Francesca G. Varela's Blog, page 19

Would You Like To Buy The Sunset?

�� �� A man sits on the muddy sand along the river, watching a band of turkey vultures dip through the sky. He takes the hand of his companion, a young woman whose face is ruddy from walking against the wind. They bow their heads toward the water and listen to it sing.

�������� The whole day they sit there, lying in the sun until the clouds are pink again. When the birds stop whistling at dusk, they gather their bundled blankets, ride on rusty bicycles to the bridge, and set up camp underneath. In the morning they will search the dumpster behind the grocery store for lightly bruised produce and bread without mold.

Why are such people viewed with a varying admixture of disdain, fear, and pity? Homelessness is often associated with drug-use, crime, and laziness. However, it is seldom brought into question why the homeless lifestyle is considered inferior to the conventional American existence.

Being homeless certainly lacks convenience, luxury, and stability, and healthcare could be difficult to obtain. Contrarily, the homeless usually do not spend their days sitting in an office, or watching television, like many other Americans do. While the homeless have gained some burdens, they have lost many others.

If they have the necessities���clean, tasteful water; warmth from clothes or shelter; the ability to maintain personal hygiene; fulfilling personal relationships; and nourishing food���as some homeless people likely do, what is really so different about them?

They don���t have as many things. The homeless do not contribute to the economy. So even if they have everything else that makes life full��� emotionally, spiritually, and physically��� if they do not have it possessively, in the form of cars and homes and stereos, they are still looked down upon by the majority. It would be unheard of to consider a homeless person better-off than an overworked, lonely, tax-paying individual with a full bank account.

American culture values material and monetary wealth above all else. This is the core problem in contemporary American society; this is what has led to unsustainable, growth-driven excess.

The U.S. economy needs to grow in order to be healthy, but even moderate growth will reach ecological limits. According to Annie Leonard in The Story of Stuff, our economic system is in crisis because it ���is a linear system and we live on a finite planet and you cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely���.

Despite this fact, our capitalistic society retains the property of necessary growth, as well as an emphasis on consumption. We are encouraged by advertisers to purchase as much as possible. In order to afford such expenditures, we work long hours. As Leonard puts it, ���we���re on this crazy work-watch-spend treadmill.���

Pollution, deforestation, soil erosion, climate change, and social injustice result from current methods of industrial production and disposal. This is especially true in externalized factories, where environmental laws are more relaxed and production is cheaper.

The degradation of the natural world needed to sustain our lifestyle is readily known, yet Americans continue along the same path. Slight alterations to the system serve as distractions from the larger issue. Higher efficiency for energy and fuel appear beneficial; we could live the same lifestyle and improve the economy, just by buying green.

In her book True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans Are Creating a Time-Rich, Ecologically Light, Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy, Juliet Shor states that ���efficiency improvements actually increase the demand for energy��� [there is a] tendency to buy more of a product when its price is lower��� people increase their purchases of energy because the cheaper price effectively raises their real income and allows them to buy more��� (73).

Buy a hybrid and you will save enough money on fuel to drive farther and longer. This is known as Jevon���s paradox. Individuals often think it is enough to pursue energy efficiency. Such a mindset ignores Jevon���s paradox as well as the underlying issues making our society unsustainable.

Schor argues that the average American works too many hours because they feel the need to spend money unnecessarily (84). If one worked less, they could use their extra time to increase self-reliance and develop community connections so that their standard of living would not decrease.

In fact, despite the lowered income, one���s happiness levels would increase. Both Leonard and Shor mention studies which state that after affluence reaches a certain level above the poverty line, happiness levels remain static (144). Money and well-being are not intrinsically correlated.

Through careful manipulation, a select group of wealthy corporations encourage us to believe otherwise. In their book Stop Signs: Cars and Capitalism on the Road to Economic, Social and Ecological Decay, Yves Engler and Bianca Mugyenyi explain the influence of the automobile industry on American culture. Through planned obsolescence, automobile manufacturers long ago planted seeds of discontentment within consumers (143).

As Leonard elaborates in The Story of Stuff, if one doesn���t keep up with the trends��� whether automotive, electronic, or fashion oriented��� they are apt to feel alienation from their peers. We don���t purchase based on where our products come from, who assembled them, how far they had to travel, what resources were utilized in their formation, or how easy their disposal will be. Nor do we typically buy something because it is well-made and will last long.

We buy because we want to belong. We buy because we have been taught to express ourselves that way. Which car we drive says a lot about us. How large our house is serves as a reflection of our success in life. The clothes we wear dictate our social circle. Few products are bought solely out of need.

With our lives spent working to uphold social (material) standing, little time is left to connect with others. Judgments, therefore, are made briskly and shallowly. We judge by appearance because we don���t have time to look beyond it.

Nor do we have time to define ourselves. Most adults in the United States have no time, or energy, for hobbies, civic engagements, intellectual pursuits, or familial connection. Schor���s model of Plentitude would tell us to work less, increase self-sufficiency, and revel in the richness of abundant time (103).

Some would complain of having insufficient funds for ���going green���. They can���t afford Energy-Star rated appliances, organic bananas, and a brand new hybrid car. Perhaps that is a good thing. If they are looking to reduce their ecological impact, they should not be asking what they can buy, but what they can do without. Use a clothes-line instead of a dryer, buy local food from the farmer���s market, and walk, bike, or ride the bus instead of driving. If all of these are impossible, then simply buy less.

We have been told that we, as consumers, vote with our purchases. We determine who stays in business and who succumbs to obsolescence. This is only true if we release ourselves from the values advertisers have instilled in our culture; to buy blindly, cheaply, and often; to define ourselves primarily by how much we own.

There is a limit to how much action citizens can take regarding corporate influence on governmental decisions; oil subsidies, weak pollution laws, habitat destruction, road-building, and lack of public transportation are all defended by corporate interests. These corporations, including Ford, GM, and BP, have the money to convince politicians to vote in a way that benefits profit over all else (Mugyenyi and Engler 151).

Oligopolistic corporations persuade both government and citizen to over-consume. Energy-efficiency and the ���green economy��� satiate those who are guilty of their impact but remain afraid of drastic change. Drastic change, however, is necessary.

Before governmental policy can change, before our economy can morph from industrialized capitalism into something simple and sustainable, we must change our perception of the world. Should we not value the world itself, nature and life, over the rapidity with which we destroy it? How close to inevitable destruction will we creep before we realize what sustains us?

Water, air, soil, sunlight, and all the living beings around us bond to make the Earth our home. Perhaps the luxuries of industrialized modernity make our lives cleaner and more convenient, perhaps they allow us to stay inside and keep our minds numb, but without these natural processes, none of our luxuries would exist. Neither would we.

Energy efficiency, renewable energy, recycling, and green products will never be enough on their own. Without changing our mindsets, we would still feel the drive to use more and buy more. We would still measure our success by the size of our homes.

Success could be so much more than money and possessions. Success could be defined by what one has learned. Success could be defined by being full and warm and breathing in the air.

Or, we could forget success and all its connotations. Why not chase simplicity rather than ���success���?

The simplest things are often the most important; family, health, nature, life. Once this is understood, it is easy to relax upon the muddy sand, to greet the turkey vultures high in the air, and to simply sit and watch the sunset.

Citations:

Schor, Juliet. True Wealth: How and Why Millions of Americans Are Creating a Time-Rich,Ecologically Light,Small-Scale, High-Satisfaction Economy. Penguin Books, 2011. eBook.

Engler, Y., and B. Mugyenyi. Stop signs: Cars and capitalism on the road to economic, social and ecological decay. Fernwood Publishing Co., Ltd., 2011. eBook.

Leonard, A.. N.p.. Web. 5 May 2013. <http://www.storyofstuff.org/movies-all/story-of-stuff/&gt;.

Tagged: Author, Consumerism, Culture, Environment, Green, Inspiration, Life, Lifestyle, Minimalism, Nature, Opinion, Philosophy, Question Everything, Random, Simplicity, Society, Sustainability, Thoughts, Wealth, Writing

The Barred Owl Dilemma

When the winds come, and the branches swing, the owl moves with them. He blinks, puffing out his spotted wings. All the forest sings. There is the throaty chant of his mate. Coo-coo-coo-coo-roo, dropping in pitch at the end.

Across the creek, two owlets sit atop tree-ferns dying brown for the summer. High in the maple tree, they bob their fluffed heads in circles. One emits a squeak. It rings out among the rain darkened trees.

From behind one cedar, a stout brown owl emerges. Her wings spread soundlessly, effortlessly. Behind her buzzes an angry robin, just barely out of reach of the owl’s smooth stride. Away from the well-guarded nest, the owl glides.

She perches on the branch below her mate. There, they stare, they watch. Even as the sunlight sprinkles their faces. It is only them and the hemlock that holds them.

That is, until the early night spreads over the forest. A coolness touches the wind, bringing with it deep creek smells, soft finch songs welcoming the evening.

Then the Barred Owls dance as one, wings unison in silence. And, black eyes probing the distant meadow, they fly.

Barred Owls may not be native to the Pacific Northwest, but they have made it their home. Strix varia is strikingly similar in appearance – and closely related to – the native species Strix occidentalis caurina. Commonly known as the Northern Spotted Owl, this species lives exclusively in old-growth forests (Lamberson 505). Barred owls are less selective of their habitat, which range from pristine, ancient forests to noisy neighborhoods. In fact, a family of them live in my own forested backyard.

With overlapping territories, Barred Owls are out-competing the fragile Northern Spotted Owl. Securing resources is increasingly difficult for the Northern Spotted Owl, whose forests are rapidly disappearing.

The Pacific Northwest is known for its temperate rainforests; for Douglas Firs weeping in moss; for wild, foggy hills. Clear-cutting shaves bare this fertile terrain.

Even if rows of new trees are planted, such biodiversity is unable to be mimicked. The logging industry trades death for profit, for money. What took hundreds of years to develop is suddenly, irreparably, demolished.

One missing link in the food web will affect all the others in it. If vegetation is disturbed due to deforestation, herbivores will diminish in numbers. Then, with their prey’s population falling, carnivores will falter as well. Elsewhere, populations that were once kept in check by those carnivores will flourish, straining their resources.

Everything is connected.

Environmentalists have worked to preserve this connection. They have fought for the forest, and the Spotted Owl itself. Strix occidentalis caurina was added to the Endangered Species�� List in 1990 (Yardley New York Times.com).��As a result,�� “Bill Clinton presided over the ‘timber summit’ in Portland, Ore.” (Raban New York Times.com) ��in 1993, where environmentalists and loggers delivered their arguments on the subject of forest protection. The timber industry insisted that their livelihoods were jeopardized by stricter regulations. Environmentalists maintained that the existence of the Northern Spotted Owl was a more immediate priority.

Besides the proposed benefits to the Northern Spotted Owl, protected forestland would also provide “cleaner water and air to habitat for hundreds of other species, including endangered salmon” (Yardley). It was to be ecologically beneficial on a grand scale, and prevent a unique species from disappearing.

The following year, “the Northwest Forest Plan came into effect, protecting around 20 million acres of federal land from logging, and offering financial compensation and job retraining to the timber towns” (Raban).

Land once plumaged for profit became land reserved for life. The economic landscape of the Pacific Northwest changed drastically. Logging fell from power. Traditionally timber-dominated towns were not pleased, criticizing that an owl was considered more important than their own welfare.

Time passed, but the Northern Spotted Owl did not recover. On the contrary, its numbers have continued to drop by three percent per year on average. (Yardley)

Invading Barred Owls are a major factor in their decline (Singleton 285). Originally from the eastern edge of North America, Strix varia has experienced a “dramatic range expansion” within the last two decades (Yackulic, 2012).

In sharing habitat, these cousins compete over resources. Barred Owls are physically larger and more adaptable. Their diet is more flexible than that of Northern Spotted Owls, who dine almost exclusively on wood rats and flying squirrels (Yardley).

Barred Owls have become tyrants to Northern Spotted Owls. They kill over territorial disputes. Occasionally, they even mate, creating hybrid offspring (Hudson, 2007) .��Such mixes could dilute the faltering, genetically pure populations of Northern Spotted Owls. Although hybrids are a natural occurrence, this is “a situation worsened by the actions of man…European arrivals began removing barriers that separated related species” by clearing land and altering habitat (Oosthoek, 2007).

What is to be done about this infestation of Barred Owls? Governments, scientific communities, and environmental activists are charged with the longevity of the Northern Spotted Owl. Choosing not to act could be ” potentially dire for the Spotted Owl” (Buchanan, 2007).

According to Buchanan in Biological Invasions, there are several options.

Habitat conditions could be altered to give the Northern Spotted Owl a benefit. Alternatively, “Food could either be provided to Barred Owls to divert them from…areas that support Spotted Owls (i.e., diversionary feeding) or it could be provided to Spotted Owls to augment their diets (i.e., supplemental feeding)” (Buchanan).

Or, one could prevent Barred Owls from reproducing. This could be done by confiscating eggs, or through the use of contraceptives.

More research is needed on these methods. How they will impact the species in question as well as the surrounding ecosystem must first be understood.

An option growing in popularity is removal. Barred Owls could be moved – either through relocation or extermination. The former would be ethical but far more expensive. In addition, proper space must be found to move the Barred Owls to.

Mass death is thought to be the most effective process to decrease Barred Owl populations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service may consider killing 2,150 to 4,650 Barred Owls as part of an extended study (Livezey, 2010).

Before any action can be taken, surveying and research needs to be done. (Wiens, 2011) Barred Owl and Northern Spotted Owl interactions, as well as the independent actions of each species, should be monitored.

Seems simple, doesn’t it? Keep the prevalent species under control to save the endangered one. The question is, should we even be interfering? Perhaps this is merely a demonstration of natural selection. Yes, humans sped up the process. Forest fragmentation weakened the Northern Spotted Owl population, and encouraged Barred Owls to move west (Oosthoek). Maybe we should now let nature take its course.

Who are we to kill? Who are we to decide which species proliferate? Those are actions greater than man. We are too small to deal with them.

Then again, this is our mess. If we hadn’t destroyed habitats the world over, or hunted excessively, or polluted the earth, species like the Northern Spotted Owl would not be endangered. If we weren’t materialistic over-consumers, we wouldn’t need so many resources.

Is it not up to us to wipe clean our mess? To restore our world to its former, natural glory? Nature governs herself. She is a self-sustaining entity, unless tampered with. We have created more work for ourselves.

There is nothing beyond nature, for it is tangled up within us. How can we, for any one moment, turn our heads to ignore the damage we are doing? Could we ignore the air, the water, the sun, the sky? We cannot exist without nature’s sweet breath. Not only do we take it in, we exhale it as well.

Why, then, would we ever place money above what truly sustains us? Choosing trees over wood was the right step.

Reducing Barred Owl populations in whatever way is most wise. Let both owls serve as teachers. Our mistakes should be carried with us, never to be repeated.

Look into the black eyes of either species, and what is really important becomes instantly obvious… Not possessions. Not the made-up prestige of society.

No. What matters most is life.

Tagged: Author, Barred Owl, Birds, Environment, Essay, Forests, Life, Natural, Nature, Northern Spotted Owl, Outdoors, Owls, Pacific Northwest, Random, Writing

White-Tailed Tropicbird

��I love Oregon, but I know��I’m meant to live in Hawaii, or another tropical place. I’ve known this since the moment I first swam in the ocean in Waikiki as a fourteen year-old; when I first floated on my back and felt the colors of the sky drain into me.��I’m going to live here someday,��I thought, because I immediately felt this love, this push, this surge of energy running through me. It felt right, to be there–to be on the beach, with the warm, heavy breeze, and the achingly blue water. I wanted to stay there forever. I wanted a house with a front porch, and a hammock, and wind-chimes made of shells. I wanted to spend every moment I could��at the beach, let my hair to dry with salt in it. I wanted to sit on the sand as the heat left it, to watch the sunset and walk home through the pink-red dusk and smell the flowers alongside the road as they closed up for the night. I wanted, every day, to see the foggy hills behind me and the ocean, the ocean, the ocean; water you could actually swim in, water you could join. It felt like I had been born there, like I had been molded out of it, and I was merely returning to where I had always belonged, rejoicing in my homecoming.

On our��latest family trip to Kauai, we visited Wailua Falls on the last day. It was beautiful–tall and roaring–but I couldn’t shake the sadness of leaving. Along the cliffs, as high as the falls, a long-tailed bird flew in circles. Its wings flapped once or twice, and then it glided, like I’ve seen owls do. The bird floated, soared, cascaded; it flew, it seemed, for no reason. Not to catch fish. Not to move anywhere. I watched as it flew in circles; just flew. It reminded me of the Frigate Birds I’d seen while studying abroad in Costa Rica–the ones that appeared high above in the gray skies of early afternoon, always in the same place; always the same distant hovering.

As I watched this new bird, some of my sadness left. That bird was flying for fun. Around and around, in the spray of the waterfall. Just for fun. Just to fly.

��

Tagged: Author, Birds, Hawaii, Kauai, Life, Musings, Natural, Nature, Personal, Random, Vacation, Waterfalls, White-Tailed Tropicbird, Writing

A Walk

�������� Yesterday I went for a walk, and the world was mine. It was just me and my dog; the only two people in the river’s sight, the only two people ever to live. Heavy water spread in waves against mudded cliffs. Their sound was cylinders, wind chimes.

Always we looked past the houses lining the shore. We looked through time. I could almost see the great river when her heart beat blood and not oil. How I would have loved to swim without spitting lingering drops of poison from my tongue.

But not that day, for the air cut my hands stiff and red. A mist of soft warmth blew with southern wind. So I pretended I wasn’t cold.

We stopped to listen to waterfalls, my dog’s round nose against dark earth. Months ago my friend and I found a dead rabbit on the side of the road. Right there. For a moment we doubted his death. With a long stick we carried the eyeless face to a fern bush. And there, we let his entirety return.

Soon I started to run, just to run. I tilted my head back and ran with the sky. When I was little, I thought the sky had two colors. White and blue. But a white sky is built of clouds. This day I saw blue, and reached my arms wide. My dog trotted beside me, her fur flowing in long strings. We jumped and laughed, for it was only us.

I burst into childish sprints, just to let my feet drum, while the arms of my thick winter coat scratched against my sides. When I came to a row of nameless yellow trees, I stopped to breathe. Everywhere it smelled of winter, a flatness charmed by smoke.

In the dead leaves on the ground, in the rocks in the water, I began to know what was real. Of all humanly thoughts, what mattered, what should be broken. Suddenly I knew what meant something. I knew what was false.

And in that moment, I became first and last and only.

Then my dog and I chased the sun. On a bench we found him, pale, waning. There we squinted and sighed. The firs soon took him from us. So, me and my dog, we kept walking, and running. We gave the world back. And we followed the river back home.

Tagged: Author, Dogs, Life, Musings, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, Prose, Random, Thoughts, Winter, Writing

Recipe: Lamb Chili

I thought I would try something new and post a recipe: this is my own creation! I eat a dairy-free, gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, sugar-free, processed-food-free diet, focusing–ideally–on natural, ethical, and locally sourced products that support the Earth’s integrity. This is a stew/chili/soup with a great curry taste.

1 Ib. Grass-fed Lamb (any cut; the shoulder is usually cheapest)
2 tbsp. coconut oil or other cooking fat
1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
6 medium tomatoes OR a 14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes
1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 large bell pepper, diced
1/2 cup shredded cabbage
Spices:

1/2 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. coriander
1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 bay leaf
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Step 1: Heat a large frying pan to medium heat. Add 1 tbsp. coconut oil.

Step 2: Add lamb to pan. Allow to cook for about five minutes. Flip, so both sides are browned.

Step 3: Set aside.��Heat a large pot over medium heat. Add the other 1 tbsp. coconut oil.

Step 4: Add onion, carrots, celery, cabbage, mushrooms, and bell pepper. Cook until they begin to soften; about 5-10 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Step 5: Add garlic. Stir. Let sit for one minute.

Step 6: If you used whole tomatoes, grind them in a��food processor. Then add them to the pot. If you used a can, just pour it on in.

Step 7: Add the lamb to the pot. Then add the spices. Stir well.

Step 8: Allow to simmer, uncovered, for 3-4 hours. Stir occasionally.

Step 9: Enjoy!

Let me know if you try the recipe, and how it works for you!

Tagged: Chili, Food, Gluten-free, Healthy Eating, Life, Natural, Paleo, Personal, Random, Recipe, Sustainability, Thoughts, Writing

Foraging: A Local Food Solution

My best guess is that you���ve never eaten a dandelion. Now, I don���t mean this in an offensive way��� I just mean that most people have never had the delight of plucking one of those yellow flowers from the grass and grinding it between their teeth.

Dandelions (taraxacum officinale) are among the most notorious weeds, but they were originally harvested as a food crop and medicinal herb. They contain vitamins A, C, and E, as well as iron, protein, and various minerals. Dandelions are renowned for their effectiveness as a diuretic and liver cleanser. The entire plant, from roots to stem to leaves, is edible (Tilford 1997).

So, why do Dandelions meet their demise through chemical herbicides more often than through our mouths? The same question could be asked of Chickweed (Stellaria media), Clovers (Trifolium spp.), Bedstraw (Galium aparine), Heal-All (Prunella vulgaris), and Lamb���s Quarter (Chenopodium album). All of these are common, nutritious weeds that are edible raw (Tilford).

To the experienced eye, a walk in the park���or even down a city street���will reveal an edible paradise. The forests and fields of the Willamette Valley are home to a diverse array of temperate vegetation, most of which is safe to eat. Both invasive and native plants can be easily foraged as a supplemental food source.

Wild foods are, in certain ways, superior to their cultivated descendents. ���We have been stripping phytonutrients��� ���compounds that may reduce the risk of diseases such as cancer��� ���from our diet since we stopped foraging for wild plants some 10,000 years ago and became farmers��� (Robinson 2013 page #).

Early farmers chose to grow plants that were less bitter, lower in fiber, and higher in sugar, because they tasted better, but plants with those attributes also tend to have lower phytonutrient levels. That���s why dandelions today ���have seven times more phytonutrients than spinach����� (Robinson).

I���m not telling you how healthy and satisfying wild plants are because I think we should become hunter-gatherers. There are just too many people for that; our wild, natural resources are not plentiful enough to feed the current population, and they would quickly become depleted if everyone went out and wiped the meadows clean of Wild Carrot (Daucus carota).

Instead, we should enjoy a varied diet comprised of whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and poultry grown on small, local, polyculture farms that utilize alternatives to chemical pesticides and herbicides. We should eat reasonable quantities of wild fish and game. We should, whenever possible, grow food on our own property, or in common neighborhood areas. And we should accept the Earth���s often-ignored gift of wild foliage��� you can���t get more local than that.

We should especially harvest invasive plants, which need to be removed anyway because they out-compete native plants and take over ecosystems. We might as well eat the Garlic-Mustard (Alliara petiolata) that chokes our wildflowers instead of throwing it away, or spraying it with herbicides, right?

But you can only eat Garlic-Mustard if you know what it looks like. And, honestly, most people don���t.

There���s probably a reason why American culture doesn���t encourage wild plant consumption. By adding wild plants to your diet, you distance yourself from the water-polluting, fossil-fuel intensive, soil-depleting mainstream agricultural industry. Any step away from dependency on the dominant food system is a threat to those who run things. That���s why it���s generally perceived as more dangerous to gather supper in the woods, where poisonous plants lurk, than to eat some lettuce from the grocery store that was sprayed directly with poison.

Danger fades away with the acquisition of knowledge. Once you know a plant, you know it. A book or a person tells you that these oval leaves here, the first bush to come out in the spring, is Indian plum (Oemleria cerasiformis).

Our brains have evolved to store that information in long-term, deep memory (Thayer 2010). Once you go back to that bush, and see the white, trumpet-like flowers, and watch them grow into the berry droplets that the chickadees like; and once you pinch the ends of the branches after the winter solstice, anticipating the return of the buds, then you know the plant. You remember easily where you saw it, how to find it again. Old instincts are reborn.

Respect for the land is prerequisite for anyone considering foraging. There is always the threat of taking too much. You must remember that the other animals need to eat, too. The plants need to grow for the soil���s sake, and the air���s sake, and for the plant���s sake. But we humans also need to take from the Earth, one way or another. So let us take only what we need.

To the forager, food comes from a tangible place. The relationship between the ecosystem and our own needs then becomes strikingly direct��� if we are to be healthy, so, too, must the ecosystem we live in. This has always been true, even within industrialized agriculture; but it is never more evident than when you are kneeling in the dirt, tearing out a Dandelion from where it once breathed, and grew, and drank in the sun. The all-encompassing beauty of the natural world, of the movement of water, the passing of nutrients, and the lives being lived��� all of this is inescapable to the forager who has rejoined the cycle; because, to the forager, the Earth is alive again.

Citations:

Robinson, Jo. ���Breeding the Nutrition Out of Our Food.��� Editorial. The New York Times Sunday Review. The New York Times, 25 May 2013. Web. 15 Oct. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/opinion/sunday/breeding-the-nutrition-out-of-our-food.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&&gt;.

Tilford, Gregory L. Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West. Missoula, MT: Mountain Pub., 1997. Print.

Thayer, Samuel. The Forager���s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants. Ogema, WI: Forager���s Harvest, 2006. Print.

Tagged: Author, Food, Foraging, Healthy Eating, Life, Musings, Nature, Philosophy, Plants, Random, Sustainability, Thoughts, Writing

Inspiration

There was a time when anyone could look up at night��� anyone, anywhere on the entire planet���and, if the clouds were absent, they could see the sky in its entirety. I have always looked for the stars on clear nights, but I haven���t always found them. I���ve stood outside, tilted my chin to Canis Major, to Orion, to Bootes, to Lyra, and felt a great sadness in my chest. This is not it, I thought. There���s more. There���s the Milky Way���s veiling ribbon, the cool shadows of shooting stars, the whole sky lit to fire��� but not here. Not anymore.

Even with light pollution, the moon still waxes and wanes. It pulses between orange and blue light. It both dominates and shrinks away from the expanse of the sky; it climbs above the sun yet at other times refuses to surface above the tree line. All this, and still the moon is reliable. When I look to the moon, I feel the same way as I do when I sit next to my favorite cedar tree, or when I see Mt. Hood���s blue and white face. It���s the comfort of feeling a connection with something ancient, immutable, and nearly eternal.

It was a full moon in August, just before my senior year of high school, when the idea came to me. I went outside to greet the moon. The light was bright enough to read a book under. As it cast a thin and colorless glow over my hands, I began to wonder what it would be like to live in a nocturnal society. I wrote the idea down in my notebook, but I didn���t begin to write Call of the Sun Child for another year. At the time, I was writing other things, so I let the idea of a nocturnal people revolve in my mind. It���s a good thing I waited, because in that time, I refined my beliefs about the world, I learned to think independently, and, most importantly, I discovered what I wanted to say.

Inspired by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, I started really looking around me. As a child I had played in the forest around my house, but after I read Emerson���s Nature, the forest transitioned from an imaginary kingdom into a tangibly sacred place. As I took up studying the natural world, I also began to notice what I didn���t like about modern society��� the wastefulness, the destruction of Earth���s beauty, the disregard for what truly sustains us in favor of the imagined importance of money! It made me angry, hearing the cars on the highway as I knelt next to the creek. I hated the overly large houses blemishing the hills. The concrete covering the dirt was a dull, grotesque replacement for the true earth. I craved the wild places beyond the city. I craved a life that wasn���t ruled by made-up things. Some were okay, like the arts, like music, like literature. But, more and more, it seemed like everyone was forced to work their lives away in order to make money, in order to watch television, to buy things.

And then I realized that it hadn���t always been that way, nor did it have to continue being that way. For most of human history, all people lived simply, and respected the Earth���s life-giving processes. In my helpless juvenile state, there was only one thing I could do to rekindle in other people this desire I had found myself���or to at least convince them to love the natural world again, and to recognize that we can���t live without the sun, the river, the trees, or the air. So I wrote Call of the Sun Child. I wrote it passionately and impulsively, hoping more people would mourn the loss of the stars, and be thankful for the moon.

Originally published on the Homebound Publications blog.��

Tagged: Author, Books, Fiction, Life, Musings, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, Prose, Publishing, Random, Thoughts, Transcendentalism, Wildlife, Writing

And So The Ash Tree Grows

There is a little ash tree growing at the base of the cedars. I hope it grows tall, and I hope I get to see it tall. Someday, after we move away, there will be other people living here. What will they see? Will they know the trees as I do–wandering between their trunks, eyes gratefully skimming the sky? And will they trace the edge of the creek with their fingertips? Smile at the squirrel’s shrill whistle? Play piano so the trees and chickadees can hear through the window? Will they kneel comfortably upon the clay soil, and let the moss mingle with their skin? How will they measure time? By which branch the sun hits? If there are children, will they know to carry a stick in the summer for clearing away spider webs while playing the forest? Or will they wish for grass, as I once did? Would they even notice the ash tree? Would the even notice the cedars?

Tagged: Author, Childhood, Life, Musings, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, Prose, Random, Thoughts, Writing

At Sunset

Please. Don’t forget there are stars.

Sometimes I look at the sky,

at the sunset red along the treetops, and I feel nothing at all.

I’m not really sure where this nothing comes from.

All I know is that if I keep staring, just keep watching the sun,

then something will stir, and,

once again, I’ll feel that welling of nostalgia, or contentment;

the sadness of knowing the sunset ends;

and the sadness of knowing the day begins again.

Tagged: Author, Fiction, Life, Musings, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, Poetry, Prose, Random, Thoughts, Writing

To A Cottonwood Tree (Memories of Spring)

We are related. All life is, and all non-life; every particle of the universe.

Your cotton fluff is spring’s silent snowfall. It carries through the wind, pieces of you, arms reaching out. So peaceful it is sacred. Far in the distance the fluff is pouring out against the sunlight, just falling and falling until, all at once, the pieces rise. They scatter and disperse along the path of the wind, sticking in white clumps to the grass. And, when the wind changes direction, so, too, do the waves of cotton. So, too, do the whistling, breathing, golden leaves from which they came, and to which they will return.

You trees have your own language, I suppose. It’s undoubtedly ancient, unknown and unknowable. Maybe it’s not language, but life’s joy, instead. Look at you here– young, old, close, nearby, fluttering in the distance. When I stand under you I smell the shaded rocks in the creek, coated in moss, sharp but slippery on my feet. I see the mysterious, wild tree that sprouted up in our garden, its bark covered in ants. My mom thought it was a weed; The Weed Tree, she called it. Turns out it was a young Cottonwood. Each summer–until we cut it down to save the driveway from its roots–I thought of climbing its lithe, thin trunk. I never did.

Tagged: Author, Childhood, Cottonwoods, Life, Musings, Nature, Personal, Philosophy, Prose, Random, Thoughts, Writing