People Who Have Come Alive

Howard Thurman is a powerful example of human compassion and understanding.
He was a preacher who grew up in the segregated south and started 'Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples' the first non-segregated church in the US.
He was an incredibly hard working activist.

Gil Bailie was a motivated young person wanted to know how best to help in all the civil rights and spreading of compassion and teachings and asked Thurman 'what should I do'...

In a recent dharma talk at the Insight meditation center, Donald Rothberg suggested that Thurman probably had a million places where he knew that help was needed. - He might have sent Bailie to work in a community or to learn a special skill that was especially needed. But, instead, what he said was: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Made me think to write a little something in praise of the good people of the Insight Meditation Center and the San Francisco Zen Center who have been brave enough to challenge the 'voices around' and follow instead a deep spiritual practice. It made me think to write some words of praise, also to all the preachers out there who are still preaching the 'good news' that Jesus taught, though it has been used for 'spiritual materialism' and 'bought and sold and bought again' enough that it is hard to recognize as our spiritual tradition anymore.

To truly follow the teachings of the Buddha and Jesus, living a simple and quiet life in the midst of an increasingly materialist America is showing a real test of 'coming alive' and my hat is off to them. I am also deeply grateful for the podcasts so that I can glean the lessons of that struggle, while resting easy in simple quietude.

The Journey by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

The Best Of Intentions

"I'm sorry, you were saying something about best of intentions... 
Well, allow me to retort."

-Jules

I had the best of intentions when I put in the compost pile in the back garden. I made three of them actually. One a covered pile of green manures, mostly swept leaves from the brick patio that is the back garden, combined with the residues of the plots and the leftover bits of trees and land clearings from the neighbors. 

The Mystery 'Agent Orange' Caterpillar 

Another pile was of sticks, branches and other high carbon things that needed to decompose a bit in the rain and heat before being added to the pile. That one was uncovered. 

I also had kitchen waste compost in a 5 gallon pail that I peed on in the morning and whenever I was home throughout the day. It was, and is still, wonderful. - The rest I had to burn and go back to compost-in-a-bag. 

Defoliated Fig Tree in Mid Summer, Hanoi

What I did, in combination with creating some rich wonderful humus to add to the thriving papaya, banana and passion fruit was to create a breeding ground for cockroaches and a strange kind of fig-tree-specific caterpillar that I am calling the agent-orange-caterpillar. 

Within a week it ate all the leaves off of the four story tall healthy fig tree in the back garden. I was out of town when it took place and since returning I have seen that the 'agent orange' caterpillar does not stop there. Now it is eating the small branches and even the bark. 

I find myself outside, unable to sleep, climbing the tree in the in the early morning with a spray bottle full of garlic, ginger and alcohol. I think the caterpillars like it. 

With the best of intentions I have created a Permacultural nightmare. 

Anyone with information regarding the 'agent orange caterpillar please help. 

The Caterpillar in Question eating a fig branch

Fukuoka seedballs for guerrilla gardening in city shafts

Cory Whitney

Some of my mates have a new flat in downtown Manhattan near the South Street Seaport Museum. I love that place. The view of the city is great - looking out from the balcony - but the view of the city looking down is rather dismal.

Manhattan's city blocks have these thin air shafts running through - a depressed early version of the shaft running through the Empire's Deathstar. - Looking down from the balcony at the little spots of soil in the shaft below I daydreamed of a small cryptoforest there.

Photo 'Tenement Air Shaft Balcony' bv William Bode

A photo by New York photographer, John Albok

A photo of the bottom of an airshaft
by PJ The Sprite in St. Paul

I see a role for metropolitan guerilla gardening using seedballs. This could easily be done following the exemplary methodologies of the No Work Farming Master Masanobu Fukuoka as I have seen some farmers and activists doing in Iceland 1-2.

A photo of a seedball taken by Aravind Reddy
Bangalore Bombing on Green Mission near Bengaluru

More on how to make seedballs from the excellent book Freedom Gardens

More radical seedball ideas from Seedballs R Us

References

1. Whitney, Cory W. “Conservation Ethnobotany in the North Atlantic.” Non-Wood News; NWFP Digest, 2011.
2. Whitney, Cory William. “A Survey of Wild Collection and Cultivation of Indigenous Species in Iceland and the Faroe Islands.” University of Kassel, 2011.

Happy Lucky Idiot

"If you have time to chatter,
Read books.

If you have time to read,
Walk into mountain, desert and ocean.

If you have time to walk,
Sing songs and dance.

If you have time to dance,
Sit quietly, you happy, lucky idiot."
― Nanao Sakaki

I am following Nanao Sakaki's suggestion and taking a sabbatical from blogging.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions and ideas.

Find me at:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/corywhitney
and
http://uni-goettingen.academia.edu/CoryWhitney
on twitter
@corianderapples

More of my stuff:
http://www.drgreene.com/bio/cory-whitney
http://farmersforthefuture.ning.com/profile/CoryWhitney

as well as the Mendeley and Google Plus buttons on this page.
Mendeley
http://www.mendeley.com/profiles/cory-w-whitney/
Google Plus
https://plus.google.com/100457993092024689630

Dangers of Urban Farming

Photo by Maggie Jones Urban Photographer

I just had an interesting question about the dangers of farming by roadsides.

Whereas, here in Asia, farming in the roadside spaces happens naturally and no-one really seems to wonder about the safety of it. The opposite is true in the West. 

It seems that the modern western movement toward 'guerilla gardening' and urban farming has met with a mix of caution and paranoia. 

Urban farming should be a practical and worry free system of agricultural production. 

It requires some forethought about buffer zones, and some proper soil tests before getting started. However, the dangers appear to be minimal and only in some amount of heavy metals in leafy greens. 

Kentucky Certification Sign

Cornel has published some research on growing veggies by the road.

Agrodocks has resources in research about urban farming.  

Global Organic Research Network

The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements is in Rio addressing the lack of support from mainstream research funders. They have created the Global Organic Research Network (IGORN) which will showcase organic science and farming practices, in an attempt to garner funding for establishing a series of research centres in the developing world, and mainstreaming organic research and farming. The network will be launched in 2013.

In 2009 the Organic Research Centres Alliance (ORCA) through the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR), also tried to set up Organic research centres across the developing world. ORCA failed.

ORCA failed because the "CGIAR at that time was not very welcoming", said Urs Niggli, director of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and a professor at the University of Kassel-Witzenhausen, Germany. He said recent reforms to the CGIAR economic landscape had removed the possibility of funding such a network.  

Hans Herren, president of the Millennium Institute, in Washington DC, said that the CGIAR was focused on boosting yields through conventional, industrial-type agriculture and monocultures. Ignoring soil health and an integrated and holistic approach to agriculture, which the new network is hoping to address. 

Find out what you can do to support IFOAM, who's goal is 'the worldwide adoption of ecologically,  socially and economically sound systems that are based on the principles of Organic Agriculture'. http://www.ifoam.org/sub/whatyoucando.html

Some Advice for Young Farmers

This is a post for those who want to start a small farm, and want to connect to the local and global movements that connect the other young enthusiastic farmers who are making it happen around the world. It is a kind of a list of suggestions about how to plug-in to the global farming movement.

These are all good places to find collaborators, supporters, fellow activists, workers, networkers, grants and even to gain market access. Although, I would urge you not to use these connections and platforms to promote your products. Too many folks are already doing that and it really messes up the dialogue.

Go instead for local markets! I often tell people to do like Fukuoka and look at your neighbors and local small shops and don't try to make a killing, just make enough. Fukuoka is the grandaddy of radical farming (I recommend picking up his 'Natural Way of Farming' and 'One Straw Revolution' if you haven't already). If Fukuoka saw fruits and vegetables from his farm being sold at a premium in the shop he would refuse to do business with that shop again. (Conversely, the modern radical farmer is Wendell Berry and I recommend getting a copy of his 'What are People For' and for American readers 'The Unsettling of America'.)

Anyway, what I was writing about was, and what I believe to be the most important first step when getting started is, networking:

There are a few important places to plug in. Most of them ask for membership and charge a small annual fee to keep the network going but you can get pretty well involved without becoming a member as well.

The Slow Food Movement is working hard to defend what they call 'food biodiversity'. A beautiful term that comes from the genius mind and heart of the founder Carlo Petrini and has been taken up by activist groups and foodies around the world. In order to defend food biodiversity they develop networks, offer food and taste education, and connect producers and consumers. www.slowfood.com

La Via Campesina is the international movement which brings together millions of peasants, farmers and workers around the world. They call themselves an 'autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement'. They work to defend small-scale sustainable agriculture as a way to promote social justice and dignity. http://viacampesina.org/en/

The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) is working all over the world to promote Organic farming and to support small-scale 'high biodiversity' farming. They have a number of resources from practical training to empowerment and advocacy. They kick ass and need your support. www.ifoam.org

Urgenci works closely with IFOAM. It is an international network of small scale farmers and community shared agriculture (CSA) with a network really stretches around the world - they have a bunch of great support for young and local farmers. http://www.urgenci.net

Young Organics also works closely with IFOAM and is working hard to promote young farmers for the International activism scene and on the ground in Europe. They keep a blog http://youngorganics.wordpress.com/ and you can find them (us) all on facebook if you do a little searching.

The Greenhorns or the Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles http://www.thegreenhorns.net/ is a group of young farmers in the United States that are working to promote and support young farmers there. They are increasingly reaching out to the international movements. I even saw the founder Severin T. Fleming at the Slow Food Terra Madre a few years back.

The National Young Farmers Movement (NYFC) works for young farmers in the US, it does networking, enhances skills through the facilitation of peer-to-peer learning, and fights for the policies that will keep people farming for life. www.youngfarmers.org/ They have resources that will also be interesting for you farmers from outside the US.

Finally, the Linked In Organic Network is also a good place to start making some connections

Yes! magazine did a piece on young farmers a few years ago that is worth a read.