Value and Use Renewable Resources- Produce No Waste

It’s clear that humans will be sustainable soon- that or extinct…

I began the New Year doing some freelance work on a sustainable concept web-site. I was asked to research and define green criteria and standards for sustainable products as well as facts on where we are in relation to where we need to be.

Unholy Mega-Piles of SHIT People!!! We humans suck at being sustainable! There are now nearly 7 billion of us treading heavily and toxically upon our evermore fragile planet.

I’d somehow managed not to know that a plastic bag is used for an average of 15 minutes, or that 1 million of them are handed out every minute, and that 500 Billion to 1 Trillion of them end up in landfills or by the side of roads and middle of the Pacific… AND THEY take 500 to 1,000 years to bio-degrade! YIKES!!! Pop into the Dollar Store- 1,000 years, Petco- 1,000 years, the market- 1,000 years X’s 10,…  

One would hope that the picture brightens with recyclables- Shockingly- NOT! Only 2 out of 10 water bottles gets recycled, the rest (approximately 26 billion) end up in land fills or being incinerated. In the US alone we use 1.5 million barrels of oil just to produce water bottles.

In my day-job I work to support sustainable agriculture because the toxic residue of the industrial Ag is not sustainable. Chemical farming is devastating to our ecosystems, our bodies and alters the bio-chemistry of our minds. I felt that I was aware of the environmental threats we are living with.  It was an unhappy surprise to discover that the average American introduces 25 gallons of toxic, hazardous, chemicals into their own homes each year. These are mostly cleaning products and most of these end up in our sewage plants or ground water. At the sewage plant those toxic chemical along with human waste get processed into bio-solids then sold to conventional farmers as affordable fertilizers- (sewage sludge is not allowed in organic farm production.)

I was also asked to research the impact of our conventional clothes, electronics, toys and more. Too many issues to list and no good news… like cotton accounts for 25% of the plants pesticides use.

But there is great news- from energy to electronics and everything in-between corporations and individuals are making huge efforts to clean, green, and recycle, to incorporate renewable and sustainable elements at every step of production. The question will be- Do we reward their efforts with our purchase power? If the money is there, more will follow. And we will be that much closer to our destiny and evolution into sustainable humans.

Meanwhile- Take reusable bags to the market, don’t buy water in bottles, know your cleaning products, recycle, and research lifespan and renewability of purchases.  Oh yes, and buy organic whenever possible. Our collective futures depend on a quantum leap involving many baby steps. It all makes a difference.

The Personal Side of the Three Ethics of Permaculture

“We are also concerned about the negative consequences for humanity and for creation resulting from the degradation of some of the basic natural resources such as water air and land, brought about by an economic and technological progress which does not recognize and take into account its limits.” Pope John Paul II

The three ethics of permaculture are- care for the Earth, care for each other, and Fair Share- living within limits while redistributing surplus.

The first two, care for the earth, and care for each other are self explanatory. We are not there yet but the pressure to be ecologically responsible as referenced by the Pope is growing. The seeds have been planted.

Care for each other has been taught for a while now too…do unto others. Progress has been made, progress to be made…

Self-set limits however… for most… sheer heresy.

Sky’s-the-limit is a religion unto itself these days and yet there are those who understand self-limits from a place a of seamless dynamic beauty with-in limits, of stuff, consumption, and reproduction, then sharing surplus. It’s living the embodiment of the story of loves and fishes, owning the abundance and fulfillment in taking what is needed… then passing on and sharing the rest.

What is enough? Must be answered differently by each from vows of poverty simple, sparse and eloquent, or the Bill Gate’s model, amass fortune, keeps plenty for self and strategically invests the rest back into humanity, or…something in-between. It’s not about right or wrong, closer to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, taking the time to understand too small, and too big, and finding our Just Right!

There is another piece which must be in place though in order to begin a sustainable life and that is a real connection with the timeless place of self which connects with all of life. It lives in everyone but not everyone chooses to live from the there. Not living from the place of connectivity to self and the eternal is in truth not living, but that’s hard to explain to those who mistake ideals and opinions as path and passion. It’s the difference between George Washington Carver lovingly coaxing seeds to self-evolve into new and specifically useful hybridized strains, and Monsanto mutating seeds to tolerate poisonous herbicides so they could sell more Round-up.  The thing is, we do this with ourselves, we mutate self into accepting toxic unfulfilling lives which look good from the outside if viewed from one angle. …Smile!

Understand that sustainability is not a to-do list of buy green, drive a Prius, and recycle. Those are optional elements of a whole interrelated system. At the center of the system is self and self’s-connection to the whole…Once clearly owned and connected- life, planet and future can be retro-engineered and accessorized for sustainability. Choices become crystal clear, like food grown with poisons which burn soil, pollutes water and kills off companion eco-systems, can not then be packaged without preservatives and labeled as NATURAL… 

We are all connected...

‘We are all connected…To each other, through biology…To the Earth, chemically…To the rest of the universe, at the atomic.” Neil de Grass Tyson

Connected biologically, chemically, atomically to each other, the planet and the universe…but are we connected emotionally? Spiritually? To not be connected would seem unlikely.

My friend E.J. Gold wrote “It is our job to alleviate the suffering of the Absolute.” I have pondered this statement for a very long time…Alleviate the suffering of the Absolute. Isn’t God supposed to be responsible for our suffering? As a parent I can say that children do have the ability add to both joy and suffering. My son could definitely spare me untold grief should he choose… so it’s possible. If we are connected, then alleviating any suffering of the Absolute would seemingly lessen the suffering of all.

Along the lines of suffering, mine and the absolute, I have been exploring the space between the exquisiteness of feeling deeply in terms of love, beauty and the divine, and the longing for a body-prophylactic for protection from the rest. But life does not work that way. If I love deeply, I will know loss. This could fit with Buddha’s “all life is suffering.” Although I’m not ready concede that all life is suffering, I’ll agree that love and loss are inseparable.

Religion has a long tradition of glorifying suffering, to the point of self-inflicted suffering. Our cultivation of suffering is a learned behavior so it is something we can unlearn. “Alleviating the suffering of the Absolute,” intrigues me as a spiritually-mature, healthy alternative to martyrdom.

Perhaps we should not love or not feel?
What do you think landed us here? Not feeling, lead to massive consumption in order to numb our disconnect… and still we felt. From there our inner-toxicity has seeped outward and onto planet...


From the sustainable, whole-systems approach, the equation would be: pain and suffering form connection…, counterbalanced by the joy, inspiration, comfort, and constructive mirroring, generated from resonate sharing of friends, loved ones, and kindred-spirits. Ultimately, the power of love alleviates mountains of suffering. The deep shadow reflective rivers of sadness should not frighten but serve to strengthen our resolve to love more fully…


We are, after all connected…to the planet through biology. When the planet suffers, so does the body and the planet is suffering. Here it’s a no-brainer to commit to alleviating the suffering of the plant and our biological-vehicle… When our body suffers, the mind, the emotional and the spiritual body suffer as well. From dis-ease it is hard to dream new worlds, love fully and experience the searing beauty of our miraculous connectivity.

“The beauty of a living thing
is not the atoms that go into it,
But the way those atoms are put together…
The cosmos is also within us..,
We are made of starstuff.
We are all ways…
The cosmos can know itself…” ~ Carl Sagan

What would you share with the cosmos?
What suffering could you spare the absolute?

Sustainable Sprituality

"If a female Dalai Lama can be more effective, then why not?" "It will come. No problem." ~ The Dalai Lama, opening day of his Vancouver Peace Summit.
Perhaps unrecognizable to the untrained belly…but encapsulated in; “It will come. No problem”…is nothing-less than permission to alter the path we are on….in support of- our future Hermanity.
In nature it takes the dance of masculine and feminine to conceive and create new life, spiritually is no different. The Eastern Yin-Yang Symbol reflects the healthy dance and the balance of the universal masculine-feminine. In recent times religion/laws/myth/story have been solely about Man-God. Having God, with no Fem to temper, seduce, and occasionally over-ride, rule supreme for several thousand years has taken a toll.
So check it out: the 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, himself a recognized God-resonant, spoke publicly that- he saw “no problem” with a female incarnation, Goddess-resonant Dalai Lamass?.
…Boys and girls- that is a very big opening in the psychic streams if one chooses to take it in. We have not heard such a statement recognizing the potential of divinity manifesting in a female form- well not from one with the Dalai Lamas level of spiritual authority, by my count, in over 4,000 years. This is big. How big? No other awaited messiah is preached as gender optional. “It will come” ~ Very big. No mosque, synagogue or Sunday school on the planet this week will be telling the daughters of man that they are worthy and credible containers of Divinity in their reflection.
Guess what?
We do not need to wait for his Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama to pass, then wait for untold eons for incarnation to choose a Fem-reincarnation, (as true with some beliefs…). Diva-Fem flows freely, no mountains to climb, or self flagellation necessary, and the big secret is… it’s never- not been here.
What has kept it from us? Stories and millennia of behavior modification in the form of social exile, shame, burning at the stake, stoning.
Wait…let me check….?
Yep, still there- the streams of fem, the void of pre-manifestation, the renewable dance of polarity. Still there!
For those of you, women and men, who have been waiting dutifully for permission to really feel- life, love, and one’s self as an intrinsic part of the streams… The 14th incarnation of the Dalai Lama, has spoken…"If a female Dalai Lama can be more effective, then why not?" "It will come. No problem."
Note he did not say, God decrees a women’s body unholy, her mind not up to the task, she ate the apple…, He said, ”…why not. It will come. No Problem.” ~ Love this man!
So we now have permission.
To explore sacred feminine manifest.
Magically mind, and soul begins to balance,
Self discovering self
In dance of yin-yang eternal,
Refreshed by streams…
Of universal-unconditional love,
Somewhere a war will end,
or never start,
A tree planted,
A girl educated.
And in time
A planet re-dreamed
And its inhabitants redeemed.

Cautious People Wanted

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each one of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."
~Robert Kennedy

"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputations ... can never effect a reform."
~Susan B. Anthony "

Robert Kennedy’s words were born of the 1960’s, a pivotal era which began to shed light on the damage being done to the planet and its inhabitants through the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, global warming, endangered species and all manner of planetary degradation. It’s now 40 years later… and we are in far deeper shit. The planet’s population has more than doubled since 1969, the widespread use of genetically modified seeds, cross pollinating with our heartier heirloom varieties bred over millennia, is rendering major grain sources mutant and useless.

When the Permaculture map of whole systems made of whole elements it blown up to encompass the planet it runs squarely into the Gaia theory, as suggested by visionary scientist James Lovelock, that the planet is a single, complex, interrelated organism finding itself infected with an out of control virus called mankind. Just as you and I when we need to kill off a virus, she is raising her temperature a few degrees to kill it back. Lovelock has calculated that the climate disruptions ahead will shrink the planet’s population down from 6.6 billion to 500 million. That’s pretty drastic even if he is off by half…

According to the Gaia theory’ as we quibble over the ethics of abortion on our personal and political levels, the planet herself is moving towards a near do-over with mankind….How does it feel to be labeled a parasite, an out of control virus, a mutant species to be aborted?

I do believe in the ingenuity of people. More and more each day are willing to think, (an almost dying art) and dialog, (a potentially rich source of mental evolution when activated). Where do we start?
Do we control our population numbers?
Do we switch to clean technology?
Would we stop mindlessly abusing our planet’s resources, poisoning our finite soil, air and water?
The answer is: All of the above and more.
What can you do today?
What can be done every precious day we each have left on the planet?

“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each one of us can work to change a small portion of events”,… What if careful cautious people could preserve their reputations … and effect reform? I think when it comes to doing the right thing, even the cautious person will want to participate. We can each change a small portion of events by,… planting a garden, supporting a farmers market, using natural cleaning products and pest control, buying organic food, and learning how to grow through shared dialog.
…., “and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."
~Robert Kennedy

Six impossible things...

Why sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast” –The Queen/ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland… Then….“Sustainable development is a compelling moral and humanitarian issue.” Collin Powell…
I have nothing but respect for Mr. Powell, but morality alone does not carry the potency to dream us to a sustainable future. For that we are going to need to believe in a great many impossible things.
How many? I do not know. Maybe that’s the fun.
Sometimes it’s as much about disbelieving. I’m certain that it’s one’s sacred duty to disbelieve the collective humans who exercise chronic critical lack the vision, especially when that vision conflicts with the truth in your gut. Given the time, impossible tends to make itself manifest. So, we could argue the impossible or (my favorite) discuss which potential realities we might be willing to energetically back into form.
What is a vision you would die for?
Look around, who would stand beside you?
If the vision lives in you then at some level, it is already real. Note: what others say is impossible is an argument for their own lack of vision, and not a barometer of possibility.
Personally, I made a point to marry a simpatico spouse with impeccable vision, and have been blessed with some close family and friends who can fathom as possible- realities yet unacknowledged by the collective. Together we have created life-altering experiences and rich fields-of-play. Some are even gaining practical application…
September 11, 2009, the application for A Bee Organic LLC, was signed and sent out to the USDA. A Bee Organic was born out of the bramble and sink-holes of Organic Certification into which my partner Sarah and I were hired and trained. Daily I’d wonder- What would organic certification look like when viewed as a whole system of supportive elements? Obviously it would be forthright, verifiable, compliant, and humane, but that was not the industry we were being asked to support. Various certification agencies all told us the same thing; that the status quo (different in each) was the only way, and how it must be… And, neither Sarah nor I believed that to be true. Not believing what you can see is the flipside of believing the impossible… Together we have untangled a lot of brambles, filled in the sink-holes, created maps and sculpted healthy containers. We think we rock….nothing impossible about it!
If we want a sustainable future we must begin to believe impossibilities to be possibilities inviting our care. We must learn to support each others possibilities and practice emulating the system we aspire to become. That may seem like a lot of impossible things to believe before breakfast, until it dawns… how possible it all is.
Believing the impossible is vital to finding creative solutions. If I imagine very clearly, with great detail a destination, (impossible or not) then stand at that point of arrival and look back… from there, it’s not hard to map home.

Where ever two or more are sutainably gathered...

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world, indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. ~Margaret Mead


It has, with great pain, begun to dawn on me that the masses do not like or want change. As a matter of fact there are a remarkable number who have yet to digest the basics of their own evolution. Recently, I’ve begun to wonder if what passes for our News should institute an opposable-thumb-check policy prior to letting people share their views. I’m not saying that they should not be allowed to speak, but there should be a warning on the tape at the bottom of the screen, (the person you are hearing lacks opposable thumbs, and frontal lobe may not be properly activated.) Politicians should not be excluded. At a time when we should be having real dialog, and making hard global changes, humanity as a collective finds itself staring blankly down the corridor of extinction and finds itself thinking… “Do I want fries with that???” And I think, well if they’re organic and vegan, maybe…

Thank you Margaret.

I’d forgotten my history and somehow thought that we could all wake up together. Not a chance, as the masses are none too quick to assimilate new ideas. It’s been a while since Jesus said “judge not,” even his followers can’t seem to live that rule. The constitution is over 200 years old, and while the right to bear arms seems to have captured the imagination of many… other amendments like the right to the pursuit of happiness got radically stomped, (think paying for sex, recreational drugs, and gay marriage) they got all prissified and judged off to no-no zone. When bedrock concepts like non-judgment (different than discernment) and the right to pursue happiness provide such cultural and individual challenges…integrated sustainable?

The planet and our children can’t wait for those busy arguing for their limitations, and according to Margaret they are not even necessary for change, ( happy thought). The rule in evolution is; embody the change, own the ground, and find a way to replicate. If you’re the first lizard to get wings, you don’t wait for everyone to get them before taking flight.

And that is being done. Everyday, in every corner of the globe someone is waking up and finding a way to live, love and create in a sustainable field of play.

Hence, the small dedicated group is my soul’s joy and a point of personal recalibration, because there is definitely a small and growing group of thoughtful committed citizens dedicated to changing the world. There are astounding scientists, entrepreneurs, social activists, sustainable organic growers and producers, community gardeners, recyclers, green builders and consumers, zero-scape gardeners, teachers, comedians, citizens, bloggers, and politicians dedicated to making their slice of the system integrated and sustainable and from their personal wholeness.

I just have to show up, own my ground, my consciousness…and welcome those who show up to take their place.

Welcome reader!

A Point of Creation

“It’s not how busy you are, but why you are busy- the bee is praised, the mosquito is swatted.” Unknown…
Busy-ness like most everything in life is a double edge sword...
A sword which, when wielded from wholeness as opposed to this or that, can manifests as true power. How is it possible to live in alignment with so many variable factors?
History tells us we can either live by outer rules such as laws, religion, or we can live from within.
Living from one’s internal ethics only works well when those ethics have matured to the point where they meet or surpass social and cultural expectation. Imagine that my internal impulse was towards cannibalism in that at some level I believed I gathered power by eating the body of the more-powerful… I could maybe still find sanctuary in the Amazon jungle or Wall Street, I could act it out and risk imprisonment, or I could find symbolic ways of implementing cannibalism into my life such as joining the Catholic Church and enjoying communion. Cannibalism is an extreme stretch but it’s a fun example of a primal impulse having found a sociably acceptable outlet.
Whether the directive for action comes from within or without, there is still the issue of personal alignment with the whole. There is a lot of doing going on taking us as individuals and community further away from a healthy sustainable life and planet. How does the personal alignment switch become lit and available for use?
To dogmatically assign rules, maps or “thou shalt & shalt not’s,” is old school and I probably wouldn’t listen, so why should you? I’m well versed in inspiration but I’m distrustful of the process. For some reason the act of trying to inspire… can inadvertently lead to deception and lies; Think positive, love, light and darkness will not fall…
In exploring Personal Permaculture, I find myself circling like the buzzards in the canyon below our house, scavenging from all who came before. Those who pondered the same riddle: On what ground do we stand to witness evolutionary change? Change so big that the multitude of little changes necessary to globally alter the course we are on, would fall into place, like seeds in fertile soil, taking root and bearing fruit...
What if;
Instead of thinking everyone needs to know more, be more, do more, my self included,
I stop.
Hold what is treasured in me…
and consider…
What if each window of awareness needs its watcher?
… And I’m mistakenly thinking my window is more important?
That thought…
Takes me to a place of interest and honor,
In looking through an-other’s window of awareness…
It would be folly to forget
My window and viewpoint as I adventure into other points of view…
Because in remembering …
We could share,
Exchange, be challenged and inspired…
And that is a point of creation!
Maybe even communion…

I'm with stupid =>

Chinese Proverb; "If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed."

This week I am discouraged. I like to think the best of my fellow Earth travelers but wow- are we childish. Now would seem the time to focus on working together to find new ground to solve epic social and ecological issues, issues which threaten the future of everyone on the planet.

Instead, dialogue has been replaced with emotional gibberish. This week it was affordable healthcare being cast as the villain. It’s frightening that we can’t constructively explore solutions rather than degenerate into polarized sects.

So, where are we headed?
Consider; "If everyone on the world enjoyed the same level of natural resource consumption as a typical UK citizen, we would need three planets to support us. This is clearly unsustainable. " - www.bioregional.com- . The US is a more gluttonous consumer than the UK, so how many planets should we order?

Unsustainable… not unlike a gross National Product which must get bigger and grosser each year or it all collapses. Gross and uncool because at some point we will be running out of stuff to consume. Collectively it is time to dream something less gross and more sustainable.

Sadly it may not happen.
The human brain has evolved over a very long period of time to keep us alive when faced with an immediate danger. We are hardwired for the threat before us and passively-wired for anticipating future threats. When encountering a snake for example, nearly our entire brain will light up to alert us of the potential danger. When we are told global warming could threaten one-third of the world’s known species with extinction…, only a puny portion of our pre-frontal cortex lights. A small blip… So easy to miss, set aside, to ignore…

So how do we avoid ending up where we are headed?

Well, we could make it a moral issue. The brain is wired to note threats deemed disgusting or immoral. Growing “Round-up ready” genetically modified corn (to be sprayed with herbicide, weeds die, the corn you eat,) grown with sewage sludge (think heavy metals, antibiotics, etc..), then sprayed with the newest lineage of pesticides ( engineered to breakdown the immune system, think bee colony collapse, and immune system degeneration…) I could argue such as disgusting and immoral…

But this week; it’s affordable healthcare that’s got the masses taking arms …
A few months back it was Gay Marriage that got people’s panties in knots.
Our brains have evolved to the point where left un-checked… they will work against us.
Knowing this is the first step.
Permaculture starts with observing the whole system along with the interrelated elements…
That’s what bummed me out.

The interrelated elements are stupidly ignoring their flashing pre-frontal cortex…
But they manage to whoop-ass on the imaginary snakes ( issues deemed moral immediate threats).
Why are we taking this road?
Because we are probably going to end up…where we are headed…