Author: jennynazak

(This is to help those of you who, like me, often get requests to promote other people’s stuff, and who want to be kind & diplomatic & supportive to a fellow activist without feeling obligated to give your labor to something you don’t necessarily feel aligned with).

Good morning, I don’t know if you remember [name of person]. A longtime travel writer focused on climate-friendly travel. He needs followers to his blog. Followers are very important to getting his latest book published. It’s a subject that might interest you and you might pass it on to your eco-aware friends & associates.

Thanks, I’ll check out your friend’s blog; always good to see what my fellow people who identify as “green/eco” are saying.
But, as I have written extensively in my own book and blog (did you know I have a book and blog?), I’m pretty adamantly against tourism and air travel — not only for eco footprint reasons but also for reasons of gentrification, displacement of indigenous populations, etc.

The tourist industry, even “eco” tourism, is deeply problematic in many ways.

And doubly so for our Boomer age group and privileged demographic, who have already gotten to see so much of the world with no thought to the consequences. It’s time for us to stay home, stick to train travel and human-powered transport, maybe sailing (for people who insist on continuing to travel overseas).

Too much to fit in an email but i go into my takes on tourism, consumerism, and other eco topics on my blog DEEP GREEN — www.jennynazak.com

BTW (in case it helps give you an idea of my general orientation): Besides being very active in the permaculture design movement, I’m a strong advocate and participant in the decolonization, Deep Adaptation, Degrowth, and Bioregionalist movements.

Cheers and Happy Friday to you! And thank YOU [fellow activist] for being such a force for good in reimagining our transportation system here at home, and getting people to appreciate what we have right here; be deep tourists of our own place. It helps not only our region but the whole planet.
jenny

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(Afterthoughts: Of course, once I check out someone’s site or other work, I could end up feeling aligned with it. In that case I’d consider sharing it, but if the request comes from outside my mutual-aid community I would probably want some sort of reciprocity, be it financial compensation or mutual publicity. Even just a seemingly simple share is WORK (if you doubt it, see how quiet most people get when you ask them to help you publicize your thing); it involves risks that tend to be overlooked; and it deserves compensation!)

(More afterthoughts): 1) I referred to the person who emailed me as a “fellow activist,” and that is true … But also, to be honest, this person would probably best be considered my “superior”; is sort of a regional superstar who someone of “my status level” probably would not usually hear from. So it was a big deal for me to speak my mind frankly to this person and not just be bowled over with honor that they contacted me at all and thought I might have something to offer.

(… Ah: POWER-ADJACENT. That’s the phrase I was looking for. It always blows me away when someone who’s a lot more power-adjacent than I am thinks of me as someone to ask for help from.)

And 2) After reflecting, I realized I didn’t feel right about closing off the possibility of dialoguing w the eco tourism expert who this person was wanting me to help promote. So, I sent them a Facebook friend request.

And, I sent the colleague/superstar a followup email:

“Hi again ___,
I just found ____ on Facebook and sent them a friend request. I may not be able to help them publicize, but one never knows! And it’s always good to connect & find common ground with people who care about [eco issues]. Happy Sunday to you!”

FINALLY: These posts of mine, where I share my responses to inquiries, may or may not be helping anyone else find their voice, temper the edges where appropriate, sharpen the edges where appropriate, etc. But I figure there are probably others of you who are dealing with similar challenges so I go ahead and make these posts. If you don’t find this type of content of mine useful, I hope other types of my content will be helpful to you.

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BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! (By now I should know better than to say “finally” on my posts). There’s an additional dimension that only occurred to me belatedly.

The eco tourism writer is male. The person who approached me, to enlist my help in helping her friend, is female. Would a guy ask another guy to do this? To be fair, I’m not exactly sure of the details; for all I know she volunteered to help him, rather than him asking her. But then the next question, would a guy volunteer to help a guy in this way? Just something to ponder. Power dynamics, status hierarchy.

Other dimensions I didn’t mention: Both parties are probably a bit older than me, and I am pretty sure both are retired (as in not needing to work). My response might have been different for a young person trying to launch a livelihood; a fellow resident of my community; etc.

Also I overlooked another category of response option. This was prompted by a chat this morning with a dear friend (who is also a fellow activist). She reminded me that it’s not always obvious in the activist realm who is actually doing this as their livelihood and who is a fulltime volunteer. And, who is retired vs. still working.

One could simply write in response to such inquiries, “Hi, I don’t do publicity work but here is the name of a friend of mine who’s really good at what she does. She’s selective about the clients she takes on but he is welcome to contact her for an interview.”

Or, another possibility: “Hi, I do some publicity work for people/groups who I feel in alignment with. My hourly rate is $70. Typically I’m not in favor of tourism and air travel, but your friend is welcome to contact me for an interview to see if we are a fit.”

Re a workshop that has started popping up in my fb feed, about how to build a “fair, reciprocity-based” business of sharing indigenous plant traditions (looks like they are mainly talking about from indigenous Central & South American peoples, but could equally apply to indigenous Asian, African, Australian cultures).

My take, it’s still rooted in colonizer mindset.

Compensating indigenous peoples for their knowledge is a step up from the exploitation that we’ve all too often been doing.

That said, if more of us Euro-Americans would reconnect with our own ancestral roots, which included strong herbal & healing traditions too, we would not feel such a compulsion to go casting about into other cultures that seem “cool and exotic” to us.

Or, we could look to the plants and traditions of the bioregions where we live (with the permission of the indigenous peoples there, and always compensating & crediting the indigenous peoples).

We need to stop engaging in gringo shaman-tourism syndrome.

Tip: Do a search for permaculture guilds, bioregional groups, native plant societies in your local area. The movements aren’t monolithic but you’re sure to connect with at least some people who are on a decolonization-minded path.

(Added later in response to a comment):

To be clear: Of course I am totally on board with us learning from indigenous peoples even if it’s not our own ancestral tradition (provided we are compensating the people generously, according to their definition of generous & appropriate). And, supporting indigenous businesses.

What I disagree with is if we Anglo-Europeans are having our own businesses that are based on indigenous wisdom.

I may have to make a few tries at expressing what I mean, as this isn’t a topic that has come on my radar til recently & I’m still new at speaking up. This is my best effort for now.

Great questions coming across my feed today!

One: “Business owners, what do you do for self-care?” Answers included taking a specific day off each week nonnegotiable; not taking calls/emails after hours; scheduling set breaks during each day. Morning time for spirituality/meditation/grounding is a popular one as well.

And “I’m overbooked and tired but feel bad turning away clients who need these services; how do you deal with that?”

My takes:

One: I keep my overhead super low so I can financially afford to turn down work, in favor of plenty of free time for spirituality, family, friends, activism, taking care of my health (both physical and mental). Self-care is client care & planet care too!

Two: And, to avoid turning away clients in need, I refer them to young up & coming businesses in my same fields who are wanting more clients. Win-win-win!!

(Also, re 2, I offer pro bono guidance/oversight to the young practitioners in my community who I refer jobs to (if they want my guidance). Not only a service to them and the community; it’s also in MY self-interest to grow a healthy local business ecosystem! The ecosystem part is true not only figuratively but literally as well, when it comes to the permaculture/eco landscaping aspect of my sustainability education services!)

P.S. (Added later, when I remembered):

1) In any discussion of “cutting overhead,” I always need to emphasize that cutting overhead is NOT always an option for people.

Capitalist/colonizer culture in many cases causes people’s overhead to be needlessly high. Single Moms come to mind, as do people saddled with medical debt, student loans, and so on.

My personal practice of minimizing my overhead for personal & planetary benefit does not absolve me of the ongoing work of dismantling the flawed, toxic systems that keep people, especially historically marginalized peoples, stuck on the high-overhead treadmill.

Also

2) By “minimizing overhead” I’m not saying people should feel bad or guilty for wanting treats beyond life’s bare minimum necessities. I myself have MANY treats beyond life’s basic necessities; I’m just really selective so it goes a long way.

A lot of my fellow activists experience impostor syndrome. It can come when you find yourself chosen for an award; hired for a job / gig / contract in the mainstream world; asked to give a speech or write an article or what have you.

A few years ago, someone I had counted on as an unflagging ally and a core person in my life started demeaning my validity as a professional. At that time I was going thru some seriously rough times emotionally & financially; I was being shaken to my foundations and in order to rescue myself from the death-trap of inwardly agreeing with this person’s assessment of me I had to start reminding myself about some truths. To this day, when needed, I re-remind myself:

“I have been training & practicing for this all my life. I am a lifelong professional; have worked on the frontlines, in the trenches, where many conventional “professionals” would consider it outside their job description to go. My dedication to this work never wavers despite severe tests of hardship. I am as professional as they come.”

— FWIW if any of that is useful to any of you.

You guys have always struck me as consummate professionals of the highest order, with knowledge, experience, and competencies that run both deep and wide. You deserve this recognition and I hope you enjoy it.

P.S. Regarding “professional” office standards for dress, mannerisms, way of speaking, and such: Some of that — a lot of that — is an artifact of colonizer culture and as such needs to be unpacked & dismantled by any of us who have the leeway to do so.

On a somewhat related note – you might enjoy my mini tiktok rant about how the arts & humanities are every bit as essential to society as concrete & bridges.

Hi All!! Hope February is treating you well so far! Be sure & mark your calendars for the best book festival in the universe, the FRESH Book Festival in Daytona Beach! Head on over to the festival page, see the schedule & get your tickets if you haven’t already!

Once again this year, DEEP GREEN is thrilled to have a table. I’m preparing a variety of treats for you at my table:

• Mini talks/demos: preparedness; composting; DIY fashion / visible mending; make your own jewelry from found & upcycled materials etc etc etc!

• Showings of selected expert mini videos on sustainability topics — for as long as my laptop battery holds out 😉

• Surprise!!!! I have decided to offer a limited edition 2023 print run of 50 copies of DEEP GREEN book, with updated preface. As always, each copy has its cover individually hand-colored for the buyer/recipient!

• GET FREE STUFF — by showing me your purchase from any of my fellow vendors! While supplies last, I’ll be giving away various DEEP GREEN goodies: reusable shopping bags, koozies & other chunky upcycled creations from my “Seaside She-Shed”

• Aaaaaand last but not least!! DEEP GREEN is proud to be publishing the work of a new up & coming FICTION author!! in the permaculture, eco fiction, TEOTWAWKI/Zombie Apocalypse genre!! I will be doing selected readings from this new fiction author’s upcoming debut volume!!

The Harvey Avenue Little Free Library – East branch, 501 Harvey, is getting an upgrade!! We get some good magazines coming through the library but it’s always been hard to deal w them as they don’t really fit nicely on the shelves and are hard for library users to see.

So, I ordered some clear waterproof boxes, of the kind that some real-estate agents use to provide the public with informational leaflets at their listed properties.

My little library now has a way to display magazines neatly & weatherproof so the mags will have a better chance of staying in circulation and being enjoyed instead of me always eventually having to throw them away/compost them.

Also we now have a good way to display public-service announcements such as City Manager’s update, BNW literature, monthly calendars of our local public library, etc.!

I ordered THREE of these fancy holders, and they are now mounted on the fence alongside the bookshelves. You might be able to see pix of my library setup here; it’s a public FB page and should work for anyone.

Want to know more about LFLs and maybe start your own? Visit Little Free Library website at http://www.littlefreelibrary.org !

PS. I’m very proud of the fact that Daytona Beach has numerous Little Free Libraries, and that we are quite the bookish town in general!!

PPS. To get a glimpse at the evolution of my LFL – Check out my “porous property” videos Part 1 spring 2022; and Part 2 Feb 2023 update.

Someone shared a really cool article today in the Transformative Adventures group, about an urban village being designed by members of a church to provide a close-knit neighborhood of homes for its congregants.

I’ll share a few quotes, but do go check out the full article, which includes really pretty illustrations. (“Church Members Propose Urban Village for Congregation“; reposted on Strong Towns website; originally appeared in Public Square: A CNU Journal.)

“They have a vision to build an urban village on eight vacant blocks near … a historic commercial district in Detroit. … ‘The intent is to offer homes for the members of its congregation who currently drive from far-flung suburbs into Detroit to worship, thus transforming the existing commuter community of worshipers into a community every day of the week, not just on Sundays’ …

“The 16.5-acre site would be divided into about 200 lots of varying sizes to provide a mix of housing types — from single-family cottages to apartments and duplexes — enabling parishioners of varying ages and incomes to live in community. The urban plan retains the current blocks intact, with the exception of a central square carved out of two of the middle blocks. …

“The square is important for social gathering and provides a focal point for the neighborhood. ‘Centering on the north south street, a market square allows for year-round activities, such as concerts in summer and skating in the winter … A small commercial strip would allow for retail and local coffee shops and have offices above for small businesses. Centered on the square, a chapel would be built for the daily devotions of the parish, but also be a community landmark and a gathering space.’ On a portion of one block, an urban farm is planned.”

Wow! That sounds like it’d be a lovely and eco-friendly place to live, don’t you think? Pretty much my ideal. (In fact, the urban seaside neighborhood where I actually live has retained its prewar bones and has a lot of that village feel, which is what drew me here.)

What surprised me was the negative reactions of a lot of the people commenting on the thread. A lot of it was anti-Christian sentiment (we admins deleted some of the comments, as it was full-on hate speech).

Besides the hate comments, there was a lot of “But this isn’t permaculture” type sentiment in the comments. Designs that are urban and emphasize the community element often seem to provoke this kind of reaction among the “homesteader” faction of people who identify as permaculture folk.

One big problem we permies in the USA seem to be afflicted by is a singleminded obsession with rural-type land-use mentality. This mode of land use chews up a lot of resources, creates scarcity, and leaves people isolated. The ancient village type of pattern like the design highlighted in the CNU article has a lot more potential to be truly sustainable than the pioneer-throwback “spread-out homestead” model where every household has to do all the tasks on its own instead of coming together in community and dividing the labor according to people’s different strengths & inclinations.

This dense village could provide mutual economic/social support to many surrounding farmers, for example! It’s been working in European towns & cities for millennia.

One commenter opined that the proposed village would be dangerous by fostering tribalism, group-think, and a sequestered existence. But as I see it, the USA “permie stereotype” of isolated homesteads poses far more of a danger in terms of being a “sequestered existence” than a little urban village like this might.

One of my first permaculture teachers, Larry Santoyo, once told our class something along the lines of “Some of my favorite permaculture designs are ones where there’s not a garden in sight!” He was not dismissing food or gardens, but rather, pointing out that sometimes the best design for a given situation isn’t growing food onsite or having lots of “green space” for each household; and that there are MANY MANY facets of permaculture design that often get short shrift because people get so focused in on the gardening/food-growing aspect.

The basic categories of human needs we talk about in permaculture are Food, Water, Shelter, Transportation, Energy, and Community. The village described in this article either addresses these needs automatically by its dense design (transportation and community, for example), or could easily be equipped to address these needs (for example, including a network of cisterns to capture and use rainwater off the roofs).

This village even addresses the food component, by setting aside space for an urban farm!

What’s not to like? I say.

An important footnote to this discussion is religious trauma. A lot of people in this world have suffered trauma and abuse at the hands of organized religion. I’m pretty sure a lot of the vicious anti-Christianity comments in the post were prompted by people’s unhandled trauma.

In my book DEEP GREEN, I point out that one major, often-overlooked impediment to building community is people’s unhandled trauma (be it from family of origin, churches and other institutions, or what have you). Inner healing is really important, and there are many ways to go about it. And so many resources out there for the all-important inner work. If you want some suggestions, drop me a line.

Regarding the legitimate concerns people expressed about a design like this becoming a hub for religious cults:

Any community design has to take into account past failures and potential dangers, and improve upon the design accordingly. For example, a “planned village” like this should best be a bit porous and have lots of ties and interactions with the surrounding community (via supporting nearby businesses, maybe sharing their facilities w the general public, etc), be proactively designed so as not to be too insular.

For me, the thing that inspires me most about this design is the great potential for people to care for each other, look out for each other. I’ve often heard it said that social isolation is the main public-health problem in the USA.

It’s also ideal for supporting local businesses in the wider community, as well as people starting various cottage industries within the community.

The transportation and home-energy aspects are great too, as is the water aspect since the houses are on tiny lots rather than each having a big yard. Rainwater collection off roofs isn’t mentioned but could easily be incorporated.

The density of this village plan (regardless of whether it’s a church community or not) makes it well-suited to human-powered transport, and maybe some other things like a few shared solar-powered golf carts. And, being located within a city, this village seems like it’d be well-situated to make use of the city’s existing public transport as well.

Regardless of what your preferred living environment is, I hope you all are finding or creating a good, vibrant, nurturing community.