Author: jennynazak

On this bright sunny day, I am using my solar oven to help me recycle some “tunneled” candles.

For many years now, I have been trying to tell people about the many benefits of solar ovens. Personally I think it would be a really good idea if every household had at least one. (I’ve written extensively on this blog about solar cooking and solar ovens; type either of those terms into the blog’s search feature and you will find a number of posts.)

Imagine being able to use the sun’s free energy to cook a meal at an even temperature. It’s good for baking, and for crockpot-type meals. And you can leave the food unattended to cook on its own, without creating any danger of fire or overcooking.

But there are many other uses as well. I have used the oven to sterilize washcloths and rags, sterilize metal tools & utensils, pasteurize water.

One thing I just recently thought to try is using the oven to melt wax from some candles that had gotten tunneled. It works perfectly! What a great thing to not have to mess with a double-boiler on the stove! Easy peazy. The wax melts at a temperature of about 180, which the solar oven reaches very quickly, and the wax seems to get fully melted within a few minutes to a half an hour depending on the amount of wax in the container. Of course, do not put plastic containers in the oven; this is for ceramic, glass, or metal containers.

Some of the melted wax I used to soak crumpled-paper balls to add to my jar of fire-starting material. (I was going to say “tinder jar” but didn’t know if people would confuse that with a dating app LOL.)

The rest, I will attempt to make into new candles.

Update: I just now lit the new candles I made from melting down old tunneled candles. We’ll see how the wicks work. I tried two kinds of wicks: a used matchstick; and some twisted fabric dunked in wax.

Update later: the twisted T-shirt fabric wick works well. Contrary to what I thought would be true and what I read in one of the articles mentioned below, the matchstick doesn’t seem to work for some reason. The flame went out as soon as the matchstick burn down to the level of the wax surface.

The twisted T-shirt fabric dipped in wax is a fat wick so it creates a fast burn; the entire surface got melty in a few minutes. Having the right-sized wick to ensure an evenly melty surface is a key to preventing candle tunneling.

Here are some good articles I found yesterday while I was looking for ways to up my candle skills:

• https://www.prosperitycandle.com/blogs/news/how-to-fix-candle-tunneling
• https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/survivalist/2014/06/survival-skills-3-tricks-matches/

By the way, I find that empty tuna cans are very good for making recycled candles. The relatively wide, flat shape of the can makes it handy as a candle container.

This might seem like a small thing, or just some cottage-core niche type thing. But, candles are really good to have around, as are oil lamps if you have them. (I have 3 oil lamps, two fancy glass ones and one classic old Dietz metal one, all purchased secondhand at yard sales or thrifts.)

Another aspect of this for me is that when I have a candle that gets tunneled, I have always just let it sit because I didn’t know what to do with it and yet I didn’t want to throw it away because that seems like a waste. So I would get low-grade bummed out and beat myself up, and be low-grade bummed out about the clutter. (I know this all probably sounds silly to most people, but maybe some of you have been there.)

On a deeper note, any time we can fix something without having to go buy something new, we are increasing our community self-reliance and reducing our vulnerability. The small stuff really adds up, and also it acts as an on ramp to the bigger stuff. The more we can do within our communities, the less likely it is that anyone can force us to work or live on unfavorable terms.

No, being able to fix tunneled candles probably won’t be in itself life-changing for most people. Same with being able to mend socks, etcetera etcetera.

Then again, for some people these things might well turn into a business! And even if they don’t, having some agency over these little things (instead of having to turn into a consumer solution, as our society conditions us to do), is remarkably empowering and ripples out widely into other aspects of our lives.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on candles, or any aspect of constructively disengaging from consumer society and the “endless growth” model. Let me know how your explorations are going! And do share your successes and failures as widely as you feel comfortable doing; we work better when we work together.

PS. In the comments under this post on my Art & Design by Jenny Nazak FB page, I shared a couple photos of my initial successes of my melting/remaking experiments. Twisted t-shirt pieces are working well as wicks that are thick enough to melt the whole candle surface.,

Sharing my personal memory and tribute to Frank P. Heckman, my neighbor and former landlord, who passed in September 2023 at the age of 91.

Frank was what I might call one of the last of the old-school landlords.

Pardon the rambling personal background, but it becomes relevant to the story.

I moved to Florida in 2010 from Austin TX, where I had been living for 15 years. For the last 10 of those years, I had been living in a 10-foot travel trailer in a cute little mom & pop RV park. Nestled under the oaks of South Austin, just a stone’s throw from downtown Austin. And the rent was still under $400 when I left. (That RV park’s landlord was, and is, one of the last of the old-school landlords too, God/dess bless him!)

Although I had a wonderful life in Texas, I had strong, solid reasons for moving to Daytona Beach. That’s a story for another post.

For my first 3 years in Florida, I lived in Ormond by the Sea. That was fun at the time, as OBTS felt like a cute little surf town back then, and I was emotionally recovering from a bunch of stuff, including a business failure (which turned out to be temporary but was nonetheless catastrophic) and my Dad’s sudden passing (which was even more catastrophic). And, I got to be very close friends with the amazing lady of the house where I ended up renting a room in OBTS. (hi Roseanna!)

But ultimately, as a city girl at heart, I was drawn to the more urban environment of Daytona Beach. In the summer of 2013 I got a part-time job as a pedicab driver (the pedicab garage used to be conveniently located on East ISB), and then I walked around the neighborhood seeing if there were any nearby apartments. I stumbled right onto Frank’s place on the corner of Harvey and South Oleander.

There was a sign saying “apartment for rent,” and there was a man sitting out on the porch. He was friendly and turned out to be the landlord. I asked him how much is the apartment. The price was right ($500, the kind of rent that doesn’t even exist anymore around here, or maybe most anywhere in the USA).

And there were no security deposits or background checks or anything. He only charged me a tiny deposit for Starshine, my sweet and adorable feline roommate.

I know I’m going to catch a lot of flack from some people for saying that not charging a security deposit or background check was a good thing. But if you’ve ever been a financially precarious renter, or somebody with a crime who has served their time and is just looking to move on, you understand that this is a reality for many people. (I myself do not have a record, but I have every sympathy with those who do, and who have served their time and are just trying to get back to normal life.)

And I know too that I will catch some flack from the same people for saying it was good that Frank charged such modest rents. I actually had some acquaintances say out loud to me that landlords needed to charge at least $800 for a one-bedroom apartment, because any tenant who couldn’t pay that much was a “lowlife” and you wouldn’t want that person in your neighborhood.

(To which I would silently cringe, and start to go along with their assessment, beat myself up for being a “lowlife” who has made “bAd lIFe cH0iCeS.” Because if I made good life choices I would be middle-class wealthy, right? Took me a while to keep myself from going down that rabbit hole when somebody would say something like that.)

Financial precarity and the essential role of old-school landlords aside …

The fact of the matter is that some of Frank’s other tenants were at times challenging to deal with. People were drinking dangerous amounts, and doing some illegal drugs, and maybe in some cases not being on the meds they’d been prescribed.

But, I always thought of that more as an indictment of our society’s lack of mental-health services and safety nets than of those people themselves. And, at heart, they were good people and at the end of the day I enjoyed having them around regardless of the disruption.

Years later, living in a nice sturdy concrete-block house across the street that I was able to purchase through no achievement of my own, I still am strongly supportive of old-school landlords, and still a strong advocate for renters. And always will be!!

Sometimes in a neighborhood, the renters have been living in the same place for 15 or 20 years or more! If a renter is fortunate enough to find a good place and a good landlord, the renter can actually sometimes give more stability to a neighborhood’s social fabric than soi-disant “solid citizen” homeowners who have multiple options and maybe multiple houses.

And although some of my fellow tenants and their guests were sometimes scary or otherwise problematic (such as one time when one of the next-door unit neighbors’ “houseguests” barged into my apartment in the middle of the night, and I ended up brandishing a chair at him to shoo him out), I always felt more of a kinship with them than I did with the “respectable citizens’ brigade” who tried to shut down Frank’s fourplex to get us “disreputable people” out of there.

(The members of the respectable citizens’ posse didn’t end up having much longevity; they sold their houses and left the neighborhood. Lightweights! Meanwhile most of the renters I knew back then still live in the neighborhood. Other than those who have passed, which unfortunately are quite a few. Mainly casualties of rough living on the margins.)

Back to Frank though. He was fond of saying, if I can’t look into someone’s eyes and tell if they’re a good tenant or not, then I’m not much of a landlord. And you know what, those somewhat challenging people notwithstanding, Frank was actually mostly right. People at least mostly paid their rent on time, and because most all of us were in a precarious economic position, there wasn’t much tenant turnover so from a landlord standpoint it wasn’t so bad.

I always did my best to be a good tenant, was always on time for the rent except for one month when I just barely could get out of bed and I had to give myself some kind of shot of ambition just to finally pull it together.

(OK now let’s tell the full truth. If you will further indulge me for a side story. It wasn’t me who gave myself a shot of ambition. It was a total stranger who just happened to come to my door, and we started chatting and she offered me a job at her highly popular and successful, quintessentially Daytona Beach business, and even though she had no reason to trust me, she fronted me the late rent that I owed so I could immediately set things right with my patient and/or forgetful landlord. (Just like there are old-school landlords, there are also old-school employers, like Barbara with her motorcycle-patches-and-sewing shop. And underneath the veneer of proper official correct life with its background checks and its written leases and its job application forms, the world runs on the unofficial, rogue beneficence of these two undervalued and unsung occupational categories.))

Frank was always cool about letting me have a roommate. I had a succession of several different roommates helping me share the rent during my time renting from Frank. Most of us were people who were maybe students, working part time so they could do their art or their small business, people on disability who had fallen on hard times, etc. So being able to split even the low rent was pretty much a necessity.

Frank was a friendly sort, who always welcomed people, including his tenants, to come sit on his porch and drink a coffee with him, or later in the day, a beer.

Back when he was still driving, he was generous with his vehicle, offering tenants rides to the supermarket and so on.

Even after his dementia started to get noticeable, and he was no longer able to drive or get out much, Frank remained a major figure in the neighborhood. He was always the guy calling hello and having that ever-inviting porch. So many people in the neighborhood miss him.

As his dementia progressed, Frank was assigned a county-appointed guardian, who were lovely people who collected the rents and kept up the place, and quickly fell every bit as much in love with Frank as all of us had.

And, in the last few weeks of his life, when he was in hospice care (getting to be at home as he had wished), all of the caregivers were charmed by him.

Any of us should be should be so lucky as to make so much of a difference in the lives of our community.

And, we should never underestimate the value and importance of neighborhood cohesion. A lot of the evil in the world could be greatly eased if there were more truly caring neighbors like Frank Heckman, spending time on their front porches and keeping an eye on things and saying hello to everyone, friend and stranger alike.

Sorry if I sound cranky, but if one more person tells me this … It’s so frustrating! How did this rumor get started, and why do so many people go along with it without questioning it?

Believe me, if they were to make rainwater collection illegal I would launch a massive civil disobedience action. And I hope others would too!!

Like, really? The government says that rainwater collection is illegal and we just roll over … “Oh, OK. We just won’t collect rainwater even though municipal supplies can be disrupted anytime, leaving us totally without water. We’ll just go along with purchasing bottled water from corporate leeches that are draining the aquifers and clogging the oceans and rivers with plastic trash. We just won’t collect and use rainwater even though drought-flood cycles are getting more and more severe.”

Yeah, NO.

Fortunately, rainwater collection is not illegal. At least not in the USA, and I imagine if it’s not illegal here in the land of senseless bureaucracy it’s probably not illegal in most places — but I’ll have to look into that. In some US states it’s even incentivized. Now, there are some US states where there are restrictions. Mostly these restrictions seem to be in the drier states, and from what I have read, they are meant to prevent people from hoarding large amounts of water, diverting rivers, etc.

Do you know what’s interesting, though — there are apparently no restrictions on collecting rainwater in Arizona, of all places. One of the driest places on earth. If it’s not restricted there, seems like it shouldn’t need to be restricted anywhere.

I have heard that, in some dry states that restrict rainwater collection, it has to do with money. As in, all the water has been pre-sold downriver to the utilities, so if a person is collecting water from the sky, they are taking away the revenue of the water company. Ewwww!!! I don’t know, sounds like protest time to me.

There is mention of some states restricting rainwater for drinking use. Like, it’s OK to collect rain in a barrel to water your yard, but not OK to drink it. Supposedly the reason for that is that the water can contain animal feces or other impurities. But I say that can happen with any water. And, it’s easy enough to filter one’s water. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if the powers-that-be just don’t want the masses to know that we can get our own water and filter it and not have to rely on a centralized supply.

Anyway!! Once again, rainwater collection is not illegal. Please help me spread the word, as this noxious rumor has been going around like wildfire for years. Seriously, if I had a gallon of water for every time I’ve heard that “rainwater collection is illegal,” I would be able to grow banana trees and bamboo in Death Valley.

PS. Always question stuff like this! Don’t just go along with it so easily! Our wellbeing is at stake and so is the planet’s.

Further exploration:

• States Where It Is Illegal To Collect Rainwater (wisevoter.com): “There is no state in the US where collecting rainwater is illegal, but there are states that have restrictions around rainwater collection. … The reasons for the restrictions on rainwater collection vary but are often related to concerns over water rights, water quality, and the potential impact on downstream water users.”

• The best books and website I know of about all aspects of harvesting rainwater: Brad Lancaster’s website, harvestingrainwater.com Brad is based in Tucson Arizona. Where they get only like 11 inches of rainfall a year, and yet, according to Brad, if it’s harvested wisely it would be enough to serve all the needs of every single resident of Tucson. Enough said! You will love Brad’s YouTube videos, books, and writings.

• Google “DIY sand filter.” You can make your own water filter out of rocks and sand. There are more videos and other tutorials out there than I can possibly mention. I have made one of these together with other people as a group activity at a permaculture convergence, and it’s fairly simple. But at my own place, if I use anything, it would just be a cheesecloth. Of course, you can also choose to purchase one of the popular models of water filter, such as the Brita or the Berkey.

• Also, if you use this blog’s search function to do a search on “rainwater,” you’ll probably find a number of posts I’ve written offering simple tips for collecting rainwater.

• Brad has a whole channel on YouTube. Great stuff! This video is one in particular that I recommend. “Planting the Rain To Grow Abundance.” A TEDx Tucson talk; very engaging 16-minute overview. I always assign this as pre-homework to people attending my talks and classes on rainwater collection.

• “The ancient Sri Lankan ‘tank cascades’ tackling drought” (Zinara Rathnayake; bbc.com). “A 2,000-year-old Sri Lankan hydraulic system uses natural features to help harvest and store rainwater. In a rapidly warming world, it is providing a lifeline for rural communities. … By releasing water into irrigation canals below, the tank supports the rice crop during the dry months before the rains arrive. For nearly two millennia, lake-like water bodies such as this have helped generations of farmers cultivate their fields. An old Sinhala phrase, ‘wewai dagabai gamai pansalai‘, even reflects the technology’s centrality to village life; meaning ‘tank, pagoda, village and temple’.”

Someone in my feed posted about privilege. They mentioned that they had encouraged a friend to take more risks in his career. To which the friend responded, I am supporting my wife, my kids, my parents, and a sibling. If I mess up we are out on the street.

This is something we always have to keep in mind when encouraging people to take risks. Not everyone is in the privileged position of being able to afford to take risks.

Good news though!!! We can help!!! Those of us who are in a position to do so can help reduce the risk for our friends/family members who might want to try to explore a different livelihood. A lot of time, the livelihoods people want in their hearts are better for the planet and their community than whatever they’re doing right now for steady money.

Therefore, by helping these people, we are helping communities and the planet also, in addition to helping our friends.

Those of us who are in a position to do so could, for example, help a friend or family member pay off student loans or medical debt. Give a friend a free or super inexpensive place to live in our houses. (Some people have extra rooms or even entire extra houses that are usually not occupied.) And we can help them pay for training for their desired occupation. Or, if it’s a self-worth issue rather than a training issue, we can help them access that type of support, therapy, and so on.

You could buy them a book or a consulting session about how to transition to entrepreneurship. Or (and) maybe a session with an alternative finance coach.

There are no guarantees in life, even with the so-called “safe and reliable” occupations. Jobs can disappear anytime. We can offer encouragement and support in various ways so that a person can explore more meaningful paths without unnecessarily risking their family’s security. We only go around once, at least in this lifetime. Everyone deserves the chance to explore and be able to do meaningful work.

Don’t have any extra money or other surplus material resources to help? No problem! There are many other ways you can help a friend spring themselves from the rat-race treadmill.

We can use our social connections to introduce our friend to someone who’s working in their target occupation. Someone they could talk to in order to get some inside information and tips.

We can also offer them any professional services of our own that might help their business. For example, are you good at Web design? Publicity? Bookkeeping? Merchandising? Writing ad copy? Whatever your skills are, you might be surprised at how useful they could be to your friend, family member, community member who’s trying to launch a regenerative community business.

And we can point our friend or family member to free websites, YouTube or TikTok videos, and other free resources relevant to their quest.

On that note, I recommend Mike’s platforms, Laura’s platforms, Eric’s platforms, and (when they or you are able/ready to invest $40), the book we co-authored, Growing FREE (Financially Resilient and Economically Empowered).

In a class I recently co-taught (with Mike and Laura and Eric), I mentioned spiritual consumerism. It’s something that’s easy to fall into, as we are in a colonizer consumerist culture. The culture we were born into has used “employment” and buying stuff and having stuff as a substitute for community and spirituality. Accordingly, as we start to extricate ourselves from building our lives around “jobs” and consumerism, the spiritual void within oneself often becomes more gapingly obvious.

And it seems like there are a lot of people out there who are trying to fill that void with a hodgepodge mishmash of spiritual practices that are taken out of context of the cultures and communities where they came from.

So we have yoga bossbabes, gringo-run ayahuasca retreat centers, new age pocahontas cosplayers selling “dreamcatchers,” etc.

This stuff always felt cringey to me. I do think exploring spirituality is a beneficial thing, but we have to be mindful of where it crosses over into cultural appropriation and spiritual tourism. I like to listen to what people from the cultures where the practices originated from have to say about it.

If you’re curious, I suggest searching “cultural appropriation” on TikTok (or other platforms, or just google if you can’t access TikTok) and listening to what indigenous peoples have to say on this topic. Yoga + cultural appropriation, ayahuasca + cultural appropriation, dreamcatchers + cultural appropriation, etc.

Exploring spirituality is a good thing and something we need more of to counter the deadly effects of capitalist / colonizer culture. And we will be taking a step forward if we can manage to fully internalize the worldview that all of life is interconnected, and all species have just as much right to exist as humans do. (That’s actually the second ethic of permaculture design: Care of people and all other species.) But we can learn a lot just by listening; there’s no need to take what isn’t ours.

It’s even possible to participate directly in indigenous rituals and practices without appropriating. Questions we should ask ourselves include: Have we been invited? And if money or other payment is involved, is it going to indigenous peoples? And, can we participate without causing ecological damage (like, for example, from large numbers of people traveling to the Amazon). And, Do we refrain from setting ourselves up as authorities of other cultures’ spiritual practices? And, Do we go beyond just using it for our own personal feeling good, and actually use the sense of spiritual groundedness and liberation to further our activism; work for the greater good? Do we avoid spiritual bypassing?

The white colonizer culture is spiritually empty, but stealing from other cultures is not the answer. We have to look into our own roots, look within, connect with the bioregions where we live, etc.

“Microdosing” to ease the pain of modern life isn’t the answer either. What happened to looking deeper at what’s making life so hard in general, and trying to help make a better world for everyone, as opposed to just trying to adjust our own mood? Again, there people go trying to find substitutes for community and genuine spiritual transcendence.

What if these moms were instead to get together and rebel against the things that are making their life suck so much?

This morning I found a set of two videos by Alquimista, an indigenous Guaraní sister on TikTok. She offers a summary that I found helpful.

Gatekeeping or Resistance? Part 1: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8636Xbv/v

Gatekeeping or Resistance? Part 2: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8635N37/

This blog post was sparked by a thread that Mike started on his page. Some of the responses gave a lot of pushback. One person asked why are white people trying to gatekeep indigenous practices?

But, white people cannot ever gatekeep indigenous practices. What we white people can do, unfortunately, is a lot of damage. By appropriating and commercializing indigenous cultures and spiritual practices, we take resources away from the original cultures, dilute the intent and power of the practices, and in many cases damage ecosystems and contribute to the erasure of indigenous cultures.

My take is that what some people see as “white people trying to gatekeep,” is actually those of us who have taken some kind of leadership in the Permaculture community trying to call out when we see this kind of thing happening in the community, because it’s really not what permaculture is supposed to be about and yet it is so prevalent.

I think when Mollison ridiculed and warned against “woo woo” creeping into permaculture, this kind of thing is what he meant. I have no doubt that Mollison himself had lots of deep spiritual experiences, but that he had them through connection with fellow beings and ecosystems rather than using some hodgepodge of appropriated trinkets and stuff.

#spiritualtourism #culturalappropriation #culturalerasure

Further exploration:

• “Is it Cultural Appropriation for White People to Drink Ayahuasca?” Gayle Highpine; kahpi.net. “It came out that total strangers could come and participate in their most sacred ceremonies. And it turned out that they actually charged money to participate in these ceremonies. The practice that we know today as ‘ayahuasca shamanism’ has been commercialized for a long time. And it has been open to outsiders for a long time. … Amazonian indigenous people are not concerned about the ethnicity of practitioners. They are concerned about the degradation and devaluation of their profession and the bastardization of their traditional ceremonies by practitioners they consider imposters, regardless of skin color.”

•

Lots of people out there are trying to transition to an occupation that’s closer to the earth, better for the planet, better for community.

Someone in one of the groups (Deep Adaptation on Facebook) posed the question, “What did you used to do, and how did you come to transition to what you do now?”

My answer: Way back in the olden days, I did desk jobs. Editing, translation. The way I transitioned was around 2005 I started taking permaculture training, attending permaculture events, volunteering on local urban farms, taking peace training etc — and that made me less and less able to tolerate working a pure desk job with little benefit to society, plus it helped me zero in on what kinds of work I really wanted to do.

What I do now:

For some years now I have been a self-employed eco-educator. Writing; teaching various kinds of workshops (a wide range from composting to consciousness!); making art/crafts; speaking. And in the past five years I added an eco-landscaping business to my mix of occupations.

And as of this past year, I am an end-of-life Doula in training.

Because the business model I chose for the landscaping aspect of my work is gentle and human-scale, and includes sharing a lot of business with young practitioners, I expect that I will be able to do this landscaping work even in old age if I choose.

I also do occasional house cleaning jobs, using eco-friendly techniques and materials.

The person who started the thread, asking people for ideas on how he might transition to a sustainable occupation, mentioned that he had experience in construction and boat repair from his younger days, even though he has been working in an office for most of his life.

I responded: I imagine there are always a lot of boats that need repairing! A neighbor of mine stayed constantly busy that way, and also with minor home repairs. (I expect he is still staying busy those ways; he’s just not my neighbor anymore bc he moved across the state.)

Do not underestimate the number of people out there who are looking for someone to do super basic installations and repairs. If what I read on next-door is anything to go by, just about anybody handy could make a living just by being their neighborhood handy-person. Being older and experienced is a plus in this case, as there are a lot of fly-by-night people calling themselves businesses.

Also: People talk a lot about when electricity disappears, when fossil fuels disappear etc. There is really no telling how/ when that will actually happen. And if it does, it’s not likely to be sudden. But, regardless, just about every type of machine that we now run on fossil fuels used to be run mechanically (by gravity, water flow, etc) / or manually. So there will be always a need for people who know how to retrofit machinery to be nature-powered / people-powered. Probably it’s a lot of the same people who know how to do basic mechanical stuff — small engine repair, etc.

And (I keep adding new thoughts as they come to me): A lot of people in these kind of groups express concerns along the lines of “When collapse happens and people will no longer be willing to pay for my professional services.”

First, I think our human brains just have a tendency to imagine super sudden finite events; it might be easier for us to wrap our brain around a sudden “collapse” than some gradual thing. But it seems just as likely that a gradual thing is exactly what’s happening.

Regardless, just because we move to a less money-based system does not mean the need for most occupations will suddenly just go away. I think deep down what a lot of us are worried about is, to sum it up in a very primal way, “Unless I’m really great at growing food, my existence is not going to be deemed worthy of supporting and nobody is going to be willing to keep me around.” I think particularly a lot of us older people feel that.

And for that primal worry, the cure isn’t to go move out onto some vast acreage and start clearing the forest and trying to grow vegetables; it’s to address the internal, emotional issue of worth within ourselves. We have created a culture where people are not seen as having inherent worth. That’s what we have to work on. We should remind ourselves of how each person around us is precious and irreplaceable.

Our (capitalist, colonizer) society is spiritually ill, and any of us who are on a sort of metaphysical or spiritual path have a role to play in healing the collective rift between our earth-based existence and our existence as spiritual beings.

And besides, a lot of things that aren’t considered professions or occupations right now are always going to be needed. Really basic stuff like carrying water, hauling stuff, keeping an eye on things, keeping an eye on kids, keeping an eye on animals. Actually, a lot of people right now are doing businesses around all of those activities. And it’s certainly not going to go away just because the formal money economy collapses (if that even happens).

One “occupation” that has always existed is “elder.” Person who knows stuff and is a resource just because they have lived longer. This role has fallen by the wayside in our present-day society, but it’s not gone, and in a less money-based society it will only get back to being a bigger thing.

Super condensed nutshell:

• Material remedy for the aforedescribed angst: Reduce, to a bare minimum, the amount of money you need to live. (And no this does not mean depriving yourself of treats. Do distinguish wants from needs, but that doesn’t mean you don’t get to indulge some wants.)

• Emotional/spiritual remedy for the aforedescribed angst: Make plenty of time for people and relationships. Make people and relationships the most important thing in your life, second only to your connection with God, higher power, spirit, the eternal — whatever you call it.

Finally, a word about spirituality; spiritual practices. The only spiritual practices I know that are truly effective are ones that include a healthy process of confession and atonement. First thing I ran across in my life that was effective was a 12-step program which I got into as a young adult. The 12 steps include a searching and fearless moral inventory, confession, and amends. It was life-changing, no exaggeration.

Later on, when a friend introduced me to the Avatar Course, I found the compassion and integrity and forgiveness work in the Avatar materials to be extremely deep and effective, and I use those tools on an everyday basis.

Since today is the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, I got curious about how my Jewish friends do their confessions. I had heard that their process includes collective confession and atonement, not just personal. I searched and found this page about Yom Kippur confession. Good stuff.

Yes, more and more, the eco-yard trend is making the mainstream news, even making it into glossy mags and the fancy weekend magazine sections of newspapers. Here’s a nice article in Washingtonian magazine. People Are Forgoing Classic Grass Lawns for Eco-friendly Native-Plant-Filled Gardens.

“Rhodes is part of a growing movement of US homeowners questioning the supremacy of the all-grass yard, aided by an increasing number of pollinator-­friendly state and local laws. Lawns still dominate — the Lower 48 contains 40 million acres of lawn, making turf grass, by area, the biggest irrigated crop in the country. But gardens have been gaining momentum: In 2020, the National Wildlife Federation reported a 50-percent increase in registered Certified Wildlife Habitat gardens and saw a fivefold jump in the number of people searching wildlife gardening tips online.”

Even the Wall Street Journal has an article.

“‘Rewilding is returning land to a more natural state,’ says Allison Messner, co-founder and CEO of Yardzen, a landscape design company with clients nationwide. Rewilding a yard typically involves introducing regionally appropriate plants, also called native plants, and fostering habitats for local wildlife. People come to the practice for myriad reasons. Some people want to support pollinators; some want to avoid water-guzzlers; others want to signal they are climate conscious. But the overarching purpose is universal: to encourage the flourishing of natural ecosystems and to mitigate the effects of habitat loss and climate change.”

(The WSJ article is titled “Meet the Homeowners Spending Tens of Thousands to Let Their Lawns Go Wild” — But Homegrown National Park, which shared the article on its public Facebook page, emphasizes that one need not spend nearly as much. It is in fact possible to get plants for free in many cases just by talking to one’s likeminded neighbors. I will say, in my experience, as one who did one year spend probably a couple thousand dollars on plants to get my yard jumpstarted, that the investment upfront more than pays for itself as none of the typical gas-powered, chemical-laden maintenance is needed.)

And on this subject of natural yards, we need to stop treating HOA’s like they are the laws of physics or the laws of the land.

We also need to set about the possibly scary business of entering into dialogue with our local code enforcement officials. I have started doing it, and surprise surprise, they are actually human beings who are more willing to listen than I expected. I actually had a code enforcement officer advise me — advise citizens in general — to not just go with what code enforcement says but to actually enter into a conversation and explain what we are trying to do.

Same with our neighbors’ manicured yard preferences. We need to stop being so cowed by what our neighbors think, stop being so apologetic about our yards.

We don’t have to be unpleasant, but we can acknowledge to ourselves that we hate their chemical manicured yards too! Aesthetics is a two-way street. And after all, our aesthetic preferences actually have an ecological and scientific basis.

Grass-kissers talk a lot about “curb appeal is important” — as if a natural yard has no curb appeal. To which we could respond: Curb appeal is important to me! I despise the look of manicured chemical landscaping, it has zero curb appeal. Realtors and developers take note too please!

Here are some very recent photos of my coastal dunescape yard.

Those were the more dune side; this is the more forest-y side.