What to do?

There are days when I get so confused and disheartened about the state of the planet. Then there are other days where I have hope and think, even believe, that humanity will get its act together and actually do something to stop us all from hurtling down this apocalyptic slope. On those kinds of days I think Al Gore is right, if we all just get together and change our light bulbs, turn down the furnace and stop using plastic bags, maybe we'll be ok. But then there are the other days, like today, where I can't help but think along the lines that this guy does, and that it's too late to do anything but brace ourselves for frying in the dark.

And no matter what kind of day it is for me on this front, I wonder what should I do about it? Should I talk to people about my concerns or shut up because they're getting tired of hearing it already? Should I worry about the privately-owned nuclear power plant they're probably going to build a couple hundred miles north of here, or be thankful it's not another coal mine? Should I keep trying to grow my own food or quit because there's not enough time for me to learn how to grow enough and preserve it properly anyway? Should I just keep politely telling people I've become vegetarian for health reasons or scream out loud that factory farming is one of the most horrific and cruel things we humans do to the species with whom we share this one planet?

Some days, like today, I just don't know what to do.

Image courtesy: www.masternewmedia.org

The Scourge that is Junk Mail

Last month when my niece and I took a trip to the Earth's General Store I picked up a label for my mailbox that would identify it as a "junk mail free zone." The sticker will apparently prevent, or at least discourage, Canada Post staff from putting assorted junk mail into my mailbox.

So far, the little 2 inch square sticker has been languishing on the kitchen counter. Today, being up far too early for a Saturday morning and feeling strangely productive, I picked up the sticker along with its equally diminutive recycled newsprint backer, and turned it over. Lo and behold, there was a web address to the Canadian Marketing Association website, where I can register to have my name and address removed from their database, from where apparently "most direct mail marketers rent names." That's right, rent names. So when you read somewhere that they don't sell your address to others for marketing purposes, they are telling the truth, technically: they rent them instead.

So anyway, I signed right up and as soon as I leave the house today I'm slapping that little sticker on our mailbox!

Generosity

A couple weeks ago Gord and I volunteered, along with about 50 other people from our Tai Chi club, to serve dinner at Edmonton's Mustard Seed street church. We had been looking forward to it for quite a while, and we really enjoyed helping out there. Hundreds of people who had waited outside in the rain for at least an hour were fed a tasty Chinese meal. Most of the people had likely been out in the rain much longer than that, since many of the people served by the Mustard Seed are homeless, a lot of them living in the "tent city" about a block away.

Everything went well at the dinner and all of us volunteers had a rewarding experience helping out our fellow citizens, but that's not really what I wanted to talk about.

Before we went into the church to get set up for serving the dinner, there were two people waiting around back to get into the kitchen with us - an older man and a younger woman. They were wanting to see how things get done in the kitchen because they were going to be serving a meal there in the near future. That was all Gord and I heard about the two of them at the time, but when we were at Tai Chi two days ago we spoke with another Tai Chi-er who had talked with the man and lady a bit more. It turns out that the two were father and daughter, and that the father was turning 60 soon and wanted to serve a meal to the Mustard Seed folk as his 60th Birthday celebration. Now that's generosity!

August Garden Update

You may say this picture of the garden looks a lot like ones from earlier in the summer and you'd be right. Apart from the rapid growth in July when it was stinking hot, my plants have grown rather slowly. August was a cold and cloudy month, except for today, which was stinking hot again. Weird.

I pulled out the radishes (A2) which had gone to seed, and cut down the oat grass (D4) until it was just stubble. I also cut off several of the first lettuces (D2 and D3) , which had also gone to seed and which were producing only tiny and very bitter leaves. In their places I planted more oat grass, which has already re-sprouted about an inch, and also re-seeded some more lettuce with much hope and wishful thinking. If we have a nice September I may just get a second crop of those things.

The carrots, over on the left in spaces A3 and A4 are still very small. The carrots under there are about two inches long now, and while they are very tasty, they will not amount to much. Let's just say I don't have to build that root house just yet. On the other hand, I have learned much about how not to crowd the carrots all together, and that they must be thinned. The beets and chard keep producing tasty leaves which the guinea pigs just love, and they chomp down the carrot tops as well.

My tomato plant, which you can barely see off to the right in a bucket, is doing remarkably well. The tomatoes on there are absolutely delicious, and just nicely cherry size. Even when they are not fully ripened, they taste so much better than store bought. There are many more green tomatoes left on the vine, and I'm hoping the warmer weather continues for a bit so they can also ripen up some more.

The strawberries are also doing well I think. They had lots of blossoms, which I am pinching off at the advice of the greenhouse lady, who said this would help the plants to produce better next year. We planted them kind of late this year, so we weren't looking for a big crop of strawberries in any event.

There's nothing like coming home after work and heading over to the garden for a snack of baby carrots and cherry tomatoes!

Back in the Day...

This weekend we went to visit Fort Edmonton Park. It is essentially a living museum on a quarter section of land in Edmonton's river valley, where four periods of local history have been brought into the present.

There is an entire 1846 trading post Fort, complete with beaver pelt press, Factor's house and living quarters for 125 men, women and children. Up from the Fort is "1885 Street," a recreation of an Edmonton main street, including blacksmith shop, school, drugstore, candy store, livery, and residential houses. "1905 Street" depicts the electrification of the city and its trolley cars, and "1920 Street" shows a burgeoning post-war metropolitan Edmonton.

There are interpreters dressed in period costumes who provide information about their "era" and who stay in character the whole time. We were served scones baked in a wood stove in one era, and were gently scolded in another when we were unintentionally "over familiar." We rode a steam train to the 1846 Fort, and an electric trolley out of the 1920s. There is even a full service hotel on the property, called the Hotel Selkirk, where people can stay overnight and enjoy the atmosphere of the times.

I was struck by the simplicity of the setting, even in the "metropolitan" era. Granted, I was probably more attuned to that this year than in previous years, but I don't think I'm the only one who is looking for more simplicity in life. I have a feeling that's part of why Fort Edmonton is such a popular attraction. It's easy to romanticize the "good old days" and wish to be living back then. I have spent many hours as a child (and quite a few as an adult), thinking how neat it would be to be living like Laura Ingalls did.

But things just aren't like that anymore, and probably they weren't all that simple back then either. But we do seem to have a collective longing to go back to a simpler time, or maybe it's just me.

Finding simplicity in our own lives isn't easy, or simple. Figuring out what to do, and what to stop doing, is hard. And it usually comes with consequences for us and for other people. You have to say no to things you used to say yes to. And then there's the risk of being seen as lazy, either by others, or by oneself. I'm not sure what to do about that. All I know is that when I see our guinea pigs contentedly chewing their hay, or the flowers outside with their faces toward the sun, they surely know more than I do about simplicity.

Folk Fest Philosophy III

The last lyric that really struck me at this year's Edmonton Folk Festival was this one:

They thought that living high was living well

Unfortunately, I can't be completely sure which musician sang it, but I think it may have been Harry Manx. To me, this line really sums up the misunderstanding that our consumer-focused society seems to have: that you have to have a lot of stuff to be happy. When I write this kind of thing, I have to be mindful that I do have quite a lot of stuff myself. It is definitely easier to have stuff and say you don't need it in order to be happy, than it is to not have stuff and say you're happy just the way things are.

In saying that, I am implying that the person with less stuff looks at the person with more stuff and envies them, or at least wants to be more like them. But this is also an assumption I'm making. Will people always have to have stuff first before they realize they don't need it for happiness, or can this realization come beforehand? I don't know. It seems like a wise person would know such a thing ahead of time, but a lot of wisdom comes from experience first.

Lao Tzu seems to have been pretty wise -- here is one thing the Tao Te Ching says on the topic:

Holding a cup and overfilling it
Cannot be as good as stopping short
Pounding a blade and sharpening it
Cannot be kept for long

Gold and jade fill up the room
No one is able to protect them
Wealth and position bring arrogance
And leave disasters upon oneself

When achievement is completed, fame is attained
Withdraw oneself
This is the Tao of Heaven

This is essentially the principle of moderation in all things, and an endorsement of the merits of contentment. I like the imagery of the first two lines especially, because they provide a nicely concrete illustration of why overconsumption is unwise. It's easy to imagine overfilling a cup. It's usually done in a hurry, with little care or attention. And it's messy and wasteful too, and it causes a bunch more work in the clean-up. It is a lot more enjoyable and satisfying to pour just the right amount into the cup, and then take the time to appreciate its contents. To be content with the contents. Hmmm....there must be good reason why those words are the same.

Folk Fest Philosophy II

It's been a bit longer than I wanted it to be, but here is the second of my ramblings about the inspirational environment at the Edmonton Folk Festival earlier this month.

The second of the three lyrics that really stuck with me from that weekend was this:

Don't let the devil ride

This line is from a song by The Campbell Brothers, a rousing steel guitar-based gospel singing group that we had the pleasure of listening to on Sunday morning, the last day of the Folk Fest. The song is a cautionary one, saying that "if you let'm ride, he's gonna wanna drive." You can imagine the energy of the singers and the crowd as everyone sang the chorus over and over again, "don't let'm ride!"

In the middle of clapping and singing along with everyone that Sunday morning, I thought, this is such good advice. And I don't mean in the perhaps semi-literal religious sense that the singers may have intended. I find it good advice in a more general way: so often the things we end up doing and regretting are things we knew we shouldn't have even started. And things we know we should do, we just kind of let them slide. Instead of nipping things in the bud, it seems we just kind of go along with something because it doesn't seem so bad, not really. Especially not compared to what so-and-so is doing. And things go along for a while and then we find ourselves in a big hole, and somehow don't know how we've managed to dig so deep. Or how to get out of the hole.

The "don't let'm ride" metaphor works for me on small and big levels. Personally, on a small scale, it's what happens when I, for example, let a racist joke go uncontested at work, or take two helpings of dessert, or maybe don't bother to check the air pressure in my car tires because I'm sure they're just fine and I don't have time right now anyway.

On a larger scale, it's how we got into this whole mega-consumption mind set in the first place. The idea that things just can't run out, because hey I'm only using a little bit! What harm can it do? How does that saying go again? No snowflake thinks the avalanche was its fault? That kind of thinking is what prevents us from turning things around too, because hey I'm just one person, what can I do, and besides I don't have time right now anyway.

Essentially, it's the point of view that a little bit of complacency or indulgence just can't be all that bad. But little things do add up to big things, whether they're positive or negative. And if they're negative things, it won't be long before the 'devil' isn't just riding, he's driving.

Now just imagine if they were positive things each of us were doing!

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead