#45 Stone Soup

If you have not heard the folk tale about stone soup, it begins with a weary and hungry traveler. He finds a village and begins asking the residents for a bit of food. He is denied everywhere and decides that rather than move on to the next village he would change the town he is in, find some food and show the locals a new way to think about their own lack of hospitality, how much is “enough” and perhaps even find a way to make them a bit less stingy. He sent word through a group of children that hew saw playing near the town square, he sent them to tell everyone that he would create the best soup anyone had ever tasted, out of a rock!

The curious assembled first, then, the non-believers and when enough had assembled in the town square, the few shut-ins and loners came, just to see what all the commotion was about. A few of the snootier ones came down just to see what had cleared the streets, emptied the pub and brought the farmers in from their fields. The weary traveler had the gift of gab and a small stone, about the size of an egg. He told the assembled group that he had a recipe that would stun and amaze them. all he needed was a large cauldron and some water, and his magic rock. The nay-sayers were unimpressed, but the shopkeeper, perhaps wanting to give him enough rope with which to hang himself, brought out his biggest cauldron, set a fire under it, and sent the children to get buckets so that the vessel could be filled from the well, just a few feet away.

Everyone watched, jostling for position, and with great gestures of his arms, and an incantation of some sort, the traveler plopped the stone into the water. He waited a minute or two, stirring slowly, murmuring almost to himself. “You know, he said, a small handful of salt really brings out the flavor…”

Within a few moments, a young boy had run home and brought back with him a small bowl of salt. “I made a really great version of this soup once that had a few potatoes in it,” the man said, and before you could say, Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean, the first stingy lady he had met when he got to town had returned to the square with an apron full of small potatoes. On the man went, stirring the great pot, weaving stories with his incantations. “Oh, yes,” he said, “a few rutabagas would add some sweet and savory flavors to the soup, if i only had a few…” almost as soon as he said this, a young boy darted out to his family’s garden and pulled a few of the yellowish globes from the dirt. On the man went, stirring placidly, occasionally wafting a handful of the steaming fluid toward his nose and breathing the smell in melodramatically, with closed eyes and a big smile on his face.

On and on he went, touting the wonderful flavors that some kale, onion, garlic and beans might add (if he only had a few…) one by one, his ingredient wish list was met with scurrying feet and proud smiles. Everyone, it seemed had something to add, but just a bit and as more and more of the town’s people got involved, it became a competition of sorts, each one hoping that their ingredient would make the now thickening soup better than ever. Before long, the man said, “If I only had a few scraps of meat to add, that really brings out the flavor of the rock.”

To this, the butcher, one of the wealthiest men in town, sent his son for not only a few scraps of beef, but a leg of lamb as well. all this was given freely and without hesitation because everyone wanted to be part of the miraculous Stone Soup event. We often need a bit of reminding, but we all have something essential to give, even if it is just an empty pot. Helfenstein Soup Council, here in Green Bay was founded on this idea and still thrives today, helping others, giving what they can, and offering to help with the little they have. Their Transition Town programs and talks on the topic of sustainability have led many to live better for less, feel more a part of community and share what little they have for the good of everyone.

#44 Making Good Food

Sorry for getting off track on the numbered posts…

Making good food is one of the most basic human rights. There is no good food that is “fast”. Plain and simple, to eat well is nearly the most revolutionary thing that one person can do. Many of us have faced our food allergies and sensitivities in isolation, never seeing doctors for diagnosis or “cure”. Instead, simply by not eating certain foods for periods of time, paying attention to my body, studying how problems creep up on us and then suddenly magnify. Understanding that every thing we eat either nourishes us, or it does not. food is either medicine or poison, there really is no in between.

I guarantee, when and if you try to eat better, you will find, nourishing healthy food will cost a bit more at first, but when you become fully nourished, there are great savings because there are no empty calories, soda, corn syrup or wheat products of any kind in the food budget. Just taking control of our food intake can lead to a change in the types of foods that are grown and the way those products are brought to market. When we take a stand for our own organism, it quickly affects the entire biosphere.

Leading the pack in new employment opportunities in The U.S.A. last year were farmers. Really. At no other time in our history as a nation have so many new people started to run farms. These people need to be encouraged to plant or raise what the local people need, rather than commodities that feed the beast. Anyone with children needs to begin to understand that the intake we get used to as children is very hard to change once we move into adulthood. starting on a course to healthy eating begins lifelong healthy habits.

A good book to help raise healthier children is called “Taming the C.A.N.D.Y. Monster”. the acronym stands for Continuously Advertized Nutritionally Deficient Yum-yums! It not only was filled with great ideas for healthy eating, but was underpinned with the desperate attempts that the food industry has made to consistently undermine the health and wellness of the American people. This year, try planting three crops that you have never tried before. try three more next year and after a few years, you may have a dozen or so plants in a kitchen garden that fit well into your eating style. remember, healthier choices are nearly always enhanced through variety and diversity in each plate.

We have made simple and seemingly minute changes that have yielded great results in our general health. many, many years ago, my own mother threw out all the white flour and sugar in the house. It was a sort of starting over and learning a new way to interact with real ingredients. we learned about freshly milled flour, juicing, green foods and soy products. as the time passed, i learned everything that was available about nutrition, both sources and requirements. I have gone as far as to make a series of fermented foods, tofu, kim chee and kraut. I never really liked pickles, until I had Nancy’s. As far as I’m concerned, I have not yet tried a pickle that could stand up to hers!

Good food will always require some time, a sharp mind when practicing due diligence at the market and a bit of artistic skill and awareness of your ingredients. Think of the extra time that you will spend making food from scratch as an investment in a very cheap form of health insurance. One time saver is to prep foods ahead. This will both save time when cooking and reduce portion sizes as well.  Understanding the code words for fake food products, sugars and wheat may seem daunting at first, but it is well worth the effort when you realize that you are taking money that you used to think was spent on food and now realize just goes to health care costs escalating in the future. What one should never lose sight of is how important it is to eat well to heal your body! Stress and toxic chemicals take their toll daily on out human organism. Eating better not only heals the body, but the mind and spirit as well. Learning to cook with a bit of style and grace can change the entire sense of family, of community and of kinship with our fellow humans as well as the biosphere.

Happy eating!

 

Bio-char with David Yarrow

Check out this Vimeo video! Since meeting David, our hearts have been one. The sanctity of the planet and all of her organisms are not only worthy of us, but essential to us. This practice allows us to spin the wheel of life in a positive direction. now, if I could only find a way to heat the house with the pyrolyzer! (Char oven) Cooked wood just sounds so sensible, renewable and efficient! http://vimeo.com/28677171

Here at the ECO-Tours, permaculture experiments continue and we have side by side plots with and without  bio-char. The hardest thing about using the scientific method is creating a “control” group which you deny appropriate care and restrict beneficial treatment for the sake of “proving” that something else works to make the world better.

Our tree planting has ebbed just a bit, but we have been more than making up for it in the garden beds. Although our food production is crucial to our survival, the tree planting is more rewarding on some level because of the larger acreages that we can impact and the long term changes that are occurring in places that we have been working, playing and planting upon! Walking in the wake of our ancestors yields plenty of opportunity to see their negligence and the destruction. The idea that humans had the responsibility to tame the wilds had immense power over millions of land owners around the world. Finding ways to manage the planet that allow for protecting air and water quality may be the only way out of our current environmental/ecological crisis.

#43 The Empty Pot

This is one of the crucial things to understand in the process of developing a more realistic relationship with the Earth, her creatures and indeed ourselves and other humans. Many great folk tales revolve around the concept, but in out current capitalistic milieu, scant attention and “coverage” of this important reality make it into the collective consciousness. Many of us subscribe to the victim-hood mentality. I have been finding myself guilty of this as well, although I seem to be recognizing the death spiral earlier on in the process. Occasionally, I will just “see” the negativity crossing through my consciousness like a specter. Realizing that it only has the power to harm me that I feed it, makes me far less likely to grab on, engage it, or feed into the dark side that it represents.

We most often hear about the empty pot only in relation to addiction. A common statement that I hear is that someone had to hit “rock bottom” before they could be put back on the right track. Often when we have lost everything, or feel that we have, it opens us up to new approaches. This makes sense. When we revel in our victim posture, or identify it as part of our personality, it causes a great disconnect between who we are and who we think we are. Many have lost everything and re-imagined themselves stronger, wealthier, and had a better chance at success after the traumatic events that led them to “lose everything”.

In the runes, we find this aspect as a source of power as well as a relinquishment of power. The irony is that the most impoverished is never limited by their possessions. when we are in the place of the empty pot, all possibility opens to us. We may “lose love” only to find that it was dysfunctional. We may lose our wealth only to realize that there are far more important things waiting out there for us. We may lose our sense of self respect or purpose only to learn ways to serve more profoundly or to heal our own dis-ease. The capacity of the empty pot is greater than any other pot. Spirit fills the empty vessel much more readily than one full of gruel. This could be why the statement, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven.

As sick as it is to worship our victimization, or to claim “long suffering” as a virtue, we often do it. I’m not even sure why, but I’m suspicious that the ego is involved. Certainly, it sounds infinitely better to say, “So and so screwed me over.” than “I trusted the wrong person.” We are often left no choice once we paint ourselves into a corner. The empty pot exists, it is as much a part of life as birth and death. When we have tried every tool at our disposal, and none of them are working or are truly  at wits end, we may plumb the depths of the empty pot. Realizing that the infinite is most available at this time may help us through whatever difficulties arise along our path. Often the only thing that limits us is the way we choose to see things. When we lose all that we hold dear, or are stumbling about in the dark, feeling the destitution and isolation of having nothing more to give, these are the moments when the greatest gifts can be manifested in our lives.

Remember the tale of Stone Soup. The weary traveler had not even a pot, yet he created a savory stew, by enlisting the good nature of the townsfolk. The greatest of all dishes begins with an empty pot. Our lives can be no different. Educational psychologists speak of the blank slate, “tabula rasta”, something always comes from nothing. What we need to do is understand that to reach into the unexplored depths of the empty pot, cast about for something and come up empty again and again is just the start of new beginnings. We are  often better served by the emptiness and hollow victories in life than we would be if we had all the riches of the world.

Heat Islands- “Invisible Mountains in the Sky”

Today, and several times in the last week, I got to “see” phenomena that was both unnerving and obvious. When I was in college, studying for an art/environmental education degree, one of my research papers was on what I called Heat Islands. These columns of air become super-heated and laden with energized compounds of hydrocarbons and particulates. These upwelling towers were what I was able to observe from stationary points. I have know of them for over twenty years, but only recently heard them called by the same name I gave them back in 1988.  Back then, I got a big fat “F”, because in the early days of internet, I could find not one reference to the phenomenon or any documented evidence or reference available on the web. Other than the fact that for the better part of a century, there was a known and well-documented discrepancy between temperatures and winds, even precipitation between the airport, where readings were most commonly taken, and the cities nearby. There was no name or explanation for the effect. When I did the painstaking observations, documenting reams of data, calculating a mass balance study of the BTUs of fuel shipped into our county, estimating the expansion of atmosphere that would result, all was discounted for lack of a reference. When air in a fire is heated through combustion, it expands to sixteen times the size. I used to imagine a series of mushroom clouds hovering over each and every metropolis based on fossil fuel combustion. The past week has proven that there are far more expansive perturbations of the atmosphere than the mushroom cloud can stand in for.

The high pressure ridges created by our population is much more like a series of invisible mountain ranges, squeezing and blocking the natural flow of air across the continents. Today, we traveled about 130 miles, along the bottom of one of these high pressure ridges. The “heat island” extended all the way down to the base of Lake Michigan. This was a ridge extending well above the tops of the highest cirrus clouds, five miles high! Heavy weather was pushing in off the plains and one thunderhead after another was overcome by upward pressure, bouyed up by the hotter, less dense air, as it rose, the dry air absorbed much of the moisture and wisps of cirrus-like clouds were formed stretching up like horse tails on end.

This ridge completely blocked the oncoming storms. Until they were well north of Green Bay. (The last significant part of the googleplex, stretching from Chicago North along the West Shore of Lake Michigan. Strung out along the Fox River Valley, the last eighty miles (about 125 km) is home to over one million souls. Part of this region is called The Paper Valley and is a major pulp and  paper-making area. When dozens, hundreds, thousands or millions of invisible mushroom clouds spread over an entire state, or region, the effects are virtually unimaginable. Each part of the invisible mountain that we create, is up to us. Our very metabolism warms the air a tiny bit all the time, not on the order of sixteen times the original size, as combustion can do, but just a bit, perhaps something like 1.6 times.

A friend taught me an interesting approach to ecological thinking. He walks and rides his bike at least as much as he drives. His theory is that as his breath is given back to nature, it offsets at least part of the carbon that gets spewed while he is driving. His carbon dioxide is beneficial to plant life, as opposed to the carbon monoxide which is toxic. We each need to make our peace with our piece of these mountains, offset what we can, scale back our contribution to the fossil fuel leviathan. During recent walkabouts, I have been planting trees, dropping seeds wherever they will find fertile ground and protection from greedy humankind…

I feel most human when I am actively giving back out of the abundance that I find all about me, perhaps if we found more ways to stay around our homes, beautify and integrate our lives with the seasons and take back our right to simple abundance, relying less on the machinations of far flung and dirty fossil fuel intensive ways of life, we could yet coax a recovery out of the ashes of international capitalism. When people truly have the interests of their people in mind, there will be no need for police protection.

Lady Bug, Lady Bug, Fly Away Home!

For the past two days there has been a lady bug on my laptop. I let her, or him walk across and stay upon the device just to understand what message she/he had brought me. I already knew that Spring had arrived more than one moon early, but what I did not realize was that the fly away home part of the children’s rhyme is perhaps part of the message that I am supposed to be listening to.When I first began to listen to the world around me, especially the natural world, I knew not the language of the spheres, nor the language of the trees, nor did I understand the rumblings and grumblings of the Earth or the bubbling voices of the river, stream or rivulet. Even now it may require intention and from time to time, whether I like to admit it or not, I ignore the great gifts that the world around me offers without thinking. Most often my ignorance comes at a dear cost and if I just take the time to listen to the ancient ones, speaking their unique language, my days take on the richness of the ages and I gain insight beyond my own experience.

Some may call my ooga-booga “games”. I think that it is not. Some “pray” to a lord, or Jesus, or whatever Gods and Goddesses they have come to know and understand. I prefer to think of my conversations with the places and creatures I encounter as building relationships. Think of your own feelings, if a dear friend would only come to you to implore you to assist them, or who would lavish praise on you for things that you could not help doing. I’m pretty sure that those relationships would become tiresome pretty quickly. The power, or energy that flows through me when I allow the messages of Earth, the Sky, the Water or any of the creatures who co-inhabit Starship Earth with us to flow through me is every bit as important to my own path as sensibilities and awareness of spiritual issues are for others who believe, in their own way, things that are quite different from what I understand to be true.

The biggest difference between my own beliefs and those of others, as far as I can tell, is that within my own world view, the results of actions based on our beliefs are far more important than the beliefs themselves. I have never heard a tree complain about the strength of a rock, or about the fickleness of the wind or the rain. I can’t even say the the language I have learned from listening to the environment includes concepts such as could have would have or should have. I have never heard a tree say, “I wish I had grown over there!” Every element within nature has a great deal to say, if we take the time to listen. Choosing to have a relationship with our co-inhabitants, our co-creators of life demands that we use our propensities, our abilities and our insights to guide and inspire others to their own best possible realization of their unique nature.

My work here on the planet has included helping to raise more children than I can count, most of which were not even my own. My efforts to plant as many trees as possible has inspired not only the next few generations of children, but many of my friends, family and readers as well. I do not offer this as a boast. Much like nature that inspires me, it is just my way. I do what I do regardless of the cost, without regard to the effects. I will continue to do what I can. I humbly submit to the will of my guides and the spirits of whatever place I inhabit. It may sound odd, but the less attached I become to my own desires, my own creations, my own perspective, the more clearly I see the actions I take as reflections of my own true nature.

How Many Miles?

When I began my life as a blogger, I thought that just one would be enough.
Now, I can envision several more, but that will have to wait until I begin to generate an income from my writing. For now, four will need to be enough! You can read me at The Othrfish Wrap, which grew out of my eco-friendly fanzine that I began publishing in 1984. The local not-for-profit organization that my wife and I started about seven years ago focuses on reforestation, no trace camping skills, sustainability education, health and wellness, etc. The blog that tells our story is ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. Apart from this blog, I can also be found writing occasionally at Paganspace.net as Saladman.

I just added up the visits from the three of four blogs that allow me to follow the readership and today, the number of miles that I pedaled my bicycle around the Great Lakes is identical to the numbers of readers that have visited my blogs. 4,280. Granted, that was by the highway signs and they can lie. It was actually quite a bit further, but that is another matter. Each and every mile of that adventure is seared in my memory and for each mile I have found a reader. Just as I made commitments to each and every mile of my route, I have made connections to each and every reader and hopefully inspired them to do equally unique things to reestablish a relationship with planet earth.

We frequently find ourselves at a loss for how to get behind massive projects because the sheer numbers seem daunting. My planning for a route of 4,280 miles sounded like a lark until I got two moons into the ride and realized that I still had nearly 1,000 miles to go! I did complete the journey in 80 days, like I planned, but only by riding the last twenty four hours without a break. Finding readers who are attracted to what I write has been far more rewarding than riding some of the miles along the shores of the Great Lakes, only because I was unsure if the landscape was even capable of understanding the nature of what I was trying to do. It is complicated for me to [put into words what my goals were.

I wanted to use as many media outlets as possible to raise awareness of ecological issues, how to live better for less and the importance of living lightly on the planet so that everyone has a better chance of getting their needs met as well. To this end, I was infinitely more successful than I had dreamed possible. One morning alone, during the morning commute, I was carried live on CBC radio, speaking to six million listeners! The carbon dioxide that I breathed on the hundreds of billions of plants along the way had a major effect, but those people, I always wonder how effective I was at reaching them!

with my worldwide audience of blog readers, I have little to go on about how effective my messages and meanings are, unless someone takes the time to write a comment, I may not have had any idea whether I “spoke” to the reader, or was just hearing my own voice in the void of digital mediation. There is truly a din of bloggers going at the keyboard like so many blindfolded monkeys, I’m not sure whether a single word can even make a difference anymore. I choose to believe that they can and do make a difference, that is a big part of why I write. Thank-you for taking the time to read my work and thank-you in advance for checking our my other blogs as well.

I am available for private discussions and sharing more of what I have learned in my fifty years with seekers and folks trying to heal from the scars and stresses of the world, so if you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. I ask that whatever value you might place on my work and insight, be offered as donations to ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. If you would like to Paypal, our account there is at tnsaladino42@hotmail.com. Or snail mail works for some and our address is: 1445 Porlier street, Green Bay, WI 54301-3334 USA. We do not spend ECO-Tours money on anything but trees and dirt to plant them in. All of our labor is volunteer. we are closing in on over three million tree seeds planted and we have also planted over thirty thousand trees and seedlings. I will try to post a few more pictures, but when you are as busy as we are planting, you too might forget to use the camera from time to time.