Mu

We have no word like this in English. Not "yes", not "no", but somewhere in-between. Even the word "maybe" resolves to get to the bottom of things before we are finished, often leading to pros and cons on either side. Mu is a state of being that is just as valid as either of the other two, but it exists in a blind spot within our culture. Our sense of duality is often too strong to admit a third possibility. Quixotically, our professed religion dictates a trinity, however, "we" seem to be unable to fathom this in our most primal, mental constructs which then get used to lead us through our lives. Like imperfect maps, we place items of experience in relation to other elements. From this relationship of arbitrary perspective, we build the landscape of our problem solving terrain.

I told a friend, There is a young woman who wants to learn about herbal healing...and I'm thinking of taking her on as an apprentice/student. His response was vile and crass. "Have you ____ed her yet?" The domain of his mental maps, the virtual topography of relationships between the sexes, told him that all women are quarry, to be bedded. The excuse for any behavior runs deep in the human mind runs deep.

In this case, my love for you, my compassion and humanity toward the suffering that you have experienced is the driving force behind each word, each concept and every intention that is put forward through ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. When I plant a tree, or make it possible for a dozen folks to plant one-hundred trees, it is for you, your air, the water supply of the planet. I put my breath into the cells of that tiny spirit of hope. When it becomes grand, towers over homes, or gives shelter to other critters, you get a sense of how deeply I love you. When the tree finally falls, it will still nourish a collection of microbes and bugs that defy our imaginings. This third state is necessary, the mu, lets me say that the world is already different because of the love that I have for you. There is no "yes" or "no" about it.

An African word, Ubuntu says it best and I have had it translated to English, somewhat clumsily as "I am because you are." What it means to me is that the whole of my existence is bound up, reflected, perhaps even refracted through you and that is what gives meaning to my life. You are essential to me. Our essences reverberate with one another into something greater. Mu requires not, agreement with anything but timeless truth. Neither at odds, or in accord, we are part of a vast organism, the ecosphere.

I have always understood this third state, for instance, when Rush sang: "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice." I got the message that doing the best, in all situations requires a suspension of decision, but not action. Too often we forget that the right thing to do is frequently never considered. It never even makes it on to the table. We are too often hurried into making bad decisions. When we honor the third choice, much of the wasteful, harmful, neglectful, abusive and erroneous activities can be avoided. Not yes, not no.

I am because you are. There is no yes or no about that. We all breathe the same noble gasses as the dinosaurs did, we are one, through time and space, the very molecules we share are but stardust. Not no, not yes, just be with that. We are one...often this answer is even more important than the question. I want to use this forum to call for a worldwide boycott, overt #occupation of the decision-making process. If you are about to say yes, to something you fell you should say no to, at least allow mu a chance to fill you. Is someone makes a baseless claim, do not let your blood pressure rise, become inflamed or moved to anger, turn the question around, find the flaw and state unequivocally mu. Then walk away. It is time for humanity to speak truth to power or perish. Participation under duress is a requirement  for a certain crime. We are all being victimized by "yes"/ "no" answers to questions that defy this narrow solution.

Crimes are being committed, heinous ones, involving the rape of the planet, poisoning of our shared resources, this is true. The distorted meteorologic maps, show how desperately out of balance our climate has become. "New Normal" has been the catch word of the new millennium. Often we exempt ourselves from our part in it, like when we pump fuel into our cars, or trucks, when we fly off to faraway lands to see beautiful nature, or when we import materials from halfway around the globe, but we are playing a part. We say, by our participation, "my life and limb depend on my complicity in the whole mess." I continue to stand as a living testament to the fact that we have other choices. Move closer to where you work, or work closer to home, make everywhere more habitable and you will never have to leave. Take back the means of production and create only things of true value and as a friend once told me, never discount the maxim, "Do the dishes, make bread, play with/teach the children, and you will never need to pay rent." Not yes, not no, only love.

Raising Awareness

When I began to find my feet...I worked for an organization called Citizens for a Better Environment, (CBE) That was in the mid-to-late eighties. The way Eco-education was taking place back then was for an army of canvassers to descend on neighborhoods across three states, raising donations, educating the public about salient environmental conditions that existed in their area, and doing something about it in state politics. We acted as a watchdog organization and funded environmental research. It was CBE who first documented the application rate per acre of most "popular" lawn chemicals was an order of magnitude more than typical application rates when the same chemicals were used in conventional agricultural practice. Learning that a typical suburb is far more damaging than the typical local farmer focuses attention and energy to where it will do the most good. I talked to over one-hundred thousand folks over the years, about 80-100 per night, now, 100,000 could access my pitch on a given morning before breakfast.

"Hi, I'm Tony, with Citizens for a Better Environment." Sometimes, especially if I went into the same neighborhood year after year, I would know that folks "knew" me and would just say CBE. We offered to let them sign a support statement, even if they did not want to donate, it went something like...We the undersigned support and encourage CBE and it's ongoing programs of public education, research, political and legal representation to protect our land, air and water resources. While the person was reading, I would say, painfully SLOWLY, "We're on our annual fundraiser and count on your support."

By watching their eyes, you would know when they stopped reading and I would continue at regular speed after that. With my readers, I cannot see your eyes, so continuing at pace, it would go something like..."We helped draft statewide groundwater protection laws that enable your well to be tested free if your neighbor has contamination issues. Good sense regulations designed to protect public health." Or, "We defended our right in court, to clean air when a local utility attempted to build a thousand foot stack rather than clean up their emissions, which would have just spewed their dangerous fumes over a larger area. This in turn allowed the generators to run more efficiently, reducing the emissions at their source, saving on maintenance costs & down time, ultimately saving money." We had about thirty of these sorts of issues that we could speak on cogently, from tighter restrictions on dry cleaners and print shops (frequent offenders contributing carcinogenic solvent emissions), to our first-ever Clean Sweep, which allowed homeowners and renters to drop off household hazardous wastes for proper disposal. Sometimes, I would ask if the person had a specific concern and be able to tell them about our efforts on "their" issue. The actions of hundreds of people each night, giving five or ten dollars, perhaps a few giving fifty or a hundred funded a Quarterly "Review" which was our way of staying current with members.It detailed current research, up and coming policy changes and specific ways that the public could participate.

However we share what we have learned, raising awareness is a lifelong duty that we all have to one another. We can see what not educating others can lead to...

To reach out more successfully, I encourage everyone to learn about the Environmetal Working Group. They are making available a lot of research about products that some of us use every day and their relative risk to health and the environment. If you want a more comprehensive understanding of climate change, check out this source of info.

If you want to continue to hear about what ECO-Tours of Wisconsin is doing to create a carbon negative society, stay tuned and donate.

Other sources for information on herbs for health, healing the rift between humankind and the planet and survival in an age of mass destruction can be found at any of my blogs, or I am also available for consulting services. Contact me through snail mail at: 1445 Porlier street Green Bay, Wisconsin 54301-3334 USA or by e-mail tnsaladino42@hotmail.com
 

Red Envelope

It is said that the ancient herbalists and feng shui masters, the shamen of their time would leave red envelopes with their clients so that when payment was made, the money would not be attributable to any specific person. The entire community being healthier was the real reward anyway, but it helped to pay the bills. I have been saved from the edge of death by a shaman and there is really no way to put a dollar amount on how she has given me a new chance at life. Doctors had written me off. I would give my life for her, but in dollars how can one levy a price?

I prefer to work for the red envelope because my healing work is also mostly rewarded by the great feeling of planting trees, educating folks about how to live more lightly and at a higher standard of living at less cost (waste). Even the feeling of benefiting a community that will continue on through generations, these things all feel great, but they don't pay the rent. If you would like a red envelope, please send a request to Tony C. Saladino 522 Acreview Dr. De Pere Wisconsin 54115 USA

One Giant Leap For Humankind

Finally, something that works, is in the public domain and is within the reach of every
one.www.biocharproject.org

I too have been working to inform others about biochar. I am not sure if commercializing it is going to be the answer though. Time will tell and I have been wrong before about many things, but to maintain integrity in my biochar production system, I use as little petrochemical  (fossil) fuel as possible when making my char and look forward to a time that I can afford to build a larger retort, make useful energy from the syngas driven off during the charring process and help close the loop with organic and locally available feedstocks. 

ECO-Logy of Mind

We have all been born, bred and presented with a particular benchmark in human history. Our physical bodies will reap a bitter harvest from this sad fact. Never before has the Earth been burdened with the levels of, or types of contaminants that our ecosphere now holds. Every medium of transmission to humans has some level of contamination, the soils upon which we grow our food, the food itself, our water and even the air we breathe has the potential to make us sick. Lest one get the idea that I'm all gloom and doom here, I wish to turn this into a hopeful message. Our awareness and mental state  allow us to set a course through this current state of affairs toward a more or less benign one. If we add to our mental maps, the areas which are the most contaminated, we can design our lives to minimize risk, etc. Our choices lie outside the realm of pure physicality. On the whole, decisions take place in our heads, (being nothing more than electron traces through brain tissue.) The actions that take place due to those decisions are what have traction in the physical realm. sitting around thinking good thoughts is not enough, you have to "prime the pump" as it were to get anything out of your existence. When we know that our every decision can have external effects, and when we begin to understand the nature of these affects, we can begin to build a rational response to the threat that we pose to our own survival as a species.

If we stop investigating externalities, (the hidden costs of our actions) we can continue living in denial and profess that there are no problems, no consensus, no evidence that our impacts are both global and threatening to our species. We have had science (the new religion on the block) that our way of life is a detriment to other species for nearly a century. Rather than excuses, if there are humans to remember us, don't we want them to remember us as valiant, triumphant even? Is it a crime to think of our age as the solvers of the biggest crisis humanity has ever known? I'm perhaps naive, but in my country, we have a history that includes whatever folks said "you cannot do...", we have done. We created "manifest destiny" to imply that native people had better get out of our way. We drove a transcontinental railway through the Rocky Mountains, then two more, strung several trans-Atlantic cables, kept the nation together in spite of Secessionists, heck we shot guys to the Moon and successfully retrieved them. So, here is my proposal...create no waste. Try it for an hour, then a day. I tried to do it and it changed my life. Live like every other (naturally occurring) organism on the planet.

Zero Waste is most often a concept for humans, but it needs to become the rule. I would like to list just a few ways to eliminate, or drastically reduce waste, but it is worthy of a lifelong quest to try to live sustainably through this practice no matter what the advertizing desire creating media would have you believe. (Keep in mind, no one is paying me to say this.) We grow our own vegetables in soil that we built from scratch (Other than fallout from the atmosphere, there are no toxic chemicals present in our garden beds.) and put up what we cannot consume immediately in jars. Aside from occasionally breaking a jar or retiring a tired lid, we only have recyclable waste and virtually none of that compared to getting most of our food from the grocery. For every trip to the store we can avoid, it reduces air emissions of carbon and noxious compounds. Indeed, on another level, it reduces the need for exploiting oil shale deposits in Canada as well, so as you can see, the external costs could be pushed beyond the ability of many to fathom. The carbon footprint of an organic carrot, grown from saved seed, eaten in the same backyard garden in which it was grown approaches zero. Therefore, eating them becomes an act of resistance.

When one contaminant alone, fly ash from coal-fired electric generating stations in the US of A, are causing about the same amount of disease and premature death as adding 100,000 new smokers to our population each year,  the combined affects of hundreds of unregulated compounds, must contribute substantially to illness and premature death. It may be hard to draw direct cause and effect lines of evidence implicating any specific compound responsible for our cancers, our heart disease, our kidney failure or our liver damage, but the combined cocktail certainly cannot be defended as an aid to staying healthy. How we adapt to and change our physical surroundings can only be understood through concentrated mental effort. I learned recently that pound for pound, the brain consumes more calories than any muscle in our body. However, to get it to use calories, you have to use your brain. Go figure. The time has come to see ourselves as agents of change, either for good or ill and we have a historical record of which undertakings create balance and harmony with the natural ecosystem and what leads to destruction and poisoning of it. These are not hypothetical threats, they are a real and present danger that we must learn to step back from, analyze, and determine are the very real costs worth the true price.

This week I lost another friend to cancer. Over the years his life had been repeatedly disrupted by several types and kinds of cancer, the first time being when he was a very young child. Up until the last time I spoke with him, he still believed that being born within a mile of a nuclear facility had nothing to do with his cancer, nor did he believe that any of his other cancers were caused by the radioactivity which he was routinely exposed to during the many years that he spent growing up within sight of the facility. The public relations campaign that has surrounded the nuclear industry consistently downplays the fact that leakage is par for the course and ignores the fact that there is no safe dose of radioactivity. That is why the atmosphere of Earth and the Van Allen Belts are essential to our survival. It is also why arbitrarily raising the "acceptable" levels of radiation that we allow people to be exposed to is not only irresponsible but indefensible. The negotiations between what science knows and what is economically expedient have always erred on the side of commerce over human health. But when we understand this, we need to let it be an impetus for us to change our behavior.

The interactions of millions of discreet ideas, concepts and awarenesses combine to create the landscape of our minds. The three pound instrument we can our brain has the power to guide us in new directions, but we will only make change if our understanding of where we are includes a strong enough reason to change. As long as we feel that we need or deserve the burden of an eco-catastrophe, or early death as penance for screwing up the planet, no change can occur. As long as we allow vast swaths of nature to be turned into dumping grounds for poison, we will continue to reap death and mayhem as the unintended costs of business as usual or what the corporados deem to be "just business". I think that we are beginning to understand the real meanings of those words.

Inherent Worth

When I started to think about this subject, I was confounded at every turn. How do we begin to rate and rank relative goods? Let us start with a giant chunk of gold, say that one person held it all under their control. It has been posited that the entire quantity of gold that is above ground today is enough to make a cube about seventy meters on a side. I choose this because we all agree that gold has value, but if there were only one giant cube of it and it belonged to someone, it would have virtually no value. In fact, it would have a negative value, because the circuit boards and terminal connections of high end computer, satellite and audiophile equipment would corrode and that would lead to massive failures across our civilization. In fact, there would be no more Goldschager (and we all know what a horrible impact that would have on civilization.) I am truly sorry to use sarcasm in this case, because I'm speaking quite literally and do not want to be misunderstood. Think of a world with no more gold, because one guy controls all that there is...It is pretty scary. Unraveling this conundrum gets more convoluted as you dig, so hang on. Turn the problem over and you will find that as long as the gold is held, anywhere, it still has no inherent worth. It cannot be put to use whilst being held and therefore it has zero effect on anything going on in the real world. The only value that it has is what is ascribed by markets and psychological factors. Silver is a bit more complex, but I only mention it because there are actual therapeutic uses for the metal. It can be asked,"How much is it worth to not get a sinus infection, or to have it eliminated in one treatment?" A dollar value could easily be put on that, but from person to person, that price may vary dependent on their income and the relative worth of the time it takes to get and be sick. Things get sticky when things have a real value rather than one ascribed to it.

I read today that a supposed "big name, or first father" in anti-GMO circles has turned to the dark side and is claiming that technocracy will save the day. The only thing that I wonder is why I had never heard of him, but yet he is supposedly a founder of non-GMO philosophy. This is especially insulting to read because the opposition to corporate domination of the food supply has been an issue since before that guy was born. In the article that I read, the only two things that he claimed that GMO crops would do can be done more cheaply and more effectively by every single one of us learning about biochar and using it. An ancient technology that has been proven to work is being shunned because it is not "sciency" enough? Bullshit! The multi-billion dollar corporations can't make money at it. Here is how we create bio-char in a nutshell. First, take biomass, most commonly wood (a renewable resource) put it through pyrolysis (another proven technology) Think of it as roasting without air. In the best case scenario, capture and use the volatile gasses driven off as fuel. These gasses are primarily hydrogen and oxygen which produce only water as a by-product. My own home set-up has a burner which I intend to use to make tea. Once char is made, it will look like cowboy or natural charcoal. (note:never use charcoal briquets) it needs to be ground. I use a hand crank meat grinder to turn my char to powder. Before that I just smashed it with rocks (very dirty process) The bits can be fine powder up to about the size of a grain of rice. Then, the magic begins. Not the sort of magic that Mark Linas claims that anti-GMO forces believe in, but scientific fact. The hydrophobic material is inoculated with biologically active moisture containing material that act as a resource pool and nutrient reservoir for billions of organisms per cup. this biologically active material is then added to soils to increase both fertility and moisture holding capacity. The organisms themselves are each a tiny reservoir of liquid and billions of them per cup, even though they are tiny, can hold a significant amount of water. Those who read me often already know that in a single handful of biochar, there are fourteen acres of surface area. so you can see, once the moisture can get in, it gets in in a big way.

The Age of Aquarius is upon us, but lest you believe that I'm talking magic again, let me refresh you. Just like the sun signs, that the earth spins through over the course of the year, we are slowly moving through what is known as the procession of the equinoxes, which is a countervailing spin on a more grand scale and whose eras (sun signs) are on a much longer time frame. 26,800 years being required to make the circuit and it turns retrograde to the planets. Some say that we are in the Age of Aquarius already while others claim that we are not yet in it, but to be sure the water bearers will be the leaders of the future. Perhaps the most useful skill we can master is to make the Earth flourish under our hand, bringing a well-spring of life to the rapidly degrading planet. The value may not be in what it does for your garden, farm or yard, but what it does for inspiring your neighbors. Can there be a "value" to saving our own species? What will be the cost? Ultimately, it is for each of us to decide.

Booklist for follow up: A Biodynamic Farm by Hugh Lovell and Science in Agriculture, by Anderen, both published by ACRES USA These two books get toward the heart of the matter of scientifically proving the lies behind corporate dominion over agriculture. All of the knowledge of the ages shows us that a thriving biosphere is the only basis, for life. Sterile, denuded soil is just dirt. Building a lush organic reservoir and resources for life are diametrically oppose to "modern" agricultural approaches and practices, "scientific"/technocratic ideology, and the financing of big agriculture, paired with massive fossil energy inputs of today.
A Feeling for the Organism by Evelyn Fox Keller published by W. H.Freeman & Co.
This book speaks to the need for both male and female ideas and energy to be equal in how we seek knowledge about and inform ourselves about the world around us. The Divine Mother, has been nearly eliminated from our current paradigm and patriarchy continues to run amok by poisoning the environment and trying to wrest the last bit of every "resource" from the planet. This book showed me the inherent wisdom of an approach that looks toward making the world better rather than extracting wealth from it. 
and Thinking Like a Mountain by John Seed Joanna Macy Pat Fleming and Arne Naess published by New Society Publishers. This book, if you can find it, has so much to say to our inner selves that to even try to describe it would take away from it's power. Let me just say that as odd as it may seem to you at first, this book deserves to be read-reread and implemented in all of our lives.

When you have free time, contemplate this question."What is the value of saving our species?"

I Used To...

Three powerful words... they carry both the potential to waste time and confuse, but also, oddly enough, they are only the beginning of a myriad of stories, a background upon which we lay out and test our new awareness, insight and experience.

This post is not about the trivial things that were more of a mal-formed or broken mimetic device than anything. Whenever I eat fresh peas, before the first bite, I "hear" the poem:
I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life,
it makes the peas taste funny,
but it keeps them on my knife.
This brief snippet runs through my head, every time. Growing out of that is something I never wasted time considering before, perhaps now that tag along electrical storm in my head will lose its power over my brain cells. There are a million stories that could flow from that beginning, specific stories arising from the action of realizing that a different kind of normal has become necessary. From things like thinking, as a child, that the DJs on the radio sang all the songs, to the first time you heard someone say "This is our song." and thought that they actually wrote or performed it. We all had juvenile imaginings that eventually needed to be revised, but this is more about adult imaginings and how they too can restrict our ability to see the world around us clearly, or act upon it effectively.

Now we are entering an age that will require very different solutions to recently made problems. 

We never before needed an herbal therapy for the drug or pollution addled brain. There were never brains forced to function in situations like that, since the advent of humankind. We humans had experienced isolated occurrences of things like lead poisoning, malnutrition, abuse, neglect or ergot, but we now have generations of people who take pharmaceutical drugs and carry out their lives in a haze, or fog of toxic compounds. My own conceptual framework, my field of experience, led me to understand, become adept and think in terms of being a human voice for Trees, for the Great Lakes, for the creatures who inhabit this finite planet. Recently, this has not been enough and I have learned a new voice, a new language, that I have facility with. Being a healer, I speak for the plants and herbs who co-inhabit this planet with us. Like any growing organism, periodic reconfiguration and "turning over new leaves" are to be expected, this growing realization about my own new phase of existence brings an even more broad and more diverse set of truths that I can draw on for support. Honoring diversity has led me to begin to fathom the extent to which we are one, with one another and the planet. Imagine a world in which three vegetables made up the bulk of what we humans had to consume. It is not hard when one considers the potato, corn and soy.

Our entire society is passing a tipping point and can no longer to rely on antiquated beliefs.

Anthropologists have found repeated evidence that the whole technology of grain storage, as well as all the evils that come with it, happens way after most of the "civilizing" developments of ancient cultures. Grain has always been a last line of defense against starvation, it is the de facto power and control tool that the exploitative classes wield over the common man, to create long term staying power for societies that have been hollowed out, ransacked and that have become bereft of ecological stability. This prop for failed systems is used when the powers that be begin to find themselves past the climax condition. The list of "professions" that arise from the storing of grain are virtually all of the ones that produce nothing of worth to the average citizen, but essential services to the elite classes. Police provide "security" (order) so that things continue to look "normal". They secure the wealth, but more importantly, keep the rank and file segregated from the wealthy overlords. The counters, who assure that to each is available their "due", the handlers and the taxers, those who dole-out and the receivers who keep accurate records. All of this paid for by a growing portion of the harvest. This is a late development in societies from around the planet. By the time these things get established, the arts are flourishing, music becomes commonplace, rituals are highly refined and culture flourishes, then comes the extractive qualities, the slavery of other human beings and the defilement of the bio-sphere as a sacrifice for commerce.

I used to believe that one day, human beings could live in harmony with the planet and to this end I will continue to speak out in favor of doing just that. A friend embarks today on a new life and lifestyle. she will be giving away one thing on the first, two things on the second, three things on the third etc. for the entire moon of June. I am thinking of trying it myself but I only heard of it a day ago and have not gotten psyched up for such a transformational exercise. I used to think that I had no attachment to things, but I most assuredly do. Much energy has been squandered collecting my obtanium, but without the artistic and transformational energy required, this trash cannot be turned into treasure. Many objects have found their ways to new life because of the give away and the things that I have wanted to create have the right to exist. Part of our birthright as humans is to breathe fresh air, drink pure water and to have healthy land on which to plant our crops and herbs. As much as I am now speaking as a human, the plant kingdom too is served by the realization of their sacred part that needs to be played. our genetics are in association with theirs and it is our right to revel in the sanctity of one another and our unique gifts. The herb and vegetable kingdom stand to gain as much as we do from the rediscovery of our relationship, our understanding and our abandonment to the love we have for one another.

I used to think that doctors knew what they were doing, but they have proven time and time again to be as unaware of their practices as I used to be about using herbs. This for that, this is the way we do it, these are the theories that are important, etc. rote memorization and predigested and unquestioned truths have ruled the day in the medical field for generations. True integrative medicine is less than a generation old, and had only been encouraged by outsiders, but the "traditions" of medicine have been around for several. The killing off of the midwives and the healers of old still affects the stance and slant of all that the doctors have at their disposal. Their magic bullets are always contaminated with unintended consequence and in the end, their tools are poisons and artificialities of different sorts. The biosphere is an intact integrated system in which there is no away and there are no wastes produced. Every creation of nature is shelter or fodder for another trophic level. As we transform our consciousness, we open our bodies, hearts, minds, emotions and spirits to the possibility of a greater future self. Giving our true self a chance to shine is the result of finding out who that is, and trusting that being enough to let them emanate out into the world with the least resistance. This is why I have added herbs and native foods to the list of species, and the forces of nature that I am willing to speak for. blessed be and may you too find your voice!

Star anise, a gift to the world...