Urban/Suburban EcoliteracyRemember…nature bats last.

The question posed to the Occupy movement is, “What are your demands?” Terrorists make demands and since Occupy is not a movement of terrorists, why dignify the inane question by a response that would allow the media and the cynical to pigeonhole the movement? By now, it should be self-evident that people are hungry to experience life unconstrained by, dependent upon, and unmediated by power structures that deify greed while gorging on our lives, not just upon the blood of an underclass that ekes by but on the elites themselves who are just as surely drained soullessly dry by exploiting others.

The Occupy movement doesn’t have the numbers to singlehandedly create a new, uncorrupted system ex nihilo on its own steam. However, if the movement leverages the support of the American public that supports it, turning their attention towards the question, “What do we create next?”, Occupy could create an experiential manifestation of a grounded, integrated vision that is practical, elegant and life-affirming. (More on that subject in a subsequent post.)

Populist and progressive movements have had a self-defeating proclivity to oppose institutional and structural injustice on principle without presenting a substantive alternative that is functional in the real world. It’s not that I can’t sympathize with the seething frustration, resentment, disillusionment, and outrage. After a point though, one has to stop standing against everything and to find something one is willing to proudly stand for without selling out the vision. Then it’s time to walk the talk. Manifestation of a vision that large is a long haul effort, so expectations of instant gratification will weed out the flaky and the uncommitted until these folks are willing to stop complaining and to grow backbones.

Many of the folks within the Occupy movement have deep resentment towards the institutions that represent corruption but the double bind is that the Occupy movement hasn’t yet created alternative structures that people sympathetic to the movement trust will also be free of graft and corruption. There are standing offers to make donations to Occupy, yet no way to receive those donations. While it could be successfully argued that there hasn’t been a nonprofit that wasn’t corrupted eventually, if the Occupy movement wants to get something done as a matter of practicality, it has no choice but work creatively with the tools of extant institutional structures before it can fundamentally redefine and retool how alternative structures could work. It’s the principle of being the change one wants to see in the world (while not losing your sense of humor).

Like it or not, we all carry the unconscious seeds of the abusive system we’re the products of and without conscious, deep excavation of those tendencies, system replication is almost guaranteed if for no other reason than the unavoidable polarities of being incarnate in a realm of dualities. The embedded cosmic joke is the tendency to become what we oppose. We have a great deal of painful, soul-searching introspection to engage in about the paradigms we bring with us. I will risk drawing progressive activists’ anger, negativity, and criticism because if nothing else, the presence of controversy will hopefully distill into clarity the need to examine the roots of any anger provoked. If I provoke discomfort and anger, it’s because there’s a collective psychic or emotional wound that I have touched.

For instance, as a microcosmic fractal of the truth that what is in one is in the whole and that what is in the whole is in the one, Occupy has its share of overbloated egos. In L.A., the “leaders” are easy to identify since their fishbowl niche is monopolizing space in front of cameras and microphones speaking on behalf of the whole. The humorous irony lies in the presence of self-appointed leaders in what is supposed to be a leaderless movement. Meanwhile, the self-serving media would love nothing better than a feeding frenzy on the chum of negative stories about Occupy L.A.. The hunger is palpable since most within the camp don’t like those within the media tents. KPFK barely arrived and started broadcasting from the site when was voted off by the general assembly. It was a puzzling decision tactically since KPFK is a sympathetic ally with which Occupy could have cultivated a positive relationship. Goodness knows that Occupy won’t find mainstream media allies. Could you see Fox portraying Occupy in a positive light? Neither can I.

Economic and ecological sustainability integrated seamlessly with inter/intra generational social justice can’t be pasted over our dysfunctional global society like a veneer. We can’t expect that superficial approach to work because the fundamental dysfunctional power dynamics are still in place. Intensive shadow excavation and healing work through brutal self-honesty needs to take place in both the internal and external realms. The absence of any substantive internal work to change consciousness in tandem with attempting to change the external world is one of the major weaknesses of the permaculture, Peak Oil, Occupy, and Transition Town* movements and it’s a reason why many progressive organizations and movements have flailed and are flailing in their efforts to bring about systemic change. Are my standards high? Yes, but so are the stakes, which are unprecedented in global history.

*Note: The Transition Town model includes the formation of Heart and Soul committees but I don’t know if many of these subgroups have facilitators that are skilled enough to navigate the deep, sometimes rough, waters of the psyche and collective unconscious, let alone the prowess to help people own motivations that they don’t discuss proudly. Until we own our shadows, our shadows own us. That work is process, not product oriented, so there is no definable terminus.

Among all of the world’s major spiritual traditions, there are precepts for the personal management of Divine power, our lifeforce, that also enhance physical health and emotional well-bein. Violations of those precepts end up costing us spiritually as well as biologically. These precepts are: 1) Live in the present moment, 2) Seek only the truth, 3) Surrender personal will to Divine will, 4) Love is Divine Power, 5) Honor oneself, 6) Honor the whole of life, and 7) All is one. These precepts correspond to the seven chakras of the Vedic scriptures, the seven Christian sacraments, and the Tree of Life of the Kabbalistic tradition. (reference: Caroline Myss)

All is one is apparently one of the truths that sounds fabulous in theory but is hard to live by in practice. Anything that divides unity or violates the sanctity of the whole, such as racism, homophobia, classism, or sexism, is a violation the precept and hence, Divine law. Social, economic and ecological justice are inextricably linked. Abuse and concatenated energetic/spiritual violations are not permissible behaviors that we should turn a blind eye to and deny because what is in the one is in the whole and what is in the whole is in the one. The enemy isn’t “out there”. It never was. The human heart is the portal for both good and evil in the world; intention and choice mediate what we manifest through our creativity.

We live in a global culture that is highly tolerant of abuse in all its myriad forms. Although physical abuse is horrifying in its senselessness, it is a malignant outgrowth of the more prevalent, but hidden, verbal, energetic, emotional, and psychological forms of abuse, which are often more damaging because the process of non-physical abuse destroys the abused person (or animal, social class, nation, ecosystem, etc.) from the inside out. Contrary to popular myth, most abusers do not inflict harm because of mental illness or because they too were victims of abuse. Abusers abuse because they can and because no one holds them accountable for their predatory behavior; the motivations, rooted in self-serving values and attitudes of entitlement, lie in needs for power, domination, and control through their impositions on others rather than the cultivation of authentic power from within. Abuse breaches the surface of public consciousness when it surfaces in a salacious story about incest, pornography, sexual slavery or culmination in murder. This kind of violence will not subside unless and until abuse is no longer tolerated socially or interpersonally. Most abusers feel utterly entitled to behaving as they do and merely cracking down with more punitive laws or extensive punishments on the tiny fraction who are caught in the legal system will not stem the tide abuse victims. The vast majority of abusers are never caught, let alone prosecuted; they simply move on to new victims.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Wendy Talaro (http://www NULL.digiprove NULL.com/show_certificate NULL.aspx?id=P200190%26guid=MWhanYDekkyjJsR4Qwscmw)Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it (http://www NULL.addthis NULL.com/bookmark NULL.php), about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed (http://www NULL.urban-suburban-ecoliteracy NULL.com/feed/).

Rather than use hyperbole for literary effect that would lead you to believe that I’m prone to fabrication, I’m letting the story that the e-mail tells exemplify more social patterns in the extreme to make them obvious.

A few years ago, I volunteered as a consulting garden/landscape professional for the first “Gardens of Gratitude” in Los Angeles. I’d be tempted to rechristen the project-driven event if it wouldn’t be dishonoring the spirit of abundance and sharing that Devin Slavin (a classmate in Ecological Agriculture program at New College of California 1n 2005) wanted the idea of “Gardens of Gratitude” to embody. The intention behind making materials and expertise low and no-cost was to make edible sustainable gardens accessible to low-income folks, not to subsidize the acquisitive greed of the haves (who in all likelihood could afford the materials and services when they wanted to pay for them) at the expense of neglecting the have-nots in areas such as East Santa Monica, Westlake, MacArthur Park, Southcentral, Watts, or Pacoima. The opposite of gratitude isn’t ingratitude, it’s entitlement.

Entitlement is one pervasive manifestation of America’s shadow and it is what St. Teresa of Avila called a “reptile in the soul” according to Caroline Myss. Until you own your shadow aspects, they own you.

 

From:

To: (e-mail addresses deleted)

Date: Sun, May 3, 2009 1:30:43 PM

Cc: (e-mail addresses deleted)

Subject: Re: Gardens of Gratitude – Thanks for signing up

Greetings Sean & All:

Thank you for welcoming us into the event. Just to let you know, our knowledge is minimal (book-learned permaculture curiosity), and being a corner lot, our blank palette is large and L-shaped. For that day, we’ve segmented off one 12×20 full-sun rectangular section of the yard to work with, and have been doing some sketches.

Our goal is to do this without spending much at all.

 

Uh-oh. That last sentence was a red flag.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing when culled from a book without any grounding in experience but anchored to high expectations. The only way that this family could visually achieve the upscale “architectural” results that they strove for would be on the back(s) of whoever was generous and/or foolish enough to subsidize their enterprise. Translated, the first and second paragraphs meant: “We have high expectations shaped by ideas cherry picked from books sans application contexts and we’re hoping to siphon off good quality freebies from whomever and wherever we can get them.”

 

We’ve acquired some piles of free dirt (about 6 pick-up loads) that my husband has dutifully sifted. We also found some medium-sized rocks to help with berms, since our vision is to create one natural-looking elevated wall to hold in the height, with the elevation sloping down to the sidewalk and some DG pathways.

 

Hmmm….let’s get this straight. You want a sculpted wall and decomposed granite pathways and you want materials and labor for these features for free? There’s charity and generosity on the one hand, and then there’s milking an event for everything it is worth.

 

My husband wants a more drought tolerant architectural look–not an obvious food garden, so no overt raised beds. But since we have hardpan, we need to pile on the good stuff… So in our efforts to compromise, I’ll be interspersing any edibles into the schema. I will have a mini tangerine and a loquat onsite for that day, and probably tomatoes. Any other stealth edibles advice is welcome!

 

Can’t have an obvious food garden in full view of neighbors. It sounds oh-so untidy and low class (God forbid). What will they think? (Who gives a flying fig as long as the plants are happy and skillfully cared for? A tended, well-loved garden always looks better than a soulless, stiff planting arrangement designed to appease the neighbors and win their approval.)

Here’s where it gets interesting since the subject wanted to mingle plants that have contrasting horticultural requirements. Once established, the tangerine and loquat would probably do just fine among drought tolerant plants as long as the trees were periodically deep soaked, but tomatoes and garden variety (pun intended) edibles would not be getting their needs met among the drought tolerant plants. If the soil were watered frequently enough to satisfy the garden veggies, the drought tolerant plants would eventually succumb to fungal disease and rot. Although the couple in question might stubbornly resist following the advice they claim to want, they would have to pick either the annual edible plant palette or the perennial drought tolerant plants in lieu of conceding garden design to someone who knows what they’re doing.

 

Also, I think we have some snakey sand bags from Cal-Earth in the garage which can be moulded into low holding walls… TBD. That could be fun to play with!

Here’s our questions to be more ready for the day:

• BASE PREP:

All grass is gone and we’re down to the hard pan. We were thinking we would just pile the new dirt on top of that, with one side bermed, and the other sloping to the sidewalk. (The piles of dirt are a few yards away dumped on the unsolved section of the yard). We read the gardens of gratitude links about Instant No Dig Garden Beds and Double Digging… We were wondering:

     – Can we drill holes into the hard clay to help make more permeable and skip the hard labor? (the carpenter has a pneumatic drill…)

     – Or get out the pick-axes to loosen the hardpan (we’d rather not!!!)

     – Should we have cardboard onsite to place on top of hardpan (as we saw on the Mar Vista Garden tour last week)? Or is that just for lawn-suppression?

     – Any other prep tips we should know about?

 

I’m not going to comment on what they could have done more specifically about that alleged hardpan because I don’t know enough about their prospective garden site. This family didn’t specifically request a site analysis and I wasn’t about to volunteer one for known takers. Without that site analysis, more specific comments would be conjecture.

That said, there’s a possibility that lugging in the 6 pickup truckloads of soil and then sifting it (Why? To cull stones or remove glass?) on relatively short notice was a waste of effort because these folks were working under the incorrect premise and assumption that they have “bad” soil. I haven’t a clue why this mystifying judgment is prevalent. Los Angeles has buried some of the most fertile agricultural soils in the world under endlessly contiguous miles of asphalt and concrete. It’s not the soil’s fault that it’s been abused for almost a century. Hardpan due to compaction and ignorance is one of the least of the wounds inflicted on this land. If this family had not gotten greedy about availing themselves of freebies and if they had been patient enough to allow sufficient lead time working in tandem with the rhythm of the seasons without compulsively feeding their addiction to instant gratification, it would have been possible to use organic methods to condition that “hardpan” so that the soil would have been workable.

Drilling holes in the soil? I wonder if this carpenter and his wife ever considered that drill bits manufactured for wood aren’t made to bore holes in soil and 2) the inevitability that the drill bits (he’ll go through a lot of them) would strike unseen pebbles and rocks buried in the fill. Oops.

So many people find the idea of prolific, beautiful gardens bursting with color and life alluring and yet they’re not willing to put their backs into the effort of planting and maintaining them. There is no such thing as a free lunch. In spite of the eternal nature of this truth, people look for ways to circumvent the effort if they can’t get someone else to do the hard work for them for free (i.e. Gardens of Gratitude volunteers) or, if need be, for cheap. (The quick excuse at the ready is “I don’t have the time” but when you consider how much time is spent watching TV and fiddling around on technological toys and dig deeper, the excuse actually translates to “I don’t have the interest or skills and besides, nature scares me when it’s icky”.) Gardening and landscaping are like so many other life endeavors – you get out of it what you put into it and there are no shortcuts to working with natural systems like gardens, which are human-designed and created pseudoecosystems, but natural systems nonetheless. Nature sets the tone through microclimate, geology, and climate and ultimately calls the dance. Get over it.

Personally, as much as everyone complains about clay, I’d rather work with clayey soil than sand. It takes a lot longer to build up the organic content and create good tilth in a sandy soil that leaks water and nutrients like a sieve.

 

• COMPOST:

In addition to our acquired topsoil, we need to enrich with compost, right? If so, should it be in separate piles, or mixed in with the dirt? If mixed, what are the proportions, etc.? Where to acquire FREE compost if possible? We saw some sacks available on the Mar Vista Gardens tour, but didn’t note where they were from. Let us know.

• Same for MANURE: how much for our 12×20 space, and where to acquire FREE if possible?

• WOOD CHIPS, etc.: Should we have mulch piles on-site ready for spreading at end of the project?

     We’re running out of room. Could that come later? Also, where to acquire FREE if possible. Our official Culver City source seems to have closed…

 

Again, this family is working under the premise and assumption that they need compost, manure, and wood chips for their allegedly “bad” hardpan soil. How did these folks arrive at their conclusions about what soil amendment materials they need for this landscaping project? What were their assumptions and why did they make them?

Eager about and enamored by the prospect of dabbling in their idea of Permaculture, they didn’t research drought tolerant plants or edibles to determine what those plants need to thrive. By their own admission, they don’t know much of anything about Permaculture or gardening, let alone the horticultural needs of plants. That kind of reading isn’t as sexy as jumping onto the Permaculture trendwagon but the blunt truth is that a lovely garden is not the end result when all the plants are struggling to survive because their needs are not being met. Attractive home gardens and landscapes, especially ones that increase property values in the long-term, are not accidents of short-lived attention, fashionable interest, and design on aesthetic whims. (Hint: Designing a daisy-shaped garden for the sake of designing a daisy-shaped garden without considering the needs of the plants, the mature sizes of the plants, or maintenance is setting yourself up for failure.)

Of the three materials that this family is requesting free source information for, I’d only recommend the wood chips for mulch and I wouldn’t skimp by going for free material unless my back was against the wall. Chipped material can be acquired gratis from a cooperative tree trimming company but since beggars cannot be choosers, the recipient 1) would not be able to specify quantity (you take whatever they give you), 2) cannot request specs on the tree and shrub species in the mix, or 3) expect to have a request for a minimal leaf litter to wood chip ratio honored. If you refuse to compromise on special requests and place conditions on the tree trimmings you are willing to receive, take a number and expect to wait until a tree trimming job that happens to meet your exacting specifications crops up. That wait could take months. If the need for mulch is time-sensitive, it’s best to just pay for it.

The vast majority of tree trimming jobs generate both leafy and woody material in equal proportions. Mix the finely chopped wet green stuff plus the moist woody stuff, leave it in a pile about a cubic yard in volume, and in a few short months you have…TA-DA!…compost! Pure wood chips that are coarsely chopped (i.e. pieces 2-4 inches in length) don’t break down as quickly as free tree trimmings and where mulch is concerned, you want that 3 to 4 inch protective layer on top of your soil to last at least a few years as opposed to only several months but no more than a year. Left to its own devices, nature generates its own mulch. It may be minimal or plentiful depending on the ecosystem and plant community, but it’s there.

By the way, I didn’t put the word “free” in all caps for emphasis on how cheap and stingy this family was. The text and its formatting is how it appeared in the e-mail verbatim. I kid you not.

 

• SPRINKLERS:

We have sprinklers which we don’t use, but are still hooked up. We have not retrofitted to any of the low flow dribblers or whatever–don’t have the expertise (My husband is a carpenter, not a plumber). He doesn’t want to use auto sprinkling at all, but go to hose, and says he’s willing to hand-water. I think we need a FREE pro consult on this–If the workings are there, do we want to take advantage and make life easier?

 

I hope this family actually tested the sprinkler system to check to see whether it still worked. I didn’t offer up my services and don’t know what sucker, um, I mean person…yeah, if anyone, stepped up to the plate to offer professional advice to tailor the irrigation system. The type of retrofit would entirely depend on the type of plants chosen for the project and since the planned plant palette was going to be mixed, you can bet that the results would be as well.

Hand watering is often a good enough option but the system failure often lies in whoever handles the hose. For busy, scattered, distracted suburbanites, the committed intention to hand water the plants wears off in direct proportion to the garden project’s novelty. Remembering to deep water drought tolerant plants on a frequency of once every 2 to 4 weeks (actual frequency depends on time of year, solar exposure, soil type, and weather) can be another challenge if the irregular ritual of watering doesn’t become a habit. More often than not, people forget. The other challenge with hand watering is that the tops of the plants usually get sprayed, leaving the roots where the water is really needed to slowly dry out after the last of seasonal rains. Few well-intentioned hand waterers bother to check soil moisture below the mulch layer, if one is present.

 

• THIRSTY TREE:•

Any tree experts out there who can help advise us about our thirsty parkway magnolia which is sending sausage-sized roots up to the surface of the yard, and blasting the sidewalk out of its way in doing so? Since we stopped watering our hardpan, it’s gone wild looking for water. We’re trying to coordinate with L.A. City about sidewalk repair, and hoping to talk to the city arborist, but much redtape and perhaps many moons before we get info there. So if anyone has info here. (This challenge is separate from the 12×20 area delineated for the workday…)

Any info is much appreciated!

Thanx from the Cheapskate Family (surname changed to protect the guilty)

Harry & Virginia & boys

 

Want to raise some sidewalk, maybe destroy a nearby cement block wall or even a building foundation? Plant a Ficus or a Magnolia tree nearby.

The City of Los Angeles Public Works has a warped interpretation of job security. One department is charged with planting and maintaining trees that destroy infrastructure so that another department charged with infrastructure repairs and periodic rebuilding never runs out of tree related damage to address. Too bad the City is going broke and like other fiscally stretched governmental entities is postponing repairs and maintenance wherever and whenever it can.

The poor magnolia was ill-chosen for its planting location and as a result there is no solution that this family could implement that wouldn’t cost them something. But seeing that spending anything – time, strenuous effort, or money – is almost completely out of the question, there wouldn’t be any point in anyone offering these folks any advice since they wouldn’t be willing to follow it anyway.

If the family whined and complained long and loudly enough to the City’s arborist, a crew might eventually come out, sever and remove the “offending” roots, and then repour concrete slab to patch the sidewalk. The operative word is eventually. The family’s sons will likely have flown the nest by the time L. A. Public Works slogs through their backlog, which even conservative estimates peg at a decade long wait. If that’s a bit much, Public Works suggests that residents take matters into their own hands by paying for a licensed arborist’s services out of pocket on top of a tree permit issued by the city, neither of which, I note for the record, will ever be FREE.

 

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Wendy Talaro (http://www NULL.digiprove NULL.com/show_certificate NULL.aspx?id=P196944%26guid=Tdtq--7QWUWGgYueUa170A)Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it (http://www NULL.addthis NULL.com/bookmark NULL.php), about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed (http://www NULL.urban-suburban-ecoliteracy NULL.com/feed/).

What patterns did I notice in the landscape trade? For one, I observed an addiction to collecting knowledge. Not wisdom – knowledge. People can stuff their heads full of the stuff and never apply it for beneficial use. Perhaps feeding this addiction makes people feel like they are accomplishing something even when nothing is manifesting for lack of an investment of real sweat and labor. In Los Angeles, the city of projected dreams, tourists and the rich and privileged (or those who are trying to look that way) flock to idealized simulacra of Los Angeles such as City Walk in Universal City and the Beverly Center. There’s a pattern and principle in nature: “There is no such thing as AWAY.” The social fantasies of Los Angeles are propped invisibly upon the backs of low wage laborers that keep the machinery of the illusion working smoothly. Scratch the plasticized & painted veneers of the simulacra, allow the laborers to find new workplaces that respect their dignity and humanity at healtly wages, strip away nature’s “free” subsidies of water and power, and then ask, “What’s left?”

When some people figured out that I know my stuff, they pumped me for information…and pumped….and pumped….and pumped. They wanted the specifics of “what” connected to the precious mechanics of “how”. Depending on the context, sometimes I’d generously go all out because I genuinely wanted to help. It’s fine once in a while and I like being generous, but only up to a point because I can’t pay my bills with raving complements and thanks others gave me for the help they received. In other contexts when it was socially appropriate to communicate it, I let folks know that sustainable gardening and landscaping was what I did as a pro and then I observed that mouths would run on while pocketbooks would slam shut with the resounding finality of a solid-state walk-in safe. For reasons I haven’t figured out, the West L.A. crowd tended to want as much expertise as they could squeeze out but only for the bare minimum they could get away with paying, if not for free. I’m all for helping people get what they want but not at the price of vampiric exploitation – mine or anyone else’s.

“When you’re good at something, you don’t do it for free.” – The Joker (Heath Ledger) in The Dark Knight

The annoying and heartbreaking part is that, more often than not, these folks wouldn’t even use the free advice they solicited. What was more astounding is that others wouldn’t even use the advice they DID pay for.

One client in the Big Rock area of Malibu name-dropped and bragged of having hired Rosalind Creasy for a consultation. On the appointed day, Wendy S. and Ms. Creasy went around the property while Rosalind fired off tailored advice off the top of her head. Fast forward 2 to 3 years later when Wendy S. hired me for some specialized labor. As she picked my brains as we made the rounds around the property, I could almost hear her make mental comparisons with Rosalind’s advice. When I gave her the same advice about caring for her forlorn containerized blueberry plants as Rosalind had given her, she piped up to say as much.  Do you see the irony yet? Even after consulting with Rosalind Creasy, Wendy S. still hadn’t used the advice she had been given so many years ago. The client’s windswept and neglected plants were no better off for hearing the advice all over again from me for one reason: it was simply and clearly not a priority to implement the expert advice she had sought. I wish that I could say this experience was singularly unique. It’s one thing to negotiate fees because someone genuinely wants your services, respects what you do, and respects your profession as a source of livelihood. It’s another thing to feed off someone else’s life energy as a symbolic parasite when you don’t respect anyone else’s need to make a living.

The client went through the laundry list of tasks she wanted done around the property. In short, she wanted her own private farm & garden worker and at bargain basement wages. Actually, upon reflection what I think she really wanted were the benefits such a worker would confer with all of the romance and bounty that country living on a farm invokes without the hard work, body aches, or the inconvenience of having to get her own hands dirty. When I told her how much it was going to cost at a fair rate, she backpedaled, made excuses for why she couldn’t afford the services, and struggled to save face after I called her on her unrealistic expectations and her hopes to exploit me for cheap, knowledgeable labor. Since this woman wasn’t willing to pay what the job was worth, she was still trying to save face indirectly through an associate long after I dissociated from her.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Wendy Talaro (http://www NULL.digiprove NULL.com/show_certificate NULL.aspx?id=P194104%26guid=EnMEjw8l_0izD0lobaz5Cg)Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it (http://www NULL.addthis NULL.com/bookmark NULL.php), about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed (http://www NULL.urban-suburban-ecoliteracy NULL.com/feed/).

When conservation, biodiversity and habitat preservation non-profit groups promote their causes, they know full well that people tend to relate best to charismatic creatures that fit their subjective standard of “attractiveness”. For the vast majority, bats don’t inspire the ‘awwww, how cute!’ factor as much as they inspire ‘ewwwww, how disgusting!’. It’s unfortunate because bats are unsung heroes. The next time you’re surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes, just remember that if you lived an area that could host bats that you would be spending less time swatting off the bloodsucking insects and enjoying the outdoors if bats were your neighbors.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Wendy Talaro (http://www NULL.digiprove NULL.com/show_certificate NULL.aspx?id=P184103%26guid=N7_vmc5pbEimD5oORqhp8w)Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it (http://www NULL.addthis NULL.com/bookmark NULL.php), about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed (http://www NULL.urban-suburban-ecoliteracy NULL.com/feed/).

Check this out:

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Wendy Talaro (http://www NULL.digiprove NULL.com/show_certificate NULL.aspx?id=P56879;guid=e0WgB6d2lku808eL81wVOw)Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it (http://www NULL.addthis NULL.com/bookmark NULL.php), about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed (http://www NULL.urban-suburban-ecoliteracy NULL.com/feed/).

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it (http://www NULL.addthis NULL.com/bookmark NULL.php), about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed (http://www NULL.urban-suburban-ecoliteracy NULL.com/feed/).

On July 28th, the New York Times published an article about the rise of microlending (http://www NULL.nytimes NULL.com/2010/07/29/business/smallbusiness/29sbiz NULL.html?src=me&ref=business). For years, microlending has been considered an economic staple in “developing” countries. (Of course, the next question is, what are developing countries developing into?) When you consider that the same “structural adjustment” (renamed “Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (http://www NULL.imf NULL.org/external/np/exr/facts/prgf NULL.htm)” but soon to be replaced by the “Extended Credit Facility”) imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on Africa and third world countries is very likely in the karmic cards for the United States, the time is nigh for small towns and communities to save themselves economically.

Why? Who else will do it? US cities (http://money NULL.cnn NULL.com/2010/05/28/news/economy/american_cities_broke NULL.fortune/index NULL.htm) (Vallejo (http://articles NULL.latimes NULL.com/2010/jul/27/local/la-me-bell-cuts-20100727/3), Bell, and Maywood (http://latimesblogs NULL.latimes NULL.com/lanow/2010/06/sheriffs-dept-to-patrol-maywood-while-city-employees-now-face-lay-offs NULL.html) in CA for starters) are going bankrupt and most of the states are very close to going bankrupt (http://www NULL.huffingtonpost NULL.com/2010/06/25/state-budget-crisis-46-st_n_625285 NULL.html). In a painful twist, states are passing budget cuts onto city and county governments (http://www NULL.huffingtonpost NULL.com/2010/05/29/states-local-budget-cuts_n_594630 NULL.html). So (http://www NULL.google NULL.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gPcuKLCFev6Vg7ZRNE7asQid3CtAD9GSG7303)me states have appealed to the federal government for financial help (http://www NULL.google NULL.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gPcuKLCFev6Vg7ZRNE7asQid3CtAD9GSG7303) while the country itself may very well be on the road to bankruptcy (http://www NULL.telegraph NULL.co NULL.uk/finance/2943328/US-could-be-going-bankrupt NULL.html). All the while, the DOD can’t account for $8.7 billion in Iraqi oil funds (http://www NULL.time NULL.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2006708,00 NULL.html) and the bank bailouts starting in 2009 could cost $4 trillion (http://money NULL.cnn NULL.com/2009/01/27/news/bigger NULL.bailout NULL.fortune/). Obviously that’s a lot more than the initial $700 billion handed over on a silver platter to the banks through a blatant financial coup d’etat in late 2009. While the exact pathways of the money trail may be obscure, many of us viscerally feel the corruption and graft even if we can’t necessarily name names and pinpoint addresses of the thieves.

Had enough of the bleak economic prospects? You’re not alone. The local food movement gained momentum because people wanted tastier, more nutritious fresh food but that food was more than mere sustenance for the body. It was food for the soul. People reconnected with farmers through farmers’ markets and direct purchases on the farms themselves. Through food and a growing sense of extended community discovered through personal connections cultivated with small farmers, folks reconnected with the land itself. If locally grown food is possible, why not localized loans with full transparency? There is no reason in the world why communities should NOT invest in themselves. Why should communities continue to export their wealth into the hands of banks, big box stores, and other corporate and governmental institutions that do not have those communities’ best interest at heart?

Fear, anxiety, and depression are clouding the minds and hearts of so many Americans but no one can save us except ourselves – not President Obama or his admininistration, certainly NOT Congress, and forget about the judicial branch of government. In fact, give up vain hopes that any politician can save us from ourselves. With their picadilloes and frailties, our elected officials are just as human as any of the rest of us. Nothing except ourselves can stop us from developing local cultures that meet social and economic human needs without further compromising the opportunities of future generations and the planet’s ecosystems. We’re at a point in time when ordinary people are being called to accomplish extraordinary deeds. Will you heed the prompting of your heart and conscience or run to silence both?

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it (http://www NULL.addthis NULL.com/bookmark NULL.php), about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed (http://www NULL.urban-suburban-ecoliteracy NULL.com/feed/).

Working in and around Los Angeles continues to bring us into contact with those who affiliate with the “green” moniker, whatever it might mean to them. Make no mistake – as socially diverse as Los Angeles is, it is still a segregated city, though nothing as blatant as Israeli walls around Palestinian villages or the wall barricading part of the southern border of the United States have been erected (yet). The borders are reified through socioeconomic stratification. Those who appear to be out of bounds are dealt with swiftly, and often brutally, by law enforcement.

The gaps between the haves and the have-nots in the United States have widened over the past 30 years, reinforced by yet another massive transfer of wealth (http://solari NULL.com/archive/missing_money/). Greenwash on the asphalt outlines socioeconomic apartheid as if to drive home the point that working class communities of color just don’t have their crap together enough to be eco-friendly hip (as though that was something to aspire to).

In case we haven’t made it abundantly clear, technological fixes won’t save humanity or save other species from extinction. Desalination won’t solve freshwater shortage problems in Southern California. We have to learn to recognize abundance in what we already have on hand and to make use of locally available materials.

A meeting with the founder and CEO of an Echo Park green nonprofit illustrated the eco-hip point well. Relieved to find herself in the company of what she believed was a sympathetic audience, she bemoaned that poor and working class communities of color don’t understand the value of value greening their lives. I countered that communities of color do indeed have environmental concerns on their radars, but the verbiage is different. The concerns and priorities differ. If “nice” white environmentally concerned liberals and social progressives humbly paid attention and listened for once instead dictating the terms of conversation by insisting that everyone use language in the same way in order to be recognized and heard, they might learn that equally valid perspectives exist in tandem with their own. This is the narcissistic vanity of many within the green movement – a sanctimonious condescension towards those who aren’t consuming their way into a “green” future.

But this is the crux of the problem: to solve the interconnected problems of overconsumption, a global economic system based on debt and cancerous expansion, and environmental destruction entails thinking differently to get different results.  The problem is not merely the manufacture of material goods, it’s HOW we’re making them and WHAT we’re making them from. It entails that having stuff be disconnected from doing in order to create a desired state of being.

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it (http://www NULL.addthis NULL.com/bookmark NULL.php), about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed (http://www NULL.urban-suburban-ecoliteracy NULL.com/feed/).

Have you ever watched someone play the entitlement card to get what they want? Do you ever play the entitlement card when you think you can get away with it? How about consciously squeezing someone to try to get something for nothing? C’mon, be honest about it. How far did you push? Did you see how far you could take things? Did you get frustrated and angry when you encountered resistance? Did you even go so far as to retaliate when you didn’t get what you wanted? What’s worse, did you feel justified in applying your own selective “justice” for the slight?

What made you believe that you were entitled to getting what you wanted at someone else’s expense? What is behind your anger and outrage? Now that the economy is at the worst most people can remember in living history and the whole world is feeling the crushing consequences of a dysfunctional, catabolic economic system, do think that squeezing others is the way to go, now more than ever?

Ever wonder what’s the current fascination popular culture has with vampires? That may seem like a non sequitur question out of the blue, but hang in there with me for a minute. Vampires have a prominent place in our consciousness as charming, sexy, seductive creatures of the night. Think about the symbolism, though. Vampires have no reflections, i.e. they can’t see themselves. Their parasitic existence cannot withstand exposure to light. They need to drain life in order to sustain themselves (and if you willingly consent to being “food”, all the better). Worst of all, the act of feeding upon others makes more vampires in the process. Popular culture and media have latched on the attractively sexy aspects of vampirism without examining either the substance of the symbolism or the meaning of the prevalence of the imagery.

Everyday encounters with real life vampires aren’t as sexy. You can identify them by how you feel after being around them – drained. (And if you’ve noticed that you’re driving others away, perhaps you’re one of these bloodsuckers.) Hang around a vampire long enough and maybe you’ll even feel sick to your stomach, depending on how heavily the vampire has “fed” on you. Vampires take and don’t give back much in return. When they give, they give just enough to make you perceive reciprocity without the actuality of its existence. Rather, they take as much as you permit them to and leave you feeling worse for the encounter. Vampires can only feed on you with your consent.

My view may be skewed because I currently live in Los Angeles, but a new acquaintance who was a project manager in the construction industry chimed in that this megalop0lis has throngs of people who are out to get something for nothing. In other words, this place is overrun with vampires, or at least people who act like them. Yeeech!

What kind of hole in the soul, what deep unmet need, drives this kind of entitlement? From what I’ve observed, the most virulently dangerous vampires are deeply unfulfilled individuals missing something fundamental. Some lack meaning and purpose in their lives. Others are missing a connection to something bigger than themselves and pieces of their own humanity, like conscience or even chunks of their souls.

Some individuals are sh*ts for the sake of being sh*ts, being rotten to others just because they can. This facile kind of vampire uses people up and discards them afterward. Other vampires, such as child molesters and abusive spouses, groom their targets and use their victims over a period of time. Other vampires have psychological and relational disorders that warp their personal relationships to the individuals they’re closest to. Still other people are not vampires to the core, but they exhibit behaviors that are draining to others around them. An attitude of entitlement is but one symptom – a clue about the nature of the vampire in question.

What else do vampires do? They complain. They don’t want solutions to the problems that lead to their complaints, but rather sympathy and attention. Speaking of attention, they want it – all of it. It’s all about them. Vampires want to be lavished with your life energy, time, money, love, expertise, etc., and they feel entitled to what they need from you. Whatever it is that you have of value that a vampire wants, he or she wants it in spades and will raise hell if they don’t get it. Forget reciprocity or equality because neither fundamentally exists from a vampire’s perspective. You’re fodder. What you need and want as a sovereign person don’t figure into the picture because you exist to feed the need.

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it (http://www NULL.addthis NULL.com/bookmark NULL.php), about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed (http://www NULL.urban-suburban-ecoliteracy NULL.com/feed/).

Sometimes an idea has to be cooked back down to its origins so that it may be reborn with new vitality and strength.

Urban/Suburban Ecoliteracy has reached one of these choicepoints. It is unlikely that the workshop will continue to be offered monthly in Southern CA, but not because the content of the workshop is irrelevant and superfluous. A friend recently commented that this workshop may be ahead of its time. It may be. Then again, because the workshop exists and because Divine timing is always spot on, Urban/Suburban Ecoliteracy may just be right where it needs to be right now. The workshop just needs to exist in a different format.

I had hopes that the workshop would be gaining positive momentum while facilitating new social connections between workshop attendees as they learn the mindset that allows sustainability to take root. In other words, teaching people systems thinking is the ostensible goal of Urban/Suburban Ecoliteracy but one of the key intentions of the workshop was to rebuild sorely needed social capital.

Here’s a quick test to see how much social capital you have in your neighborhood. How many of your neighbors do you know? Of the neighbors you have met and liked, how well do you know them and how well do they know you? How many would you trust to watch your kids? How many could you depend on to have your back if the crap hit the proverbial fan? How many of your neighbors can count on you to have their backs? Most of us don’t know our neighbors, let alone trust them. Trust is a measure of the presence or absence of social capital. The psychological, emotional, and physical safety and well-being of children (and other vulnerable members of society) in their own neighborhoods and in their families is another measure of social capital.

It was also part of the inherent design of the workshop format that that material would be tailored for its locale. Each and every community would, in effect, be hosting a unique workshop that was intended to create or enhance a sense of place. Considering the disparate communities that the workshop participants have come from, creating a sense of community connected to and grounded within a place wasn’t going to happen through the workshops. Metropolitan Los Angeles sprawls too far. It’s a place without a true center, which may be said to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. Although interpersonal affinities may be felt among workshop participants, authentic community is hard to foster without face time in real time. That may offend all you Twitter and Facebook users, but the need for face time is our collective social reality. It’s just how we’re wired as social beings.

As a recently soured relationship with a former client has reminded me, we are collectively a long way off from where we need to be and where we yearn to be. Regardless of political stripe, I know of no person of reasonably good character who does not want to be safe and for that safety to be extended to beloved friends and family. We yearn to trust and yet we’re surrounded my messages that pelt us day in and day out that 1) we’re not safe, 2) we’re never good enough, 3) we can never have enough, 4) we’re surrounded by crazy people and predators, and 5) the world is rife with scarcity, fierce competition, incessant threats, and ever-present danger. You have to get “them” before “they” get you, whomever “they” might be.

Is this honestly the world that you want for your children and grandchildren? Is this the world that you want for yourself?

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it (http://www NULL.addthis NULL.com/bookmark NULL.php), about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed (http://www NULL.urban-suburban-ecoliteracy NULL.com/feed/).