Making baskets from local materials

Relaxed and happy, we pick up and cut plant materials from around us,and make them into useful baskets!  What fun! click above title to view slideshow.

Spiritual Eyes by Fred Burks

I love this :--
http://www.weboflove.org/inspiring_stories_10/spiritual_eyes

Our place in the world

Let us start with the self and work outwards.  The self shall be called “I” and can be applied to any human being. I am an intelligent integral cell or fragment of the earth, Gaia. My actions, my thoughts, my interactions with the whole, all affect the whole. My actions with any part: other person, animal or plant, will affect the Whole. My actions include my thoughts, my feelings, my aspirations, hopes, fears and dreams. My actions towards any part of the whole include my eating and drinking, my personal voiding and creation of waste, all my use of the resources of our Earth. I, the self, any self affect the whole.

            The earth and all upon it come from the stars (are originally made from) and are a part of the Universe which is our home. My relationship with the earth is intimate, each organ, cell and atom I am made of, is of earth and part of Gaia.

            The earth is almost a closed system, everything recycling round and round.  Not quite. Gaia’s energy system depends upon the Sun.

Water and mineral matter enter our atmosphere from beyond in comets and their fragments. See a falling star or a meteor shower and see fresh sustenance reaching Gaia. At the same time there is evaporation and dissipation out of the atmosphere. There is no real boundary, but a boundary layer. The atmosphere becomes thinner and more dispersed further from the planetary surface. There is a constant exchange of stuff at that indefinable edge.

            The only life I know is within the thin skin of Gaia, very like the life on the skin of any animal, including myself. I wash myself and disturb all the life thriving on my skin. Below the skin of Gaia, the biosphere is much more. The internal life of Gaia is very slow in my terms, but always active. The movement of the outer core produces the magnetic field that gives us some protection from the constant onslaught of particles from space. Not complete protection. High powered particles from supernovae slip through to the biosphere all the time.

            Consider the earth is alive.

I feel that Gaia lives.

The Fly by William Blake

Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance,
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly.
If I live,
Or if I die.

            William Blake

How to make a Treebog

Feeling Good by Nina Simone

Love the Earth!

The Real Thing is simply to feel, think and act with respect to the earth, to whole system in which we live, and on which we depend. Anytime! It’s lovely to get a habit of remembering, say every time you go outside, look around, feel the quality of the air and feel deep appreciation. Anyone can work their favourite ways to love Gaia.

I have tried to look through the mists of time and human development, what went so wrong that we are on the verge of destroying Gaia’ ecosystem that we rely upon? When did it happen? Perhaps it was when we started farming. We were no longer limited by our surroundings. Formerly if we ate up everything we like in an area, we moved on to fresh pastures, returning when Gaia had replenished that locality.
When we grew our crops we had more food, more children, possession of land and more cultural objects, things we could keep, not needing to carry everything as we moved on. We ploughed up the ecosystem, replacing it with monoculture. There is evidence that from 7,000 years ago forest destruction for farming started the increase of atmospheric CO2.
I suspect before humanity came to cultivation of wheat, corn, rice and potatoes, plants were sown and planted at the favourite seasonal bases. The trees and plants we found useful we encouraged and helped along a bit. That in some places we learned not to ravage the land but to develop it favourably for ourselves. We tweaked the ecosystem gently and gradually. I like to think that what we now call Permaculture was once what the wandering tribes were doing to increase their standard of living.