Tryin' On Clothes

When I was traveling around in Ireland I thought I would leave the delicious-food-and-Jamesons-filled confines of the Dublin couchsurfing ambassador's house to head over to stay for a few days on a nudist colony. - After chatting with the people at the nudist colony through CS a few times it made me think that it is not my scene. Plus Ireland is really too cold and rainy to be naked all day long, even in summer.

Anyway, I read this poem by Shel Silverstein at the time called 'Tryin' On Clothes' and thought of it as a silly nudist poem. Today I rather see it as a deep ecology poem about a true and close relationship between humans and nature. - The amazing diversity of outward expressions of identity and culture sometimes help us to have a deeper sense of place (i.e. indigenous clothing) but the majority of it seems to be about ego and consumerism (see 'the story of stuff'). - So it I see this as a poem about 'Tryin' On Clothes' in a deep ecology sense and perhaps allowing a kind of nudity of the ego and of outward expression in deference and connection to a true natural self and place.

I tried on the farmer's hat,
Didn't fit...
A little too small -- just a bit
Too floppy.
Couldn't get used to it,
Took it off.
Tried on the dancer's shoes,
A little too loose.
Not the kind you could use
For walkin'.
Didn't feel right in 'em,
Kicked 'em off.
I tried on the summer sun,
Felt good.
Nice and warm -- knew it would.
Tried the grass beneath bare feet,
Felt neat.
Finally, finally felt well dressed,
Nature's clothes fit me best.

The Religious Forest Sites map

Some hopeful resources may be emerging from the academic world: The Biodiversity Institute at Oxford University is working in partnership with the Alliance of Religions and Conservation and the World Database on Sacred Natural Sites to create something called the The Religious Forest Sites map.

The lead professor from Oxford Sonil Bhagwat has said: "Where data is available about the boundaries of these forests, it will hopefully give the local communities an instrument to help argue that these are the sites that they have traditionally been protecting for a long time. They are sites which have lasted through several generations."

Nothing is on the map yet about Animist forests (other than the Shinto) so there seems to be a lot to do to get this map up-to-date.

Alliance of Religions and Conservation is attempting to start crowdsourcing information about more sacred forests areas: http://www.arcworld.org/projects.asp?projectID=557

Oxford is also accepting notes and information http://www.biodiversity.ox.ac.uk/researchthemes/biodiversity-beyond-protected-areas/religious-forest-sites/

Here is a poem from Wendell Berry entitled 'How to be a Poet (to remind myself)' about the sacredness of forests and of the human-nature relationship.

Make a place to sit down. 

Sit down. Be quiet. 

You must depend upon 

affection, reading, knowledge, 

skill-more of each 

than you have-inspiration 

work, growing older, patience, 

for patience joins time 

to eternity… 

Breathe with unconditional breath 

the unconditioned air. 

Shun electric wire. 

Communicate slowly. Live 

a three-dimensional life; 

stay away from screens. 

Stay away from anything 

that obscures the place it is in. 

There are so unsacred places; 

there are only sacred places 

and desecrated places. 

Accept what comes from silence. 

Make the best you can of it. 

Of the little words that come 

out of the silence, like prayers 

prayed back to the one who prays, 

make a poem that does not disturb 

the silence from which it came.

― Wendell Berry

Permaculture and Biodynamic

Today in Chico News and Review there was an interesting piece about the Heartseed Community Farm. It seems that the Heartseed farmers Kee, Ron Toppi, and Elliott Proffitt were inspired by Paul Kaiser at Singing Frogs Farm and are running a farm based on Permaculture principles and some of the ideas of biodynamic farming. Reading about their awesome farm and the great ideas of these farmers made me want to revote Permaculture and Biodymnamic to think again and compare and contrast.

A little history: Biodynamics is a farming religio-philosophical practice that grew out of the lectures of Rudolph Steiner and the Anthroposophy movement in the early 1900s. Permaculture is a philosophy-design farming and living method that grew very recently out of the books and talks of Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. Both permaculture and biodynamics seek to create sustainable patterns of living and growing food based on systems of ethics that deal with how humans treat the earth and each other.

Farming Practices: Biodynamics is considered to be beyond organic while permaculture is not necessarily organic. Biodynamic farming has restrictions for chemical and intensive farming methods while permaculture relies on good planning and the know-how and sensibility of the people in the system.

Culture: Biodynamics has more of a structured community - there are groups that inspect and certify 'biodynamic' or 'demeter' foods. There are also many communities, schools, and businesses that are tied in with the biodynamic movement. Permaculture more of a movement, there are legal limits on who can offer permaculture design courses but the word permaculture itself is not regulated in any way.

Philosophy: As I said before both are based on sustainable patterns of living and social and ecological ethics. - Biodynamics also includes some ideas that might be described as 'mystic' or astrological although that is a rather small portion of the movement's beliefs. Steiner was a philosopher who was interested in metaphysics, and this is central to biodynamic farming. Permaculture has more of an ecological-science approach - the mystical and esoteric is something each individual deals with as they like.

So the point is that these two systems of farming can be complimentary. A permaculture farmer can be biodynamic as well. Neither is mutually exclusive but each is unique enough not to confuse one for the other (you won't necessarily find a permaculture farmer out burying horns filled with manure under the full moon or a biodynamic farmer with swales dug across the contours of his fields). To paraphrase Bill Mollison 'Permaculture is the wardrobe and biodynamic can be a hangar inside the wardrobe'.

"Die Kunst ist ewig, ihre Formen wandeln sich.
(The art is eternal, their shapes are changing.)"
― Rudolf Steiner

"Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex,
the solutions remain embarrassingly simple."
― Bill Mollison

"Traditional agriculture was labour intensive, industrial agriculture is energy intensive, and permaculture-designed systems are information and design intensive."
― David Holmgren