I am a
Daisy


What Flower
Are You?

“You are just a sweet person. When a friend needs a shoulder to cry on, you are happy to offer yours with a box of tissues as well. Once in awhile, you wish you could be a little more dramatic but then sensibility sets back in and you know that you are perfect the way you are.”

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
And remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
Be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
And listen to others,
Even to the dull and ignorant; They too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
They are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
You may become vain or bitter,
For always, there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble,
It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
For the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
Many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere
Life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
For in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
It is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
Gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
Be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe
No less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
Whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life,
Keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
It is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

"Desiderata" Max Ehrmann 1927

So, so much love…

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Sweet Sister Taser of Serene Harmony. What’s yours?

I am a
Canna


What Flower
Are You?

From the creatrix, Claudia Davila:

"LUZ was inspired by my first ever (self-published) comic book, SPOILED, a tale about the relationship between humankind and nature in relation to peak oil — the end of the petroleum era. Unlike the comic book, this web strip will contain practical skills to learn for when fossil energy ends. Our heroine is Luz, a girl on a mission to gather "the knowing": knowledge and experience about sustainable survival for humans, specifically in urban centers. Occasionally we’ll glimpse into Luz’s musings about the human condition and our connection, or lack thereof, to the natural world. I hope you enjoy this bi-weekly strip, while accumulating "the knowing" for yourself as the post-petroleum era approaches."

Plenty is the story of James and Alisa Smith, a Toronto couple who spend a year eating nothing but local foods. Their joint decision is set off by an impromptu gathered feast they share with friends while temporarily stuck in their summer retreat in the mountains. When they return back to their normal workaday life in the city, James, who’s documented some less than appealing facts about the sugar trade and other aspects of the global food supply for his day job, talks his girlfriend into attempting this experiment with him: to only eat foods that have traveled 100 miles or less from source to dinner plate.

And though James and Alisa do no planning whasoever — they discover that no one in their region grows wheat so they go without flour for nine months until stumbling over some rougue farmer in the area who not only grows wheat but mills it, too — the sincerity and tenacity of this couple makes for an absorbing story.

The two are talented writers who take turns narrating chapter by chapter. They talk about the changes that have occurred in their region from the early 1900’s to the present, they talk about the challenges they faced with this diet, living in an apartment in a big city, trying to work with local foods while honoring their previous commitment to a strict vegetarianism in which they eat no meat, dairy or eggs (but do eat fish — to my mind, their definition of vegetarian is a little loose to begin with and becomes progressively less strict through the book) yet the whole of the book culminates in an invitation to join them in their adventure.

Local eating has an immediate impact on the environment through reducing carbon emissions from lengthy transportation (most foods travel a minimum of 3,000 miles from field to plate). It also helps to keep communities interconnected — just consider that your average customer has 10 times as many conversations at the local Farmer’s Market as at the local big box supermarket. Farmer’s Markets help ensure that farmers and their help receive a living wage and relatedly this helps to reduce our need for cheap and frequently illegal labor — which means local foods may help us with the security of our borders.

I can’t resist pointing out, however, the difference between the two versions of this book that were released in Canada and in the US. The Canadian version is a straightforward description of what this book is about. The US version, on the other hand, is almost a plea before the reader can look any further — "Bear in mind that we have plenty right now — this book is not about depriviation! Here, look at this big juicy tomato!" And it really isn’t about deprivation. It’s about an  awareness that will hopefully lead to revitilization.

At least it certainly has been for me. A few things I’ve discovered along the way: our two local Farmer’s Markets, the Old Guilford Mill which was originally built in  1767 and  not only currently makes local flours, grits, dried fruits, and baking mixes but also supplies it’s own power, as well as Local Harvest which connects individuals to local farmers and CSA programs and Slow Foods the organization which will supply any interested visitor with information about their own regional resources.
 

The nut-shell synopsis:

The era is Victorian. Three gallavanting, adventurous men, one with a small fortune, a gadget collection and an ego that will remind future generations of James Bond minus the day job, stumble upon a lost nation composed entirely of women that the trio cheekily nickname Herland. Herland  was suddenly cut off from the rest of human civilization over a thousand years prior in the midst of a civil insurrection and a landslide that deprived the early city-state of it’s men. Those first women managed to survive when one of the women experienced spontaneous parthenogenesis, a literal virgin birth. And Voila, the world is gifted with a true Mother Country.

This is heady material written by a real Victorian feminist agitator (who also ran her own newspaper and authored several other critical texts). Yet it’s also a comedy written in the classic satirical style of Enlightenment writers like Voltaire and Jonathon Swift.

Only here, as opposed to using a naive and wide-eyed outsider along the lines of Voltaire’s Candide or the Ingenue, Gilman has created a whole nation of naive and sincere outsider women to act as a cast of straight-ladies who ask disturbing and only somewhat artless questions of our visiting Victorian gentlemen. For instance, if women shouldn’t work why is it that, in the outside world, over 3/4’s of the female population are employeed in paying labor? Is poverty meant to be a statement on individual worth? Who does marriage benefit and what is it’s true purpose? There are real comic gems in our explorer-narrator’s hapless responses.

But the most intriguing questions Gilman asks are the ones she never actually puts into words — what would happen to our world if we valued nurturing over competition or insight over personality?

Direct Action is the highly entertaining, narrative quasi-fictional history of the Livermore Action Group, or LAG, a highly prolific anti-nuclear political collective that gathered together in the early 80’s to protest Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, specifically, and a laissez-faiere culture that could support a weapons technology with the capacity to obliterate life-as-we-know-it, in general.

I have to admit I’m still fascinated, weeks later, with the process of Consensus decision-making, the combination of radical spirituality with radical politics and the fact that the rag-tag group of vastly disparate individuals described in this book managed to work together as diligently and loyally as they did.

Lavishly illustrated with a bit of eye candy on every page or so, the novel was a quick and delicious read even at 700 pages+.

(I have to admit, however, that since I was carrying this book in my pack to and from work while using my bicycle for transit, I was really glad when I reached the end!)