blog

Starting a list of lists that are super helpful to me in an ongoing way. Frameworks for understanding & addressing problems in the world; designing my life; supporting beauty and compassion and truth; making the change I want to see more of.

Work in progress; office-ing on the fly; will add links as time permits.

• Let’s stop doing this:

15 characteristics of white supremacy culture – Tema Okun whitesupremacyculture.info

14 early signs of creeping fascism

• Let’s build beautiful, caring community:

12 principles & 3 ethics of permaculture design – Bill Mollison

Principles & ethics of permaculture design – David Holmgren

9 leverage points – places to intervene for making change in systems – Donella Meadows

8 forms of capital

4 R’s of Deep Adaptation deepadaptation.info

(Need to check & see if there is a list of principles of Degrowth/ steady-state economy)

In general, nope! Not going back.

Like … Why? Why would we???

Plane travel?? Hotels (at $100+ a night “special” conference rate)??? … I guess some people are feeling rich.

Me, I’m feeling thrifty. Thriftier than ever! Not only with my money but with my time, personal energy, and of course eco-footprint.

The relentless drag-back to in-person conferences is particularly jarring when it comes from organizations dedicated to the environment and/or social justice.

Then again, I’ve had the benefit of having attended many conferences and trainings in the days long before I knew the word “eco footprint.”

And during the pandemic shutdown I attended more virtual conferences than I can even recollect. So many valuable conferences, many of them international! Affordable moneywise and feasible timewise, thanks to Zoom and other telemeeting technologies. (Attending in person would not have been an attractive option for me even if I didn’t care about the footprint. Probably many other freelance / grassroots educators feel similarly.)

Some people and orgs I really respect are going all-in-person, no virtual option. I think this is one of those times I just need to relax and do my own thing and try to avoid feeling too rattled from an eco standpoint. Maybe enough people now are happy “converts” to virtual that things will naturally sort themselves out.

When it comes right down to it, I can’t really claim any high ground or judge someone else just because they happened to have been born later, be at a different point on their path of life-adventuring, etc.

Those of us who call ourselves “environmentalists” and have been around longer, should have been pushing back long ago. Instead, we ourselves helped normalize (for example) world leaders and corporate moguls jetting all over the planet every day instead of picking up a darn phone. This hopping on airplanes at the drop of a hat should not be normal, but by our failure to speak out strongly against it, we the olde guarde “environmental” movement have helped make it normal.

But, all that said, if you share my aversion to going back to the hectic and expensive business-as-usual, just know that you are not alone!

Note: As always, my admonition is directed toward white-centered / white-led institutions here, since we are the ones who created and uphold these systems of consumerism, eco destruction, exclusion, erosion of local community. And we need to lead the dismantling of societal defaults that are harmful to people and planet.

Fresh homemade candied grapefruit peel NOM NOM NOM!!!!

As a bonus, the first two boilings (where you boil the pieces in plain water & then discard the water) don’t have to be discarded! I used it as a tea. A quite bitter tea but it suits my body’s needs at this moment.

I found these two websites helpful:

• Candied grapefruit peel recipe, plus six other great uses of grapefruit peel:
https://wintersweetz.com/dont-throw-away-those-grapefruit-peels-use-them-in-these-7-creative-ways-instead/

(I have often used citrus peel to make multipurpose household cleaner, but I take a simpler approach than the website describes; just soak the pieces in white vinegar for a few days & voilà. But, sometime I might try their recipe, which includes borax.)

• Fresh organic grapefruit peel tea and its many benefits:
https://stephaniewilgernc.net/fresh-organic-grapefruit-peel-tea/

“Aids Lungs and clears nasal passages, removing toxins. Reduces heat and cold and phlegm. Moves the chi. Also helps Large Intestines and Stomach. Liver and Heart.”

Nice!

The so-called “Golden Rule” of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is my go-to.

Granted, it doesn’t always work. Like, something I would want someone to do to/for me, isn’t necessarily what another person would want.

Still, it’s a reliable rule because I can always say I did my best (assuming I had no other information about what the other person/people would want). So it helps short-circuit regrets and second-guessing.

In the Degrowth and Deep Adaptation movements, one topic that often comes up is whether we should have hope (and encourage the general public to have hope), or whether hope just makes things worse by perpetuating our dysfunctional ways.

My takes:

One, I think people have different meanings in mind when they say “hope.” For me, a kind of hope I do NOT agree with is the very-popular “one technology will save us” kind of hope. That is false hope.

Two, I think a lot of what’s missing from our perennial discussion of “Giving People Hope vs No Hope” is that there are other very deeply rich and compelling reasons why people get out of bed in the morning, that have nothing to do with whether they feel there is hope for the outcome they want.

Such deeply rich and compelling motivations include:

• Love
• Joy
• Heartfelt desire to be in service
• Creativity/self-expression drive

… all of which can and often DO persist even when “hope” is gone.

I say this as a human and as an end-of-life doula-in-training. I am by far not the first person in the “death professionals community” and “doomer-lite community” to draw a parallel between what transpires with individuals who have been issued a terminal diagnosis; and what can transpire with societies (capitalist, Anglo/Eurocentric industrialized society — as opposed to indigenous cultures) that have proven to be unsustainable and in effect been issued a “terminal diagnosis.”

By the way, I like what Steve Bull has to say here (this is from his latest piece on medium.com):

“What sliver of ‘hope’ I have remaining is that some of humanity (particularly those amongst the privileged minority that have been the largest contributors to our predicament) quickly sees through the fog that is the ‘complex technology will save us’ narrative — let alone their faith in the pursuing the infinite growth chalice — and move swiftly towards acknowledging, accepting, and preparing for what is for all intents and purposes the final endgame of this tragic experiment: the Great Simplification/Long Emergency/Long Descent/Crisis of Civilisation.”

Many of us in the Degrowth and Deep Adaptation movements believe that the collapse of industrialized/consumerist civilization is inevitable. Although no one knows exactly when. Regardless: We still may have some say as to how we collapse, which is why we need to act for social and ecological justice in this context, for a “just” collapse. For more about #JustCollapse, check out https://justcollapse.org

Also: A question that often comes up in these “hope vs no hope” discussions is, If people feel there is no hope to fix things by shifting our lifestyles, why would they want to give up their consumerism or other trappings of privilege? To which I say: Maybe because many aspects of privilege are highly overrated, and when the veil is lifted, many of us come to find out we are willing to give them up.

If I had a dime for every time some person touring around the country or the world has contacted DBPG asking us to tell them “where the permaculture demonstration sites in Florida” are … well let’s just say I’d be paying for my morning cup of coffee in dimes, which would be OK w the minimart guy because they are perennially low on change!

When people would contact me with this request, I used to feel like a deer in headlights and a sorry excuse for a bioregional / permaculture portal.

Now I simply apologize, tell them I can’t help them because it doesn’t exist. There ARE many wonderful *examples of permaculture design principles and ethics* here in Florida but I don’t want any of them getting turned into “The Ideal One” in people’s minds, because it’s not a correct understanding of what permaculture is about.

People keep envisioning some utopian rural farm. Agrarian paradise. Like that’s all there is to permaculture.

The idea of some “ideal right-way permaculture demonstration site” is itself a noxious artifact straight from colonizer culture AKA white supremacy culture. Stress-inducing, pressure-inducing, perfectionistic.

Probably the first step in a permaculture design life, even before site observation, is to #decolonize our minds

We need more people to simply start applying the permaculture design principles and ethics in their home neighborhoods/regions. Apply them in their homes, schools, churches, workplaces, apartment complexes, organizations, business plans, life plans … Whatever that looks like moment to moment, in all its messy glory.

On that note I offer a condensed “permaculture basic training” that’s designed to get you started right here right now — wherever you are, whatever mix of skills and personality characteristics and tangible assets you have available to you or not, and break free of that eternal perfectionism disease that is one of the hallmarks of capitalist/industrialist/colonizer culture.

I offer a one-hour, three-hour, and one-full-day options. Prices are sliding-scale, pay what you can — starting at $25; some trade/barter also accepted. Contact me to join a class or have your own! 512-619-5363 phone/text; jnazak at yahoo dot com email

Note to anyone considering taking a full Permaculture Design Certificate course: My mini workshops will help you get the most out of your full PDC investment as well. I work cooperatively with two permaculture design colleagues who have been teaching PDCs for years.

Cheers, and I look forward to giving you personalized guidance via my mini condensed workshops. You can participate wherever you are, as I utilize eco-friendly, freely available, low-bandwidth technologies for education and communication. (On that note you might appreciate the permaculture-design concept of “appropriate technology.” I know I do! It’s one of my favorites.)

P.S. The 15 characteristics of #whitesupremacyculture include perfectionism, sense of urgency, and other attributes you will recognize because we have been taught to believe they are “just human nature.”

A bill recently proposed by a Florida State Senator would compel anyone blogging about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to register on a special list, or face legal penalties. It might only be directed at bloggers who are PAID to write about Governor DeSantis. But how would “paid to write” be defined? Might it include any blogger who in a sense gets “paid to write,” in that we use our blogs to promote our creative products, services, and so on? A question worth asking.

Either way, here I am. A real live blogger in the wild. Assuming any of my seven followers (I love you all!) are seeing this post.

Furthermore, the proposed bill doesn’t just cover the governor, but other elected state officers too; it “defines ‘elected state officer’ as ‘the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature.'” Anyone blogging about any of them would have to register, and furthermore disclose who is paying them and how much.

The senator proposing this bill is State Senator Jason Brodeur. He’s young, 47 — just one year older than the governor. (Mentioning age because I usually associate this kind of stuff with rich old guys.) And this senator was born in Daytona Beach(!).

It has happened before in history that a sycophant of a dictatorially minded head honcho will propose laws that go further than the head honcho himself would. BTW I read that Brodeur was born in Daytona Beach and is 47 years old. He represents District 10 which covers Seminole and part of Orange. Someone in our local Facebookland circles probably knew/knows him. (Added later … and maybe would stand a chance of being able to talk some sense into him.)

There, now I just blogged about two elected state officials.

Speaking of our infamous governor … “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” is always hilariously incisive. But this episode might be my favorite ever, going into detail about why Governor DeSantis merits the latest nickname that former President Donald Trump has bestowed upon him, “Meatball Ron.”

Video length approx 20 min.

And yes, all human beings deserve compassion, including these guys. But so do all of the people they’re hurting by the ways in which they’re choosing to wield their power.

BTW speaking of video streaming … As we enter Earth Day season, I have a simple eco tip for you, courtesy of Simon Robson, writing on boredpanda.com (“I Went Low-Fi To Tell the Story of High Definition Carbon Emissions for Earth Day”):

Dad you know, if watching videos by streaming on our phones, we can reduce our bandwidth footprint (streaming energy and carbon emissions) by a whopping 75% by switching our streaming settings from HD (1080 pixels) to SD (720) with no noticeable loss of viewing quality?

I actually have mine set at THE LOWEST option, “Data Saver,” which on my phone is 240 pixels, and I still don’t notice any difference. I had actually been keeping mine on the low-bandwidth setting since this issue first came to my attention some years back, but forgot to do my settings when I had to get a new phone back in October after mine died for good. So it was good to be reminded!

Another setting we can play with is the video play speed. Particularly handy for shrinking the view time of longer videos.

Robson’s piece on boredpanda (which also showcases some of his low-bandwidth line-art) also has a link to the “Earth Definition” website earthdefinition.org, where we can learn more about addressing our digital carbon footprint.

March 10: Blog legislation update: Local blogger Mark Barker reports that Brodeur’s bill has been squashed. (For now.)