Author: jennynazak

It’s a popular thing among some New Agers and neo-Pagans to use aromatic plant material in purification rituals. Lighting up a bundle of dried sage and waving it around the house to cleanse away bad energy, etc. But I never knew this had become so popular that it’s actually depleting the sage plants to an unsustainable degree. Same with Palo Santo, a resiny aromatic wood from Central and South America that’s become popular in the USA and other countries outside its place of origin.

I can see why people love these aromatic materials from nature. I myself have used them in rituals and enjoyed them. A friend gave me a couple small sticks of Palo Santo about 20 years ago, and I still haven’t used them up; a little goes a long way. (Not long ago I was taken aback to see thick bundles of Palo Santo sticks for sale at a new-age/Pagan shop. I hadn’t known it was even available commercially, let alone in such large quantities. When I read recently — in the article linked below — that it had become endangered, I was not surprised.)

I’m more of one to burn aromatic materials for the smell than as a cleansing ritual per se. Either way, in recent times I’ve been using locally gathered materials for this purpose. Resinous aromatic twigs from cedar or pine trees, bundles of local sweet-smelling dried grass, that kind of thing. Of course they don’t smell the same as sage or Palo Santo, but I get two advantages: 1) I stop putting undue pressure on ecosystems; and 2) I avoid cultural appropriation.

Cultural appropriation is something I’ve tried to become more sensitive about. The respectful thing to do regarding other cultures is to enjoy and appreciate them without stealing from them. The cultural dimension is as important an aspect of sustainability as the eco dimension.

Besides using local materials gathered in small quantities, another suggestion I have is: Draw on your own ancestry for rituals, and ritual materials. If you’re of Eastern European descent, for example (that’s half of my ancestry), you could research what, if anything, people in that part of the world did/do in terms of using aromatic plant materials for ritual or enjoyment.

If you choose to purchase materials, the article below from Anti-Racism Daily offers some good tips for ethically doing so. And it’s an eye-opening read about the harms caused by cultural appropriation.

Further Exploration:

• “While the practice of smudging began with Native ceremonies and traditions passed down from generation to generation, companies are now using the practice as a way to spread ideas of yoga and wellness. Back in 2018, fragrance brand, Pinrose pulled back their ‘Starter Witch Kit’ from Sephora after receiving backlash from activists about the appropriation of Indigenous medicinal practice in commerce. Urban Outfitters sold smudge sticks and marketed the product on social media with the caption ‘cleansing your Insta of negativity’. These instances of major retailers profiting off of smudging perfectly demonstrate the definition of cultural appropriation. And, while some Indigenous people believe that selling smudging products is fine, they’re still concerned about whether mainstream consumption will erase its significance. … The demand for white sage and Palo Santo also contributes to a growing environmental issue. As beauty and wellness brands continue to gentrify the practice, these endangered plants are being overharvested.” (“Preserve Palo Santo and White Sage”; Isiah Magsino in Anti-Racism Daily.)

Saying prayers for the people in a couple of towns here in Florida, just east of Tampa, that are having wildfires right now. Here on the east side of the state where I live (Daytona Beach), we have no fires (that I know of), but it’s been a long wait for the rainy season to start. Seeing endless days of sun and wind in the forecast.

Relentlessly dry sunny weather always feels to me like that relentlessly cheery, “positive thinking” relative or Facebook frenemy who won’t let anyone talk about “negative” feelings because “we attract what we think about.” (Mental-health public-service announcement: Thoughts and feelings are the weather of our inner landscape; they are all part of life just as rain is. The surest way to keep an unpleasant feeling around, or turn your mind into rigid concrete, is to try and banish so-called “bad” feelings through “positive thinking.”)

Back to rain … I hope we never have to find out what it’s like to go for a summer without rain in Florida. But we have disrupted the rain cycle by destroying our forest belts and wetlands. Vegetation and wetlands are an essential part of the hydrological cycle.

This has been weighing heavy on my mind. (And heavy on my body, as I sometimes spend hours hauling water from my rainbarrels to trees and plants in the yard because there is no rain for them as would usually be expected.)

On the weather page, a person from another town in Florida commented that she had had rain only twice at her house since September 2020.

Worldwide, there are places in multi-year drought while some are hit by violent storms, flooding. Massive disruption of weather cycles as we have destroyed huge swathes of forest and wetland that are the life and lungs of the planet.

And drought can be self-reinforcing. In the words of Laurie K., a fellow eco-citizen in my area: “A scary thing about droughts is that the longer they go on, the less chance for moisture from the ground to go back up to clouds to form the rain and the ground gets harder so what little rain falls can’t get to the root systems. It can be a vicious cycle.”

Australia experienced a drought from 1996-2012 that came to be known as the “Big Dry.” Parts of Central or South America have had little or no rain for the past five years or more.

Wherever you are, it’s likely you have experienced some version of worsening drought-flood extremes.

Suggested action steps for you:

• Ask your local government to prioritize reforestation; back off on needlessly harsh landscaping practices such as excessive mowing, the use of chemicals, and removal of fallen leaves from under trees. And of course, do these things at your own residence or any other property you manage.

• Ask your local government to consider collecting rainwater off of public buildings; and to encourage residential and commercial rainwater collection. Rainwater collection is another component of repairing the hydrological cycle. Catch and store rain when you’re getting more of it than the ground can hold. Then use it on your site during the dry spells.

• Go outside whenever you can, notice anything about the weather that you can give thanks for. The other night, for me (I often take a little stretch in my yard during my wee-hours wakeup window), that moment of thanks was for the most brief and delicate little rain-sprinkle that started as I walked outside. I would never have noticed it if I’d stayed inside. It was beautiful; I felt the plants feel it, and I myself thrilled to the smell of the rain.

• Read up on the hydrological cycle (or watch YouTube or other videos about it.).

• Drawing on my training in permaculture design and other fields, I am available to give talks for churches, neighborhood associations, community groups, and so on, about how you can work with nature to green-up your community and become more resilient, less vulnerable to droughts, flooding and other disasters. And make your place a sanctuary for life and human connection. My talks are by Zoom or equivalent, so I’m available to you wherever you are located. Contact me and we’ll set a date! I always have openings in my schedule.

• Tune up your inner landscape in order to be more resilient through times of adversity, be it drought or anything else. A couple of good reads for this are offered below.

• “I’m starting to see the unifying principle behind all the philosophies that really appeal to me (e.g. Buddhism, Stoicism, Arnold Schwarzenegger). They view all of life’s moments as having equal value, at least where it counts, and what counts is your skill in embracing the moments that make up your life. It’s a genius idea, possibly the smartest thing human beings ever came up with. Embracing all moments as a rule transforms every day into precisely what you’re looking for: an interesting variety of experiences, every one of which offers you what you value, regardless of what happens in particular. This is a dramatic improvement over the prevailing mammalian strategy – desperately trying to make certainties out of favorable possibilities, and impossibilities out of unfavorable possibilities. It’s a losing game by definition, so playing it makes us unhappy. The bigger our brains get, the more obsessively we try to map out every contingency, and the more of our lives we spend suffering possibilities in our heads instead of appreciating the actualities around us. All moments can be appreciated, on a basic level at least, when you value the two opportunities each one offers – to respond skillfully to what’s happening, and to experience being alive for another moment. When this is what’s valued – rather than the fleeting bubbles of pleasure or ease they might bring — an unpleasant moment is just as good as a pleasant one, sometimes better.” (from David at Raptitude, “When All Moments Have Equal Value“)

• “If you want to enjoy life, deliberately appreciating what you’re experiencing is a great way to move forward. If what you’re experiencing is difficult to appreciate, then take a few minutes and find something in your life that you can appreciate. Then find something else to appreciate. Keep going until you can appreciate anything in your life.” (“Appreciation,” from Star’s Edge, the company created by Harry Palmer to administer The Avatar® Course.)

There are two ways to live up to your own moral standards perfectly all the time.

1) Keep your standards really, really low.

2) Willfully engage in self-delusion.

I don’t recommend either of those. Nope, go ahead and set high moral standards for yourself. High as in tapping into your higher sense of good — not high as in punitive or unrealistic, inhuman.

If you don’t know the difference (some people were raised in harshly judgmental climates and did not get to learn the difference), then you could look for guidance, perhaps from a trusted mentor or colleague who seems to have values and aspirations that resonate with you.

I used to be so demolished when I’d fail to live up to my own moral code. Then I realized I’m just human. Nobody can always live up to their own standards. My advice is to go ahead and set them high, though! It helps a lot in life. Simplifies things greatly. Decisionmaking, goal-setting, prioritizing become so much easier.

When we fall short of our moral standards, that’s what apologies and amends are for. Confess, apologize, make amends, self-correct. Whew!

Mentioning this because a lot of us environmentalists get accused of being “hypocrites” because (say, for example) we drove a car to a climate protest.

We live in an imperfect world. We can’t always live up to our own ideals. Meetings can be too far away to get to without motorized transport; thunderstorms can hit; some roads aren’t safe for cycling. Obviously we do our best to minimize our fossil footprint but we sometimes end up incurring more of a footprint than we want to.

Some of us are pretty idealistic and beat ourselves up for every shortfall. Don’t do that; we need all our energy directed toward making a positive shift.

Noticing seasonal details is something I find fun and enriching. Like, Oh, it’s that time of year again!

In Japan, where I lived for several years (once as a young child, then later as an adult), noticing and honoring the unique gifts of each season is a major thing. Every season seems to have some special fruit, flower, vegetable, tree, insect associated with it. Cherry-blossom viewing in springtime is a grand tradition. Autumn is moon-viewing. There are different teas, special cooked dishes for each season.

The cry of cicadas is a prized summer song.

In the hottest days of summer in Japan, it’s popular to eat unagi (eel), which is grilled and served over rice with a tasty sauce; supposedly boosts one’s energy to endure the heat. One thing I know for sure, unagi with that sweet-salty brown sauce is a delicious treat.

It’s very grounding to be able to enjoy seasonal rhythms anywhere we live. It lets us build a unique connection with the place we call home. It helps if you stay long enough in one place to be able to pick up on the seasonal rhythms, but if you’re new, ask the locals! It’s a good way to get rooted in your new place. I’ve found I can tap into existing seasonal traditions, or notice/make my own.

I’ve lived in this house for three years now, and have noticed that this time of year is when my plumeria trees start dropping a few of their beautiful fragrant flowers each day. Every morning I go out and retrieve the fresh blossoms and float them in a shallow bowl of water. It’s a sweet addition to my little front porch room where I sit and do a lot of my work in the daytime.

It took me awhile to catch on, but this is also the time of year when tiny tiny ants come into my house. Not in huge numbers, and they only seems to come for certain things. Water; a spilled bit of fruit I missed picking up.

I realized they are drawn to the plumeria bowl. It’s their water-bowl!

Oftentimes, my water-glass is also their water-bowl. How did I forget that this is what always happens at this time of year? The mini invasion of harmless tiny ants. Because they’re so itsy bitsy, it’s hard to clear them safely out of the way so I can drink my water. Also sometimes they drown in the water glass. I realized I always need to make sure their plumeria bowl is full. And, I need to not leave my water-glass unattended, especially if the water has been sweetened by a bit of juice or a drop of essential oil or something.

It’s that time of year again! The season of tiny ants and plumeria showers. What unique aspects of nature show up in your world at this time of year?

The following is copy/pasted from a Florida environmental activist who gave permission for this to be shared. The original post was accompanied by an aerial view of a sick, polluted waterway, its banks stripped of vegetation.

If you are somewhere other than Florida, there’s probably environmental degradation of a similar magnitude going on in your area. Wherever you live, there are various ways you can help make a difference — and it starts with awareness.

My best advice: Wherever you live, get to know your local waterways, forests, wetlands, mountains, whatever the nature is. Go out to the local natural areas with your kids. Connect with the eco activists in your region to find out about key issues and action steps. (Facebook is great for finding online hubs of eco activism in each region.) I don’t advise moving away from a place just because of whatever the local issues are. Stand strong and be a peaceful warrior for your place. There is no “away”; environmental issues ultimately affect us all.

REWILD THE RIVERS OF FLORIDA: When you take a natural, winding, snake-like river, filled with native aquatic plants along its edge, connected to immense swamps, and winding with beautiful oxbows… and you remove small waterfalls and turn it into a deep straight line…. do not wonder why it doesn’t filter and balance algae as it once did. When fertilized lawns and cement sea walls line up for miles along the river… do not wonder why it doesn’t support the former flourishing numbers of fish and bird populations that it once did. When you dig hundreds of non-flowing, cement-lined canals for large gas-powered power boats… do not wonder why toxic algal blooms expand at levels formerly impossible in these new sun-drenched ‘pits.’ When the very rain that falls contains methyl-mercury from coal-fired power plants and this washes to the ocean… do not wonder why fish bioaccumulate this toxin, higher and higher up the food chain until even single servings of certain fish are not safe to consume. When you spray glyphosate and other herbicides by the ton on aquatic ‘weeds’ in Lake Okeechobee, do not wonder why Red Tide blooms in the Gulf of Mexico are fed by blue-green algae blooms that take the floating plants’ place. When you allow thousands of cattle to defecate right up to the Kissimmee River’s edge, in the floodplain… do not wonder why nitrogen levels skyrocket after summer floods. When you dredge and straighten a formerly shallow and winding river… do not wonder why mass sediment amounts cover and kill healthy seagrass beds during rain events… know why. When immense farms are allowed to spray all manner of ‘-cides,’ from herbicides to fungicides, from nematocides to pesticides… do not wonder why aquatic organisms die as they do from the run-off. After all ‘cide’ means death. Know why! The Caloosahatchee River knows very well why. Sit beside her and she will tell you.
NOTE: Check out websites such as the Center for Biological Diversity, Calusa Waterkeeper, Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, Conservancy of Southwest Florida, Captains for Clean Water, and others. They surely have their faults, some big ones, but they also have some answers, some great ones.

“ExxonMobil wants you to feel responsible for climate change so it doesn’t have to shoulder the blame,” says Rebecca Leber in an article on voxx.com . “A new study reveals how the oil company used ‘cutting-edge propaganda’ to focus on fossil fuel consumption.”

So some corporate behemoth with bajillions of dollars is unwilling to do its part to help fix the mess we’re in? How pathetic!! Meanwhile, millions of us everyday people are out here eagerly trying to do our part. Kudos to all of you.

The way I look at it is, I didn’t cause climate change but I contributed to it, and now I can be part of addressing it. And there are so many different ways to do that.

After World War II, the oil companies systematically worked to destroy what had been a quite developed, nationwide railway network, and destroy other transport modes such as city trolleys; and lobbied for the construction of our massive multibillion-dollar highway system at the expense of all other options. They basically undermined old-fashioned walkable, bikeable, transport-served communities (where children and nondriving elders were able to get around without depending on someone to drive them everywhere) by encouraging car-dependency.

No two ways about it, driving the open road can be fun and exciting. Family roadtrips, camping and all that kind of thing. When I was a kid, the road atlas was one of my favorite books. (My family moved every couple of years — my Dad was in the Navy — and we turned every move into a cross-country camping odyssey in our large, tanklike 1960s and 70s cars. It was amazing, so educational and soul-expanding. Epic sunsets! Desert starry nights! Bear sightings next to the campground shower! Quirky diners with funky neon signs; customer-luring yard-art. One diner had a, like, 20-foot-tall coffee pot out front.)

We (culturally, collectively) just had no idea how much of a monster was being created. Cars invaded every crevice of our lives, til in most places it became abnormal to even walk a block or two to a convenience store. Now we have social isolation, chronic health problems, high rate of traffic fatalities, hideous environmental degradation from the endless expanses of asphalt needed to serve cars, and a whole slew of other ills as a result of our culturally induced car-dependency.

There’s lots of info about all of this out there. (There are even documentary films, and we could stage a showing!! My organization Daytona Beach Permaculture Guild is working on starting a small mobile cinema thing for the community. Maybe you could do something similar in your community.)

The more awareness we have, the easier it’ll be to motivate ourselves to take action on all fronts, from engaging in peaceful demonstrations, to making our voices heard by corporations and government, to getting active in our own city government: calling for walkable communities; speaking out against sprawl development. And, definitely, taking active steps to minimize our own personal and household dependency on cars and petroleum. Dependency is vulnerability!

My two cents on how to accelerate positive movement in the world – it starts inside but also (for most of us) includes outer actions.

• Engage in practices that quiet the mind; heighten your perception, intuition.

• Engage in practices that strengthen the connection between your inner self & the outer world.

• Strive for congruence between your inner awareness and outer actions.