poor bats

       Our bat house is an important conversation piece even though it is still uninhabited.  Bats are in as dire a straight these days as bees.  Many of them have died off due to white-nose syndrome (a fungus disease), while bees have succumbed tocolony collapse syndrome en masse.  Bats are important insect population regulators and can eat their weight in mosquitos and other insects on a daily basis (wow, I would need to eat 130 pounds of food each day).  We like to give afflictions fancy names.  But what is the real cause behind these massive die offs?

            Why do we humans become so sick in later life with cancer, diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease?  Many signs point to diet, toxins and a stressful unnatural lifestyle.  Studies into white-nose and colony collapse syndrome have also indicated that toxins aka pesticides aka neonicotinoids may weaken these small creatures' tiny immune systems.  Our toxic agricultural practices are upsetting the apple cart aka ecosystem balance.  Not only is it likely that our pollinators and insect population regulators are dying for those reasons, but their die offs are causing further ecosystem imbalances down the line because we'll have trouble pollinating our produce and the insect population will grow out of whack (watch out for Zika and West Nile).

            Luckily many bats live in the cliff next to us.  Bats flutter around at dusk on warm summer nights, when most birds have settled in for the night.  Have you seen any bats lately?

why we need elders

            Children and grandchildren often lived either with or in proximity of their parents and grandparents, and in traditional societies still do, giving the younger generations access to older people they can trust, and who can guide them because they've been there done that.  Nowadays we don't always have access to that elder wisdom because parents and grandparents often live far away or perhaps we have excluded them from our lives because we were so busy. 

            But we all need mentors, guides, counselors, people who help us navigate our complex world that is going through huge changes.  The world is changing faster than ever.  Often the grandparent generation, even if around, is not keeping up with technology and social changes and is thus unable to help because they may feel lost themselves.  Heck, parents are often lost and their teens flounder and resort to drugs, alcohol, and the virtual screen world because they lack emotional support and wise guidance.  Between climate change, environmental calamities, changing economic paradigms and social structures, the refugee crisis from the Middle East and Africa, and violence and terrorism seemingly popping up anywhere and everywhere we have a lot to chew on.

            We need very special elders to guide us through these intense times so we don't get lost in despair, anguish, or aloofness.   They are around, I know some of them.  Intergenerational communication is more important than ever.

net zero

       We are finally net zero after having added more solar panels on our other two roofs this spring.  Our original panels met 45% of our electric needs; together with the new panels we should produce enough power to meet all our electric needs - for heating and air-conditioning, hot water, lighting, household appliances, as well as home office computers and office machines.  No fossil fuels, clean and silent energy.

            Taking the federal and state tax credits into account the payback on purchasing solar panels is somewhere around 7-9 years for us.  Given that the panels are good for 20-25 years we expect between 11 and 16 years of free utilities.  Not bad considering that energy costs are steadily inching up and fossil fuels are on their way out.  At today's rates that translates very roughly into a $52,000 to $75,200 savings over the life of the panels.  Not bad.  How would you like to put that kind of savings towards paying your mortgage off early or your kids' college fund?

foraging 101

dandelions

lambs quarters

         For the past few weeks I have had an abundant supply of wild greens in my backyard.  Lambs quarters and dandelions are growing with abandon. Both can be eaten raw as salad greens, used in a smoothie, or quickly sautéed or steamed with some garlic and a squeeze of lemon juice.  Dandelion leaves become bitter as the leaves grow bigger and older, so harvest the smaller ones if you don't like bitter greens.  The yellow flowers are edible and look very pretty in a salad, or you can put them in your smoothie.  Lambs quarters is a mild tasting green and can be substituted in any recipe that calls for spinach or chard. 

            In a few weeks we are looking forward to a bumper crop of blackcaps.  What's growing in your backyard?

budding blackcaps

shhhhh

              We lived right by the road for over twenty years and didn't realize how much all that background noise affected us - until we moved.  Now we live in a very quiet place and it is heavenly peaceful all the time. 

            The machine age is only about one hundred and fifty years old.  Before that the world was quiet.  Imagine for a moment a world without engines - no cars, no airplanes, no kitchen machines and appliances, no noisy farm equipment.  With the development of electric cars we may actually be heading back in that direction, as my husband noted the other day.    Have you sat in an electric car?  You can't even hear that the engine is running.  Generating electricity from solar panels is completely silent as well.  I remember the roar of the furnace in our old house when the thermostat switched it on, the geothermal system in our new place is almost noiseless.

            Quietness is grounding.  Alone-time is important to reboot your mind.  Are we headed back to a quieter world?  Will it help us to become more grounded and less frazzled?  When our children were small we reminded them every once in a while that they needed to stop chattering for a bit and said "It is quiet time now."  Find some quiet time every once in a while, it brings peacefulness. 

shut them off

          Oh boy is it easy to look for entertainment and distraction on your computer or cellphone.  Facebook, my email in box or Instagram can seem quite interesting when I'm supposed to be working.  Just a quick look, maybe something fun or important came in, I'll go right back to work.  Or a quick phone check while you're with friends, or before bed, or God forbid at the dinner table.  You never know, emergencies do happen, maybe someone really needs to reach me right now.  It drives me nuts when I see a party around a restaurant table all staring into their phones instead of enjoying each others' company.  Or a parent at the playground more interested in their phone than their toddler.  Or a ringing cellphone in the middle of yoga class, and worse during savasana.

            Recently a woman was killed in Manhattan when she walked across the street tapping away on her phone and failed to see the oncoming car.  Shut them off every once in a while, those devices, and enjoy your kids, your dinner partners or your yoga class.   Close your email and internet while you're working.   Here a related former blog post on being in the moment.  One last thought - your behavior is a model for your children.  

small is beautiful

         Ice cream servings in a cone are small in Europe, probably a bit less than half the size of the big scoops we are used to over here.  Generally we equate big with good because bigger is better, right? Cars used to be the size of boats in this country until people became more energy aware.  "How was the food at that new restaurant?"  "It was great, we had a lot of food."  Huh?  But how did it taste?  May be the portion was too large if you need to take half your meal home in a doggy bag.  

            E.F. Schumacher was way ahead in 1973 when he argued in his economic classic Small is Beautiful that building our economy on eternal growth is not sustainable.  Indeed, our planet doesn't expand.  Around the same time Frances Moore Lappé wrote Diet for a Small Planet.  She pioneered the discussion around the terrible environmental impact our industrial "meat production" causes and argued for vegetarianism.

            Interest rates have been shrinking, they are even lower in Europe than here,  and discussions on negative interest rates are popping up - getting penalized for leaving your money in the bank.  So spend it or put it under the mattress. 

            All of these are signs that small is beautiful, bigger is not sustainable, our economies need to shrink to halt the consumerist excess and environmental damage we have created.  Think quality over quantity.  "How delicious was that meal?" not "How big was it?"  "What beautiful material is that dress made of?" not "Buy 2 for the price of 1."

sloooooow yoga

           Slow anything is beneficial as an antidote to our fast paced lives, whether Slow Food, Slow Yoga, or Slow Something Else.  Slowing an activity delves deeper because there is more time to be attentive and reflective and experience what you are doing more deeply.  I go to both Slow/Gentle  Yoga and Yin Yoga classes and they are wildly different from the yang oriented vinyasa, power yoga or hot yoga practices that are currently so popular as an extension of the frenetic gym culture.   In Yin Yoga, which is floor based, poses  are held for longer periods of time, usually 3-5 minutes, and up to 10 minutes.  The connective tissues have time to relax and stretch, encouraging energy flow and releasing blockages.  Slow or Gentle Yoga, as its name indicates, takes it slowly and gently, and can be compared to a moving meditation.  Breath is important in this practice.  Both are calming and I usually come back feeling like I've had a spa session.  Also check out this comprehensive beginner's guide to Yin Yoga.

            You can slow any activity to experience a different spin on things.  Try Slow Cooking, Slow Eating, Slow Teeth Brushing, Slow Showering, Slow Reading. 

how you treat animals

             Mahatma Gandhi said "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."  He has a point.

            More of us need to know how the majority of animals raised for human consumption is treated - it's dreadful, and maybe this term isn't even strong enough (read Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals if you really want to know more).  It also says something about us that pharmaceuticals are tested on animals kept in captivity and subjected to potentially harmful side effects.  And that kill shelters exist is a horror.  Betta fish are routinely kept in solitary confinement in minuscule bubble tanks.  Thank goodness big game hunting is on its way out, the ivory trade also (they kill the whole huge elephant just for the tusks and don't even bother eating the meat), almost, and shark fin soup popularity is down (see an earlier post on that).  But people still wear fur coats and the Chinese still illegally trade animal parts they believe have healing properties.  Nevertheless, zoos treat animals much better nowadays than say a hundred years ago, providing them with habitats that resemble the places they came from, diets as close to their natural diets as possible, and distraction and exercise in enclosures that are much smaller than their natural territory.

            I believe that we are unable to harm an animal once we look it deeply in the eyes - because then we connect with its soul.  When animals are kept in pens under anonymous conditions we don't connect with each one individually.    That's why people have no qualms about eating supermarket meat.  If we all had to look our steak in the eyes, work in a kill shelter, spend a week in a slaughterhouse or a pharmaceutical animal testing lab things would change very very quickly.

what will be your future?

           Many people still have a hard time believing that their thoughts create the world around them, their experiences, even their afflictions.  But look around you, look at your friends, look at the place where you live, look at the stuff you own, look at your job and your hobbies.  Haven't you created all of it?  If you have a beautiful garden you love gardening and you created it.  If you have a negative friend and don't appreciate him/her reflect on why that person is in your life, then make a decision.  It's your intentions, your efforts, your thoughts and beliefs, what you did and did not do, what you did and did not think and believe that is reflected in the world around you, individually and as a culture. 

            If you don't like what's happening with the environment you need to do something about it on a personal level, change apathy and acceptance to thoughtfulness and action. If you don't like what you see, if you don't like what and who you are, dig deeper to uncover why and how you have created what you have created.  Inspect the underlying beliefs and thoughts that went into it.  It takes some work, it might be tedious.  But who said it was easy?

            Today's thoughts create your future.  If you think the same thoughts today that you thought yesterday your future will look like today.  If you don't like today you need to change your thoughts and beliefs today to create a different future.

            So what would you like your future to look like?