I didn't know very much about Permaculture when I began and after two intensive weekends, I have become more acutely aware of how much I don't know. And how much I need to know. I wanted to do the course because I have been feeling drawn, from deep in my heart to learn as much as I can about farming, gardening, and natural building in a holistic, sustainable and healing manner. I have been bothered and slightly paralyzed by the extent to which our modern dependence on toxic chemicals is allowing us to blindly destroy ourselves and our earth.
This is my wake up call.
Permaculture is empowerment.
For real.
Permaculture is about quiet, thoughtful observation and deliberate loving action.
It is a system that will allow us to keep on living healthy lives, to improve the health of the planet and all of it's natural resources and to therefor know that future generations will be handed a consciously created legacy of intelligent nourishment.
We are creating this new world right now, it is in process. We do it by building clean, using natural- non-chemically treated wood or earthen materials like mud, water and straw. We use the sun for passive solar heating. We think about natural sunny spots (south-facing) on the landscape and utilize them for growing or for getting optimal heat to buildings. We build smart water catchment systems to collect rainwater to use for plumbing, drinking, watering plants etc. New and creative technologies are available and being built as we speak to take advantage of nature's processes (for heating, cooling, fueling, holding, cleaning, conveniencing) rather than fracking, mining, or creating poisonous synthetic materials that exploit and disease the water, air, soil, and people in direct and indirect ways.
Every weekend, in the morning I teach Yoga on the deck of the natural wood schoolhouse at the biodynamic farm in Ellenville that Andrew, Adriana and their beautiful daughter Juniper call home. Surrounded by a green grassy field showing signs of returning to the forest it once was, with the birds chirping, the sun shining or the cool raindrops dropping on us, we breathe and stretch and move as deliberately as possible. I can't think of a lovelier place to practice.
I am filled with gratitude and excitement for this opportunity to learn hands-on from Andrew Faust and Adriana Magana.
I am missing this weekend in Ellenville to be with my Grandmother who is preparing to pass. She is on Hospice at St. Mary's, a hospital in Troy, NY. There is cancer throughout her body. I am jarred by the interconnections, acutely and painfully aware of the mainstream lifestyle; toxic diet + environment that cause and feed cancer.
My Grandmother was, and as she hangs on here in the hospital, still is a powerhouse. She is a woman who is a force of nature in her love, her convictions and her strength. She grew up on a farm outside of Utica, NY, the eldest of eleven siblings. She took care of her brothers and sisters, she was an extra mama. And she was the same to my four siblings and I. She supported us, monetarily, lovingly and physically. She came to each one of our rescue a million times in a million different ways. I always respected and valued her point of view and her intuition. Even though I sometimes felt that she didn't understand me, she was always there with love and encouragement. I realize now, watching her stillness as she holds on to a body that's shutting down, a life so filled with promise, that she understood me and so much more than I can even fathom, given the life that she led, the bravery, resourcefulness and tenacity it required.
She is still here as I write this, hanging on, breathing gargled breath through the wetness that's collected on her lungs. She seems to be in more pain every day. I can talk to her now but she doesn't respond. There is alot of morphine involved because that's how we solve problems we've created. Of course it's the only or easiest, most effective option right now and I'm grateful for it because I don't want to see her in pain. Still I want more for humans. While I accept what is in this moment, this moment also sharpens my focus on the need for a new way, a healthier, more conscious way.
Part of the healthier more conscious way is practicing Yoga and another part is permaculture. We have to act with urgency and purpose. Our planet and our world is sick and since we are a part of it, we are also sick.
Tonight, back in Brooklyn I hung up some pictures of my Grandma Eleanor and I lit an angel candle I bought for the shrine. I looked at the picture and told her I loved her. I prayed for peace for her and then what was hanging heavy on my heart and head came to the surface. I felt guilty. I apologized to her in my prayer, from my heart to hers, for not doing more to save her. When I first heard of her diagnosis, I told her about a healing center in AZ I had heard about that specializes in healing cancer homeopathically with a focus on an all raw and vegan diet.
I still wish I had dropped everything in brooklyn when she was diagnosed to drag her there. But regret is the enemy of a happy peaceful life and in reality, as in permaculture as in the tao of Grandma Eleanor, there is no could have there is just what is.
No comments:
Post a Comment