- Inspiration

Homegrown Revolution

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:45:34 -0600

Brazil: The Renewable Home

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:01:26 -0600

Erica Goldson's High School Valedictorian Speech

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 09:17:27 -0600

Related: John Taylor Gatto on Education

Source: The Best Article

Comment: The following speech was delivered by top of the class student Erica Goldson during the graduation ceremony at Coxsackie-Athens High School on June 25, 2010

Here I stand

There is a story of a young, but earnest Zen student who approached his teacher, and asked the Master, “If I work very hard and diligently, how long will it take for me to find Zen? The Master thought about this, then replied, “Ten years . .” ?The student then said, “But what if I work very, very hard and really apply myself to learn fast — How long then?” Replied the Master, “Well, twenty years.” “But, if I really, really work at it, how long then?” asked the student. “Thirty years,” replied the Master. “But, I do not understand,” said the disappointed student. “At each time that I say I will work harder, you say it will take me longer. Why do you say that?” ?Replied the Master, “When you have one eye on the goal, you only have one eye on the path.”

This is the dilemma I’ve faced within the American education system. We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

Some of you may be thinking, “Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn’t you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system. Yet, here I stand, and I am supposed to be proud that I have completed this period of indoctrination. I will leave in the fall to go on to the next phase expected of me, in order to receive a paper document that certifies that I am capable of work. But I contest that I am a human being, a thinker, an adventurer – not a worker. A worker is someone who is trapped within repetition – a slave of the system set up before him. But now, I have successfully shown that I was the best slave. I did what I was told to the extreme. While others sat in class and doodled to later become great artists, I sat in class to take notes and become a great test-taker. While others would come to class without their homework done because they were reading about an interest of theirs, I never missed an assignment. While others were creating music and writing lyrics, I decided to do extra credit, even though I never needed it. So, I wonder, why did I even want this position? Sure, I earned it, but what will come of it? When I leave educational institutionalism, will I be successful or forever lost? I have no clue about what I want to do with my life; I have no interests because I saw every subject of study as work, and I excelled at every subject just for the purpose of excelling, not learning. And quite frankly, now I’m scared.

John Taylor Gatto, a retired school teacher and activist critical of compulsory schooling, asserts, “We could encourage the best qualities of youthfulness – curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for surprising insight simply by being more flexible about time, texts, and tests, by introducing kids into truly competent adults, and by giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a risk every now and then. But we don’t do that.” Between these cinderblock walls, we are all expected to be the same. We are trained to ace every standardized test, and those who deviate and see light through a different lens are worthless to the scheme of public education, and therefore viewed with contempt.

H. L. Mencken wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not “to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. … Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim … is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States.”

Comment: The full passage reads: “The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.”

To illustrate this idea, doesn’t it perturb you to learn about the idea of “critical thinking.” Is there really such a thing as “uncritically thinking?” To think is to process information in order to form an opinion. But if we are not critical when processing this information, are we really thinking? Or are we mindlessly accepting other opinions as truth?

This was happening to me, and if it wasn’t for the rare occurrence of an avant-garde tenth grade English teacher, Donna Bryan, who allowed me to open my mind and ask questions before accepting textbook doctrine, I would have been doomed. I am now enlightened, but my mind still feels disabled. I must retrain myself and constantly remember how insane this ostensibly sane place really is.

And now here I am in a world guided by fear, a world suppressing the uniqueness that lies inside each of us, a world where we can either acquiesce to the inhuman nonsense of corporatism and materialism or insist on change. We are not enlivened by an educational system that clandestinely sets us up for jobs that could be automated, for work that need not be done, for enslavement without fervency for meaningful achievement. We have no choices in life when money is our motivational force. Our motivational force ought to be passion, but this is lost from the moment we step into a system that trains us, rather than inspires us.

We are more than robotic bookshelves, conditioned to blurt out facts we were taught in school. We are all very special, every human on this planet is so special, so aren’t we all deserving of something better, of using our minds for innovation, rather than memorization, for creativity, rather than futile activity, for rumination rather than stagnation? We are not here to get a degree, to then get a job, so we can consume industry-approved placation after placation. There is more, and more still.

The saddest part is that the majority of students don’t have the opportunity to reflect as I did. The majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it. I will never be able to turn back these 18 years. I can’t run away to another country with an education system meant to enlighten rather than condition. This part of my life is over, and I want to make sure that no other child will have his or her potential suppressed by powers meant to exploit and control. We are human beings. We are thinkers, dreamers, explorers, artists, writers, engineers. We are anything we want to be – but only if we have an educational system that supports us rather than holds us down. A tree can grow, but only if its roots are given a healthy foundation.

For those of you out there that must continue to sit in desks and yield to the authoritarian ideologies of instructors, do not be disheartened. You still have the opportunity to stand up, ask questions, be critical, and create your own perspective. Demand a setting that will provide you with intellectual capabilities that allow you to expand your mind instead of directing it. Demand that you be interested in class. Demand that the excuse, “You have to learn this for the test” is not good enough for you. Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, but focus more on learning rather than getting good grades.

For those of you that work within the system that I am condemning, I do not mean to insult; I intend to motivate. You have the power to change the incompetencies of this system. I know that you did not become a teacher or administrator to see your students bored. You cannot accept the authority of the governing bodies that tell you what to teach, how to teach it, and that you will be punished if you do not comply. Our potential is at stake.

For those of you that are now leaving this establishment, I say, do not forget what went on in these classrooms. Do not abandon those that come after you. We are the new future and we are not going to let tradition stand. We will break down the walls of corruption to let a garden of knowledge grow throughout America. Once educated properly, we will have the power to do anything, and best of all, we will only use that power for good, for we will be cultivated and wise. We will not accept anything at face value. We will ask questions, and we will demand truth.

So, here I stand. I am not standing here as valedictorian by myself. I was molded by my environment, by all of my peers who are sitting here watching me. I couldn’t have accomplished this without all of you. It was all of you who truly made me the person I am today. It was all of you who were my competition, yet my backbone. In that way, we are all valedictorians.

I am now supposed to say farewell to this institution, those who maintain it, and those who stand with me and behind me, but I hope this farewell is more of a “see you later” when we are all working together to rear a pedagogic movement. But first, let’s go get those pieces of paper that tell us that we’re smart enough to do so!

Related: John Taylor Gatto on Education

Marshall Vian Summers - At The Threshold of Great Change

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:29:15 -0600

Source: New Dimensions Media

Marshall Vian Summers on New Dimensions Radio - Audio length: 58 minutes

Our world is clearly changing, and many of those changes promise to be challenging or even catastrophic. How will we deal with the struggles that lie ahead? Marshall Vian Summers anticipates a profound paradigm shift and a global depletion, that will demand more of us than anything we've experienced. "We're not psychologically prepared for it," he says. "We're not philosophically prepared for it. We're not religiously or spiritually prepared for it. And yet we've turned these corners, and everyone can feel that something has shifted. Something is wrong about the world, and so we're living with a kind of discomfort that is an appropriate discomfort. It's not a discomfort you want to get rid of, because it's actually telling you something about the world we live in. It's a sign that we're at the threshold of great change." As disturbing as this may be, Mr. Summers sees it as an opportunity for each of us to step deeper into our spirituality, so that we will be prepared. The guidelines he shares will help you claim the life you were meant to live today, and embrace the new realities to come. (Hosted by Michael Toms)

"Marshall Vian Summers is an author and teacher whose work is dedicated to helping people prepare for the uncertain and difficult times ahead. His writings have been translated into eight languages, and include Steps to Knowledge: The Book of Inner Knowing (New Knowledge Library 1999) and The Great Waves of Change: Navigating the Difficult Times Ahead (New Knowledge Library 2009). To learn more about the work of Marshall Vian Summers go to www.GreatWavesOfChange.org or www.NewMessage.org"

Listen to the full interview here.

Sting - Shape of my Heart

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:39:12 -0600

One Person's Garden Weed is Another's Salad

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:55:19 -0600

Source: LA Times

On an overcast Saturday morning, Christopher Nyerges — the head of Eagle Rock's School of Self-Reliance — gingerly skirts a feral clump of bright green weeds.

"Always watch where you're stepping 'cause you might be stepping on our lunch," he says to the 17 students following him. Resembling troops in an outdoorsy New Age army, the group wanders through Pasadena's Hahamongna Watershed Park, scouring the dirt hills, shallow valleys and parched riverbeds of the land for edible plants as part of a wild food outing that Nyerges regularly teaches.

Nyerges knows what most urbanites don't: that food is in the eye of the beholder. He scans the foliage around him with sharp, knowing eyes, recognizing the shape and veins of a leaf; the texture of bark on a tree; the color of a berry; the gentle slope of a stem crowned with flowers. It's all salad to him.

Those pesky "weeds" that you routinely pull in your backyard might be lambsquarters, greens rich in vitamins A and C that can be eaten just like spinach and are good raw or sautéed. Or maybe they're amaranth, which is also called pigweed. (In Jamaica it is steamed and served with butter and cheese.)

The list of possibilities is lengthy and nutritious. That is, if your palate and stomach enjoy life on the wild side. These plants take getting used to, and if you're not careful you could end up with a belly ache, or worse.

"Wild foods are full potency in terms of vitamins and minerals," says Nyerges, who is the editor of Wilderness Way magazine and has penned a wild food cookbook along with nine other self-reliance titles. "I've had people get sick eating some of them, but not because they're poisonous. We generally eat weak food, and when you eat something that's real, your body might react." (Try telling that to your general practitioner.)

Clad in faded green army pants, a long-sleeved green button-up shirt and a black cowboy hat banded with a patterned kerchief Nyerges, 55, is motion incarnate. As the group walks along a path covered with a blanket of decaying leaves he spots chickweed, which is mild and tender and makes a great salad green. Dropping suddenly to his knees he plucks a leaf and holds it up for all to see.

"At Whole Foods this costs $15 a pound dried," he says of the chickweed. "Then there's a lookalike that has a white milky sap." He peers about him for a moment, grabs another leaf that looks identical to the chickweed and crushes it between his fingers, revealing a sticky white substance.

"So that's not edible?" a woman asks. Her long gray hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she wears Teva sandals. Nyerges looks at her with a long, serious face.

"It's edible, but you'll vomit," he says. Everybody chuckles, and Nyerges smiles.

Still, the point he's making with the joke is deadly serious: You should only eat what you know. If you don't know it, don't touch it.

Down a grassy hill and past an elegant row of acacia trees, the mud from a recent rainfall cracks in large thirsty gaps and Nyerges stops short. "Look at this," he says, pointing at a grouping of flowered plants with wide flat leaves and tiny pepper-shaped growths.

A woman plucks one of the growths and nibbles on it. "It tastes like a radish," she says thoughtfully.

"It tastes like a radish because it is a radish," Nyerges says. "A wild radish."

Nyerges' eyes narrow, and he swiftly rips a plant from the ground beside a radish plant. It has intricate patterned leaves resembling parsley, only not as thickly bunched.

"Here's one you should all be aware of," he says. "That's poison hemlock. It's enough to kill you."

Unnerved, the group peers suspiciously at the contents of their salad bags. Maybe wild food wasn't as fun as they thought. But, then again, a number of people in attendance, including two men who say they are part of a 9/11 truth group, are not there for fun.

Nyerges, who has been teaching for more than 30 years, says that it isn't uncommon for hard-core survivalists to take his class, as well as people with end-of-the-world-related fears. "There have been individuals who have been seriously upset about things over the years. During Y2K they were petrified; now I get a lot of that with the 2012 baloney," he says, referring to what some believe is the Mayan calendar's end date.

"I tell people that society is not going to change, only the individual can change and that's the source of calm that comes from true self-reliance," he continues. "I'm convinced I will never go hungry, I'll never be homeless, I'll never be broke.

"More and more I'm dealing with average people who are worried about the nutritional content of their food and what to do if there is a supermarket strike or an earthquake," Nyerges adds.

Soon the group passes through a field of slender mustard plants. They wave knee-high in the breeze, their dainty yellow flowers shining in the just-emerging sunlight. "Taste the flowers," Nyerges urges. They are full of heat and spice. "You can eat the leaves too," he adds as a man holding a book by Nyerges titled "Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants" scribbles furiously in its margins.

As the walk plunges deeper into the park, the landscape changes, not in the way it looks, but in the way you look at it. Familiar greenery remains on all sides — however, it is impossible to see it in the same way. It is now filled with hidden secrets to be revealed with each passing step.

Those thick reddish-brown stalks covered in shiny seeds are curly dock. The seeds can be crushed into a powder and mixed with equal parts wheat flour to make hearty pancakes. Those round white flowers are buckwheat flowers — when they mature the plant's brown seeds can be mixed with flour to make biscuits. Nyerges dives into a huge swell of buckwheat and emerges with a fat hunk of white sage.

"You can put a leaf of that in your water bottle for general relaxation," says Jim Robertson, a friend of Nyerges who gives his own wilderness walks.

In fact, you can do something with just about everything if you're not the squeamish type (or if you just want to freak out your friends). Even the shell of white secretion that bugs called psyllids hide beneath on eucalyptus leaves can be plucked off and eaten. Tiny and crisp, they taste sugary and have a slightly waxy finish. "You can use a whole bunch of these as sweetener," Robertson says.

The group takes in this information skeptically.

But a few brave souls — including Bill Hooper and Caitlyn Hayes — lean in for a closer look. Hooper and Hayes, a young couple, both slender and with a strong interest in raw and vegan food, attended the class to learn more about natural foods and medicines. Plus, they really enjoy wandering around the city scavenging for treats together.

"I was walking around Santa Monica near the DMV and I was like, 'Is there any food around here?'" Hooper says. "And I saw something red and tasted it and it was kind of sweet." It turned out to be a natal plum.

"They're everywhere!" Hooper exclaims.

Also everywhere on this trek: mountain lilac buds that lather into soap when mixed with water. And willow bark, the original aspirin. The inside of the bark is slick green, moist and bitter. It can be chewed on to soothe toothaches and headaches. Other finds include horehound, great for a sore throat, and the tubular yellow flowers of the tobacco plant, which can be sucked on for a cheap nicotine rush. (Just don't eat the leaves — they are poisonous.)

By the time the nearly three-hour trek comes to a conclusion at a picnic table by the parking lot, notebooks are full and heads are spinning. Nyerges produces bowls made from the tops of dried gourds and begins washing and chopping the wild salad that has been foraged.

A Tiny Apartment Transforms Into 24 Rooms

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:30:15 -0600

Renaissance Drawings

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:12:34 -0600

One Man, One Cow, One Planet

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 21:12:51 -0600

What does an environmentally friendly biodynamic food system capable of feeding everyone actually look like?

This film is a blueprint for a post-industrial future. It takes you into the heart of the world's most important renaissance.

The outcome of the battle for agricultural control in India may just dictate the future of the earth

Our existence on this planet is precarious.

Modern industrial agriculture is destroying the earth:

Desertification, water scarcity, toxic cocktails of agricultural chemicals pervading our food chains, ocean ecosystem collapse, soil erosion and massive loss of soil fertility.

Our ecosystems ore overwhelmed. Humanity's increasing demands are exceeding the Earth's carrying capacity.

A simple recipe to save the world?

One old man and a bucket of cow-dung.

Are you crazy?

Why YOU should see this film

Modern agriculture causes topsoil to be eroded at 3 million tons per hour. (that’s 26 billion tons a year)

Human mass is replacing biomass and other species. The carrying capacity of the earth is almost spent.

To maintain our comfort zone lifestyles we will soon need five earths to sustain us in the style to which we have become accustomed.

The mantra of free trade has failed the world’s poor. There is a better way.

Biodynamic agriculture may be the only answer we have left. - www.onemanonecow.com

The Boy Hero (He Who Fights)

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 09:59:07 -0600

He who trapped in chains, of a culture run morbid
never having wanted but a little piece of joy, now found
living in prison, a cast away onboard what seems an empty vessel
when he asks out, in a solemn angry voice
where are they, when here I am?

I hear voices distant, but their world is only a ghost
in the face of my pain, as ever I would wish away
we never did err with you, but were born on a wrong way road
in a land no one knows, to a people without a home

I raise my voice to the on high, I'm even reaching to the sky
I'm looking for you there, and if not there,
then where?

The Starlings on Otmoor

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:26:48 -0600

Damian Aspinall’s Extraordinary Gorilla Encounter

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:17:08 -0600

Don't Give Up

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Mon, 31 May 2010 20:54:12 -0600

Nick Vujicic - Life Without Limbs

nospam@example.com (Angelo) — Mon, 31 May 2010 08:13:39 -0600