This is the eighteenth issue of my free newsletter. Your feedback is most welcome!
This summer, like last summer, Earthaven was host to the annual Permaculture Summer Gathering. It’s a weekend that brings together over 200 permaculturists, organic farmers, seed savers, herbalists, natural builders, alternative energy folks, and others in an “open space” format. That is, anyone who wishes to convene a discussion group on a certain topic can announce it, and several discussion groups or workshops are set up simultaneously. I attended discussions on permaculture and social justice; biodiesel and vegetable oil conversion of diesel vehicles; permaculture and ecovillages; an edible/medicinal plant walk; a natural building slideshow; and a discussion of deep ecology, paganism, and Christianity. I’ll give a few highlights from each, without attempting to summarize.
Permaculture and social justice: Permaculture is most easily accepted by the well-educated, and the design courses have generally been costly. However, it is becoming more accessible and affordable: Merritt Community College in Oakland, CA now offers a semester course on permaculture. Food Not Bombs in Eugene, OR, broke up the course into several weekend classes, offered for a donation. Permaculture has provided edible parks in low-income neighborhoods. Janell Kapoor of Kleiwerks, an Asheville-based natural building group, spent several months last year in Thailand, co-leading a project to assist very poor villagers to create buildings of cob and adobe. In Portland, OR, a village-building convergence started at a Latino block party; see www.cityrepair.org. Further ideas: why not have Job Corps trainees learn permaculture? How about using church property to grow food for the poor?
Biodiesel: Biodiesel is fuel for diesel motors made from vegetable oil, in a chemical reaction with lye and methanol. A participant from Sonoma County, CA, belongs to a biodiesel co-op and believes that is the best way to go. (www.veggieavenger.com). However, she had purchased a kit to convert her old Mercedes diesel car to running on filtered vegetable oil, without needing an extra tank. The “Greasel” kit is less costly but requires an extra tank so that the car or truck starts on diesel (or biodiesel), then when the engine is warmed up, the vegetable oil can be burned. The Elsbett kit (around $800) takes a mechanic about a day to install and uses an electrical heater to warm the oil to a temperature which is less viscous. The original diesel engine was made to run on vegetable oil! She will be able to pull up to a Chinese restaurant, attach her 12-volt pump with 10-micron filter, and fill up with waste oil. The car will be able to run on regular diesel, biodiesel, or straight vegetable oil. Other recommended websites: www.projectbiobus.org, www.biofuels.org.
Permaculture and ecovillage: The concept of “ecovillage” started in 1990, although indigenous communities are ecovillages in that they provide a means of livelihood, while meeting the social and spiritual needs of their members. In a garden, the fungal mycelia must create connections; analogously, people from diverse backgrounds coming together to form an ecovillage must develop connections out of thousands of varied interactions. If people speak harshly or break agreements and get away with it, it’s like pouring toxic chemicals on little frail seedlings. As in a garden, the flowers may attract certain pollinators, in the ecovillage the publicity and website and appearance will attract certain visitors, some of whom will stay. Careful design is key for either. Neighborhoods within the ecovillage are like plant guilds, with their own subcultures. The alternative scenario: gardens relying on chemical fertilizers and pesticides are analogous to nuclear families, commuting, alienated work, consumerism, hypermobility, addictions. In the beginning of building a functional garden, you start with planting close to your house (the equivalent of building the early community, densely clustered); new connections grow out from there. The pioneer settlers are like the hardy, weedy species which can survive in poor soil, pull up deep minerals, cover the ground to prevent erosion, and make it possible for more diverse species to arrive in successive stages. Some of the pioneer founders of an ecovillage may not be present in the final ecovillage; perhaps their children are the “climax forest.”
Edible/medicinal plant walk, led by Frank Cook: In a very short walk in this area of rich biodiversity, we saw at least 15 different useful plants. Violet leaves and flowers are a good source of vitamin C. Joe pyeweed, also known as Queen of the meadow, has a medicinal root, useful for kidney stones. Plantain seeds are useable like psyllium, which is in the same family; they can be used for cleansing, or dried and ground up into flour. Plantain leaf, when chewed, can be applied to insect bites and stings for relief. The leaves can also be steamed and eaten. Wild lettuce can grow up to ten feet tall. It should be cooked before eaten; it has a sedative effect, and contains vitamin A. Bitters of this sort benefit the liver, have a cooling and drying effect. Hoary mint or mountain mint is sometimes called mountain pennyroyal, and has similar oils, good for warding away insects. The black birch tree’s inner bark contains salicylates, like aspirin. Sassafras leaves and roots can be brewed into a demulcent tea, which is cooling and moistening. Echinacea’s flowers can be chewed, for similar immune-enhancing (and mouth-puckering!) effects as the tincture from their roots. Skullcap is a mint with muscle-skeletal relaxant qualities; make a tincture or tea from the leaves and flowers. Sochani was a favorite green of the Cherokee, and is eaten steamed. All grasses are edible, but not all are easily digested; chew and suck the leaves, don’t eat the fiber (e.g., wheat grass juice). The grasses alkalinize the teeth and gums. Grape leaves are all edible, steamed; make your own dolmas! White and red oaks give acorns, the Cherokees’ major food source: 45% carbohydrate, 43% fat, 6% protein. A family would easily eat 500 pounds of acorns a year. The white acorns are lower in tannins. However, the tannins which are removed by rinsing can be a good remedy for diarrhea, cracked heels, or sore gums. The acorn meal can be roasted at low temperature for 30 minutes and integrated into pancakes or breads. Lichens provide dye, food, and medicine. Pine trees have 1000 uses. Recommended reading: Botany in a Day by Thomas Eppel, Plants for a Future by Ken Fern.
Natural building slideshow by Janell Kapoor: Some of the oldest earthen buildings are 148 years old, in the Swiss Alps. In Taos pueblo, adobe buildings up to 13 stories high have been built, using no wood. In Thailand, the “Assembly of the Poor” was created to help poor farmers get out of debt. Big protests by people whose land was taken from them led to 500 people being given a new piece of land, on which they needed to create a village. The villagers decided on using local indigenous materials: clay, bamboo, straw, sand; and they designed all the buildings. The old method of split bamboo houses didn’t last and burned easily. For about $500 and labor, they were able to build a meeting hall and 13 houses. Monks and nuns, and volunteers from many countries worked side by side, feet in the mud. The whole country got excited about natural building! Foundations can be built without cement, using bags filled with earth, coated with cob and plaster. Cob contains clay, sand and straw; the straw acts like rebar. Houses do need replastering at times, but that helps create the strength of the community. Aliz is a clay paint made with sand, clay, and tapioca. Linseed oil is a water resistant coating that can be used on cob walls or earthen floors.
Spirituality: Christianity is interwoven in many other traditions. Paganism’s traditional holy days coincide with planting and harvesting, and many of their ancient holy days were incorporated or taken over by the Christian holidays. Thomas Berry and the ecospirituality movement within the Catholic Church are emphasizing the Universe Story and calling for humans to care for the earth and the water. In so many traditions, mystical experience has been found directly in nature—as through vision questing, in the Native American way, or Christ’s 40 days and 40 nights in the desert fasting. Mysticism is the sacred direct connection with the divine through nature; this has been lost in our materialistic society. How to break down barriers between Christians and Pagans? We need community connection around spirituality, but can 50 or 100 diverse people agree on a unified spiritual path? Ritual can unite people on a spiritual level. From a deep ecology perspective, a biocentric rather than anthropocentric view, each species has intrinsic worth.
A small group co-created a water gratitude ritual with me. We went to the most beautiful little falls of Rosy Branch Creek, a steep uphill climb from the Council Hall, and each thanked the water in our own way. The rain gods must have been pleased, for they obliged us with another shower! Emoto’s amazing crystallized water images inspired the group. There was also sharing about the monitoring of Earthaven’s creeks which a few of us here have been doing, looking for and counting the pollution-sensitive and other creatures we find: mayflies, stoneflies, caddisflies, and other macro-invertebrates.
…Some of the other workshops I’d have gone to if I could have were: Creating the gift economy/ alternative currency, Creating ally relationships with animals, Car-free ecovillages, Wood gasification, Katuah bioregion, Plant medicine, Dowsing, Mushroom walk, Political activism, Renewable energy primer, Permaculture education, and Spiritual eldering.
How does a small ecovillage of 60 people host and serve meals to over 200? The preparations took many weeks. A new “bread-box” solar shower was put in place, a whole new campground was created, an extra composting toilet got built. The A&A guest house, still under construction, got one shower tiled and ready to use in the nick of time, and bunk-beds available for indoor guests. We set up canopy space for covered dining, and a “Quad Mahal” tent for outdoor meetings, since the amazing deluge of daily rains was continuing. I was involved in “gleaning:” soliciting donations of day-old bread from 5 bakeries, produce from various markets, organic teas and coffee. Dinners had to be prepared in several kitchens since we didn’t have enough burners or ovens in the main kitchen. On the day I was volunteering to help fix dinner, another woman and I prepared the carrots and baked the cornbread, carrying pan after pan up and down from Katrina’s kitchen.
We celebrated with a tribal ceremony on Saturday night, far up the trail to Hidden Valley, lit with luminaria. There was a magical appearance by the “green man” disguised in a giant papier-mache mask, followed by four young women dancing beautifully around the fire to enthusiastic drumming, with many connections happening in the intimacy of firelight far into the night.
Blessings,
Cathy Holt
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