September 11, 2009
A Play on Words, by Farmer Ryan
Words.
We use them everyday to construct our realities.
They give definition to who we are and how we relate to others. Mother, brother, friend, foe…son. But why do we care so much about these distinctions? Are we all not just atoms and energy taking new shapes and forms as nature recycles us through time?!
Alas, while words are useful for communicating ideas, they can also get us into trouble if they are misinterpreted by or offensive to another party. Signage litters our beautiful landscape and because of our exceedingly strong attachment to the convenience of labeling, almost everything everywhere now is. When was the last time, other that perhaps buying vegetables at the farmers market or used clothing at a garage sale, did you buy something that didn’t come in packaging cloaked with letters and numbers?
Sure, sometimes labels are good, like “Danger: Cliff”, but often symbols and pictures do just as good a job - we all know, despite our mother tongue, what the skull and cross bones symbol means, don’t we?!
So what are words - what use are they really? Are there alternatives to the spoken, written and increasingly so, typed lexicon that presently dominate our lives?
This question struck me today while talking on the phone with someone when despite my best intentions I couldn’t find the right words for what I was feeling. What’s more, because the person on the other end of the line was similarly trying to use words to express themselves, what without the assistance of body language or facial expressions to support the talk, I believe we were both left dissatisfied and confused by the conversation…at the very least disappointed because it was such a poor substitute for the real thing. The fact that we were both on cell phones certainly didn’t help. And as much as I love pressing a plastic electro-magnetic device to my ear, I’d much rather be holding someones hand or looking them in the eye while having that same conversation, more conscious of their complete being.
And my gripe is not just with these new technological mediums through which words are exchanged. I’m hypothesizing that our abuse of words themselves has had as much to do with the devaluation of discourse as the new mediums through which we’re now prone to communicate. Every tried to get a serious conversation going at a dinner party without people starting to squirm in their seats? I find it unfortunate that the general quality of conversation, the appetite if you you will for serious meaningful discourse, has fallen second fiddle to the consumption of mainstream media. Reminds me a little of the food system paradigm with which we currently struggle: quality vs. quantity.
Speaking of which, the word ‘organic’ is probably the best example of a once great word that has been so stretched and distorted to mean just about anything that it now lacks any true meaning or authenticity. ‘Zen’ this and ‘Buddha’ that are two other catchy words with ancient histories and profound meaning that are now so co-opted and dubiously commercialized as to be bordering on offensive to their origins. ‘Sustainable’ is certainly another word which has come to be meaningless, or at least carries a lot less weight than it used to.
And in this increasingly green, altruistic world that we are supposedly living in, we probably shouldn’t be surprised to see people using and abusing these terms that were ushered into our lexicon with new age environmentalisms and spiritualities. People are just getting with the times I guess…
So what?
I’ll tell you what.
In this new day and age, as more communication goes digital and we have less face time, I suspect people are experiencing more mis-communications. Not to mention that this increasing dependency on mobile digital communication has, I think made people far less capable and independently minded than we were before. Do you really need that GPS cell phone to find your way to the corner store?! “But I like to have it for emergencies!” Right, like the time when you forgot your own phone number and had to call your friend to find out…alas, were all guilty to some extent, but have we no idea where to draw the line?
Furthermore, as trendy words get stretched to fit every opportunists agenda, words themselves are becoming more meaningless than ever before.
Take the word love for instance.
Is ‘loving’ peanut butter sandwiches the same as loving another person? Doesn’t do much justice to LOVE when it can used interchangably in so many situations…and yet I wonder where the word originated?
(Time for a quick Wiki…)
“Love is any of a number of emotions and experiences related to a sense of strong affection[1] and attachment. The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure (“I loved that meal”) to intense interpersonal attraction (“I love my boyfriend”). This diversity of uses and meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.”
(And it goes on - quite an interesting page in fact and a good overview of different cultural and religious perspectives on the phenomena.)
Alas - where are we going with this? Have we another senseless late night rant on our hands here, just more words, or is there something more to this?
(Wait for it…)
Anyone ever gone for a whole day without using words? Perhaps you’ve tried a Vipassana retreat or undertaken a solo trip in the wilderness? Personally I have dabbled a bit with both and truly I think both paths can lead to similar discoveries about one’s self and one’s place in the Universe. To bad we can’t find the time to do it more often or somehow blend more quiet contemplation into each day. Did someone say ‘tree time’?! Shantree?! Bueler?!
When we leave words behind and replace them with contemplation, observation and, if necessary to communicate, perhaps gestures or even telepathic communication, we discover whole new languages, planes of existence and states of being. Clarity of mind, calmness of body and peace with the Universe are I understand common emotions among those that are able to achieve higher states of consciousness through prolonged silence, meditation and contemplation.
Sounds pretty good, eh?
“But, but, but we need words to, to, to conduct business and, and, and participate in school, and, and, and…“
And yes I know, but here’s a news flash: we’re using more words today than likely we ever have before. Surely, in fact, between all the emails, phone calls, media, signage, labels etc. that even the average person now packs into their workday, we’re filling our heads with letters and numbers that would have overwhelmed our ancestors.
So is this a step forward? I guess, but only if we are choosing our words exceptionally well and using them with the right intention. Furthermore, perhaps it’s best not to fill empty space with small talk and mass media just because we’re uncomfortable with silence, which can be hard but also rewarding if you turn it to your advantage. Personally I don’t think our success should be defined by our ability to both consume and produce an over-abundance of words each day.
In fact, could it be the opposite?
This might sound blasphemous in this, The Information Age, but might the man or woman who successfully finds happiness without having to resort to ‘lexicon abuse’ truly be happier than the guy or girl who’s constantly got a plastic thing stuck to their ear or whom has developed carpel tunnel from too many hours at the keyboard?
(Speaking of which, this rant is getting a bit lengthy so I had better wrap it up…need to find the right words!)
Personally, I’m a bit tired of words. Sure they are a convenient shortcut to understanding, but they’re only a means and not an end in themselves. I suspect there are greater truths to be discovered from listening to silence.
As a bench in cemetary somewhere south of here says (so I am told), “Be still and know.”
I might add, “Sit quietly and be.”
Mindfully yours -
Farmer Ryan
September 4, 2009
Labour of Love, By Farmer Ryan
As we take a step back and reflect this Labour Day Weekend, it’s probably not a bad idea to remind ourselves that a lot of folk have had a tough year and will be lucky to have cold beer and wieners on a stick for their Labour Day Feast.
For we the lucky ones, Labour Day should remind us of how fortunate we are
to enjoy the standards of living that we do in this country, but also that
there is much work to be done before all workers in Canada enjoy the privileges
of being a part of our fabric. Furthermore, lest we not forget the
workers who toil abroad making goods destined for our shores and for whose
welfare we should also be mindful…
Funny, though, how Labour Day has been celebrated since the late 1800’s in Canada, and yet
I could swear that the plight of the proletariat has not improved much over
this span. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the big unions (Public Outdoor
Workers, Teachers, Nurses, etc.) still seem to do well at the bargaining table,
and we all were witness to the CAW flexing their muscle as they and their Bourgeoisie buddies in management pulled
billions of dollars out of the public purse. And good for them, I
guess….although somehow I don’t really feel sorry for the GM worker that lost
his job and as a result might have to sell his Oshawa McMansion or that second
muscle car. No, and just as Communism today is not what it was in China,
Unionism too has become bloated off it’s own success in riding the gravy train
(and environmental reckoning) of Capitalism.
Bring on the case of the part-time worker, the true peasant of 21st Century ‘America’.
Unlike their brethren with full benefits, the part-time worker will often hold
down two or three part-time gigs just to make ends meet. The idealistic
notion of long-weekends at the lake is pretty far fetched for these souls, given that shift
work often entails nights, weekends and holiday hours. Strapped into the urban
economic machine as they are, obstacles are abound for this poverty line economic
class. But wait, it get’s worse.
Imagine being a ‘seasonal worker’, pulling 10-15 hour days, 6-7 days a
week in
the hot fields in a country far from home. Now imagine doing so
without any
job security - able to be sent home at the drop of a hat…or worse, an
apple. In the case of the seasonal agricultural worker, not only
do they not enjoy the rights of all other Canadian workers to form a
union, but
they face harsh penalties for even suggesting that working conditions
are
sub-par.
And not that these people
aren’t well paid and want to be here -
many of them live quite handsomely off their Canadian Government
subsidized
wages and work at good farms with respectful proprietors. Fair enough,
but…many others won’t live to return to their homelands and others
will become sick
due to farm chemical exposure or become so disillusioned with the
physical demands of
the work that they return home early as penniless as whence they came.
Which begs a number of questions:
1. Why are will still designing farms that require subsidized foreign workers
and demand huge amounts of artificial fertilizer, chemical pesticide and fossil
fuel inputs to boot? Are profits more important than the welfare of
people or the environment? Can’t communities themselves be more
responsible for growing their own food and being mindful stewards of their
environment? Sure they can, so why don’t we?
2. Why, as we approach 9% unemployment and still climbing, is it so hard
to find local people to grow local food? Would it not make sense to get
some of the folks collecting the free cheques to head out into the gardens,
fields and forests and help us all work towards more food security and better
overall health? I guarantee they’d love the work, giving them satisfaction well beyond financial!
3. And if workers are coming in from abroad to grow our food because we don’t
like doing manual work or are too busy playing golf, should they not enjoy all
the same rights and privileges as we do? I’m not sure how we can feel
great about this system of production if people are being taken advantage of…
4. If, on Labour Day and during harvest season, we can’t advocate for a
better deal for seasonal farm workers, when can we? And I know that locally
we have some little programs to help folks out that come work in the orchards -
great! Let’s give these folks immigration papers if they wish and let’s
embrace them as part of our community instead of keeping them segregated in
temporary housing here while their families are down there.
Alas, as the next round of economic expansion gets underway, incorporated
entities having shed all kinds of ‘excess labour and benefits baggage’ as they
compete for profits and race to lower labour & environmental standards, perhaps it’s not a bad
time to consider the paradigm of our existence and all the inequalities in the
world. Perhaps not - it’s up to you. (Accentuate the positive, mitigate the negative and proceed.)
Here’s to all those getting the job done: Farmers, Workers, Comrades!
Farmer Ryan
August 28th, 2009
The Convenient Truth About the Transition Movement, by Farmer Ryan
Localization, my friends, is not a dirty word.
Localization is an acknowledgement that we have to get organized at the local level, human being to human being, and equip our communities for the future. We have not the time to wait for a truly great politician to lead us, although it would be nice; we can not expect that solutions will be parachuted in from above - this has been tried and always fails.
Localization is not anti-globalization necessarily, just a decentralization of governance and autonomy such that experience and resources may again be shared on a community to community level rather than hoarded by multinational corporations and greedy governments and dictated by international trade agreements.
Localization is not poverty, the former being a response to peak oil and climate change, the later being a consequence of capitalist driven urbanization, profit driven environmental devastation and intolerable human rights abuses. In most contexts localization can, however, be an effective poverty alleviator as communities become empowered with the skills and resources to effectively build sustainable livelihoods.
Localization does not mean turnip for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We do not all have to become locavores, although we all have to take responsibility for our own actions and if we are not moving towards a more conscious diet that takes into account the ecological footprints of our food, then we are not part of the solution and should be held accountable. We can no longer brush the candy wrappers under the carpet.
Localization re-development informed and guided by permaculture principals will actually make our living environments more diverse, bountiful and sustainable, providing abundant food, clothing and shelter for all creatures with a fraction of the waste created by the post-war suburbanization that gave rise to globalized industrial production and mass consumerism. Transportation localization means both making spaces livable for auto-less lifestyles and increasing our capacity to move goods with alternative means, such as horsepower, bicycle power, water, wind and solar power.
‘Local’, by the way, is not a substitute for organic. Conventionally grown food, just like locally made goods from a dirty, polluting factory with poor health and safety standards for workers should not be tolerated by environmentally conscious residents of mindful, localized communities. Accountable local control over the building blocks of life, ie. seeds, soils, waters, flora, fauna, etc. will ensure that corporations and their government cronies will never be able to hold us hostage by concentrating control of the food system in their hands.
“It all starts off when a small collection of motivated individuals within a community come together with a shared concern: how can our community respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change?” http://www.transitiontowns.org/
Localization is not a limitation. It’s a new opportunity, a new challenge and an exciting field. The new community economy is bursting with niche opportunities waiting to be filled be entrepreneurial folk with skilled trades and creative abilities and you’ll find such people each week at your local farmers market. And as peak oil imposes it’s will on the global economic system, driving up prices on imported goods, local producers will be well positioned to meet increasing local demand.
Localization does not mean that you’ll never be able to go on another vacation, but perhaps we do need to develop a new sense of geography in order to redefine what’s sensible as oil runs out and climate change impacts intensify. A better high-speed train system would also go a long way towards helping us travel longer distances in short times. It might mean that you reconsider that annual jaunt to the south of France, the weekend getaway to Thailand or the bi-weekly commute from New York to Los Angeles. Energy use is simply going to have to change from reckless to wise use and the polluter pays dearly principle should be used to drive the transition towards the localized green economy.
Resetting our focus as communities on community might well be our best bet to transition successfully from the man against nature military industrial complex that has brought us never ending war and accelerated species extinction. To avoid our own extinction and begin to allow the earth to trend back towards peace through diversity, order in chaos, we need acknowledge the truth and seek out the greater good.
The status quo is not an option. Technology will not save the world, nor will infinite economic growth, mindless endless media or infinite consumer goods make us happier.
We need a new paradigm, a new manner of thinking, if mankind is to survive and not drag ‘womenkind’ down with us into the macho abyss of guns and chemicals and cruelty.
Not that all men are bad, we’re just not all as good as Gandhji.
Speaking of which, might localization have some unintended consequences as well? Sure it will, nobody can predict the future. But if I were a betting man, if I had the wisdom of Gandhji, I would be inclined to hypothesize that community revitalization will help us rediscover ourselves and our true nature of being. With less time spent consuming mass mainstream media and the packaged processed foods, superfluous services and industrially produced goods from dirty factories on the other side of the earth, we might actually find the time to sit under a tree and ponder our true nature. We might stop by our neighbour’s house for a cup of tea and a conversation; maybe plan a community pot-luck. You might find more time to get to work in the garden…
Alas, I’ll leave you with some examples of the localization initiative and ask you to consider your role in helping us all transition ourselves and transform our regional socio-economy into one of greater beauty, more equality and true sustainability.
http://www.transitiontowns.org/ - ground zero for the transition movement.
http://localmotive.wetpaint.com/?mail=1126 - ground zero for the Grey Bruce Transition movement?
http://www.transitiontownpeterborough.net/home - Peterborough’s localization hub.
http://www.transitionguelph.org/ - Guelph’s transition initiative.
We’ve thought global, we eat local organic. Now it’s time to complete the transition.
This fall stay tuned as Southern Georgian Bay’s network of progressive businesses, not-for-profit organizations and community groups band together to offer you new ways to get informed, be part of the localization transition conversation and participate in life changing actions that will help us become better prepared for a world without cheap oil, without cheap imported food and an unfortunate dearth of climate related challenges which will demand that we adopt a whole new manner of being.
Stay tuned.
Farmer Ryan
August 20th, 2009
People Change People: Don’t miss this chance to change the course of human history
By Farmer Ryan
Every once in a while you come across people that profoundly affect the way you see the world. Perhaps the more people you meet, the better the chance that you’ll come across such people - alhtough I’d take quality over quantity any time. Alas, I have met a lot of people this summer and some I just can’t get out of my head…a good thing when these people embody the kind of progressive consciousness that we’ll need if mankind is able to survive having inflicted centuries now of ecological injustice upon Mother Earth.
So far we have had a lot of people express interest in the symposium on September 20th with grafting expert Ken Taylor, which is no surprise as Ken is the kind of person that sticks with you, his passion for growing food being hard to forget. That said, it seems as though Ken and I and many of you are in the same boat, if you will, seeing similar writing on the walls of our world. While these words at times seem to spell disaster (our motivations?), but then there are the rare occasions when we can make out more encouraging phrases which point to a brighter future (the solutions!). We feel this is one such occasion.
Note: PLEASE register sooner rather than later if you plan to attend (payments received before Sept 1st receive a discount) because talking the talk is not the same as walking the walk.
This will be a rare opportunity for you and I, we the pro-active citizenry of this land, to put tools in our hands that will help to shape a better future for ourselves and our children. This is an opportunity for us to confront our global food system that so perennially undernourishes us and to begin redesigning our agro-economy, both physically and politically, along permaculture design principles that will support long term food self-sufficiency, community health and stability. Incorporating more edible and more resistant fruit, nut and berry varieties, perennial vegetables, herbs, vines and ground covers into our landscape while dispelling the notion that residential areas are for living and rural areas are for conventional cash-crop farming will go a long way towards rebalancing ecological systems and returning the necessary sense of responsibility that we must have as stewards of the land and consumers of it’s abundance.
Whether you are the Duke of Duncan and sitting on a thousand acres or Collingwood condo owner with only a few free feet of balcony space to utilize, together we can create a system over time that will ensure that you and your family can eat locally grown, nutricious, chemical free food without having to pick-through plastic bags of imported organics at the grocery store.
This workshop is about accelerating this change and working towards a better future. It’s about growing human food, on a human scale; working with nature in a very mindful way. While I can not promise that we’ll necessarily solve all the world’s problems at this one workshop, but by signing on and showing up you are making a statement about helping us become part of the solution.
Much appreciated.
August 13th, 2009
Adaptation, Cooperation & Evolution,
New reports come in every day on the rising incidences of climate disasters, cancer, and big agribusinesses recklessly exploiting our planet’s limited soil and water resources. What’s going to happen to the world, and in particular our species if these trends continue is an ever-pressing question. How will we survive? People trying to answer that question don’t often look to evolution for answers, but I think there is valuable insight to be gained by taking a step back and looking at the really big picture. After all, we are simply deceiving ourselves if we think we are separate from ‘nature.’ We are as much a part of it and subject to its laws and processes as the flowers in the garden, and the E. coli living in our guts. Always have been; always will?
Charles Darwin, the man responsible for first describing evolution and its mechanism of natural selection, sometimes gets a bad rep for the term “survival of the fittest.” Social Darwinism has adapted that term into a pretty nasty concept. Do everything you can to get ahead and never offer a helping hand to those around you. A result of social Darwinism that is becoming more and more prevalent in North America is hyper-individuality. The current trends of on your cell phone, plugged into your headphones, never talk to your neighb.ours on the street, bus, or elevator are pretty scary examples of the growing hyper-individuality of our culture.
Luckily, this socially constructed version of Darwinism is not the whole story. Competition among individuals for natural resources does happen, and those individuals with the best adaptations for the environment are more likely to survive. However, one of the most important facts in the Theory of Natural Selection, which the mainstream often likes to ignore, is that natural resources are limited. People engaging in hyper-individualistic lifestyles spurred forward by constant consumerism are in trouble. There just aren’t enough raw materials on the planet to allow that kind of lifestyle to last much longer.
And according to the laws of nature, when a species’ natural resources (especially food) decrease, a decline in population naturally follows. As a fellow worker in the squash bed put it, ‘we are all going to die, some just might sooner than they’d like to’. For the foreseeable future humans will survive, but resource scarcities at our current population level is already impacting our numbers and quality of life. However, rather than any kind of a representative sampling, capitalist economic structures have driven income inequality as wide as ever, resulting in massive amounts of urban and rural poor, displaced persons, environmental refugees and resource conflict related deaths.
Alas, the humans who may be most fit for survival are those who live and work in cooperation with each other and their environment. They have food growing and storing skills, foraging knowledge, experience building with natural materials and so on.
Could choosing to live cooperatively be not just the “right” thing to do, but perhaps a valid adaptation strategy? There are lots of examples of organisms increasing their chances of survival by working together and having mutually beneficial or symbiotic relationships with other species. One of the oft cited examples is tthat of the goby fish and their friend the shrimp. They sometimes live together because the shrimp digs a burrow that they both live in, and in return the goby fish protects the essentially blind shrimp from predation.
See - relationships can be mutually beneficial and symbiotic! Nature is brimming with thriving interdependent and intertwining life, and it is one of the most important driving forces of evolution. Do we see any other species, (baring maybe the black cormorant?), that has become so geographically invasive and overwhelming competitive for resources? So, in terms of perpetuating the current mainstream global economic paradigm which is based on unsustainable conquer, pillage and control of the Earth’s resources for a growth at all cost society, not only are we denying natural laws and our own true nature, but we’re hurting our very chances for species survival.
Nature is in us and around us; we are not exempt from its incredible life giving and recycling processes. So please friends, let’s head outside and get working on some mutually beneficial relationships; be it with your lettuce, the frogs or your fellow farmers. Our future may depend on it.
Peace out,
- Maddie
