Gaia, Heal Gaia, and Create Gaia;</p><p>and then...</p><p>Grow gardens, Grow community, and Grow awareness.</p><p>...till death do us part.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-77372847771448123882022-02-07T09:52:00.001-08:002022-02-10T10:18:54.564-08:00The Four Useful Attitudes<p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: -0.32px; white-space: pre-wrap;">In both Hindu and Buddhist wisdom traditions, there is a very useful formulation that, in Sanskrit, is called the four Brahmaviharas, roughly translated as "the Four Abodes of God." These are (1) Maitri (Pali "Metta"), referring to a blend of gratitude and benevolence; (2) Karuna, meaning empathy or compassion; (3) Mudita, meaning selfless joy; and (4) Upeksha (Pali "Upekkah"), meaning equanimity. In Buddhist traditions, these are often referred to as the four limitless mindsets, suggesting that they can and should be cultivated continually. But a more secular and colloquial way of thinking about these is as simply four useful attitudes to cultivate. </span></p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: -0.32px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
One Indian guru I have read, Swami Satchinananda, suggested that we think of these as a repertoire of attitudes we should deploy, as necessary, with everyone we encounter. I found his teaching on this to be very useful, so I would like to share it with the community.
Maitri, or benevolence, should be our default attitude toward everyone we meet, which can be cultivated with the practice of gratitude. It means that we encounter everyone with a default attitude of benevolence, since they are all, potentially, our teachers and/or students, for whom we would give thanks. This is remarkably easy once you get the hang of it. One way to monitor your attitude toward others is to pay close attention to your own facial expressions, and particularly the muscles around your eyes and mouth, for these, quite automatically, tend to tighten up when you feel uncomfortable around someone. With practice, you can notice this, and deliberately soften the muscles around your eyes. Try it! The causality is reversible here: just as a sense of external threat instinctively causes you to tighten up your eye muscles (to make you less vulnerable), the deliberate relaxing of those muscles (accompanied by deep, measured breathing) can cause you to feel less threatened and more benevolent. Once you've experienced this, it is quite magical!
Karuna means compassion, but not pity; that is an important distinction, for pity involves looking down on people, whereas true compassion is empathy--the ability to use your imagination to put yourself in another person's shoes, and to feel their suffering vicariously. And this too can be cultivated through practice. One of my favorite techniques for cultivating empathy is the Tibetan technique of Tonglen: breathing in another person's pain, anguish, and suffering--taking it upon yourself (like Jesus on the cross), and then breathing out selfless love, comfort, and relief to them (like the resurrected Jesus). This makes you more likely to devote some of your time, energy, and resources to actually alleviating their suffering in reality, and not just in your imagination.
Mudita means joy, but not just the giddy, egocentric pleasure of chocolate cake or good sex. Rather it refers to selfless joy--the joy you feel--and can actively cultivate--when you see a wildflower, your children's smiles, or the exuberance of college graduates at their commencement exercises when they receive their diploma. So think of it as vicarious joy. This applies also, of course, to the enjoyment of art and music--which are a kind of gratitude for the skills and inspiration of the performers, artists, or composers.
Finally, Upeksha, or equanimity, is the attitude you should practice bringing to those you DON'T like, as an antidote to the rage and fury they often trigger in us, either by their boorish behavior or by simply being who they are. And, needless to say, this is an ongoing challenge, but like the other three--benevolence, compassion, and selfless joy--it can be cultivated by simply noticing when rage has arisen, going back to our breath, and observing, then letting go of it. This takes practice, of course: the teaching of Jesus to "Love your enemies" and "Bless them that curse you" is the most difficult injunction of all. Martin Luther King shed considerable insight on this when he told us "When Jesus told us to love our enemies, he did not say that we necessarily had to like them." So you can think of equanimity as quietly and patiently cultivating selfless love, even for those you don't like. And this does not necessarily entail engaging them in any way; it just entails monitoring, being honest about, observing, and letting go of your own aversive reactions as they arise. And like all the rest, this takes practice.</span><div><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: -0.32px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: -0.32px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px;">Here is a simple exercise for cultivating the four useful attitudes. You can do it on a single breath, or on four consecutive breaths. Here is how it works on a single breath: (1) On the in-breath, focus on the phrase "Breathing with gratitude." (2) On the pause between inbreath and outbreath, focus on "Observing with compassion." (3) On the out-breath, focus on "Letting go with (selfless) joy" and on the pause before the next in-breath, focus on "Abiding in equanimity." OR you can devote a whole breath, in and out, to each of these phrases. Try combining this with visualizations if you wish--e.g. gratitude for the trees that provide the oxygen you breathe; compassion (as you hold your breath) for all who, for one reason or another; "can't breathe" due to various forms of inner or outer suffering; joy in "letting go" of attachments, resentments, or any other form of wishing things were other than they are; and calmly and peacefully abiding, like a tall sequoia or a mountain, high above the noise and confusion of life... Experiment!</span></span></div><div><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: -0.32px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: -0.32px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Linkify" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">Another possibility: the familiar mantra OM MANI PADME HUM can be used in a similar way, by imaginatively assigning each of the four adaptive attitudes to one of these words: OM (breathe), MANI (observe), PADME (let go), HUM (abide). This makes sense, since "OM" is the seed syllable for the "Holy Spirit"--the breath of life; "MANI" denotes the Jewel of open-hearted compassion; "PADME" denotes the Lotus of awakening to our higher selves, of letting go of attachments; and "HUM" denotes tranquility or equanimity.</span></span><span class="css-17ec6bo" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #757575; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; letter-spacing: -0.32px; line-height: 20px; margin-block: 0px; margin-left: 4px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">(</span></span></div>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-46281381030894712812022-01-30T13:30:00.008-08:002022-01-30T13:39:49.309-08:00Beyond Hope<p> Many years ago, in the early 90's when the Internet first enabled online conversations with people all over the world, I got into a dialogue with a guy named <a href="https://ecologise.in/2019/04/26/obituary-jay-hanson-early-populariser-of-the-converging-crises/">Jay Hanson</a>, who lived in Hawaii and passed away in 2019. Jay was a thoroughgoing pessimist, and his website, Dieoff.com, was, by far, the darkest and most unnerving scenario for the future of humanity that I had ever encountered. </p><p>At the time, I was still an optimist; I still believed that if and when Gaian consciousness--the dawning awareness of our total dependence upon a unique and magnificent living planet--spread inexorably around the globe, it would lead to a great awakening, and that everyone, from the top down and bottom up simultaneously, would reduce their consumption of fossil fuels, build out solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass systems, grow organic food, limit their reproduction, preserve threatened species and ecosystems, clean up pollution on air, water, and land, and learn how to close the loop on manufacturing, recycling everything. </p><p>My byword in those days was a quote from Norman Myers, editor of the first <i>Gaia Atlas of Planet Management, </i>who said in his preface, "We have two choices: a Gaian Future, or No Future." And so I argued vehemently with Jay Hanson about this, but he was adamant that given our inherently aggressive, self-serving, and short-sighted animal nature, we would never abandon our dependence on fossil fuels--and the instant wealth and gratification provided by them--until it was far too late, the oil ran out, the climate heated up, the system crashed, and humans died off en masse, turning savage and cannibalistic along the way to oblivion.</p><p>Fast forward thirty years, and it appears that Jay Hanson was right about this. Years of persistent, truthless climate denial by Republicans, and hypocritical doubletalk by Democrats (who are equally dependent on the fossil fuel industry), coupled by 24/7 advertising for more and bigger cars, houses, and consumer goods, have closed any window of opportunity we might have had for an orderly and phased transition from a "growth" economy to a ecologically sustainable steady state, or from fossil fuels to renewables. Meanwhile, the rising levels of atmospheric CO2 have already pushed the global climate beyond many tipping points, ensuring a horrific and catastrophic future for younger generations and their descendants. So it appears we now have only one choice: no future.</p><p>All of which begs a painful question: what do we tell our children now? But let's first ask a different question, taken from the tired old joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto, when they are surrounded by hostile Indians: "What you mean 'we,' white man?"</p><p>A quick scan of the rising number of editorials about the climate crisis will reveal no shortage of recommendations on what "we" need to do. "We" must convert, en masse, to solar and wind-powered electricity; "we" must put a price on carbon emissions; "we" must build carbon recapture machines to suck all the excess CO2 out of the atmosphere; "we" must block the sun's rays by geo-engineering, whether by sending big mirrors into space or generating stratospheric dust clouds for albedo; "we" must ban all SUVs and pickup trucks; "we" must prohibit the eating of meat; and so forth...But who is this "we"? Certainly not ordinary citizens, who are powerless to do any of these things; nor corporations, who have an overwhelming vested interest in the status quo, which ensures continued rising profits into the next quarter; nor our elected officials, who depend entirely on these corporations and their wealthy stockholders to fund their ever-more-costly re-election campaigns. So what should we do?</p><p>Let's convert this to a different question: knowing that our "civilization"--that is, our fossil fuel-driven global market economy (Glomart)--is doomed to a catastrophic collapse and die-off that has already started, what <i>can </i>you and I (not the generic, unspecified "we") do, starting today?</p><p>For starters, I will turn to the wisdom of Lao Tzu, who, writing during the catastrophic "Warring States" era of Chinese history, laid out a simple recipe for social regeneration. Let's take it one line at a time:</p><p><b>Cultivate Virtue in your self/And Virtue will be real.</b></p><p>Real cultural transformation always begins with personal transformation--from the bottom up, not from the top down, "Virtue"--the (untranslatable) Chinese concept <i>de--</i>can be understood as the ability to work effectively with things as they are (rather than as we might wish them to be). This, of course, entails cultivating such qualities as equanimity, mindfulness, empathy, and skillfulness.</p><p><b>Cultivate it in the family/And Virtue will abound. </b>Or as the old Crosby-Stills-Nash tune had it, "Teach your children well." That is, from an early age, teach them to cultivate their innate curiosity and love of all living things, and the skills of coping, of self-reliance, and of compassion.</p><p><b>Cultivate it in the village, and Virtue will grow. </b>This is vitally important in our time, when most of our social connections are remote--via the Internet, our workplaces, or our social hangouts (whether school, church, or local bar)--while we are estranged from our immediate neighbors. But true community is face-to-face; people you've worked with, learned from, or taught, and whom you can call on or assist, when disaster strikes.</p><p><b>Cultivate it in the nation/And Virtue will be abundant.</b></p><p><b>Cultivate it in the universe/And Virtue will be everywhere. </b>These last two I group together because they point to the importance of playing the long game--setting goals that will extend well beyond the span of our own lives; in this case, a Gaian future arising from the ashes of No Future. </p><p>In practical terms, this recipe for regeneration can be summed up in a few of my signature slogans:</p><p><b>Grow Gardens, Grow Community, and Grow Awareness.</b></p><p><b>Learn Gaia--</b>i.e. learn Permaculture principles and practices; </p><p><b>Teach Gaia--</b>i.e. teach regenerative knowledge and skills to others at every opportunity;</p><p><b>Heal Gaia--</b>apply what you have learned to healing, as best you can, our topsoil, our biota, and our communities;</p><p><b>Create Gaia--</b>through all of the above, dedicate your life to creating a Gaian future for yourself, your family, all living beings, and all future generations--no matter what happens.<b> </b></p><p><br /></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-1825963348611626562022-01-24T14:32:00.003-08:002022-01-25T06:28:10.063-08:00A Gaian Revolution<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Unlike the connotations of “revolution” that arise in most
people’s minds these days, a Gaian Revolution does not entail a violent
overthrow of a government or social order from the top down, as in the French
Revolution, the American Revolution, or the Communist Revolutions. Rather, I refer
to the older, less violent, but more comprehensive meanings of the word, as
implied by such concepts as the Industrial Revolution, the Scientific
Revolution, the Gutenberg (print) Revolution, the Reformation, the Italian
Renaissance, the Carolingian Renaissance (12<sup>th</sup> Century)—and long
before that, the rise of Islam and Christianity from combined Hebraic and
Hellenic roots, and the rise, in the Far East, of Buddhism—and giving rise to
all of the above, the worldwide Agricultural Revolution, starting around 10,000
years ago. Each of these revolutions changed everything; they arose when
pre-existing socioeconomic, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual orders had
clearly become obsolete, and could not adapt to the changing world around them.
Some (but not all) of these revolutions were spearheaded by charismatic
leaders; others arose out of a <i>zeitgeist</i> created or activated by some
new technological innovation or scientific discovery. (Neither Gutenberg nor
Galileo nor Darwin, for example, were charismatic leaders; they were simply tinkering,
and stumbled upon an innovation, an insight, or an observation that changed
everything, through calibration and feedback.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So what is the Gaian revolution?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It begins, like many of these others, with a
new insight by a scientist—Dr. James Lovelock—a British atmospheric chemist who,
as a consequence of his research (for the US Jet Propulsion Lab) into the startling
difference between the (equilibrium) Martian atmosphere and the (far-from-equlibrium)
atmosphere of our own planet, derived an explanation, based on systems theory,
that seems perfectly obvious in retrospect, but that no others had thought of:
that life itself—the biosphere—is directly responsible for the constant mixing
of our atmosphere (through photosynthesis, respiration, and other biogenic
reactions) that keeps it in a stable, but far-from-equilibrium state, and has
done so for several billion years. This insight might well have become buried
in the scientific literature and had no cultural influence whatsoever, if Lovelock
had not taken a walk with his neighbor, novelist William Golding, who, with his
classical background, suggested that Lovelock call his new theory the ”Gaia”
hypothesis, after the ancient primordial Greek Earth-mother goddess. Lovelock
took Golding’s advice, published his findings as <i>Gaia: A New Look at Life on
Earth</i>—and all hell broke loose in the scientific community, because he had
violated a deep taboo within the scientific literature: never to mix myth and
science. So they attacked his theory with a vengeance because it also violated
their other major premise—scientific reductionism, or the idea that all
causality can be explained from the bottom up; that is, by looking first at mechanisms
at the atomic and molecular scale, then working up from there to larger and
larger macro-scales. But Lovelock’s theory began from the insights of emerging general
systems theory and cybernetics: that while the parts constitute the whole, the
emergent characteristics of the whole reciprocally influence the behavior of
the parts. That is, causality is a two-way street, from parts to whole and back
again. Hence a simple explanation of Gaia theory is this: life creates, sustains,
and propagates the biosphere, which in turn sustains and further propagates
life.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But while Gaia as a scientific model was already
revolutionary, it still retained the mythic resonance of its name, and this led to its embrace by the counter-culture (arising out of the cultural convulsions
of the Sixties and Seventies) and simultaneously to its vehement denunciation by
Christian fundamentalists, who saw it as a heretical resurgence of paganism. So
Lovelock and his colleague, Lynn Margulis, managed to alienate both the mainstream
scientific community and the religious right! And this endeared them even more
to the “new age” counter-culture—much to their own dismay.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But besides being both a myth and a scientific model, Gaia
gained cultural currency among intellectuals as a metaphor for the holistic
way of thinking championed by leading-edge philosophers such as Fritjof Capra,
William Irwin Thompson, Francisco Varela, Humberto Maturana, and Ken Wilber.
And because it resonated with the worldwide environmental movement, it likewise
became a new banner for activists in that movement as well. Finally, of course,
entrepreneurs saw dollar signs in its rapid cultural dissemination, so (with no
understanding of, and even less concern for) its revolutionary implications, they
trivialized the Gaia concept, turning it into a niche-marketing device for
cosmetics, tarot cards, and yoga paraphernalia. (see Gaia.com).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But while all this was happening, another revolution was
occurring, well beneath the radar of mass media. Around the same time as
Lovelock was working out his revolutionary hypothesis, the Australian
agronomist Bill Mollison, inspired by Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog and
the systems thinking that infused it, conceived of a revolutionary new, Earth-friendly
approach to the design of landscapes, gardens, and human habitat, which he
called “Permaculture”—a portmanteau word for “permanent agriculture” (later
expanded to “permanent culture”). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mollison
likewise acknowledged Lovelock’s Gaia theory as the source of his inspiration
for emulating natural systems in his designs. And significantly, he and his
colleague David Holmgren designed a 72-hour curriculum for teaching others the
principles and basic practices of permaculture design, and this curriculum
became self-replicating, and has spread all around the world, simply because
these design principles are universal, and apply to every conceivable bioregion
and ecosystem.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And so now we have two of the prime prerequisites for a
global Gaian revolution: Gaian theory (i.e. general systems theory, as applied
to living systems) and Gaian praxis (permaculture or regenerative design). The
third prerequiste, of course, is the obsolescence of our existing status quo of
“More is always better”--industrial consumer culture and media-driven politics
as a blood sport, all while the forests burn and ecosystems collapse worldwide.
(There is little need, these days, to elaborate on this!) <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And the fourth, which is yet to come, are effective means of
codification and dissemination, since the Gaian revolution presently goes under
a bewildering variety of names, each appealing to distinct constituencies that
are often unknown to one another, or even in competition for limited
philanthropic donations or grants to their respective nonprofits. Hence we have
the proliferation of concepts and entities like Postcarbon Institute, Transition
Towns, Biodynamics, Steady State Economics, Ecovillages, Green parties, etc.
etc.—all pursuing their own variations or portions of a common goal: what Paul
Hawken and Daniel Christian Wahl refer to, in their latest books, as “regeneration.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is all very inspiring for intellectuals or activists—people
like me, who are already “on board” with the whole Gaian vision of a human
culture that is symbiotic with, rather than parasitic upon, its biological
support system. But what about the ordinary Joe and Darlene out there, driving
their pick-ups or SUVs to Walmart or Costco to fill them up with processed food
wrapped in plastic, trying to make ends meet, worried about their children
getting gunned down in school, getting brainwashed daily by strident corporate
media and 24/7 advertising everywhere they look, which constantly drums in the
notion that to be is to buy; that their identity and value are entirely
contingent on how much stuff they own. How can a Gaian Revolution reach, and
involve, the broad masses of stressed-out and brainwashed humanity, here and
elsewhere?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If I had a good answer to this, I would already have
accepted my Nobel Peace Prize. I don’t. But I have, at least, an idea worth sharing.
What are two things that those of us who live in individual suburban homes or
duplexes are likely to have in common with our neighbors—even if we don’t know
them at all, and even if<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>they are polar
opposites in their politics? First, we both eat food and drink water. Second,
we both own, or at least have some control over, the land we occupy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the starting point for a Gaian
revolution. We are both Gaians, whether we know it or not!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The next step is to find a good occasion to meet our
immediate neighbors, where they are less likely than usual to be hostile or suspicious
of our motives. One of the easiest ways to do this is to be out in our yards
when they are out in theirs, and use the occasion to strike up a chat about gardening.
Or even, during harvest season, bring our neighbors some fresh tomatoes or
strawberries! <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And here is where I can introduce our Gaian marching orders:
<b>Grow Gardens, Grow Community, Grow Awareness</b>. In that order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By growing gardens, we become less dependent
on Glomart (e.g. our global market economy) and more dependent on Gaia (our
topsoil). By growing community, we become less isolated—less dependent on
television and the internet, and more habituated to actual conversation with
our neighbors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we can form Garden
Guilds, which are “cells” of Gaian consciousness, where we can meet
periodically in potlucks, keep in touch online, sponsor gardening educational events
at our homes or elsewhere, organize neighborhood work parties to assist one another
in expanding our self-reliance by growing more food, teach Permaculture
principles and skills to our children and youth, and donate our surplus produce
to feed, house, and teach in turn, the growing masses of homeless and landless
people all around us. It is through such simple mechanisms—growing gardens,
growing community, and growing awareness, that the Gaian revolution can gain
traction, and transform or displace Glomart—one backyard at a time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as we all know, there is no time to lose!<o:p></o:p></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-49222703724852646852022-01-07T08:50:00.001-08:002022-01-07T09:05:55.595-08:00The Gaians: A dystopic fantasy<p> <i>"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,/Nothing is going to get better--it's not." --Dr. Seuss, "The Lorax."</i></p><p>Imagine, if you dare, a worst-case scenario, (short of the total extinction of humanity and all higher life forms). Unfortunately, that is not difficult these days, with the rapid acceleration, worldwide, of climate-related and environmental catastrophes, coupled with the increasing strains on the global market economy caused by inflation and supply-chain disruptions, and on our political culture, both here and everywhere else, by the rise of corporate-backed brutal, thuggish fascist regimes, with contempt for truth, science, democracy, civility, and diplomacy alike. Future prospects have never looked as grim as they do today. So let's venture imaginatively a bit deeper into this unfolding hellscape of the future--in order to seek out the last "truffula seeds" of hope....</p><p>The grisly details--if you have been paying attention--have already haunted your imagination: ecological collapse; mass starvation and die-off of most of humanity; vast swarms of desperate refugees, both from the superheated global South and from inundated coastal cities worldwide as the polar ice sheets collapse; small, fiercely defended islands of extreme wealth and privilege (for a while) in a rising sea of poverty, starvation, and violence--whether from murderous drug gangs, tyrannical fascist regimes, rival warlords and their armies, or whoever...all coupled with relentless pandemics, including an epidemic of suicides, especially among the young...</p><p>But let's zero in a bit to the small, scattered colonies of survivors here and there. These fall into two broad categories: survivalists and Gaians. Survivalists are those people, mostly from rural areas, who have abundant survival skills already, and who own lots of guns. They will, no doubt, build walled fortifications to protect themselves, gun down anyone who approaches, and divide other survivalist enclaves into either rivals or allies in an endless war of attrition for vital, vanishing resources. Life will be ugly and short for them, most likely; they will likely have to indenture themselves to fascist thugs and their armies in order to survive, and of course, they will be easy prey for scurrilous demagogues (like Trump, Erdogan, or Bolsonaro) who celebrate, reward, and encourage their violence.</p><p>Urban areas will most likely disintegrate into hellscapes of starvation and gang violence (as is already happening throughout Mexico and Central America). And that leaves...the suburbs.</p><p>Most suburbanites, of course, will die fairly quickly, as their college degrees, SUVs, mortgages, and ornamental gardens will do them little if any good as things fall apart. Some, of course, will emulate their rural survivalist counterparts by building walls, getting big dogs, and packing lots of guns--but lacking both the land-based resources and the skills, they will be hard put to survive the destitute and violent predators who will attack their fortified homes relentlessly and mercilessly for whatever they can steal. And that leaves the Gaians...</p><p>The Gaians are those who saw what was coming and have prepared for it systematically in advance--not by fleeing to the countryside in pursuit of a survivalist fantasy, nor by walling themselves in with lots of guns, but by reaching out and making friends with their neighbors, and by devoting their time and energy to learning Gaia, teaching Gaia, healing Gaia, and creating Gaia. By growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness. By practicing Permaculture, but also teaching it to others, whenever, however, and wherever possible. And by pledging their lifelong allegiance--not to any nation-state, ethnicity, religious organization, or drug gang--but to Gaia--the only living planet we will ever know. <br /><br /></p><p>Gaians--like everyone else--may well need to defend themselves from marauders as civil society collapses and vast swarms of destitute people may turn violent and predatory in order to feed their children. But their first task--as they organize themselves into neighborhood Garden Guilds--will be to generate enough surplus from their regenerative methods of growing food to set up distribution centers for the needy and destitute--and then teach <i>them</i> Gaian consciousness and Permaculture skills as well.</p><p>Many Gaians (like everyone else) will die violent, horrible deaths, of course, but their training in meditation skills like Tonglen and nonviolent resistance (Satyagraha) will prepare them emotionally, helping them overcome their fear of death in order to reach out to, and teach others, whether by precept or example, right up to their final breath. As with the early Christians in the Roman empire, their fearless willingness to face death rather than compromise their principles will inspire many others to embrace Gaianity as well.</p><p class="graf graf--p" name="f83b">And fortunately, no one needs to “convert” to Gaianity, since everyone who breathes air, drinks water, and eats food is already a Gaian. It is not a “belief system” so much as it is a way of knowing what is already self-evidently true: that we are a part of, not apart from, Gaia — the only living planet we will ever know — and will survive only if we learn to work <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">with</em> Gaia rather than against her — energetically, ecologically, and ethically.</p><p>And who knows--after the Great Die-Off has run its course, Gaians may proliferate, sowing their Truffula seeds of Tonglen, Satyagraha, and Permaculture to engender a whole new culture, in a symbiotic, rather than parasitic relationship with our magnificent, wounded living planet.</p><p>None of this may happen, of course. But it is worth trying...worth living for.</p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-54861623508802403622021-12-26T15:01:00.006-08:002021-12-26T16:06:52.763-08:00Understanding Permaculture: The Four Pillars <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0M9UKDAPZpNR1aR77v9niPpS9QiifKwrwDJT1iGJVcFQ60cXYNQ1HsTZLuIr5j6-4HtO-Idmx6TxCYh1hR_LJhzYAtlz1fKyoKeUcqnZsuRO_nP7YVKbSHqWX3NQarqXHII03frhVEfng/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="239" data-original-width="211" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0M9UKDAPZpNR1aR77v9niPpS9QiifKwrwDJT1iGJVcFQ60cXYNQ1HsTZLuIr5j6-4HtO-Idmx6TxCYh1hR_LJhzYAtlz1fKyoKeUcqnZsuRO_nP7YVKbSHqWX3NQarqXHII03frhVEfng/w242-h274/image.png" width="242" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Bill Mollison's Permaculture Logo</i></div><p></p><p><i><br /></i></p><p><i>"We have two choices: A Gaian Future, or No Future." --Norman Myers</i></p><p>"What is Permaculture?" Virtually everyone who has developed a keen interest in Permaculture, or received his or her Permaculture Design Certificate, has heard this question from the vast majority of people out there who have either never heard of the term at all, or have heard it only in passing, and have developed stereotypical images of ragged, aging "back-to-the-land" hippies somewhere in the hinterlands, crowding around their woodstoves and strumming their guitars singing "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog" and other old favorites from the late '60s and '70's... </p><p>In fact, Permaculture is something deeper, far more profound than this: it is <i>not</i> just a gardening technique, or even a set of gardening techniques, although gardening is the most common arena for the application of Permaculture principles. Rather, it can best be understood, in my view, as the convergence of four "E's": Epistemology, Ethics, Ecology, and Energy. Let's look at these one at a time:</p><p><b>Epistemology: </b>This one takes the most explaining. Epistemology is the theory of knowledge; the study of how we know things or more specifically, the study of the presuppositions that undergird the ways in which we conceptualize our world. And in the West, these presuppositions have been rooted in what Greeks called <i>ideas </i>(after Plato) and what later Latin-speaking scholars called essences or <i>entia.</i>This way of knowing could be symbolized mathematically by saying "X, not Y." For the Greeks, the whole of epistemic inquiry involved questioning the ways we could define X so as to exclude Y, and vice versa. What, essentially, is X? We can flesh this out a bit by replacing the empty signifiers X and Y with two actual concepts: "Man" and "Nature."</p><p>Since the Agricultural Revolution, which occurred several thousand years before Plato's time, the general assumption among agricultural societies has been that "Man" and "Nature" are separate entities, that "Man" is apart from, not a part of, "Nature," and that "Nature" is a mere "resource" whose value is latent until it is transformed, by "Man," into a commodity--something for his \own personal use, or for sale to someone else. When this way of thinking is applied in practice, it leads exactly to what we have seen ever since the Agricultural Revolution, some 8 to 10 thousand years ago: the progressive transformation of complex, perennial ecosystems into monocultural, annual (and storable) high-carbohydrate grasses like wheat, rice, and corn; the simultaneous explosive growth of human population and the rise of cities and commerce (all dependent on converting nature to commodities). The spinoffs are thus entirely predictable as well: as the topsoil in one area of land was exhausted and as human populations increased, we saw the Age of Empire arise, as cities and states fought each other over access to agricultural land, or displaced indigenous horticultural and nomadic tribes to grab yet more land for conversion to monoculture. Meanwhile both topsoil loss and pollution of air, land, and water accelerated in every area that agriculture reached and transformed. The Industrial Revolution, of course, turbo-charged this process of turning ecosystems into monocultural crops, and replacing lost nutrients in topsoil with artificial fertilizers from fossil fuels--and thereby turning both oil and ecosystems into yet more people!</p><p>Permaculture seeks to reverse this whole destructive pattern, right from its epistemological roots. Rather than starting with an emphasis on entities--"Man" vs. "Nature"--it starts with an emphasis on relationships. Rather than X being defined as not Y, the expression of relatedness would be "X is X because Y is Y (and vice versa): "This is because that is," as the Buddha succinctly put it; an insight symbolized by the familiar Tai Chi, or Yang/Yin Symbol in Chinese culture:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSk_M-TKnn9Gz7uHqdJCHRZss4L2zH0BMnXn-lFbonufqfLubFebFjWhgkyLUjKsnjX7REnsNfdSWHqSGE5f6wa8NaoxF9yDs9AR60LZQFRMFr3nRRFil4kb3t1K_RiCjqsetJzQoDuIV3/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSk_M-TKnn9Gz7uHqdJCHRZss4L2zH0BMnXn-lFbonufqfLubFebFjWhgkyLUjKsnjX7REnsNfdSWHqSGE5f6wa8NaoxF9yDs9AR60LZQFRMFr3nRRFil4kb3t1K_RiCjqsetJzQoDuIV3/w314-h314/image.png" width="314" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">In this relational understanding, we see that humanity (not just "man") is what it is because nature is what it is--that we are a part of, not apart from "nature." Hence we need a new name for "nature" that captures this inclusive relationship, and the obvious choice is "Gaia"--the ancient Greek Earth goddess, a name that has been recycled more recently to refer to the systemic view of the biosphere (including humanity) as a Complex Adaptive System. So this is the first pillar of Permaculture--a new understanding of ourselves as Gaians--as part of, rather than apart from, the biological world we inhabit.</span></div><p></p><p><b>Ethics: </b>This new Gaian understanding of nature as a complex adaptive system, and of ourselves as a part of that system, subject to its production rules, leads directly to the second pillar of Permaculture: ethics. According to its founder, Bill Mollison, all Permaculture design is rooted in three core ethics: Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. The first, Earth Care, takes priority: in every decision a Permaculture designer makes, he or she must first consider the effects of that decision on the larger systems of which his project is a part--above all, the biosphere or Gaia. Whenever two or more design options are available, the mandate is to choose the design option that has the least adverse effect--or the greatest potential benefits--to the ecosystem and the bioregion we inhabit--and by extension, to the entire living planet. People Care, the second Ethic, begins with the assumption that we are part of nature, not apart from it, so that in taking good care of our ecosystems, we are also taking good care of one another. </p><p>The third core ethic, "Fair Share" is more problematic. Various permaculturists have proposed alternatives like "Future Care" or "Reinvesting the Surplus" as alternatives, but I prefer the original term that Mollison suggested. It does not, however, mean communism or redistributing the wealth by any coercive means! Rather, it refers to reinvesting the surplus yields we get from practicing Earth Care and People Care into more of the same; it can be thought of as the replicative function of the three core ethics, sharing not only produce and other surplus yields, but also newly acquired knowledge and skills. In short, it a mandate to not only to <i>learn</i> Permaculture design principles, but to <i>teach</i> them as well, and to make use of these principles to <i>heal</i> our landscapes (and our planet) and to <i>create</i> new patterns for symbiotic cohabitation with our living planet, rather than parasitic exploitation.</p><p><b>Ecology </b>is, of course, the biological science that lies at the foundation of Permaculture as a practical discipline. In fact "applied ecology" can be thought of as another concise definition of Permaculture design. So understanding ecosystems at all levels--topsoil, biota and their interactions, climate. population dynamics, plants and animals, landscape forms, watersheds, and ecological succession--are all prerequisites of Permaculture. </p><p><b>Energy </b>the final, equally fundamental basis of Permaculture design; another short definition of Permaculture is "an energy audit," for patterns of energy flow are at the foundation of everything we do in a landscape. Thus, in conceiving of, and laying out a design--whether for a household, a landscape, or a city, Permaculturists first look at energy flow, including seasonal climate patterns based on latitude and altitude, gravitational water flow, slope and solar aspect, human exertion patterns, microclimates, and external influences beyond our control, both natural (e.g. fire vectors) and human (traffic flows, noise, pollution or "invisible structures" such as laws and ordinances, attitudes and behavior of neighbors, etc.)</p><p>These four pillars--Epistemology, Ethics, Ecology, and Energy--form the foundation of Permaculture as a design discipline, but also as a way of life, a way of thinking, that could ultimately lead toward our final asymptotic goal as Gaians: to shift our collective gift of human intelligence from its current parasitic and destructive relationship with our living planet to a symbiotic and healing relationship--before it's far too late. May it be so.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-72251475341679373062021-12-23T11:09:00.001-08:002021-12-23T11:09:38.275-08:00Who will survive the next evolutionary bottleneck?<p> An evolutionary bottleneck is a metaphor used by evolutionary biologists to refer to an apparent acceleration of genetic variation in a species due to a catastrophic reduction in its population. Unlike the normal processes of natural selection, which are driven by "fitness" or the adaptive benefits of a given allele (variant within a specific genotype) within a given ecological niche, evolutionary bottlenecks tend to result in the rapid proliferation, in a recovering population, of random alleles that may or may not confer reproductive advantage. If they do not, the population may quickly go extinct, due to a loss of adaptive fitness; conversely, if they are lucky, a random allele may confer a benefit that gives them an edge over competition or over their prey, and enables them to rapidly proliferate, taking over one niche and expanding to others. </p><p>A currently popular theory in human evolutionary biology is that one or more evolutionary bottlenecks--disasters that nearly eliminated our hominid ancestors but left a small remnant to survive and proliferate--may have, through this evolutionary process, conferred upon us the selective advantage that resulted in our taking over the entire planet: our unique aquisition of digital language, which enabled us to communicate not just nonverbal relationship information (e.g. dominance/submission, sexual interest, or parental guidance) but actual concepts and propositions, invented and shared as needed--a communicative intervention that gave us a decisive evolutionary advantage over all other complex species--plant and animal alike, and that led, through a familiar process of positive feedback, to the expansion of our frontal lobes that enabled us to process this vast and growing array of information.</p><p>The results today, of course, are entirely predictable from an evolutionary perspective. As biologist Lynn Margulis once observed, "Humans are an extraordinarily successful species, but extraordinarily successful species never last long." This is true because such species, no matter how versatile, quickly outgrow the carrying capacity of their ecological niche--even if that niche comprises the entire planet.</p><p>And that is exactly where we are today. There are far more humans alive today than all of our ancestors combined, and most of us--especially in the global North--are using far more energetic, biological, and material resources per capita than our ancestors ever imagined. As a consequence, ecosystems are collapsing everywhere, topsoil is being depleted at a far faster rate than it can be rebuilt, our fisheries are declining rapidly, and of course the climate crisis is the wild card that could upend it all within the coming decades. The possible triggering mechanisms of global catastrophe are proliferating, almost daily: rapidly melting ice caps and glaciers at both poles and on mountains worldwide; an accelerating uptick in the frequency and severity of droughts, floods, violent storms, and wildfires; the potential collapse of the international political and economic order into warring authoritarian states ruled by thuggish despots (which could easily lead to the unimaginable outbreak and proliferation of nuclear conflicts)--the convergent prospects of global biological and civilizational collapse are all too clear, leading the most pessimistic of us to warn darkly of "human extinction" within the next few decades.</p><p>Extinction? Possibly, but I doubt it. But a great die-off of a huge proportion of humanity is probably inevitable--and it won't be pretty. Imagine, for example, if Thwaite's Glacier in West Antarctica, which holds back the huge mass of ice on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, were to collapse within the next few years, as many scientists predict. This could trigger a cascading collapse of the entire western continental ice sheet, raising the global sea level by three meters. (This is why it is often called the "Doomsday Glacier") The result would be the inundation of coastal cities throughout the world, resulting in a surge of destitute refugees inland, spawning predatory gangs that survive by raiding shopping centers, then suburbs, then farms--and governments, despite their armed forces and brutality, would be powerless to stop them. Whole economies would quickly collapse, leading to mass starvation, yet more desperate refugees, more violence, more starvation...the mind reels at the horrific prospects worldwide. And coupled with increasing drought, violent storms, and wildfires, the global death toll of humans and other animals would continue to spiral out of control.</p><p>But would we all die? I doubt it. The most likely survivors would be the most resilient: small bands of people with practical skills who form close working relationships--either for more effective predation (like our current urban drug cartels and criminal syndicates) or for more adaptive purposes. But if only thugs survive, they will eventually kill each other off, competing for supremacy. And who wants to live in a desperate, broken world of scattered thugs and warlords anyway? Not I.</p><p>So what might be "more adaptive purposes"? If we go back to past Dark Ages following catastrophic collapses (e.g. the Eastern Mediterranean collapse of the 12th Century BC, or northern Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire, we see long periods of rival warlords and clans, holing themselves up in defensive battlements and fighting endless power struggles--but we also see a "saving remnant" of scattered communities with higher, regenerative goals--like the monasteries which preserved and disseminated literacy and both classical and biblical texts, or even the nomadic Bedouins who carried the Qu'ran to the far reaches of Asia and Africa; like Buddhist communities in war-torn India and central Asia, or Confucians and Taoists in the wake of the chaotic Warring States period in China.</p><p>Could something similar-- small, scattered communities of Gaians that preserve the best of the past along with a more adaptive, aware, and compassionate way of living within, and regenerating, our biological support system--happen again after the coming global catastrophe? I don't know--but it is an ideal worth living for, and worth passing on to our younger generations. For now, our best bet is to propagate Gaianity by growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness.</p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-27416381574869654432021-12-21T15:08:00.001-08:002021-12-21T15:08:38.332-08:00Reimagining the Future<p><i> "...and where I used to see orange groves out the window of my plane, today I looked down and saw...Houses! Shopping centers! Progress! And I want to see a lot more of it." --Richard Nixon, ca. 1950.</i></p><p>As a dominant culture, particularly here in North America, we have always been oriented toward the idea of "the future" or--as Nixon called it during his first Senate campaign in 1950, "progress." This optimistic future focus coevolved with the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and 20th Centuries when, for the first time in our history, vast improvements in technology, in lifestyle, in creature comforts, in general affluence, and in available goods and services became apparent between one generation and the next. To take one simple example, my grandfather was born in 1877 and died in 1966. When he was born, his world bore a closer resemblance to the world of John Adams--or even Julius Caesar--than it did to my world as a youth--the world in which he died. In 1877, there were no cars or airplanes, no electric lights or appliances, no plastics, and of course, no mass media other than newspapers. The fossil-fuel age had begun with coal, but railroads with steam engines were the only available form of industrialized mass transportation over land, while steam ships were still in the process of displacing sailing ships at sea. Yet by the time he died, the world was substantially the same as it is today--minus, of course, the digital revolution of personal computers, cellphones, and the internet.</p><p>When I was growing up, during the explosion of unprecedented affluence following the second World War, futuristic fantasies abounded, particularly among the youth, as the global market economy and technological revolution expanded around the world. In fiction, in advertising, and in movies (like the Star Wars series) and television series (like Star Trek), my generation was immersed in fantasies about the future as a technological wonderland of space travel, robotic servants, flying around in our personal jets just as we drove around in our flashy new cars, traveling to distant planets, and of course, building bigger and better suburban mansions than those we grew up in. And to a large extent, our educators and mass media continue to propagate these fantasies among our youth as ideals to strive for, so that they will continue to work hard and get good grades at school, get college and graduate degrees, and work for--or establish their own--multinational corporations, and get rich.</p><p>In recent years, however, this aggressively promoted narrative of endless growth and progress has been tarnished by growing awareness of frightening trends that have darkened our collective horizons--above all, the climate crisis. And accordingly, our familiar fantasies of a bright, affluent, technologically advanced future have been increasingly displaced by dystopic or apocalyptic fantasies and disaster movies. Yet our educational systems are still rooted in the endemic optimism of the industrial era: "Work hard, boy, and you'll find/Some day, you'll have a job like mine..." as Cat Stevens once sang. Greta Thunberg rose to instant fame simply by calling the bluff of the entire global educational establishment, rather like the little girl in "The Emperor's New Clothes," by posing the question, "WHAT future??"</p><p>What future, indeed? There is no shortage of dire scenarios to choose from, but I see no point in belaboring these. The one certainty is that a global market economy that depends entirely on the endless expansion of production, consumption, and population is fundamentally incompatible with a finite biological support system like Gaia, our living planet. And the waste product from the fossil fuels that have driven this expansion--excess carbon dioxide--has already started to heat up and destabilize our climate patterns enough that rising global temperatures will soon render large areas of our planet uninhabitable for humans and other complex life forms. The likely result will be mass migration, starvation, pervasive conflict, and upward concentration of wealth into fiercely defended islands of wealth, privilege, and armed power amidst a growing sea of poverty, violence, and destitution, culminating in a global die-off of unprecedented proportions. The future has become an image of Hell itself.</p><p>Given this grim reality that has become all too apparent, what should we tell our children? That is the huge question facing today's parents and teachers alike. Here are a few suggestions:</p><p>First, remind them that the present is all there is. That the past is just a memory, and the future is unknowable, except in broad trends. Yet the world we all share--and the future we all shape--is the collective consequence of decisions we each make every day. So if they are terrified of the future (as they have every right to be), they can take refuge in the present moment--first, by <i>breathing, observing, and letting go</i>; then by <i>being well, doing good work, and keeping in touch</i>. This is basic mindfulness practice, to which they can always return, no matter how stressed out or depressed they become.</p><p>Second, while they have no direct control over the disintegrative future of the world at large, they can still take control of the present moment right where they are--by <i>growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness</i>. </p><p>Finally, they can let go of the vanishing industrial utopia of the "old" future, and instead plant the seeds of a post-apocalyptic Gaian future--whether or not they live to see it--by <i>learning Gaia, teaching Gaia, healing Gaia, and creating Gaia</i>. Learning, that is, to see themselves as a part of, not apart from, nature, and acting accordingly by the study and practice of Permaculture design; teaching others to do likewise; healing, by these practices, their own portion of the living planet we all share; and creating new, relocalized ways of living, new appropriate technologies, and new eco-social ethics, as a foundation for regenerating whatever is left of our living planet after our global market economy finally collapses.</p><p>This Gaian future--if it happens at all--will be very different, of course, from the suburban techno-fantasies that most of us took in with our mother's milk. It will be more labor-intensive, to be sure, but also, it could be more convivial--although resurgent tribalism will always be a danger. But if rooted in the practice of mindfulness and compassion, of earth care, people care, and fair share, it may also be a better life altogether than the alienated, endlessly distracted techno-fantasy of modern suburbia. So let's give our children a realistic, yet hopeful and empowering vision of a postindustrial Gaian future; and as for the proliferating horrors all around the world between now and then--keep in mind this line from Neil Young: "Don't let it bring you down/It's only castles burning/Just find someone who's turning,/And you will come around." So may we all "come around" to growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness!</p><p><br /></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-6836384341945659252021-12-11T11:43:00.006-08:002021-12-16T14:59:35.527-08:00My Agenda<p> <span> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I have occasionally been accused of
“having an agenda”—a phrase which has acquired bad connotations in recent
years, since people often equate “agenda” with “hidden agenda”—that is, some nefarious
or conspiratorial plan to gain money, power, or influence over others—or worse,
to deceive, exploit, or harm them for one’s own benefit.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">To such charges, I plead innocent.</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">But if we take “agenda” in the
original sense of the word, it is actually a neuter plural of the Latin word “Agendum,”
which is a gerundive meaning “things to do” or “things worth doing.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It derives from the Latin verb “<i>ago, agere</i>”
meaning simply “to do”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So properly
understood, an agenda is a list of things to be done.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">And I have something to be done, to
which I have devoted my life for as long as I remember. When I was a kid, it
took the simple form of wanting to save animals from harm. But as I grew into
adulthood, my agenda became more complex, and more philosophically elaborate.
Prior to Earth Day 1970, I was a passionate “conservationist.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After that watershed date, I became a
passionate “environmentalist.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then,
a decade later, after I first encountered Dr. James Lovelock’s visionary and
scientifically rigorous <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/gaia-hypothesis" target="_blank">“Gaia” hypothesis</a>, I became a passionate Gaian, and
have remained so ever since.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I define a
Gaian as one whose first allegiance is to the living Earth, and who fully understands
what most people have long forgotten: that humanity is a part of, and not apart
from, “nature” (or Gaia), and that “nature” (or Gaia) is a complex adaptive
system of which we humans are a part, rather than a “resource” with no value at
all until it is transformed into commodities.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the 1990s,
I encountered the luminous Buddhist teachings of the eminent Vietnamese
Buddhist monk and teacher, <a href="https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/" target="_blank">Thich Nhat Hanh</a>, who led me to embrace Buddhism. As
a practicing Buddhist, I am committed to the Bodhisattva Vow: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to take care of everyone and everything, and to
abandon no one and nothing—and to resist, as best I can, any impulse to pursue
my own ego-interests at the expense of others.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">So as a Gaian Buddhist (which is
the most accurate label I have yet adopted), I came upon the most recent
watershed event in shaping and clarifying my life agenda, right into old age:
my discovery—and wholehearted embrace--of <a href="https://www.permaculturenews.org/what-is-permaculture/" target="_blank">Permaculture</a> in 2015 or thereabouts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had heard of Permaculture many times
before, but had assumed it was not really for me because the writings of Bill
Mollison seemed to be intended for a target audience of practical-minded
small-scale agrarians, or what we used to call “back-to-the-land” types. And as
an urban college professor with no practical skills whatsoever, I saw little
personal use for this line of inquiry. Philosophy was my “thing.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">But then I happened upon a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcZS7arcgk&t=43s" target="_blank">YouTube clip featuring Geoff Lawton</a>, a prominent Australian Permaculture teacher (and
the student of Bill Mollison), which was entitled “Greening the Desert.” It was
about a project he led on a 10-acre plot he had procured in the parched
semi-arid deserts of Jordan. And with contagious enthusiasm, Lawton showed
exactly how he and his crew of volunteers had transformed their dry, hard,
empty desert plot into a rich and bountiful garden, which captured, retained,
and slowly distributed the small amount of annual rainfall so that the garden
was largely self-sustaining. Suffice to say I was blown away by this!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I dove into Permaculture, reading everything
I could get my hands on, and my enthusiasm just kept growing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Once I retired and my wife and I moved to Oregon
in 2017, I first signed up for training with the Marion County Master Gardeners
(since a thorough basic knowledge of gardening is a prerequisite to the study
of Permaculture), and then, in fall of 2018, I signed on for an online
Permaculture Design Certification course at Oregon State University, with the
incredibly gifted <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/amillison">Andrew Millison</a> as the instructor—one of the best
Permaculture teachers on the planet today, with a brilliant gift for succinct and
beautifully crafted instructional videoclips on YouTube.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I quickly came to realize that Gaian theory
is useless—just an intellectual exercise—without Gaian praxis, and Permaculture
is the essential Gaian praxis: Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Hence my life agenda: From now on,
until I’m dead, composted, and pushing up the daisies, I will devote my life to
Gaianity, which I broadly define as the integration of Dharma practice, Gaian
consciousness, and the practice and propagation of Permaculture. And my most
recent watershed moment was only a month and a half ago, when I hatched a new
idea that struck me immediately as the ideal vehicle for propagating Permaculture
(and thereby, Gaian consciousness) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as
widely and quickly as possible: my Garden Guild initiative. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">A Garden Guild is a voluntary
association of contiguous neighbors, who live within walking distance of one
another, to collaborate in growing and sharing vegetables, herbs, fruit trees,
shrubs, and flowers, and also in sharing ideas, skills, and tools for growing
these more efficiently and responsibly. And the purpose of Garden Guilds,
as expressed in the slogan, is to “grow gardens, grow community, and grow
awareness,” each leading to the other and reciprocally reinforcing each other.
And so, in this sense, I would define Garden Guilds as the seeds of a Gaian
future, which now may be our only alternative, both individually and
collectively, to no future at all. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Hence my specific agenda for 2022
is as follows: to use the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>32 (sometimes
33) Gaian holidays as times of convergence, conviviality, and conversation for
fellow Gaians (and <i>anyone</i> can be a fellow Gaian, as long as you breathe
air, drink water, eat food, and care about your children’s future). What are
these holidays?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Eight Solar Holidays
(solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days) and the 24 (sometimes 25) Lunar
holidays (new and full moon dates, with a blue moon (twice a month) on rare
occasions).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">How so?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->On or near each of the eight <b>Solar holidays</b>, when possible,
we can arrange to meet in person (with masks, if necessary) for a “Gaia Walk”
at some convenient local park or natural area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Here we will practice formal walking meditation in the first part of the
walk (going out) and an ordinary, sociable walk on the second (coming back). Our purpose, in keeping with the first of the Twelve Permaculture Principles, is to "observe and interact."<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">2.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">On<b> New Moon</b> days, those interested can meet (on Zoom or in person if possible) for a <b>Dharma Gaia Circle</b>, an ecumenical Sangha (meaning “gathering” or “meditation group”) based on study and practice of the universal Dharma (as manifested in any or all wisdom traditions) as a principle, a precept, and a practice.</span></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]-->On <b>Full Moon</b> days, members of the <b>Garden
Guild Network</b> (and anyone else interested) can meet (on Zoom or in person if
possible) to read, watch, and discuss instructional video presentations or book
chapters on Permaculture, in order to strengthen our gardening skills and stay
in touch with each other.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.75in;">The purpose of these
meetings?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You guessed it: to grow
gardens, grow community, and to grow awareness. And to encourage one another to
continue learning, teaching, healing, and creating Gaia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So be it.<o:p></o:p></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-5205163173433288922021-12-06T09:33:00.002-08:002021-12-06T10:54:51.314-08:00Imagine...<p> <i>Imagine all the people/Sharing all the world..." --John Lennon</i></p><p>When we take an honest look at what is happening in our world today, these words from John Lennon's iconic song may seem like a bad joke. As the idiot Lennie says to his keeper George at the end of Steinbeck's <i>Of Mice and Men</i>, "Tell me about the rabbits, George!"</p><p>But let's engage our imaginations anyway, but this time grounded in the grim reality we can no longer avoid: the incremental erosion and collapse of Glomart, our fossil-fuel-based global industrial civilization and money-based market economy, coupled with the ongoing, fossil-fuel-driven overheating and destabilization of Gaia, our vital biological support system. So again, imagine...</p><p>=if suburbanites and small landholders everywhere started reaching out to each other to form neighborhood Garden Guilds, where they met periodically in convivial gatherings (e.g. potluck dinners or work parties) to share local knowledge, skills, and ideas about growing their own food and other ways to increase the resilience and collaboration of their own neighborhoods;</p><p>--if these Garden Guilds, from the outset, were jointly sponsored by Master Gardener organizations, disseminating research-based knowledge from land-grant universities about best gardening practices for each particular bioregion, and by local city governments, through their public (i.e. non-exclusive) neighborhood organizations--to enable information-sharing among Garden Guilds and to enforce guidelines that ensure inclusiveness and promote and social and ecological awareness and responsibility (i.e. the three ethical foundations of Permaculture design: Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share);</p><p>--if, within these Garden Guilds, special efforts were made to inculcate and practice universally recognized core ethical values, such as compassionate sharing of surplus with the needy, elderly, or landless population, and tolerance of religious, political, and ethnic diversity--</p><p>What would be the beneficial consequences for societies as a whole? These migt include the following:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>less isolation and paranoia within urban, suburban, and rural communities;</li><li>greater food security for everyone;</li><li>lifelong education with intrinsic rewards for children and adults alike (e.g. new friendships, fresh, home-grown vegetables year around, greater awareness of the natural world, less reliance on Glomart consumerism ("You are what you own") and more on personal empowerment ("You are what you do");</li><li>contiguous clusters of well-organized neighborhoods, already accustomed to cooperative efforts, to provide mutual aid in response to climate-related catastrophes and to fend off external threats such as predatory drug gangs, crime, or deranged militias as the larger social infrastructure becomes more and more chaotic, authoritarian, and fragile; </li><li>the proliferation of a life-affirming ethos of Earth Care, People Care. and Fair Share to offset growing divisiveness and hate-mongering by opportunistic demagogues in the service of corporate oligarchs...</li></ul><div>None of this can be imposed from the top down without creating resistance and resentment (which hateful demagogues will only too readily capitalize upon, as long as isolated suburbanites remain glued to commercial television and social media).</div><div><br /></div><div>But the seeds of such a future can--and must--be sown in the ground under our feet, both literally and figuratively. So I invite all of you to join us in the Garden Guild Network, as we collaborate to grow gardens, grow community, and grow awareness.</div><p></p><p>--</p><p><br /></p><p>-</p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-63178727058105518812021-11-27T16:20:00.000-08:002021-11-27T16:20:14.736-08:00The Lunar Society, Revisited<p><br /></p><p>In the 18th Century, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution--and hence at the dawn of modernity--a group of brilliant, accomplished, and forward-thinking men started meeting monthly, on the full moon, to discuss ideas and innovations that would dramatically transform society, including many of these in which they themselves were at the forefront. They called themselves the Lunar Society,These included (1) Matthew Boulton, a prominent industrialist who first introduced workers' insurance schemes and sick pay; (2) his business partner James Watt, the visionary industrialist who transformed the steam engine (originally invented by Thomas Newcomen to pump water from coal mines) into a serviceable mechanism for all other manufacturing; (3) Erasmus Darwin, poet, inventor, and botanist (and grandfather of Charles Darwin); (4) Josiah Wedgwood, the father of English pottery, whose company mass produced ceramic ware, making it affordable, for the first time, to the masses; (5) Joseph Priestley, the chemist and Unitarian preacher who isolated oxygen and discovered Carbon Dioxide. Overseas correspondents to this elite group included Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. For further info, here is a link:</p><p><a href="https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Lunar-Society/">https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/The-Lunar-Society/</a></p><p>A pretty amazing group, to say the least! </p><p>These guys were living at the dawn of the industrial era, and sharing their thoughts about the implications of these profound socioeconomic and technological changes in which they were all eminent participants. </p><p>And now, whether we like it or not, we are drawing toward the end of that same industrial era, due to the fundamental contradiction between (1) an economy based on the infinite growth of fossil fuel-driven production, consumption, and population, and (2) a finite biological support system (the Earth). </p><p>Here in the suburbs, most of us, for obvious reasons, are in total denial about the imminent collapse of our comfortably affluent way of life, since it is all we have ever known. And for those of us who are more keenly aware of what's coming, our tendency is to oscillate between denial (business as usual) and sheer panic and despair about the future.</p><p>There is a third option, however, far more adaptive than either denial or panic. And that is intelligent planning--which is just what the Lunar Society was doing-- as a new, vastly different way of life was rapidly upending the stable, predictable society they had always known. </p><p>The difference, of course, was obvious: while they were looking forward to a future of hitherto unimaginable economic growth, technological innovation and general affluence, we today face the far more daunting challenge of downsizing and relocalizing, if we are to avoid a hellish descent into chaos as our global market economy collapses all around us.</p><p>This is, of course, the theme of David Holmgren's new book, <i>Retrofitting Suburbia,</i> which I am proposing as the first reading of my monthly book club for my Garden Guild Network. But whereas the original Lunar Society met at the Full Moon, we will meet at the New Moon, when all is in darkness. Because at present, none of us can possibly know what a post-industrial future on a superheated, ecologically degraded planet will look like--or whether there will be a future at all. In the darkness, all we can do is hope for the best, but plan for the worst--by growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness.</p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-80378698743436123932021-11-15T15:07:00.000-08:002021-11-15T15:07:49.544-08:00Glasgow Post-Mortem<p><i> </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: -0.32px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>“Don’t let it bring you down; it’s only castles burning/Just find someone who’s turning/And you will come around…”</i> –Neil Young</span></p><span style="background-color: white; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, HelveticaNeue, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Roboto, "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: -0.32px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
To nobody’s surprise, the COP 26 Climate Conference in Glasgow, just ended, was largely an exercise in futility. After intensive negotiations and trade-offs, world leaders made the usual watered-down pledges to reduce carbon emissions and phase out deforestation, but these unenforceable pledges fall far short of what is necessary to avert global climate catastrophe by mid-century, or to give our children and grandchildren a future worth inheriting, rather than a hellish future we would not wish for our worst enemies. If the whole charade makes you feel despondent, you are not alone.
At such times, I often recall the above refrain from Neil Young’s song, “Don’t Let it Bring You Down” from his 1970 album, aptly titled “After the Gold Rush,” which came out when I was in college.
For that is exactly where we are these days—after the gold rush. This global “gold rush” was triggered by the discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels, starting in the late 18th Century, which provided a seemingly unlimited source of cheap net energy that drove the Industrial Revolution, and hence the unprecedented explosive growth of production and consumption of commodities, population, technological innovation, and affluence that has landed us exactly where we are today: a thriving global economy on a dying planet. For that growing production, consumption, and population depended entirely on plundering the planet for nonrenewable resources; transforming diverse, productive ecosystems into vast, sterile monocultures that exhausted the topsoil and drained aquifers while depending on external inputs of (fossil fuel-derived) chemical fertilizers and pesticides; paving over vast tracts of arable land with suburban sprawl to accommodate both exploding populations and rising affluence; and—throughout it all—burning vast and growing amounts of coal, oil, and natural gas, and emptying billions of tons of carbon dioxide and methane into our global atmosphere where they are now rapidly heating up and destabilizing our global climate, with catastrophic consequences for all of us.
This is not a problem that can be solved from the top down. For those same global leaders at the Glasgow conference represent nations who are competing with one another to “grow” their economies in order to maintain the support and approval of their populations—and without cheap net energy, no such “growth” is possible. We often hear politicians promising to phase out fossil fuels by creating a “renewable energy infrastructure” based on solar, wind, or hydro power—in order to maintain “growth,” of course, so that everyone can keep getting richer, find jobs, build houses in the suburbs, buy new toys, and so forth. But such promises overlook one embarrassing fact: rebuilding the energy infrastructure, to be economically viable, requires a huge initial investment of cheap net energy to provide the raw materials, manufacturing facilities, transportation, and installations necessary for such a transition. And there is only one feasible source of this net energy: fossil fuels. (You cannot build windmills with wind energy, solar arrays with solar energy, nor dams with hydroelectric energy!) In short, we cannot expect those with an overwhelming vested interest in the industrial status quo of endless growth—political leaders or the energy corporations whose support they need—to agree to scale down the systems from which they derive their money and power, and on which their populations depend for their own livelihoods and aspirations.
So if we cannot expect our political and commercial leaders to face reality and adapt accordingly, what can we do? The second line of Neil Young’s prophetic song gives us a clue: “Find someone who’s turning/And you will come around…”
This simple advice has far-reaching implications. As Bill Mollison, the founder of the Permaculture movement, once said, "Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple." So what is this simple solution? What does it mean to “turn,” to “come around”?
My answer to this is…embarrassingly simple as well: Grow Gardens; Grow Community; Grow Awareness.
1. Growing Gardens: The minute we start to grow our own food—even if it is just sprouts in a jar for salads—we have started to reduce our dependence on the vast fossil-fuel and money-based industrial and commercial infrastructure that is destroying the planet, the system for which I have coined the shorthand “Glomart” (for “Global Market Economy”). And as we gradually expand our backyard gardens, we learn more and more about the techniques of self-reliance and ecological stewardship. We save money (and energy) by recycling our food wastes into nutrient-rich compost, and we learn by doing as we rebuild our topsoil, so that rather than sending our “yard wastes” to the city dump, we can recycle them in place and return them to the soil as mulch. Small electric chipper-mulchers can help with this as well—or else, if we have the youth and the energy, we can simply chop and drop our “yard wastes” in the fall and return them directly to the garden. All such tasks and skills are easier if we use our garden time to strike up conversations with our neighbors, who may know things we don’t, and who may have tools we can borrow, rather than buy. And all of these reduce our dependence on Glomart, as we master and diversify the skills we need to grow, harvest, diversify, and preserve our own delicious, home-grown, organic fruits and vegetables. And through these chats with our neighbors and with passersby, we have taken the first step to…
2. Growing Community: Our industrial-commercial infrastructure—Glomart—has enabled us to lead far more isolated lives than ever before. Since we rely on that infrastructure—the electrical grid for communication and our gas-guzzling cars for transportation—to connect with friends near and far, most of us have not even bothered to get to know our neighbors. Yet this isolation has made us extremely vulnerable to power-outages and supply cut-offs due to (increasingly frequent) natural disasters, such as floods, droughts, wildfires, and ice storms—or larger socioeconomic crises such as supply-chain disruptions, economic downturns, or runaway inflation. All of these stresses can be alleviated by getting to know, and work with, our neighbors, as well as reconnecting with our faith communities and civic or philanthropic organizations. In all of these ways, we strengthen our collective resiliency in the face of our changing climate and other socioeconomic, political, and environmental stresses. And hence, through growing gardens and community alike, we are collectively
3. Growing Awareness: This process, likewise, starts in our gardens: becoming more keenly aware of seasonal weather patterns as they change from year to year. But also, we grow awareness by growing community—by working with our neighbors and others to address the challenges our community faces from the increasing fragility of larger systems, such as our civil order, our democratic institutions, our economy, and—of course—our planet. And conversely, our growing awareness helps us become better citizens and better gardeners as well!
So in short, we can best “find someone who’s turning” by getting to know our neighbors and getting involved in community organizations, and we can best “come around” by becoming more locally self-reliant, by relocalizing our economy, and by learning, teaching, healing, and creating.</span>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-54292099655697050462021-11-15T13:59:00.003-08:002021-11-15T14:33:27.584-08:00The Two Worlds: Glomart and Gaia<p>Whether we know it or not, we all live in two worlds,
simultaneously. By “worlds” I refer to complex adaptive systems, for which you
can find a useful definition on Wikipedia:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Self-organizing complex adaptive systems can be found in all
sizes, from individual cells to organisms to ecosystems to our entire planet.
And within human society they are equally common, including entities like
cities, nation states, the electric grid, the internet, and even “invisible
systems” like cultures, subcultures, financial systems, political systems, and
religions. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the “worlds” I refer to
are larger, all-embracing complex adaptive systems comprising all of the
above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are so large, in fact, that
we don’t even have names for them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
conventional names are “the Earth” and “the World” or “Nature” and “Man” but
these are fundamentally misleading, so I have adopted one name, already in
currency, and invented the other.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The adopted name is “Gaia,” which is not simply “nature,”
but rather, the complex adaptive system consisting of humanity-within-nature.
The name “Gaia” therefore overrides the false (and fatal) dichotomy we
conventionally posit between “mankind” and “nature.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My newly coined name is “Glomart,” which refers not to
humanity per se, but more specifically, to the Global Market Economy, which
originated with the rapid expansion of trade after the Agricultural Revolution,
some 10,000 years ago, but which accelerated exponentially after the Industrial
Revolution of the late 18<sup>th</sup> and early 19<sup>th</sup> Century, and
now spans the entire planet.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Glomart is the world we have made; Gaia is the world that
made us. We depend utterly on both: Glomart for our livelihoods, Gaia for our
very lives.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Complex adaptive systems evolve according to a specific set
of production rules. And herein lies the root of our current global crisis: <i>the
production rules of Glomart are fundamentally incompatible with the production
rules of Gaia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></i>To show how this is
true, let’s compare them:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>GLOMART:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>More is always better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>GAIA:
Enough is enough. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>The
first production rule is the master rule—the major premise for all the others.
Glomart runs entirely on the inherently arithmetical logic of money, which is
ultimately nothing but arithmetic. And just as 1 + 1 always equals 2, it
follows necessarily that in economic systems governed by the rules of money,
more is always better—no exceptions. Glomart, that is, runs on a logic of
maximization.</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast">Conversely, Gaia—the biosphere—runs
entirely on a logic of optimization: too much or too little of any value is
toxic to the system, or to its subsystems. If we eat too much, we die; if we
eat too little, we die. The same holds true for all other biological values:
body temperature, blood pressure, body mass, food or water consumption…or in
the aggregate, population size per carrying capacity, predator/prey ratios, etc.
These two foundational production rules—maximizing and optimizing, are
diametrically opposed; hence, Glomart is a cancer on Gaia, not as a result of
any human choice, but by its very nature as a money game, where more is always
better. On a finite planet, such a game of endless growth cannot go on without
destroying its biological support system.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><o:p> </o:p></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>GLOMART: You are what you own. GAIA: You
are what you do.</b><b><o:p> </o:p></b></p>
<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Since the Glomart system depends entirely
on the endless growth of production and consumption, it has evolved a culture
of consumerism, where pervasive advertising continually persuades us that our
human worth depends on our possessions. This addictive consumerism is essential
to maintaining the endless growth of production and consumption demanded by the
intrinsic money-based logic of Glomart. Hence, every government on Earth
relentlessly pursues “Growth” as its overarching goal—meaning growth, again, of
production and consumption of commodities per capita. Yet this endless
production, consumption, and resulting population growth relies on endless
extraction of finite resources at one end, and pollution at the other. It also
relies on continually converting complex ecosystems into monocultures sustained
by external inputs of fossil-fuel based fertilizers and pesticides. The net
result has been the ongoing deterioration and destruction of vital ecosystems
worldwide: our oceans, forests, rivers and streams, topsoils, biodiversity, and
even subterranean (and nonrenewable) aquifers, coupled with pollution of our
land, air, and water, and, above all, the disruption of our global climate
system by excess CO2 from the fossil fuels upon which Glomart entirely depends.</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><o:p> </o:p>In Gaia, conversely—and in the earlier,
indigenous human cultures everywhere that were fully aware of, and celebrated,
their participation in the Gaian web of life—the core value was “You are what
you do.” That is, the value of any individual within an indigenous culture
derived not so much from their possessions as from the role they played in
serving and supporting their community, their tribe, and the larger biological systems
that sustained their tribe. And this was largely true of agricultural society
as well—hence the proliferation of surnames based on specific trades (e.g.
“smith,” “baker,” “cook,” “miller” “butler” etc.).</p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">Likewise, in the nonhuman parts of Gaia,
species are valued by ecologists entirely based on the niche they occupy within
their ecosystems—by what they do--whether as predators, grazers, or
scavengers—or in the plant, fungal, and microbial realm, as nitrogen-fixing
bacteria on legumes, colonizing annuals, herbaceous and woody perennials, and
so forth. “Ownership,” in Gaia, means nothing; the hole excavated by a
woodpecker for her nest may subsequently—and often simultaneously--serve as the
shelter of numerous other species.</p></blockquote><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>GLOMART: Nothing has value until it has a
price. GAIA: Value derives from relationships.</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">Throughout our global market
economy, nothing has any value until it becomes a commodity; therefore, the
ongoing core agenda of Glomart is to transform nature into commodities as
quickly as possible: forests into board feet; fisheries into fishmarkets;
minerals into manufactured products; land into real estate; and citizens into
consumers. Nothing can become a
commodity until we draw a boundary around it and cut it out of its supporting
matrix; only then can we put a price on it to sell it on the market.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">Conversely, in Gaia—in all
ecosystems worldwide—the value of any element (mineral or biological) depends
entirely on its network of relations with all the other living beings around
it. A tree, cut down as board feet, has only one value—its monetary value as a
commodity for sale on the market. Alive
(or dead) in the forest, a tree has multiple values—as habitat for a host of
species great and small; as shelter for plants and animals, whether from
summer’s heat, autumn winds, or winter’s rain or snow; as topsoil builder, as
water retainer in its biomass, and as cloud-forming agent of evapotranspiration,
creating and sustaining its own microclimate. And so it is for all other
elements of Gaia, our unique and miraculous biological support system.<o:p></o:p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></p></blockquote><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><b style="text-indent: -0.25in;"> GLOMART: The Bottom Line is the bottom
line. GAIA: The survival and propagation of Life itself is all that matters.</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">This is the final, most profound
difference between the production rules of Glomart and Gaia. The sole ultimate
purpose of every business enterprise on the planet, from the smallest local
merchant to the largest multinational corporation, is to maximize return on
their investments. The basic (arithmetical) rules of the money game make no
other purpose even possible, lest they be outcompeted by a rival enterprise who
is able to undercut their price. And there are only two ways of making a
profit: socially adaptive ways, and socially maladaptive ways. Yet corporations
have no vested interest in distinguishing between them: profit is profit, and
all that ever matters is the next quarterly return. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">Socially adaptive ways of making a
profit are no problem, and should be encouraged. They include, above all,
making and selling useful and innovative products,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>providing employment for others, and providing
investment opportunities for investors. Socially maladaptive ways include,
above all, exploitation of labor (the “race to the bottom”), externalization of
costs to the public (pollution), as well as deceptive advertising and political
corruption (i.e. buying off politicians with campaign contributions to prevent
regulation in the public interest). The challenge, therefore, for any
government is to find ways of encouraging socially adaptive investments in the
private sector, and discouraging or prohibiting socially maladaptive approaches
to profit maximization.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">For Gaia (and for all
pre-industrial human cultures that understood themselves as a part of Gaia),
the only “bottom line”—the only ultimate purpose—of their behavior,
individually or collectively, was (and is) to propagate and perpetuate their
own kind, and the ecosystems that support them, from one generation to the
next. This is the value that, most fatally, has been lost by Glomart’s relentless
colonization of Gaia: the utter abandonment of future generations in pursuit of
their own immediate, ever-growing short-term profits. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">So what can we do about this
fundamental incompatibility between our (maximizing) Glomart socioeconomic
order and our (optimizing) Gaian biological support system? Pessimists, of
course, will say “Nothing. We are doomed.” I sometimes incline that way, but
then I step back and reconsider, simply because I am still alive, and as
William Blake once said, “Everything that lives is holy.” So here is one
attempt at an answer:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">Imagine what could happen if,
starting from the ground up, people were inspired to make a conscientious
effort to shift from Glomart values to Gaian values? That is, from “More is
always better” to “Enough is enough;” from “You are what you own” to “You are
what you do;” from “Value = Price” to “Value = Relationship; and from
“Maximizing the Bottom Line” to “The survival and propagation of Life itself”
as their ultimate goal? And then—starting where they are—they devoted the rest
of their lives, young and old, to growing gardens, growing community, and
growing awareness? Who knows?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As
Shakespeare’s Autolycus in <i>The Winter’s Tale</i> puts it, “There may be
matter in it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Glomart is dying; long
live Gaia!<o:p></o:p></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-57426221449114347212021-11-13T15:34:00.002-08:002021-11-15T15:04:06.536-08:00Things Dying, Things Newborn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8AYqGfy24WZmedOQ6kFzJqT0smEGEd44ysy2804n4bhSH4crA0cDyFQZx2Wp84NNgzsEs4RDCo7WsTF6Z6Z-ayqzCSS9nKwdd7uBqqKsPcWQ4uqxJygG40pi1b22RrLYUFPnYL9upncRi/s500/John-Massey-Wright-scene-bear.width-770.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="425" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8AYqGfy24WZmedOQ6kFzJqT0smEGEd44ysy2804n4bhSH4crA0cDyFQZx2Wp84NNgzsEs4RDCo7WsTF6Z6Z-ayqzCSS9nKwdd7uBqqKsPcWQ4uqxJygG40pi1b22RrLYUFPnYL9upncRi/s320/John-Massey-Wright-scene-bear.width-770.jpg" width="272" /></a></div><p> In Act III of Shakespeare's late romance, <i>The Winter's Tale</i>, Antigonus, an elderly agent of the obsessively jealous King Leontes of Sicilia, arrives on the "seacoast of Bohemia," carrying Leontes' newborn child Perdita,who has been condemned to abandonment on (false) suspicion that she is the bastard child of his wife Hermione with his lifelong friend Polixenes, King of Bohemia. As a dangerous storm gathers overhead, Antigonus mourns his fate, as he abandons the child--until he is frightened away by a bear (hence the famous stage direction, "Exit, Pursued by a Bear"), while the highly vulnerable child is left alone onstage, amidst the gathering storm...</p><p>Then, in a comic twist, an old shepherd enters, discovers the child, and speculates darkly about her origins, until his clownish son appears, and breathlessly reports and conflates two catastrophes he has just witnessed: a shipwreck offshore, and a bear tearing into the flesh of the doomed "gentleman" Antigonus. (The ship, of course, was the one that carried Antigonus to shore with the child.) When the clown finishes his report, the old shepherd answers as follows: </p><p>"<span face="Raleway, sans-serif" style="color: #292c2e; font-size: 16px;">Now bless thyself: thou mettest with things </span><span face="Raleway, sans-serif" style="color: #292c2e; font-size: 16px;">dying, I with things newborn."</span></p><p>Somehow, this iconic line has lodged in my head of late, for obvious reasons: the "things dying" are everywhere to be seen these days: our coral reefs, our forests, our polar ice caps and glaciers, our fisheries, our aquifers, our endangered species, even our insects...but also, it seems, our democracy itself and the social consensus necessary to preserve it, amidst the toxic divisiveness of our politics; science and truth itself, amid a welter of lies propagated on social media; our collective decency and compassion in the face of waves of refugees fleeing north from war-torn and drought-ravaged lands--and so on ad nauseam. </p><p>So where, amidst all this dying, is the "thing newborn" to be found, who will redeem our broken world?</p><p>To begin, let me steal one more line from <i>The Winter's Tale: </i></p><div class="noFear__line noFear__line--original" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #292c2e; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Yet nature is made better by no mean</div><div class="noFear__line noFear__line--original" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #292c2e; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But nature makes that mean: so, over that art</div><div class="noFear__line noFear__line--original" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #292c2e; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Which you say adds to nature, is an art</div><div class="noFear__line noFear__line--original" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: inherit; color: #292c2e; font-family: Raleway, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">That nature makes. </div><p>Can art (i.e. human artifice) so "mend" nature? Or only change it--for the worse? </p><p>In contemporary usage, "nature" is generally set in opposition to "humanity." For economists, engineers, and industrialists, "nature" is nothing but a "resource" with no value whatsoever until it is transformed into commodities for sale or "development;" for environmentalists, poets, and vacationers, "nature" is a refuge--somewhere "out there" (or on TV), well away from the crowded, polluted world they inhabit most of the time. </p><p>For Shakespeare and his contemporaries, however, "nature" had a far more spacious and inclusive meaning than it does for us today. In their understanding, "nature" denoted what the Greeks earlier called "physis"--the physical world, inclusive of the sun, moon, and stars, but also of life, humanity, and our innate dispositions. This was also the common understanding of indigenous, pre-agricultural peoples worldwide, who did not even have a word in their vocabulary for "nature" exclusive of humanity. </p><p>And this, I would suggest, might be the "thing newborn" amidst the "things dying" all around us, in both our modern industrial civilization and our ailing biosphere: the dawning rediscovery that humanity is a part of, not apart from, "nature," and that "nature" is a complex adaptive system of which we are a part, not a "resource" for us to exploit at will. </p><p>This awareness first arose intuitively among the counterculture in the Sixties and Seventies, and was rendered explicit by Stewart Brand in the Whole Earth Catalog, but it is now seeping into the cultural mainstream, especially the younger generation. On one hand, it is the awareness that what we have done to the Earth, we are doing to ourselves--but on the other, it is the awareness that, as Brand put it, "we are as gods, and may as well get good at it"; that nature itself makes the means by which nature can be mended.</p><p>This dawning awareness of our oneness with nature, as a cultural phenomenon, does not yet have a generally accepted name, so I, along with many others, propose that we call it "Gaia," and that those, like myself, who wholeheartely embrace this new understanding, call ourselves "Gaians."</p><p>Names are powerful. Once a cultural phenomenon has a name, it can catch on and spread quickly, if the time is ripe for it. "Gaia"--the ancient Greek name for the Earth as primordial mother-goddess, has been recycled, by James Lovelock and now by many others, as a kind of shorthand for the systemic view of the Earth as an integrated holobiont, in which the processes of life itself--photosynthesis, microbial interactions in topsoil, the water, carbon, and nitrogen cycles, etc.--create and sustain the conditions that in turn propagate, diversify, and sustain life. It is this complex adaptive system, above all, that has been badly disrupted by the excessive dumping of CO2 back into the atmosphere from the worldwide burning of fossil fuels.</p><p>But Gaian theory, so conceived, can be understood only by scientists. And due to their habitual aversion to mythic thinking, most scientists have renamed it "Earth Systems Science"--which is exactly the same thing, stripped of its mythic resonance. Meanwhile, a few avant-garde intellectuals, like Fritjof Capra, William Irwin Thompson, and Ken Wilber, have seized upon "Gaia" as a luminous metaphor, while environmental activists have embraced "Gaia" as an icon of their mass movements against climate disruption and environmental degradation. </p><p>At the same time, the resurfacing of the mythic name "Gaia" has been eagerly embraced by the new-age, neopagan, ecofeminist contingent, with little to no understanding of the rigorous science behind it, while born-again Christians excoriate "Gaia" with fear and loathing, and entrepreneurs have trivialized "Gaia" for their own purposes, to sell video games or body lotions. </p><p>Thus many meanings of Gaia have arisen--whether as myth, model, metaphor, or movement. But still, the concept thrives mostly on the margins of society; most in the cultural mainstream either don't know the Gaia concept at all, or have already formed simplistic, stereotypic ideas about it, whether as dangerous resurfacing of paganism or a frivolous example of magical thinking. What is generally lacking is a Gaian praxis that, once conjoined with Gaian theory, could give the Gaia movement the traction it needs to become a culturally regenerative force in our dying and despairing world. </p><p>Fortunately, such a Gaian praxis already exists, and is already catching on, worldwide, albeit mostly under the radar of mass media: Permaculture. At the start of his magnum opus, <i>Permaculture: A Designer's Manual, </i>its founder, Bill Mollison, explicitly cites Lovelock's Gaia Theory as his inspiration for his Permaculture design system: </p><p>"Lovelock (1979) has perhaps best expressed a philosophy, or insight, which links science and tribal beliefs: he sees the earth, and the universe, as a thought process, or as a self-regulating, self-constructed and reactive system, creating and preserving the conditions that make life possible, and actively adjusting to regulate disturbances. Humanity, however, in its present mindlessness, may be the one disturbance the earth cannot tolerate." (p.2)</p><p>And like the academic renaming of Gaia Theory as "Earth Systems Scence" to keep the theory intact while stripping it of its "new age" mythic overtones, Mollison's "Permaculture" concept has been stripped of its countercultural overtones, in recent years, by renaming it "regenerative agriculture." But both "Earth Systems Science" and "regenerative agriculture" signify the attempted absorption, into mainstream discourse, of the transformational insights of Gaia Theory and Permaculture. And that could be good news--especially for us Gaians.</p><p>So what is a Gaian? I have at few definitions to offer--I'm sure there are others. The first is the broadest:</p><p>(1) A Gaian is a resident of Gaia, the (renamed) Third Planet out from the Sun--one who inhabits, and participates in, a living planet powered by the sun, where the processes of life use the influx of solar energy to turn minerals into topsoil, CO2 into free oxygen and stored carbon, and salt water into filtered, fresh water. By this definition, we are all Gaians already; nobody has to "become" a Gaian.</p><p>(2) A conscious Gaian is one who is aware of, and acts upon his or her awareness of, his or her interconnectedness with all of life. Unfortunately, conscious Gaians are as of yet, a small subset of all Gaians, but our mission, above all, is to awaken all our fellow Gaians to consciousness of their true nature and responsibilities as Gaians.</p><p>(3) A practicing Gaian is one who has translated, or is translating, his or her Gaian consiousness into a life purpose (such as Permaculture design) that enable them to devote their time and energy to learning Gaia, teaching Gaia, healing Gaia, and creating Gaia.</p><p>How might this healing occur, on our dying planet? Imagine...</p><p>--people forming Garden Guilds, or Gaian Guilds, within their local communities to grow gardens, grow community, and grow awareness;</p><p>--schools and colleges developing Gaian curricula, based on a theoretical grounding in Gaia theory and a practical grounding in Permaculture design, from Kindergarten to Graduate School;</p><p>--Gaian groups starting within religious organizations (since Gaia is <i>not</i> a religion per se--there is no Gaian theology--and Gaian consciousness is entirely compatible with every authentic religious tradition on the planet). I am a Gaian Buddhist myself, but I have known and corresponded with Gaian Christians, Gaian Jews, Gaian Muslims, and Gaian Hindus.</p><p>So it is just possible that this "thing newborn," Gaian consciousness, could, like baby Perdita (whose name means "the one who is lost") could grow up to regenerate, and redeem, the only living planet we will ever know. So be it.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-70127792821417462372021-11-06T10:55:00.001-07:002021-11-06T11:11:04.229-07:00The Rain in Spain<p> In March of 2018, my wife and I were traveling in and around Sevilla, in the south of Spain. During our entire week in this gorgeous, historically rich area of Andalusia, it rained...an incessant downpour, with intermittent thunder and lightning. (So much for "sunny Seville!"). And on the day when we took a bus tour to the magnificent Alhambra palace, our Spanish tour guide looked ruefully up at the stormy sky, and said "We are killing the Earth."</p><p>She didn't know how right she was. Now, only a few years later, her words seem prophetic, as everyone who pays any attention to science and to reality knows. We are, indeed, killing the Earth, for the simple reason that the maximizing, zero-sum logic of our global market economy ("Glomart") is fundamentally incompatible with the optimizing, positive-sum logic of our biological support system (Gaia). S o all the negotiations in Glasgow are just arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. But the ship has already hit the iceberg, and we are slowly sinking.</p><p>The "iceberg" in this metaphor is simply our total dependence on fossil fuels. Their discovery and systematic exploitation of fossil fuel energy--coal, then oil, then natural gas--starting back in the late eighteenth century and spreading worldwide ever since--has been like a feeding frenzy, as generally happens when a rich motherlode of easily accessible energy suddenly becomes available for any species. And as Lynn Margulis once pointed out, we are a highly successful species due to our unique gift of linguistic communication, but highly successful species never last long; their very success leads inexorable overshoot and collapse. And so our sudden, seemingly endless supply of cheap, easily transportable energy through fossil fuels has led, equally predictably, to an explosion in population, in per capita resource consumption, and in ecological devastation.</p><p>All the techno-optimism we hear about creating a "next industrial revolution" based on a fossil-free renewable energy infrastructure--wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, ethanol, nuclear, or whatever--overlooks one basic fact: available net energy, which is the energy you have left after the energy you invest to get that energy, is the very foundation of any economy, industrial or otherwise. And the net energy available from fossil fuels vastly exceeds the net energy of renewables (which, when you add in the embodied energy needed to build out these facilities, store, or transport that energy, generally dips into the negative numbers). You cannot use wind energy to build windmills, or solar energy to build solar arrays. All these new infrastructures, in short, require a vast initial investment of net energy. And the only readily available source of net energy is...fossil fuels. Yet fossil fuels, as we now know, are killing the Earth, whether through floods, hurricanes, droughts, mass die-offs of whole ecosystems, heat waves, deforestation, or depletion of aquifers (pumped, of course, by yet more fossil fuels).</p><p>So our whole global industrial infrastructure--on which our vast and growing global population depends--is collapsing, at first slowly enough to enable the current patterns of denial (for most people, but especially among Republicans) or bargaining (as in Glasgow). But the pace of collapse will accelerate inexorably, turning denial to panic, and bargaining back to denial (and panic) and of course, rage--especially among the young, as they realize that their very future has been stolen from them. It won't be pretty, especially as our overstressed civic institutions that maintain social coherence are strained to the point of collapse, followed by chaos and starvation...</p><p>So what <i>can</i> we do? Cultivate the art of dying. I am not being facetious here; there are many spiritual traditions, especially in the Far East, that can help us learn to embrace impermanence, yet still act with wisdom, diligence, equanimity, and compassion to take care of everyone and abandon no one. These disciplines can--and should--be taught, especially to the young. So I would like to share a poem by Robinson Jeffers called "The Answer" that I myself have found useful in coming to terms with the impermanence, not only of myself, but also of my community, my civilization, and our magnificent, life-sustaining planet. </p><p><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Then what is the answer?- Not to be deluded by dreams.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">and their tyrants come, many times before.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">To keep one's own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">and not wish for evil; and not be duped</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">By dreams of universal justice or happiness. These dreams will</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">not be fulfilled.</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">and his history... for contemplation or in fact...</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Often appears atrociously ugly. Integrity is wholeness,</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">the greatest beauty is</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things, the divine beauty</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">of the universe. Love that, not man</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">Apart from that, or else you will share man's pitiful confusions,</span><br style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; color: #484848; font-family: sans-serif, serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span face="sans-serif, serif" style="background-color: white; color: #484848; font-size: 16px;">or drown in despair when his days darken.</span></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-45426952135185136742021-10-30T11:41:00.003-07:002021-10-30T11:47:15.469-07:00Thoughts on Glasgow<p> The latest international climate conference, COP26 in Glasgow,
Scotland, gets underway this week. Once again, international leaders converge on
the conference center in their gas-guzzling limousine motorcades to pontificate
about the urgency of the crisis and their renewed commitment (yet again) to
reduce carbon emissions, while angry young protesters amass in public squares, with
signs aloft, (surrounded by armored police brandishing their shields and
nightsticks) to vent their rage and frustration at the empty promises of the
leaders and their utter failure to take meaningful action to reduce our
collective dependence on fossil fuels while our planet slowly but inexorably
heats up and burns…</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It will all be, yet again, a grand exercise in futility. The
reason is simple: this is not a problem that can be solved from the top down. The
power elite throughout the world—both politicians and the business moguls who
underwrite them—have an overwhelming vested interest in the status quo; that
is, in a global market economy based on the endless growth of production and
consumption that props up their own wealth and power. Yet that endless growth
requires more and more resource extraction at one end—which means more forests
clearcut, more mines gouged out of the landscape, more suburbs built out from
crowded urban areas, more land cleared and planted with monocultures, more
fertilizers and pesticides, more oil, gas, and coal drilled and burned for
energy—and at the other end, more pollution and devastation of land, air, and water. And above
all, more carbon emissions pumped into an already stressed atmosphere, and more
money spent in a vain effort to put out the fires, rebuild flooded areas, and cope
with the rising tide of destitute environmental refugees from the dry, torrid
south to the overcrowded north. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If any
political leaders tried to change any of this commitment to economic “growth” at
any cost, they would face entrenched opposition from their constituents, both
rich and poor.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The reason is that all economies depend, ultimately, upon
available net energy—which is the energy you have left after the energy you
expend to get that energy. And the net energy from fossil fuels—from oil, gas,
and coal—is astronomically greater than the net energy we can ever expect from solar
or wind. You can never build a solar array with solar energy, nor a wind farm
with wind energy; nor can you use the electrical transform of these energies to
build electric cars or mine the rare earth metals to build the batteries to
operate them. All of these primary infrastructure technologies—solar arrays,
wind farms, hydroelectric dams, nuclear plants, batteries—require an enormous
investment of readily available and transportable net energy to provide the
building materials, the manufacturing facilities, and the transportation needed
to assemble and install them. And there is only one source of the vast amount
of net energy needed for that initial investment in a whole new “renewable”
infrastructure: fossil fuels.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So is there any hope for our future? Collectively, probably
not. Our industrial global market economy is utterly dependent on the net energy
from fossil fuels, whether we like it or not, and all of us in our industrial
civilization depend on that economy for our life support systems (e.g. water
infrastructure and food dependent on industrial agriculture), our
livelihoods, our transportation, and our communication (via the electrical
grid). When prices of fossil fuels rise (as they must if their rate of extraction
is reduced worldwide), so will the prices of everything else. Yet if we don’t
reduce the rate of extraction and consumption of these carbon-based fuels, our
climate will become more and more chaotic, at an accelerating rate, with
unimaginably horrid consequences for all of us, starting with the poorest and
most vulnerable.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So what <i>can</i> we do? My only answer to this is what has
become my mantra—the slogan of the Garden Guild initiative I have undertaken: <b>Grow
Gardens, Grow Community, Grow Awareness</b>. To unpack these a bit, let’s look
at each in turn.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Grow Gardens:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></b>As
anyone who has tried it knows, growing our own fruit and vegetables is not
easy. It requires a basic knowledge of soils, of different kinds of plants,
shrubs, and trees, their growing seasons, and their respective needs for sun,
soil, and water, and so forth. Further, to make growing our own food more economically
viable and healthier, we need to reduce as much as possible our dependence on
external inputs, such as commercial fertilizers, soils, additives, and pesticides.
We can do this by practicing good ecological stewardship—growing pollinator
beds, providing habitat for predatory insects, learning the life cycle of
pests, using compost and mulch to boost organic matter in our soils and to
preserve moisture during the dry seasons, and so forth. All of these skills take
time and effort to master, but they can all be facilitated if we simultaneously…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Grow Community: </b>Our dependence on the global market
economy (which I call “Glomart” for short) has dramatically reduced our need to
get to know our neighbors. And since we do not choose our neighbors, they are
strangers to us, and they can often be irritating—so we have largely stopped building
front porches on our houses; instead, we surround our homes with privacy fences
or dense shrubbery to make our neighbors and passersby as invisible as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is fine as long as we don’t need our
neighbors for anything—as long as we can use our cars to visit friends, go
shopping, or go to work, and our internet connections to communicate. But this suburban
alienation has enormous hidden costs as well. It means that we are more
isolated, more paranoid, more hostile and fearful of others. However, gardening
gets us out in our yards, where we are more likely to strike up a conversation
with our neighbors, or with passersby. And such conversations can form the seed
of community. Furthermore, if unexpected disasters occur—whether wildfires, floods,
earthquakes, or power outages—it helps to know our neighbors, so we can turn to
them for help—or offer help ourselves. In such contingencies, the neighbor you
know can be your best friend. Conversely, if things get really desperate, the
neighbor you <i>don’t</i> know can be your worst enemy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My Garden Guild initiative is entirely based
on this insight—if neighbors who live within walking distance get to know each
other, and collaborate on sharing gardening skills, tools, ideas, and produce during
ordinary times, they will be much better prepared to work together for their
common good during emergencies or disasters. Yet even without such
contingencies, they will benefit from sharing these skills by growing better
gardens and producing more food to share with their neighbors and with the less
fortunate as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in this way,
growing community can enable us all to…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Grow Awareness: </b>Besides improving the aesthetic
appeal and ecological health of our own yards, gardening immediately increases
our awareness of the natural world we inhabit, as we observe the seasons come
and go, the birds and other wildlife, the insect pollinators visiting our
flowers, the flow of water across our landscapes, and the interactions of all
of these.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And growing community—through chatting
with our neighbors or forming local Garden Guilds—further expands our ability
to grow our own and others’ awareness of how the changing climate is affecting
our gardens, and what we can do about this, both in personal practices and in
community engagement with policymakers and local merchants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Getting together with neighbors who may
differ entirely from us, yet share an interest in gardening, can also open us
to whole new domains of knowledge and experience that we would never get if we
associated only with those we choose as friends. So all these kinds of
awareness—awareness of the rhythms and patterns of the natural world, awareness
of our surrounding community, awareness of others’ interests and skills, and
awareness of the political decisions that affect us, can be enhanced by growing
gardens and growing community. All three injunctions—growing gardens, growing
community, and growing awareness, mutually reinforce one another. So while
there is little to nothing we can do at the global level to stop the climate
catastrophe, we can nevertheless plant the seeds, right in our back yards, from
which to grow a new, relocalized, post-industrial civilization to displace the
dysfunctional Glomart economy that is collapsing all around us.<o:p></o:p></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-53765661306594064942021-09-14T10:17:00.004-07:002021-09-14T10:52:03.150-07:00Spontaneous Remission<p> As anyone familiar with it knows, cancer is lethal: once a tumor spreads beyond its origin, whether on the skin, in the internal organs, or elsewhere, and gets into the bloodstream and lymph nodes, it quickly metastasizes throughout the body, and we die. But in rare cases, for reasons yet unknown, terminal cancer will go into spontaneous remission--a phenomenon widely attested in the medical literature, but very poorly understood. <a href="https://www.curetoday.com/view/medical-miracle-or-spontaneous-remission" target="_blank">Current estimates</a> suggest that fewer than 25 out of 1.5 million cancer patients have spontaneous remission. So it is possible, but highly unlikely. </p><p>One possible explanation for spontaneous remission could be some version of the "butterfly effect," a familiar phenomenon in complex systems where small changes in initial conditions can lead, through escalating feedback effects, to unpredictable large-scale global changes in the system as a whole. The name was coined in the 1960s by meteorologist and complexity theorist Edward Lorenz, who showed how tiny "butterfly-scale" changes in his computer models for weather systems could tilt the whole system unpredictably, through interrelated runaway feedback loops, leading from tiny perturbations (like a butterfly flapping its wings) to large scale weather phase shifts, such as thunderstorms, tornadoes, or hurricanes. This effect can likewise be found in all other complex adaptive systems besides our weather--including our politics (e.g. how two geriatric fascists--Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump--have poisoned the well of public discourse in our country, undermining the social consensus that is, in turn, a prerequisite to a healthy democracy).</p><p>What happens if we apply this understanding as a metaphor for our global crisis today? The metaphor fits, as it turns out, very precisely. Our global market economy today ("Glomart") has clearly become a cancer on our biological support system (Gaia), and this cancer--a self-accelerating feedback loop resulting from the vast surge of cheap energy made possible by fossil fuels, leading to the infinite growth of production, consumption, pollution, and population on a finite, living system-- has recently become terminal. Like our bodies, our biological support system itself--Gaia--is breaking down altogether, and with it the (cancerous) industrial, social, and political infrastructures that support us all. </p><p>So is spontaneous remission of the terminal Cancer of the Earth on a global scale even possible? I have no idea; the odds are heavily stacked against it. But I don't count it out. It is still possible--however improbable--that some new initiative on an individual scale could "go viral," leading to entirely unpredictable, mutually reinforcing feedback loops, resulting in a phase shift of the entire system--toward the rapid proliferation of Gaian consciousness, by which I mean nothing more than a shared sense of ecological awareness, understanding, and responsibility, and of our global interconnectedness, not only with each other, but with Gaia herself--our unique and irreplaceable biological support system.</p><p>How might such a "butterfly effect" happen? I have been mulling over this question for many years--most of my life, in fact. And of course, I still don't know, nor does anyone else. But I have recently hit on my best candidate yet for an initiative that could trigger such a "butterfly effect."</p><p>I call it the "Garden Guild" initiative--which has quickly become my all-consuming obsession. Imagine a group of neighbors within a small radius--about a square mile or so--forming a Garden Guild, where they meet once a month for convivial potluck dinners, to share dishes and recipes grown from their backyard vegetable gardens, as well as gardening tips and suggestions. Then imagine that they work with local neighborhood organizations and city council to disseminate their model to other neighborhoods, and they use the tools of the Internet--databases, communications, social media--to disseminate their model further afield...soon the idea goes viral, and everyone, everywhere, is forming Garden Guilds--growing their own food, meeting and collaborating with their neighbors, solving problems and managing emergencies collectively.</p><p>The basic structure of Garden Guilds--all homes within walking distance of each other--is the key to their potential success. For this renders them largely immune to catastrophic disruptions in the global infrastructures we all depend on for our basic needs (food, water, shelter), our lifelihoods (the money system), the electrical grid (which enables heating and cooling, long-distance communication, and news), and our circles of friends (whom we mostly need cars and gasoline to visit at all). If any or all of these were disrupted by a catastrophe, whether natural or socioeconomic, Garden Guilds would be able to keep in touch, and help one another adapt and survive. But even if nothing awful happens, they would make neighborhood life much more healthy and enjoyable, with friends all around--in contrast to the mutual isolation and paranoia most of us live with today. And equally important, they would cultivate an ethos of caring, compassion, tolerance, and ecological stewardship, and render our communities far more resilient in an increasingly chaotic world.</p><p>Again, I have no idea if my Garden Guild initiative has all the necessary conditions to trigger a self-accelerating feedback loop and go viral. But it is the best idea I have had yet, so I plan to pursue this idea until I am pushing up the daisies!</p><p><br /></p><p> </p><p><br /></p>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2268220586805494729.post-80628009698383190592021-09-11T21:34:00.006-07:002021-09-12T09:33:40.009-07:00A Simple Solution?<p><span style="font-size: large;">"<i>Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple." --Bill Mollison</i></span></p><p>The global climate crisis is all over the news these days, due to the recent, accelerating climate-related disasters now afflicting the world--the unprecedented droughts and killer heat waves in the West and flash floods in the East and in Europe; the catastrophic hurricanes in the South; the melting permafrost in the North; the vast, uncontrollable wildfires in Australia, California, Greece and Turkey, the Amazon, and Siberia; the melting glaciers and snowpack everywhere, the dwindling reservoirs, the disappearing flora and fauna, the bleached coral reefs.... This awful news is interspersed, of course, with equally dire political news of failed states, civil conflict and atrocities, and vast swarms of economic, political, and climate refugees, along with increasingly hostile, schismatic politics at home and truthless, neofascist pseudo-populists arising here and everywhere.</p><p>The attitudes of journalists and commentators toward this state of perpetual crisis run the gamut from denial to despair. At one end of the spectrum, you have brainless denialists like Trump, who pooh-pooh the Climate Crisis as a "Chinese hoax;" a stance echoed (until recently) by far too many Republicans; at the other, you have the "doomers"--including respected climate scientists like Dr. Guy McPherson, who darkly prophesies that "humans could go extinct within this decade," and who accordingly have given up all hope of a future for humanity. </p><p>In between these extremes are the techno-utopians, who are itching to seed clouds, launch satellites to shield the Earth from the sun's rays, create carbon sucking machines to draw down the atmospheric concentration, build electric airliners, new nuclear plants, fusion reactors...all forgetting entirely that the only available energy for these quixotic schemes of new industrial infrastructure would have to come from...fossil fuels. And then, of course, there are the survivalists, who are preparing to head for the hills, guns loaded, build high walls, and then try their best to grow their own food while everyone else around starves...or attempts to lay siege to their fortresses. No thanks! Death, for me, is preferable to such a hellscape.</p><p>I confess that in recent months, I have moved closer to Dr. McPherson's gloomy outlook--particularly as a result of the historically unprecedented droughts and catastrophic wildfires afflicting the American West--my own region of the planet. However, I am by nature both an optimist and a realist. For years, I have repeated--to my students and everyone else--the line that Norman Myers gave us in the early 1980s, when he said "We have two choices: a Gaian future or No future." It is obvious that our global civilization as a whole has chosen the second option, due to its intrinsic addiction to the cheap and abundant energy from fossil fuels and the money game, which depends on endless growth of production, consumption, and population on a finite planet. But do we as individuals have another choice? And will it matter?</p><p> <span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Garden Guild is a concept that came to me in the middle of the night last Monday, as an easily grasped, potentially viral meme for inviting and encouraging neighbors to grow their own food, meet and socialize with one another regularly, and overcome their habitual alienation and mutual mistrust by working together on the common goals of growing healthy, abundant gardens, eating healthy and delicious meals, and socializing regularly. It has the virtue of simplicity, for I have framed it to reach people where they are right now, as an invitation. Here is what I sent out to Nextdoor, verbatim:</span></span></p><div style="color: #222222; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #222222;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">A Garden Guild is a voluntary association of contiguous neighbors, who live within walking distance of one another, to collaborate in growing and sharing vegetables, herbs, fruit trees, shrubs, and flowers, and also in sharing ideas, skills, and tools for growing these more efficiently and responsibly. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">Our neighborhood organizations would then set up a communication network between guilds within each neighborhood, allowing these guilds to share information with one another on best gardening practices for their own particular area, and the Marion County Master Gardeners would provide educational resources for us all, as needed, while Salem Harvest would be available to collect the surplus to donate to Marion Polk Food Share.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">The benefits of setting up neighborhood Garden Guilds are obvious, and include the following:</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Getting to know our neighbors better.</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Sharing recipes, and cooking and eating delicious, local, organic vegetables.</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Learning more about how to grow our own food and flowers in this bioregion.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">Secondary benefits might include the following:</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Creating a basis for mutual assistance in the event of emergencies (such as wildfires or power outages)</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Becoming more aware of, and taking care of, the needs of elderly or disabled people in our neighborhoods.</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 0in 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Cultivating an ethos of ecological stewardship and caring for others.</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="background-color: #04ff00; font-family: inherit;">·<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span>Making lots of new friends.</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Rationale: </b>In our modern industrialized world, almost all of us are entirely dependent--for our livelihoods, our social interactions, and our food and supplies--on vast global infrastructures: </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(1) our fossil-fuel-dependent transportation infrastructure; </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(2) our electrical grid (for heating, cooling, news of the larger world, and communication); </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(3) our global market economy (which likewise depends on the first two);</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(4) our political infrastructure (local, state, and federal).</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(5) our mass media infrastructure (radio, television, and above all, the Internet)</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As a direct consequence, most of us have little or nothing to do with our immediate neighbors, and in most cases don't even know who they are. Many of our more recent neighborhood patterns reinforce this alienation; we often live on cul-de-sacs (which isolate one small group of houses from the next, require cars to go anywhere, and largely preclude conversations with passing strangers) and we most often have tall privacy fences surrounding our property, which make our adjacent neighbors literally invisible to us. We have come to think of this as normal, but in fact, by the standards of history and the rest of the world, such patterns of mutual isolation are supremely abnormal. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And of course, this alienation and paranoia is intensified by the privatized internet--the tailored information (and often disinformation) that is algorithmically delivered to us by partisan news media and huge information utilities like Google or Facebook to reinforce our existing interests and biases. And so we live, isolated from each other, and only tenuously connected to a global network that enables us to communicate at a distance, but feeds us only the news (and commercials and gossip) that we unconsciously choose. This renders us incredibly vulnerable, not only to corporate and political brainwashing, but more directly, to breakdowns in our increasingly fragile infrastructures: power outages or cyber-sabotage that would cut us off from the world, from our heating and cooling systems, our jobs, and all our family and friends far away; fuel shortages or cut-offs, leading to shortages of food and water; climate catastrophes like droughts, wildfires, floods, and killer heat waves, likewise damaging or destroying the sources of our life-giving food and water. And in such acute existential crises, the neighbor we know could be our best friend, while the neighbor we don't know could easily become our worst enemy...</span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Garden guilds could be, as Bill Mollison says, "an embarrassingly simple solution" to this overwhelmingly complex problem of a global industrial, commercial, and electronically mediated civilization going into progressive meltdown. For one thing, they are designed to be entirely independent of two of these critical global infrastructures--corporate agriculture and fossil-fuel based transportation. And in a crisis, they could also become independent of the money economy and the Internet--since everyone in any one guild would know many of their neighbors, and could bring them important information or assistance on foot or on bicycle. </span></p><p style="line-height: 15.6933px; margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Putting it simply, even if Glomart (the Global Market Economy) has no future due to all these converging crises of overshoot and collapse, individual neighborhoods, who had formed convivial Garden Guilds and already collaborated on local, ecologically adaptive food production and sharing, would be ideally poised to become the seeds of a Gaian future, based on growing gardens, growing community, and growing awareness.</span></p></div>Tom Ellishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10430497460189579096noreply@blogger.com0