blog

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.

To the many of my fellow USAmerican Boomers who talk about retiring to other countries to escape from whatever seems too horribly bad to endure (book-banning governors, backward environmental policies, atrocious sickcare system, or what have you):

Please stick around. We need to stick around and help change things. We can’t escape creeping fascism and other badness by fleeing to other countries. That might have worked for (some) people back around WWI and WWII but it won’t work anymore.

We Boomers, and I’m particularly talking to fellow white Boomers here, are THE MOST RESOURCED demographic in the entire history of the planet. If we can’t use our voices and our spending power to set things right, who can and who will?

I would also add that we owe it to our kids, grandkids, future generations. We have had it easy. No matter how hard some of us might think we’ve had it, we’ve had it easier than anyone else in history. We have an obligation now.

Along the same lines, we owe it to the rest of the world. For example, our neighbor, Mexico. It’s weird that lots of comfortably-off gringos can talk about retiring to Mexico at the same time as thousands of actual Mexicans are living in such dire straits that they risk their lives to try to come here! Other countries too, same. Many, or even most, of the dire conditions experienced by everyday people in Mexico and many other countries can be traced back to the policies and culture of the USA, so there’s more than a bit of sick irony here.

I have heard of cases of USA American people, even people who consider themselves permies, being able to buy land because some poor farmer sold their land, their HOME, to try to buy themselves passage to the USA. What are we thinking??? How do we not notice this is problematic??

For those of us who are out of practice at using our voices if it means risking loss of social capital or power-adjacency, I suggest a gradient approach. Start by standing up to HOAs and lawn-fanatic neighbors. Then ramp right up to challenging institutionalized racism and other big evils.

I know it’s tempting to think about leaving. (For me, the evil that sets me off is leafblowers and other violent landscaping machinery & practices. I’m here for all the rest of that stuff, but DAMN, those things especially when wielded with our tax dollars sometimes make me truly yearn for saner, scruffier shores. I mainly daydream about fictional English villages where power-washers haven’t reached yet.)

But, please everyone stick around! We have beaucoup work to do.

One thing that will help is to build community. This aspect of countering evil is often overlooked. In capitalist/colonizer culture we’re not very good at building community, staying in community. So we have to consciously cultivate community skills. As my friend and colleague Laura Oldanie (Rich & Resilient Living) says in her most recent e-newsletter:

“The more we the people can come together to meet our needs outside our destructive economy, the more confident and ready we’ll be to to stand up together against the climate, social, environmental, and political injustices we are seeing more and more of.”

Two community activities Laura cites as examples are time-banks, and Offers And Needs Markets (OANMS): “Participation in my local time bank has brought me new connections and friendships as well as much more joy in my life to say nothing of the money it’s saved me. I suspect OANMs provide similar outcomes for people and communities.”

By the way, Laura is offering an interactive online workshop in March titled “Free Your Mind from Capitalism.” Go here to get more details and sign up. Sounds like it’ll be a goodie!

Further Exploration:

• “How to fight with dictators in a villager style.” (From Jon Jander “Life is Easy” series on YouTube.) (This recco is from Laura’s latest newsletter too.)

In this video I attempt to use some wry humor to address popular misconceptions about environmentalists.

And, in addition to avoiding all-or-nothing mentality and cookie-cutter misconceptions, don’t forget to pursue what brings you JOY! One of the biggest culprits in hyperconsumerism & waste is when we get sidetracked away from focusing on the people, tasks, & things that really matter to us, and we end up using consumerism to fill the void.

#ClearingUpMisconceptions #EnvironmentalistsAreHumanToo #DeepGreen #WalkYOURwalk #EcoFootprint

Friends in Texas have been having another hard winter ice/snow storm, with many people experiencing extended power outages again this year. This time, unlike in 2021, a lot of the outages are from ice-laden tree branches falling on power lines.

A friend in Austin reports her power has been out for 26 hours. She and her husband are doing OK (though a bit bored), bundled up in jackets and the indoor temp is 53. (Update: These friends have now been without power 60 hours. Good news is the indoor temp is holding steady at 53. They have been able to recharge their phones by going to nearby coffee shops.)

In my experience with power outages in subfreezing weather, I too have found that low 50s indoors is definitely do-able with dressing in layers, having plenty of quilts and blankets, down sleeping-bag, etc. Finding some vigorous task or going for a walk can help too but might not be an option if every square inch of the outdoors is coated with slippery ice, threat of falling tree branches etc. (Another Austin friend had a tree branch crash through her livingroom window and another fall on her car.)

If subfreezing weather continues longer and the temps inside get colder, occupants of houses can close off all rooms and occupy one smaller room which can be warmed by just their body heat and maybe some candles. (Extra warmth if pet dogs and cats are among the household members!)

Setting up a tent inside a room is good too — but I would be super cautious about using candles inside a tent. I’ve seen tents go up in flames almost instantly when someone tried to use a candle-lantern inside the tent.

Long term, if harsh winter spells become a more routine thing, I can imagine some people might want to look into getting woodstoves for cooking and heating. I’d definitely invest in a woodstove as opposed to, say, getting a gasoline-powered generator that would be used to supply electricity.

Long underwear is also a good investment.

Also! Power lines should all be buried. I hate that the existence of electric-power lines forces trimming of trees that would otherwise be left in peace to provide shade and beauty. And I hate that people’s electric power is in constant jeopardy from weather, needlessly! Bury those lines I say! To objections based on the cost of transition, I totally agree with everyone who points out that the constant outages from ice storms and all have got to be really expensive!