International Woman's Day

The roots of International women's day go as far back as 1909 when the US celebrated it's first National Women's day. If we consider what was at stake then in North America - the right to vote, the right to be persons under the law, we can see the roots of this event as a day of awareness.

The movement is about equal opportunity, not just for ourselves but for all people across the globe. We understand that the marginalization of one group, whether they be women, aboriginal people, children etc (unfortunately there are many ways we segregate each other) undermines the essential humanity of ALL of us, including those who marginalize others.

There is much clear work that tracks the health of a community to the health, safety, literacy and capacity of the women in it. The trickle down effect does work when we build adaptive capacities in humans. A great example of this is the work of The Greenbelt Movement through Wangari Maathai.

This year the UN theme is "A Promise is a Promise: Time for Action to End Violence Against Women" Rape as a tool of war is an increasing concern not only in "war torn" countries" but we are seeing evidence of this organized intentional violence creeping into our communities. We need to only look to the Idle No More movement and the terrible events in Thunder Bay

Here is what it looks like on an organized level in Mali.  This is not an isolated event and brings home the story of rape and violence against women in ways that should provoke us to question the economic and political links.

This post can go on about economic injustices, environmental, social, health injustices. International Woman's Day is not about a gender, it is about all of us existing together without undermining our own humanity in the process.

PS:   International Woman's Day is a time for us to be reminded of our responsibility to protect.   It is a time for us to remember what we need to learn to be prepared to be helpful.   Consider reading about our own economic and political links to some of the world's greatest injustices that  Samantha Nutt points out in her book Damned Nations if you haven't already. 

 

 

Elections & Growing Concerns

That was quite an election in the United States.  Some very interesting story telling, which is problematic when the stories that are told, by anyone, don't match up to reality.

It is also very problematic when those stories are told by people with influence.   Money, connections, aggression - these all influence us. 

Donald Trump via Twitter.   Nov 6, 2012

There is an old proverb I was reminded by on election night because of Donald Trump's Tweet: 

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." 
Abraham Lincoln

 

However I am glad he didn't remain silent.    He exposed his thinking.  He exposed how much more dangerous he is than a fool.  Historically, the fool is something for our amusement and has little influence. Donald Trump has proven he will use his money, his connections and his dominant voice in to influence and persuade.   And people listen to him.*

 

The desired outcome of this thinking is a belief that we can carry on business as usual.   No need to course correct and work to protect our home, the planet.    

 

This ups the stakes and takes me to another quote:  

"Stupidity and Evil are the same thing if you judge by the consequences."  

Margaret Atwood, Payback

If we in privileged nations continue to encourage business as usual we are committing genocide on a global scale that will be looked upon by future generations as a greater atrocity than any that had come before it simply because we were too attached to our lifestyles to course correct.

 

After spending the week with Rachel Carson, (mother of the modern environmentalist movement) via Mark Hamilton Lytle's lovely biography The Gentle Subversive I am particularly raw when I see such stupidity and persuasion in one package.    It encourages me to do the only thing I can do when I am lost for words & my soul is aching due to the blindness of so many, including myself - I need to learn.   This is the action that is needed at this time and place in history.   

 

Ms Carson knew that, as a matter of fact she linked the act of learning as a moral imperative.  

 

  “Superficiality, intellectual laziness and moral indifference were qualities Rachel condemned.   For her, the waste of one’s intellectual gifts was akin to the “reckless squandering of natural resources”  

Mark Hamilton

She continue throughout her life to try to refine her stories so that they more accurately reflect the realities of life (living systems/human systems).    She writes of the challenge of waking up to pockets of blindness or ignorance (the absence of that which could be learned that could be helpful) in her thinking, that although painful and hard, this led her to write the seminal work Silent Spring.

"The whole world of science has been revolutionized for a decade or so... It was pleasant for me to believe that much of nature was forever beyond the tampering hand of man - he might level the forests and dam the streams, but the clouds and the rain and the wind were God’s"

"These beliefs have almost been part of me for so long as I have thought about such things.  To have them even vaguely threatened was so shocking that, as I have said, I shut my mind, refused to acknowledge what I couldn’t help seeing.  But that does no good and I have now opened my eyes and my mind...  Time someone wrote of Life in the light of the truth as it now appears to us.”   

Rachel Carson

There is a truth in this we must all face if we want to grow up, existentially.    Life is not about our happiness and the more we chase happiness the further we get from doing the work that is actually needed.   Learning about the world and all it's ugliness (and profound beauty, of course) is diametrically opposed to the pursuit of happiness perscribed by so many aphorisims and platitudes.

 

Do not be lulled to  sleep by the superficial pursuit of happiness.  It is a trap.  I implore you to continue and dig deeper into your learning in these times of such import.   Keep reading, choose well, keep thinking.    We, all of us need to learn so that we can understand how stories are created, understand how we create our stories, and tell better stories, because that is how culture is built.   

 

Thank you for joining me here today.

 

 

* Previous to Gentle Subversive, I spent some time reading and thinking about Ayn Rand Nation by Gary Weiss and Pity The Billionaire by Thomas Frank.   I found these books very helpful in framing the story of America and how this election grew to the silly mess it was.   Summarized by Alex Pareene, so succinctly:

Giving Thanks Where Thanks is Due

Thanksgiving in Canada is designated as:

"A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed – to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October."  

For me the “Almighty” is the natural world, Mother Earth.  Today is a chance to recognize our relationship to the natural world.   This harvest, locally, we get to eat and celebrate comes from the natural world that we are a part of, and in turn, affect.   The challenge of Thanksgiving is we have created a food industry has skewed our understanding of this concept of harvest


Aldo Leopold, ecologist, scientist, environmentalist wrote, in 1949:  There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm.   One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other is that the heat comes from the furnace.   

Leopold reminds us that it is important to know where your food comes from and how to heat your home, without this knowing you will never understand the complex relationship we have with the planet.    He goes on to say that in order to be fully human in this world we must take the time to learn to work with the planet in order to understand the complexity.

“To avoid the first danger, one should plant a garden, preferably where there is no grocer to confuse the issue

To avoid the second, he should lay a split of good oak on the andirons, preferably where there is no furnace, and let it warm his shins while a February tosses trees outside.  If one has cut, split, hauled, and piled his own oak, and let his mind work all the while, he will remember much about where the heat comes from, and the wealth of detail denied to those who spend the weekend astride a radiator”

A Sand County Almanac

There is much to consider in this prescription that rings true today.

As my family and I struggled through canning peaches, which admittedly we didn’t grow ourselves, in order to prepare for a winter of progressive food sovereignty, we knew that the odds were against us.

9 jars of peaches/4 hours work, 4 people working

12 Eggplants grown, 6 months of work.

14 Zucchini grown, all eaten, 5 months of work.

25 lb. of Tomatoes, 15 of which are still ripening - 6 months of work.

The math of these efforts don’t equal out in obvious terms to the cost of purchasing vegetables in my grocery store.   There are unobservable costs that must be noticed as Leopold was pushing us to consider.  Clearly, the value of my spiritual health is not factored in.

The enormous costs that comes along with an out of balance food  industry are rarely considered. We need only consider XL foods, soil erosion, starvation, malnutrition, seed hording, seed patenting,  large scale factory farming, pollution, climate change (not to mention the cost of extracting fuel from this earth to transport food from one continent to another) and we start to see that there are costs we are creating that go ignored.   "Externalities" that we participate in creating daily, that are very real and important to consider.   

The future cost to our home goes unobserved.

I often think of the generation of older Canadians in their 80's the majority of their lives in rural communities vs urban.    I know those stats have changed and now more people, in Canada, live in urban centers rather than rural.   With this comes less of a relationship to the natural world.   Every wonder why grand dad or great grandma knew how to do stuff?   Because they had to.   Granny raised sheep, carded wool, spun wool and  knit because that was how she was going to get a sweater.   She couldn't go to the Bay.  

If we don’t remind ourselves and future generations that this is how it is done, this is it works in our part of the planet.  We lose the vital, life giving relationships to nature that make us more human. 

It is easier to have a relationship with those of your own species... it is important to broaden your caring beyond that.  I, personally, have a big crush on the miracle of seed (many of which are freezing into the soil as we speak, preparing for a long winter, in order to renew themselves and their species again in the spring.

Perhaps with we humans spent more time in winter reflecting on that process of heating and eating and the transgenerational expression of our humanity, we might be able to move towards the future with some wisdom and humility.   But that takes a level of caring we have not been prepared for through our cultural programing thus far.   That takes reaching out beyond to what we know is there, embracing it, learning, admitting our place at the table and working.

So, if I pray for anything to anything on this day,  it is to the universe, including our home planet  - Earth,  all that has come before us, that which is to come long after I am here and for the long term recognition that we are part of the ecosystem, not on top of it.  

Happy Harvest.

Last Tree Standing

 As most of you know I have been busy this summer growing things close to home.   For me its a responsibility not a hobby.  I can't justify buying food with an environmental footprint that large when I have 3 months to grow some of my own.

My horizons have caring have been focused on the plants I have been tending and my lovely step-daughter and family with the future in mind.

 I was given a swift kick in the vacation mindset to blog, however, after watching Mitt Romney's Speech at the GOP2012 and reading an article by George Monbiot entitled The Day The World Went Mad.

I encourage you to read the both pieces which point to clear indicators of some known issues of how our collective ignorance, conflicting horizons of caring, confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance play out when it comes to issues that affect us globally, like the melting of the polar ice caps.

Monbiot points out that on August 29th "a record Arctic ice melt had just been announced by the scientists studying the region. The 2012 figure has not only beaten the previous record, established in 2007. It has beaten it three weeks before the sea ice is likely to reach its minimum extent. It reveals that global climate breakdown is proceeding more rapidly than most climate scientists expected. But you could be forgiven for missing it, as it scarcely made the news at all."

He goes on to question why the British media focused on the proposed Heathrow runway and not this issue.   He was questioning why we would ignore this issue at our peril and asking us to consider our limitations in caring and thinking.  

I am coupling this with a small part of the Romney speech, although the whole speech was rife with examples of limited thinking. 

After listening to Romney belittle Obama's already weak climate change initiatives last night you start to get a sense of how hard this is for us as human beings to consider and the conflicts inherent in caring on a species and planet level.  

Romney:    "President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans.  And to heal the planet.  My promises to help you and your family."

This is the challenge of our time.

We need to figure out how to care through time and history, into the future and make our decisions based on those who will come after us not for ourselves and our narrow gain in a narrow lifespan of our own 60 - 80 years.   Typically, our species have not based our cultures (which, combined with our hard-wiring, are a key shaping force for how we think and see the world) on testing against real life, nor thinking through time to the future and certainly we wrestle with seeing "all men as equal".

We build stories in our cultures that orient our thinking to a certain level of expectation that rarely match up to what is most needed in reality.    This is the dangerous complexity of our collective thinking that has brought us to this place.   We can rethink ourselves.

WE need to be the giants whose shoulders those generations stand on.    And as our generation stands on a precipice never before experienced by our species we need unprecedented thinking to move us forward.  

We need the kind of thinking that draws on the lessons of that which has come before us.    We need only look around a wee bit to see that we, in a smaller tribal scale have experienced this situation and failed to act - think of Easter Island.   Against all possible reality they continued destroying trees to make sacrifices to the dead who would then provide everything they needed.  Even in the face of conflicting evidence, as they suffered environmental degredation and deforestation which lead to unstable agriculture,  their culture was so path dependent that they destroyed themselves and their ability to exist.    Does this sound like any humans you know?   The lessons are scaleable.  

What is the stumbling block?  I dare say it is not our technological abilities but our cultural limitations.   We have ways of thinking and being embedded in our cultures, I don’t care what culture you are talking about that make it difficult to transcend our thinking and caring to that larger frame.

Caring for our species & the planet means giving up many things that are comfortable & convenient, perhaps even necessary to maintain our current economic levels.   Our brains are hardwired for comfort and to justify the way we exist.   I must insert here we can be rewire ourselves, no room for fatalistic thinking here, sorry kids.   We do have to take the time to think through it and consider how we are hard wired

So here is a thought experiment.   Think about the idea of lessening your fossil fuel consumption, think about how you heat in your home.   For those of us in the North, becomes a very daunting idea to not use or have less heat in the winter, even no heat, right?

If you follow the thinking for a bit and you will encounter cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias that will tell you why you deserve to burn fossil fuels over another community without the same extremes.   The problem is we all see our situation as the most dire and necessary. (For more on this explore the book:  Mistakes Were Made but Not by Me)

Its a pretty straight forward caring conflict, my comfort vs global climate change.   Now, I'm not saying that my using a heater in winter is the sole cause, of course not.  But I am saying that our use, our path dependency, leads us to think a certain way about fossil fuels and how we need to use them.   

That leads us to feel a certain way about "our" natural resources that narrows our thinking down into arbitrary geophysical lines and historical time lines.   That leads us to "believe" in certain inalienable rights &  privileges. 

Then we may need to give up income for example and future income as well as Samantha Nutt points out in her book Damned Nations. Many retirement savings plans including CPP are funded by arms sales.  (Not blowing each other up IS part of the story of us doing better on this planet, as far as I can see, please let me know if you disagree)  By investing in bombs, guns, arms etc, as ALL CANADIANS are doing because of CPP, we are betting that and inadvertently hoping that people will use arms... which if you follow the thinking trail, means that we are betting on people killing each other.  

We are so path dependent that we are struggling with making wise decisions.    We are at a place where cultural provisionalism is no longer going to work for us, as a species.    We need to understand what the real world needs, not the one we have made up in our heads.

If we draw on a broader story of life and humanity we may be able to right our boat, but that will be uncomfortable and require disagreement.  Since we are so strongly driven by the need to belong (to our in-group, implying a need for out-group) and we are small troupe lazy primates, I suspect that in itself, not even the extreme demand for resources may cause more war & strife.

We do have the capacity to move forward.   We can see, in pockets of our humanity a striving for collective caring.   We can see people holding up their hands and saying stop, this is not right.     We now need the way to assess our thinking, assess our judgements through a global lens so that we can do our best to lessen the stress on our species and our planet.   And as much as I know that the world would be happier without us on it, I do still think, when I reflect on people in our generations, like Sophie Scholl, The Elders, Ray Anderson, Rachel Carson, Wangari Maathai - I know it is there, we are worth preserving.

The challenge of our time is collective conduct systems that draw on the best of what it means to be alive and human.   Conduct systems that override culture.

Just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it can't.

How to Make Rhubarb Compote

Here is my simple and easy - and tasty recipe for Rhubarb Compote:

6 - 8 cups chopped rhubarb
1/4 cup orange blossom water
3/4 - 1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 - 2 tsp lavender
rind of 3/4 of a navel orange

1) Grow Lavender the season before, collect & store  

2) Grow Rhubarb

3) Chop rhubarb

4) Mix all together

5) Boil the crap out of it. 

Enjoy over ice cream, which involves a cow - yours or one that is owned by someone else.  We won't even discuss the orange blossom water and the navel orange, definitely not local.

There are deeper thoughts brewing but they have been melted by the 31 degrees and sleep deprivation.    Will work on them when the Stampede guests all leave.   For now, some rhubarb porn

Look! Look What I Did!

"I got some radishes.   I did it.   This is what I made."  

These vain and incomplete thoughts run through my head every time there is a successful pull from the ground.

It is indicative of the kind of thinking that plagues us as human beings.   We desperately want a place in the ecosystem far more dominant than we deserve.   (remember blog post What Kind of Soil is Most Needed for Growing Humans?   That etymology of our name piece is important here)

The good news is this is not an unknown problem.  Knowing this is a problem that has been tracked by philosophers and sages over the generations allows us to begin the hard journey of reconstructing ourselves and our cultures.

When I break down what goes into my harvests by examining the causal architectures I must take into account much more than my labour, such that it was.

You see most of the seeds I used came from a seed catalogue.  Sent to me via Canada Post.   (A very complex system of information delivery)  The seeds I chose were collected by others with far more knowledge  on heritage varieties, isolating pollination practices, and harvesting viable seeds.  My labour included tilling the soil, planting seeds and on some days watering... and, of course, weeding.

I must also consider the soil;  the organisms, bacteria, insects, not to mention the nutrients created by the decomposition of plant, insect and animal life generations before.   I am confident I had little to do with that.

Then, I need to consider the wind carries pollen from one plant to another so that it may bloom, or cause the vibrations that shake the stamen and pistil on self pollinating plants, in order to encourage them to create fruit.   If not the wind, then the pollinators, like my friendly hardworking bees who help me out.  Yup, not my doing.

I must also consider the sun, that star at the center of our universe, the earth rotates on it's axis and due to many forces we get a growing season.  The sun is a key part to warming the ground, the soil, sprouting the seeds, giving the green leafs nutrients.   I am pretty sure I didn't make that happen, although I can safely say I leveraged the sun in some places with structures originally devised by people far more clever than I.

Okay, now I need to consider the rain that gives moisture to my plants, or even more remarkable the fact that I can water my plants when no rain arrives through the water supply the roots of which we can trace back to early Rome & aqueducts.     The fact that I have a hose and running water in my yard is a testament to the striving and learning of many before me.

Um... I okay, I walked to the garden, held the watering can and filled it, then emptied it.   And although  that is something it is certainly not the whole story, as a matter of fact it is a small part of the story and that is very liberating. 

This breakdown barely scratches the surface of what is going on, but it is an example of a way to consider the true effort of our existence & our true place in our primary community of life.  

When I focus on what I can get out of life, I forget that I am creating a future for those yet to come.

If I remember what I am building on, I can let go of the many petty problems that plague us as humans like ego, status drive, conspicuous consumption and move towards a place where my life has a purpose beyond my lifetime.

There is a quote a few good people have driven my attention to lately (thank you Anita & Elizabeth) which seems achingly appropriate for this conversation:

“You are a flower and a seed. 

You are part of a story which began with the first cell of life. 

That story will continue on after you…

You are a guardian of the seeds for the world to come. 

All that has gone before and all that is yet to come is within you. 

Through you passes humanity’s saving fire.  You are running in a relay. 

This is the moment you have been chosen to hold the torch.  You cannot refuse to run. 

Whatever you do is part of your page in the story of life.” 

~ Tolbert McCarrol~

Although I suspect this quote could be vastly misconstrued in areas, the piece that is important to focus on is that we are a part of the story, not the whole story.    We are part of the relay and we participate whether we are conscious of it or not.    We engage in consciously leaving this place a better place for life to come.

We can also choose to be asleep and unconscious.    In making that choice we are more likely to not consider all that goes into our daily actions, our path dependency and we are more likely to cause harm.  

Growing things, for me,  is a simple meditation on what most needs doing.   This exercise applies to all our actions, the daily actions of what and how I choose to spend my time, my money, what I pay attention to.    The larger questions of how we negotiate the space of "natural resources" & "human resources". 

If we can zoom in on the earths soil, we can learn to zoom out to life & humanity through time and space.   

Why Read? Nutrients for your Soil.

A colleague of mine on the journey shared this  photo.  

Admittedly it is pretty cute but more importantly it reminds us about what learning is for.

Reading is more than entertainment.    Reading is for learning.   Why would we want to learn?   In order to reduce our ignorance.

When I was reading this book I spent some time wondering how on earth someone making the decisions that Dr Nutt points to around aid and military intervention might see more of the story given how their thinking is oriented.

It is only through investigative journalism, truth telling, play writing, story telling, sage development, listening carefully and the capacity to negotiate confirmation bias that we can move forward

Books = nutrients... all soil needs nutrients

(Thank you Christine Martin, for this photo)

What kind of soil is most needed for growing humans?

I have already mentioned the concept of culture being the soil we grow out of. 

It is something I consider a lot in my life.

It is in our name.

The etymology of the world Human points us to three key areas: from O.Fr. humain, umain (adj.) "of or belonging to man"


We are a species - homo sapien sapien (which is another conversation about calling ourselves wise wise human - but that is for another day).   This means we ALL belong to the same species that is striving to keep our species alive.   Race and cultural divisions are subsets... we ALL belong to the community of man.

There is also an aspiration quality to our name:    from L. humanus "of man, human," also "humane, philanthropic, kind, gentle, polite; learned, refined, civilized," probably related to homo (gen. hominis) "man,".

I suspect that we all agree this is us, as a species trying to do better.  Likely we will not achieve this goal but we know have the capacity and this is something to pay attention to because it is so important to us that we made it part of our name.

Lastly the word human is also derived from humus "earth,"  notion of "earthly beings," as opposed to the gods.

We are of the earth.   Grounded in soil.    We are part of a larger community of all life on this earth.

And, to extend the metaphor a tiny bit further, if you will indulge me, we grow out of the soil we create on this earth - culture

It reminds me of the story many of us have heard:

“Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time.”  When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, “The one I feed the most.”

We feed those dogs on individually and culturally on a steady diet derived not only from the sources of  perceived culture we draw on (TV, Internet sources, news sources, pop culture, theatre, art, books - some cultural & societal resources) but all sources of learning (there are three:  engagements with life, direct contact with others, and cultural & societal resources).

Institutions are a source of learning for us.   They are part of our soil.   Many people, including thinker Chris Hedges, are pointing to how polluted our soil is.

This sparked quite a debate yesterday.

It got me to thinking about what we are growing in this soil and how would we do it better and what must we consider as we do this.  

Not easy questions, not easy to answer but it brought me to a platitude that was making the rounds on the cultural thermometer of facebook:

"We talk so much about leaving a better planet to our kids, that we forget about leaving better kids to this planet. Educate your children - say NO to them every once in a while."

One of the things I vehemently dislike about platitudes is there is rarely enough thinking behind them to make them helpful.   They are often a trailhead but if one does or cannot think past the trailhead, one can end up in a lot of hot water.

The question is not whether or not, as we are raising kids to become adults that do better on this planet, we say no to them... of course we do.   As we must also say maybe, okay, yes and "what do you think about that?" or "why does that matter?"

The question is what dog are we feeding within them.    And who else is feeding that dog, and how are we going to do better.  

Here is a case example I want to share of kids growing into better adults that could care for the primary communities we live in life & humanity.  

 This photo is of Sophie & Hans Scholl who were part of the White Rose Movement during WW2.   If you don't know this story, I highly recommend you add the nutrients:  Sophie Scholl & The White Rose by Jud Newborn & Annette Dumbach.    This particular retelling is helpful in understanding what it takes to support the culture that grows better kids to leave to this planet.

Sophie & Hans Scholl were the sort of kids who grow up to be adults on this planet that cared enough to speak truth to power in a time when many other people were too afraid to speak up. Together with the White Rose movement they sparked a resistance inside Germany.
 
What kind of soil does it take to shape kids into people like this.

What did Hans and Sophie draw on?  Great art, philosophy, nature (source of learning 3 societal and cultural resources),  the strength and clear thinking of their parents, teachers, inspirational leaders in their community (source of learning 2: direct contact with others), and they themselves learned from their experiences (sources of learning 1:  life).   They watched and questioned if the actions of the Nazi party lined up with life & humanity.    When they recognized that it didn't they drew on learned experience to assess, with disciplined thinking, whether or not what was happening was wise or good action.   

When I think about growing things, I also consider growing our species.    How will I contribute to leaving better kids on this planet?   How will/can I assess if I am adding to the nutrients of the soil for others, am I giving nutrients back, creating a toxic environment?   

 We are all responsible for the soil from which the humans of today grow from - culture.

Beginner Tomatoes

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Like many growers I give away seedlings, often in an attempt to get people engaged in the joy and hard work of growing things.    I have been growing things for many years but the last three with the added sense of responsibility that this can link myself and others to a greater community (as mentioned in the post Why Grow Things)

This is a document I created for some elementary school aged growers who were starting their tomatoes.   This is created specifically with Calgary in mind and is by no means comprehensive.     I am sharing this here in hopes that others may add to it, correct me if I am off base or use it as a helpful tool

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Square Feet

I'm a sceptic - generally when I am approached with something that will revolutionize anything, I wait, watch and often see no difference except for the name or product one needs to buy

But this year, I listened to my sister in law and tried square foot gardening.

I see it primarily as an organizational tool.  And in that regard I can use all the help I can get.  

Here are my two beds.   I have a plot up the street in the community garden

and a plot in the back yard to feed the slugs 

(that will be another post in the future - slugs, in a desert) 

Let me know if you are square footing it and how that is going for you.

Why grow things?

 The other day someone told me that growing things (aka gardening) was my hobby.

I bristled.

This is no hobby.

This activity limits my daily engagements, my summer retreats away from my home and demands constant attention with little guarantee of success.

No person who has ever tried to grow food in Calgary, Alberta could call this a hobby.

So what is it then? 

Well, I suppose some might call it a philosophy.   I call it a responsibility.

We live in one of the most privileged places on the planet at this time and place in history.

With privilege comes responsibility

If I can live in this city and reap the benefits of that privilege then I am responsible for not over exploiting the resource.

I work towards this in many ways as a community developer:

I work to reduce ignorance and error in our community leaders and culture (the soil from which humans grow) in my volunteer engagements.

I work towards reducing waste and suffering in our local & broader communities by illuminating our collective ignorance through cultural artifacts (creating plays, stories, documentaries that we can draw on to consider more of the story)

I see community as the communities of interest and allegience as well as two primary communties that we all belong to - Life & Humanity.

Think about that for a minute - we are all human and we are all part of life on this planet.

So if I am living & working as a community developer in a privileged community that shaped the planet through it's exports of oil & gas then I have huge responsibilities to those communities.

That is why I stay in this city - a city with brutal winters and the shortest growing season in Alberta.   Because of the responsibility to do better into the future.

That is also why I am learning to grow my own food.

I, like you, live in a global economy.   I live in a city where fresh local food is scarce.   I have the economic where with all to afford trucked in produce in the fall, winter and early spring so that I can round out the local beef with some other nutrients. 

That is a path dependency that makes me very uneasy.    One day I woke up and said: that is not good enough for my soul.   I can't accept that and I must do what I can to do better.

Moving to a farm in BC is not an option because of my commitments to the broader community.   There are some of us trying to ensure that in this place on the planet we do better... we are squeeky wheels, policy influencers, general questioners and we can't leave because there is a need.


This blog is about the journey of joining the many gardeners, urban farmers, local growers around the world.

This is my commitment to you planet earth.   I will do my best to serve you