This is the twenty-first issue of my free newsletter. Your feedback is most welcome!
Happy Thanksgiving! This issue of Earth & Us has two themes, which to me symbolize the new culture rising out of the crumbling of the old: Portland City Repair, and the FTAA protest in Miami. I am grateful for the opportunity to witness both. And I am grateful that we still have so much of beauty and wonder on this troubled planet.
Portland City Repair
Imagine a city where instead of just 4-lane intersections with cars whizzing through, neighborhoods had piazzas where tea is served, people congregate and chat, children swap toys, and beauty is created.
That is what many parts of Portland, Oregon now look like, thanks to Portland City Repair, “an application of permaculture to human consciousness,” as Jenny Leaf, co-director of the project, likes to say. Now on the road with a fabulous slide-show, she and co-founder “Mocean” are promoting the transformation of culture.
Instead of bemoaning the loss of village culture with its friendly piazzas where people congregate, these adventurous Portlanders are showing that we can re-create it. They showed slides contrasting the thronging public places of Siena, Italy, with a typical American intersection: wide streets and a MacDonald’s. We need more commons to offset the density of city living and the oppression of the “grid”. Suburban neighborhoods still lack the quality of a village, since people mostly commute to work via car and just come home to sleep. In villages, people once walked to work, to shop, to dine out, to visit friends. No one ever really chose to lose that, but urban planners laid out cities in uniform grids; they did not grow organically. Public squares became parking lots, as the automobile culture took over. America has plenty of space, but no “place”: no village green or town commons.
In 1995, under the leadership of visionary architect Mark Lakeman, City Repair began a tea house as a neighborhood gathering place. Lakeman was guided by his experience visiting Mayan culture, where he learned to “just remember that water, earth, air, humanity, love, community are the sacred things.” With pallets for floors and salvaged windows and doors, tree limbs, bamboo, and greenhouse plastic, and the help of neighbors, the tea house was put together for about $65. They didn’t ask permission. At first, 25 people or so would come for the Monday potlucks, but soon, 1000 people were congregating there! At that point, the city government ordered it shut down. This galvanized people to take over an intersection, painting the streets in bright colors, with concentric circles. Although the first “intersection repair” was classified as vandalism, the neighbors appealed to the city council and the mayor. Realizing that such a gathering place would slow traffic and decrease crime, at no cost to the city, the mayor wisely legalized this guerilla action. More intersections were painted with rainbows, sunflowers, and mandalas, adding a bench here, a mini-library there, creating community and connection. The old tea house was torn down, and reincarnated as a winged “tea horse” with a donated truck, re-using the bamboo and greenhouse plastic to make butterfly wing-like awnings. This mobile tea house now makes the rounds of the reclaimed intersections.
The heart of a village is public space: a café, a market, a meeting house. Where pathways converge, there is supposed to be a place to gather, for friendly exchange, food, laughter, music, art, kids. “Communication is the basis for sustainable culture,” says Mocean. “We can repair the world by repairing the intersections.” A labyrinth and an herb spiral were built in one intersection. Chalk pictures of residents of a neighborhood appeared on sidewalks and streets. Salsa dancing broke out. Another neighborhood is graced with a solar-powered water fountain, and barrels filled with plants and trellises. A covered cabinet was set up for children to swap toys and gardeners to give away surplus produce. A memorial pillar was created out of cob (clay, sand, straw) for a loved one, complete with stained glass and a mosaic bench. Ninety-five neighborhoods now have their own public gathering places, all at intersections, where people from many diverse walks of life come together.
Dignity Village was another project of City Repair. It is a village of homeless people’s shelters, built from scrap and salvage. It began as a simple circle of tents on an empty lot. In winter, they created a hoop house over the tents, calling it the “dome of democracy.” Now, they have a strawbale house with wind power, and gardens. Anthropologists and architects are getting involved.
As I watched the slides of beautiful painted streets, fountains, cob buildings, plantings, and people sipping tea while children played, I felt that I was witnessing the birth of the new culture.
For an interview of Mark Lakeman, see The Permaculture Activist, Fall 2002; to learn more, visit www.cityrepair.org and www.southeastuplift.org.
FTAA – No Way! A Report from Miami
Five Earthaveners including myself went to Miami to protest the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations, as part of the “Green Bloc” – promoting alternatives to globalization, such as permaculture.
The FTAA would expand the provisions of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) to include the whole western hemisphere except for Cuba. In the U.S., nearly 400,000 jobs have been lost since NAFTA; in Mexico since NAFTA, one million more Mexicans earn less than the minimum wage. In the maquiladora zones along the US-Mexico border, NAFTA has led to increased pollution and chemical wastes, leading to birth defects; logging in Mexico has increased dramatically, with massive clearcuts and habitat destruction. We can expect an increase of “investor-to-state” lawsuits, which allow corporations to sue governments for compensation if they feel that any government action (such as enforcement of public health or environmental regulations) cuts into their profits. For example, under NAFTA, the Canadian manufacturer of MTBE sued the state of California, for closing down its operations after nearby groundwater became contaminated. The FTAA will lead to privatization of essential services such as education, health care, and energy and water utilities. When Bolivia privatized its water utility, under World Bank privatization policies, water rates increased 200%, leading to riots and deaths in Cochabamba. The global water supply is finite; already 1.2 billion people worldwide have no access to safe drinking water. Corporations are determined to profit from the scarcity. The World Bank estimates that the global water market is worth $800 billion today and could reach $1 trillion. Instead of regarding safe drinking water as a human right, necessary to protect public health, these trade agreements make water a commodity to be sold and exported for profit.
When we arrived in Miami at the bustling Convergence Center, hundreds of people were milling about, munching the food provided by Food not Bombs, meeting in their affinity groups in circles on the floor, staring at the wall thickly hung with informational signs, painting cardboard posters, or talking on cell phones. We went to hear Starhawk, the author of The Spiral Dance and The Fifth Sacred Thing, speak on Permaculture and Activism. A witch and sacred ritualist, Starhawk has played a key role within the movement against economic globalization, starting with the Seattle protests. She described how at the Cancun protests, a group of permaculturists had set up a hand-crank pump and rainwater catchment system for hand-washing stations, the graywater from which went into mulch barrels and then through seven barrels containing wetland plants. Showers were set up with swales to catch the outflow. Rather than just being “against globalization of trade”, activists can create working installations that not only enhance the daily lives of protesters, but give the media a model of an alternative and provide an educational focus. It allows activists to demonstrate permaculture principles such as using local resources, stacking functions, designing redundant systems for essential needs, the role of beneficial relationships, and the importance of diversity and complexity for the resilience of a system. Globalization is the opposite; it promotes a model, as Starhawk said, “where no-one can eat what they grow.” When activists create a garden which gives food and beauty, attracts people to work and play there, and feeds homeless people, there are many yields!
The Green Bloc had been busy creating a small permaculture garden in a park in one of the poorest, predominantly black sections of Miami. We went to help out, and after admiring the mango trees and herb spiral recently planted, some of us were given Barbados cherry trees in pots (donated by a local nursery) to give away to local residents. It was really delightful to offer a cherry tree to a young black woman in a laundromat, and to explain to her why we were doing that. A young puppeteer had created a “Port-a-Puppet” mobile composting toilet, a welcome alternative to the chemical Port-a-Potties, which was both educational and fun.
In the evening, we were excited to see what looked like thousands of Steelworkers Unionists in their matching T-shirts, listening to impassioned speakers from Bolivia, Argentina, Ecuador, Haiti, Vieques, and Brazil, as well as several U.S. trade unions.
The next day, some protesters charged the gate which cordoned off the hotel where the trade talks were taking place. Tear gas and pepper spray were used, and some were arrested. Helicopters buzzed overhead and police were everywhere. A story was later related that a group of young protesters had been surrounded by police in riot gear, but enough of the Steelworkers came to encircle and outnumber the police, yelling “Let them go!” and the youths were released.
The noon march was a joy to behold: Steelworkers and many other trade unionists, many sporting T-shirts proclaiming “FTAA sucks,” gray-haired retirees groups, environmentalists in dolphin costumes, Unitarian Universalists, parents with their children, giant puppets with arms waving. Sierra Club signs highlighted the importance of protecting our water. Members of the Green Bloc were carrying cardboard signs in vegetable shapes, such as a carrot marked “Root out Greed,” a beet bearing the message “Beet the system,” and a zucchini entitled “Squash FTAA.” People were drumming on overturned plastic buckets and chanting “FTAA—No way!” Our pregnant friend wore a sandwich board saying “Gentle please, I’m pregnant.” To the lines of riot-clad police, looking like uncomfortable black turtles in their bullet-proof vests, protesters chanted, “This is what a police state looks like.” We heard later that $21 million was spent on security, about $600 per protester. Streets were blocked off, shop windows boarded up, like a city under military occupation.
After a brief rally with speakers, we learned that another group had gone to charge the gate, and quickly clouds of tear gas became apparent. Soon a wall of police was advancing on the peaceful demonstrators who had just left the rally, and the ominous sounds of rubber bullets were heard. I saw at least five people bleeding profusely from head wounds, and when we passed the “Wellness Center” created for medics to give aid to the wounded, we heard it was full to capacity. 141 people were arrested and taken to jail, where many protesters went the next day to demand their release.
The following is an excerpt from an email sent by Starhawk.
“We rush off to the Really, Really Free Market-the action to show the alternatives. The delegates have ended their meetings a day early, signed a surface agreement that means little and gone home, so there is no need for confrontation. Nevertheless police have been following us all day, picking people off, arresting people peacefully walking on sidewalks. They grab a couple of kids coming out of the convergence center and crush their bicycles.
"The Really, Really Free Market is a beautiful oasis in the midst of a brutal police state. We negotiate with a group of homeless women who hang out in the park we have a permit for, and set up our 'booths'-blankets on the ground. There is a Free Massage booth, free food from Food Not Bombs, free Medical care from our medics. The Pagans set up our Living River to decorate the fences. We set up a healing tent for free trauma counseling, and another healing circle inside swaths of magically dyed blue cloth. We pull out the masks for the Witches' and Anarchists' Ball that we never got to hold because of yesterday's police riots, and the paper fish and turtle hats that never quite got to the march. We give away fairy money, little slips of decorated paper you give to your friends for things you value, like a smile, or a hug, or for courage under fire. On the back you write what you gave it for, so that as each bill flows around it accumulates a story. Soon the market has all the lively feel of a true village market, but with a sweetness that comes from constant little gifts we are making to each other, all the more poignant because of the constant reports of arrests that keep coming in. The street people join in the fun-I look over and see the four women who live here each wearing a fish hat, and the baby in her stroller laughing in delight.
"We end with a spiral dance, people holding the blue cloth over their heads and twining in and out as we sing and chant "We are sweet water, we are the seed, we are the storm wind to blow away greed. We are the new world we bring to birth, the river rising to reclaim the earth." And "Fortress walls, crumbling down, Witches healing dancing, spiralling around." And finally, "Brothers and sisters, go in peace, charges dropped, all released." We are laughing and joyful, but as we are singing, over at the jail vigil a few blocks away the police declare an illegal assembly. They tell people to get on the sidewalk and they'll be safe. Then they surround the group on the sidewalk, beat people to the ground, kneel on their spines and arrest them.”
For more of Starhawk’s writing, visit her website: www.starhawk.org. For more on the FTAA protests, visit www.ftaa.org.
Blessings,
Cathy Holt
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