30 June 2013

Wartime Farm (BBC Full Series)

Wartime Farm is a historical documentary TV series in which the running of a farm in the Second World War is reenacted. It was made for the BBC by independent production company Lion Television in association with the Open University; it was filmed at Manor Farm Country Park close to Southampton and it began broadcasting on BBC Two on 6 September 2012. The farming team consists of historian Ruth Goodman, and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn.

Episode Synopsis: Wartime Farm

Episode 1 - 8 (Autoplay)



YouTube Link:
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8
Wartime Farm Christmas

29 June 2013

Tales From The Green Valley (BBC Full Series)

Tales from the Green Valley is a historical documentary TV series in 12 parts, first shown on BBC Two in autumn 2005 and it follows historians and archaeologists as they recreate farm life from the age of the Stuarts. They wear the clothes, eat the food and use the tools, skills and technology of the 1620s. The series recreates everyday life on a small farm in Wales in the 1620s, using authentic replica equipment and clothing, original recipes and reconstructed building techniques. Much use is made of period sources such as agricultural writers Gervase Markham and Thomas Tusser. The series features historians Stuart Peachey and Ruth Goodman, and archaeologists Alex Langlands, Peter Ginn and Chloe Spencer. IMDb Rating: 8,8.

Episode 1

September: Ploughing with oxen, baking in a hearth.



Episode 2

October: Gathering pears, thatching the cowshed roof with a bracken undercoat and a wheat thatch, period clothes and boots, driving pigs to forage.



Episode 3

November: Slaughtering and butchering a pig, building a daub and wattle wall, harvesting meddlars, salting a table, combing thatch and pegging it down, making hog's liver pudding.



Episode 4

December: Building a hovel (a woodshed), period clothing, peas, preparing for Christmas.



Episode 5

January: Preparing period medicines, wood gathering, and hedge laying.



Episode 6

February: A heavy fall of snow, rebuilding a lavatory, checking the sheep in preparation for lambing, musical instruments, preparing a meal of fish and bagged puddings for lent.



Episode 7

March: Preparing the garden for sowing, wheat threshing, brewing March beer, pig yokes, fun and games, egg and pear pie with stewed salt cod.



Episode 8

April: Spring cleaning, rebuilding a dry stone wall, a new baby calf.



Episode 9

May: Preparing a new field for spring sowing, making charcoal, and butter.



Episode 10

June: Washing and shearing sheep, cheese making, and mid-summer revels.



Episode 11

July: New harvest from the garden (beans and gooseberries), making hay, clothes washing.



Episode 12

August: Fattening geese, goose pie and carrot puree, wheat and straw harvest, reed lights.

28 June 2013

Victorian Pharmacy (BBC Full Series)

Victorian Pharmacy is a historical documentary TV series in four parts, first shown on BBC Two in July 2010. It was filmed at Blists Hill Victorian Town in Shropshire. It is a historical documentary that looks at life in the 19th Century and how people attempted to cure common ailments. Since some of the ingredients of Victorian remedies are now either illegal or known to be dangerous, Nick Barber often uses his modern pharmaceutical knowledge to produce similar products without those ingredients. The other main presenters are Tom Quick, a PhD student, and Ruth Goodman, a domestic historian who also appeared in Tales from the Green Valley, Victorian Farm and Edwardian Farm. IMDb Rating: 8,3

Episode 1

The first episode is set in 1837. It was mentioned that the series would not be using opium that was commonly used by pharmacists during the Victorian era. A world where traditional remedies, such as leeches, oil of earthworm and potions laced with cannabis and opium, held sway. After sampling some of the old ways, the team ventured into new discoveries, such as the Malvern water cure, the bronchial kettle for curing coughs, and the invention of Indian tonic water.



Episode 2

The team took on the challenges of the 1850s and 1860s, a time when overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions had reached their peak, leading to unprecedented outbreaks of disease. 'Cure all' medicines that had promised to cure virtually everything, were all the rage and the team make their own out of rhubarb, liquorice, soap and syrup. They also ventured into the uncertain world of electrotherapy and found out how the discovery of germs made disinfectants a bestseller.



Episode 3

The pharmacy entered a period of new inventions and new laws. In 1868 pharmacies were regulated by law for the very first time - and Ruth, Tom and Nick faced a taste of the tough examinations pharmacists went through to become qualified. They also explored the world of poisons and hazards that were completely unregulated until this time - from arsenic and opium to explosives. But the lack of restrictions they had enjoyed enabled 'experimental chemists' to invent products ranging from matches to fireworks, to custard and jelly. The team learned the processes involved in each, and laid on a Victorian style firework display for their customers.



Episode 4

The last programme in the series saw Ruth, Tom and Nick continue with Barber and Goodman's Pharmacy through to the end of the Victorian era. Tom branched out into photography and dentistry using the latest technology, such as the foot-pedal dental drill. Ruth made condoms out of sheep intestines. Nick learned how to make the Victorian version of aspirin producing a cure for warts and corns along the way. And for those customers who like a little pampering, the team turn their hands to making their very own brand of perfume. As they shut up shop for the last time, the team reflected on a revolution in public healthcare that put a chemist's shop in every town in the country.

27 June 2013

Edwardian Farm (BBC Full Series)

Edwardian Farm is an historical documentary TV series in twelve parts, first shown on BBC Two from November 2010 to January 2011. It depicts a group of historians trying to run a farm like it was done during the Edwardian era (1900-1914). The farming team was historian Ruth Goodman and archaeologists Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn. IMDb Rating: 8,9.

Episode 1

The trio establish their domicile, scrubbing flagstone floor and cleaning out a clogged chimney. They put up hay, hire a stonemason to make a trough, learn to thatch, make rag rugs, begin keeping chickens and sheep. Ruth cooks a sheep's head stew.



Episode 2

Alex and Peter milk goats and train the plowhorses. They begin a market garden of strawberries. Ruth pickles apples, salts a ham, and smokes bacon. Alex and Peter press apples to cider (skrumpy), freighting first the apples, then the barrel on the river. They visit a cooper and make lime putty. They read government agricultural leaflets, collect eggs, make chicken stew, and celebrate Halloween Edwardian style.



Episode 3

Ruth prepares for the arrival of the farm's pigs and works on the privie, while Alex and Peter compare ploughing with horses to ploughing with the world's oldest working tractor. Peter begins a trout hatchery. In order to repair the hedgerows, Alex takes a trip to a water-powered blacksmithery for a billhook. Ruth makes sloe gin for Christmas and entertains with a grammophone.



Episode 4

As winter sets in, the three farm dwellers must look further afield to earn a crust. Peter and Alex fish for crabs while Ruth hires herself out for domestic work. Ruth rides a bicycle and tries period cleaning techniques, including early vacuums. They separate growing calves from their mothers. Alex finds out how leather is made. They celebrate Christmas modesty, as poor farmers might have, and listen to a Methodist Christmas message.



Episode 5

The continuing winter forces Alex and Peter down a tin mine, while Ruth makes lace. The tin mine is the King Edward Mine, Camborne, Cornwall, and the lace-making is at Honiton.



Episode 6

Six months into their year, Ruth, Alex and Peter explore the daily lives of the Edwardian Farmers. This episode has a slightly different format to the rest of the series; instead of covering a whole month's changes, it is subtitled A Day in the Life and uses a framing device of Ruth writing a letter describing the more mundane aspects of daily life on the farm.



Episode 7

Spring arrives with the lambs and the potato crop planted with manure. Daffodils are harvested and sent by train across the country.



Episode 8

April arrives and time is divided between the land and the sea.



Episode 9

Summer brings the tourists, so the farm provides strawberries and clotted cream.



Episode 10

June arrives so the sheep go up onto the moors of Dartmoor with Alex and Peter guiding, leaving Ruth to run the farm, mixing and spraying "Bordeaux" on the potato crop. Alex and Peter try their hands at sheep-shearing and dry-stone walling, and observe sheep-dogs at work. Ruth makes her own cheese and visits an early wool mill. Finally, they have an Edwardian picnic with a vintage auto and then go rambling and letterboxing on the moor.



Episode 11

July brings the harvest, cherries and potatoes. Ruth goes salmon fishing on the River Tamar with a seine net. Peter and Alex pick cherries from tall ladders and Ruth prepares cherry preserves. They try out Edwardian potato digging devices and employ child labor. The annual day holiday at Lynmouth is a welcome distraction.



Episode 12

August brings to an end the year on the farm, weather dictates the harvest and the seaside brings much needed fertilizer.


Victorian Farm (BBC Full Series)

Victorian Farm is a historical documentary TV series in six parts, first shown on BBC Two in January 2009, it recreates everyday life on a small farm in Shropshire in the mid-19th century, using authentic replica equipment and clothing, original recipes and reconstructed building techniques. IMDb Rating: 7,7.

Episode 1
The would-be farmers move into a disused cottage. This requires much renovation: replacing the coal-burning range, cleaning the chimney and refuelling from a narrowboat on a nearby canal; cleaning the bedroom by removing dead birds, disinfecting against bedbugs with turpentine and salt, restoring the lime plaster and redecorating.
In accordance with custom, they assist in the threshing of the previous year's crop of wheat, using a steam-powered thresher. A field is ploughed, harrowed and sown with the next year's crop using horse-drawn implements of the era. Apples are picked, milled and pressed to make cider while other fruits and berries are preserved as a spicy chutney. A flock of Shropshire ewes is acquired and the first meal is cooked and eaten - a leg of boiled mutton.



Episode 2
As winter draws on, animal fodder and shelter is provided. Mangelwurzels are stored in a clamp and then chipped with period machinery to feed the cows. A pigsty is built upon a foundation of bottles to provide insulation and three young Tamworth pigs and a pregnant Gloucestershire Old Spot sow are housed there upon completion.[17] A ram is added to the sheep flock and marked with raddle to ensure that he impregnates all the ewes so that they will lamb in the spring. A shire horse, named Clumper, is also added to the livestock and training in his use as a draught animal is performed.
Domestically, the weekly laundry is done in a Victorian style. Stain removal is first performed, for example, using milk to remove an ink stain. Then the clothes are hand-paddled, mangled and ironed over a period of several days. Christmas is celebrated with a church service; the Victorian novelty of a Christmas tree; a plum pudding and a roast turkey; and presents are exchanged such as some hand-made braces.



Episode 3
New Year arrives and the farm needs emergency repairs. So the team go back to DIY basics, with the help of the woodsman, the blacksmith and the basket maker. Ruth has a go at some traditional potions and remedies. When the wheat crop comes under attack, it is time for some pest control, Victorian style, as Alex and Peter join a pheasant hunt. Alex goes out catching rabbits with a team of Victorian poachers. And with spring around the corner, the first baby animals are ready to be born.



Episode 4
It is spring and there are lambs and pigs to be delivered - which means Alex and Peter need to master animal midwifery. A prized ewe is in danger and a lame horse may jeopardise vital work on the farm. The team witness the birth of many chicks and ducklings, along with 8 (originally 9) piglets from the pig Princess.
The team turns to Victorian science in a bid to save their struggling crops. If they succeed, they will have something to celebrate at the May Day fair. If they fail, all their hard work will have been in vain. It is make or break time on the Victorian Farm.



Episode 5
In this episode, the team embarks on a trip by steam train, Ruth begins a tough task in the dairy, Alex tries his hand at beekeeping, the sheep get sheared using the latest time-saving technology, and the lengthening summer days allow Alex and Peter to try out the new Victorian sport of cricket. It is also time for the hay harvest, weather permitting.
Ruth makes cheddar cheese in the dairy with her daughter, Eve Goodman, with milk from the cow Forget Me Not, using the rennet from a neighbour's male calf. The sheep shearing is a life saver because it turns out that the sheep have severe fly strike. It is Alex's birthday and Ruth makes him a cake and a picnic, while Peter buys him a book of apiary. The boys make a predator-proof cover for the landlord's raspberry patch.



Episode 6
It is the end of their year on the farm. They sell off the pigs and sheep they successfully bred and raised. Ruth learns straw plaiting and makes a hat and cooks a Victorian style curry. Everything is now focused on the wheat harvest. Peter and Alex get the dray and a reaping and binding machine repaired and brew beer for the harvest. The harvest is completed just before the rain comes with Ruth harvesting the last corn. Once the wheat is dried and stored they ring the church bells, enjoy a harvest festival and reflect upon their time on the farm. They hand over the key to their landlord and depart the farm.



YouTube Link:
Victorian Farm Christmas - Episode 1
Victorian Farm Christmas - Episode 2
Victorian Farm Christmas - Episode 3

20 June 2013

Anima Mundi

Will you survive the transition of human industrial civilization happening now due to peak oil and climate change? Can you see the forest for the trees, the earth for the dream, the universe for the seed? Anima Mundi is an innovative documentary about the planetary animal called Gaia and the human animal we deny, we deny at our own peril, yet a peril that is perfect in design.

Featuring:
David Holmgren – co-founder of Permaculture
John Seed OAM – Deep Ecology
Stephan Harding – Gaian Ecology
Vandana Shiva – Human Rights
Michael C Ruppert – Peak Oil (as seen in the movie Collapse)
Michael Reynolds – Earthships (as seen in the movie Garbage Warrior)
Noam Chomsky – Activism
Dr Mark O’Meadhra – Integrative Medicine
Dr Christine James – Psychology
Permablitz – Permaculture



Peak Oil



19 June 2013

Stephen Fry: The Catholic Church

The fabulous Stephen Fry makes some very 'damning' assessments of the Catholic Church in his usual frank and intelligent way.



17 June 2013

Michael Tellinger: Ubuntu

Michael Tellinger's presentation at the Global Breakthrough Energy Movement (BEM) conference in 2012. In this session, he describes free energy system from ancient civilisations, and finishes off with his model for a society based on contributionism, or UBUNTU.

Website: Ubuntu - Liberation Movement



Michael Tellinger presents the philosophy of UBUNTU Contributionism in Durban South Africa on the 3rd Nov 2012. A Blueprint For a New Social Stucture - What do we do when the global economy collapses? What do we do when the banks close down? We have to consider a brand new social structure - something that we have never tried as the human race. The UBUNTU Liberation Movement and Political party are active in South Africa and are supported by thousands of people around the world. Michael Tellinger is involved in several legal cases against the unlawful activity of the banks in South Africa - the UBUNTU Party is the platform to take this information to the people of the world. Join the UBUNTU Movement and support us with small donations if you can to keep us alive and effective.



16 June 2013

La Belle Verte

As part of an intergalactic coalition, a well-meaning space alien volunteers to bring a message of self-actualization and harmony with nature to the one planet rejected by all her peers as incorrigible--Earth.
This family-oriented French sci-fi comedy chronicles her adventures on the chaotic planet. Mila is 150 years old and has five children; encoded in her brain are two telepathic programs designed to restructure the thinking of destructive humans. The first is a fairly mild program designed to inspire the humans to rethink their world and begin asking some difficult questions. The other is far stronger and rapidly indoctrinates subjects with lofty utopian ideals and makes them deeply aware of themselves.

IMDb: La Belle Verte

15 June 2013

Seeds Of Freedom

The story of seed has become one of loss, control, dependence and debt. It’s been written by those who want to make vast profit from our food system, no matter what the true cost.
It’s time to change the story.

14 June 2013

Evita Ramparte: How Cleansing Cures Cancer

The relationship between unhealthy eating and the development of disease is undeniable. When most people get a cancer diagnosis their doctors are quick to prescribe drugs and harsh treatments such as radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery. All of these treatments have a harrowing effect on the body opening it up to a whole host of other problems.
Holistic health practitioners, on the other hand, will often recommend detoxification methods such as cleansing to eliminate cancer from the body. Here Allison Biggar interviews European journalist and ovarian cancer survivor Evita Ramparte about how she cured her cancer naturally through a raw vegan diet without chemotherapy, surgery or radiation.

12 June 2013

Moon Rising (Full Movie)

For over 50 years we have been told and convinced the Moon is nothing more than a black and white desolate rock with moon dust and craters. The thousands of photos released to the public have always presented a black and white Moon. Even the most recent Hubble photographs of the Moon are black and white. NASA continues to perpetuate the “lie” that the Moon is black and white. Moon Rising is the first film that presents full color photography of the Moon.
On February 25, 1994 1.8 million photos were taken of the Moon during the Clementine Mission. Different variations were taken including “full colour” photos. The front cover of this DVD is one of hundreds of photos featured in the film.

On the matter concerning whether or not we went to the Moon, we landed there without a doubt. This film is about what was waiting for us when we got there and the lies put in motion in order to conceal what was found. Moon researchers and investigators appearing in this film disclose facts hidden from you for over forty years. The facts will amaze and shock you at the same time. You may ask yourself why these lies have been impressed upon us all these years. The answers to these questions may prove we are not considered equal to those pulling the strings involved in this “greatest of all discoveries you have been denied.”
The suppressing of the evidence that there may have been civilizations existing on the Moon, or even more incredible, the possibility they are still there brings into question why we have been kept in the dark. The biggest insult is we’ve been led to believe the moon is a grey – colourless rock. On the contrary, The Moon appears to be a small planet teeming with life and structures the likes of which you have never seen before until now. At least it appears to have been inhabited in 1994 when these photos were taken.

10 June 2013

Jason Roberts: Guerilla Urbanism

This is one of the most joyful, funny and uplifting presentations. Here is someone who will revitalize your spirit as much as he revitalized his town. Arts activist Jason Roberts will have everybody rethinking what is possible in their communities after watching this video. He lives in Oak Cliff, near Dallas, Texas. He's responsible for some of the most outrageous initiatives, going out of his way to break every ordinance in a neighborhood in order to show people, just for one weekend, what kind of transformation is possible.
On a desolate, depressing Texas street that for the last 70 years has only had cars and traffic in mind, he painted on his own bike lanes. He created outdoor seating areas. He set up trees and plantings just for the weekend. Instant cafes and arts centers were created.
The message in his enthusiastic talk is not just about what a great time they had with these radical techniques to get people to rethink a city space, and turn it back into being about and for people. What surprised even him was the unbelievable level of support and response he got -- and how many joined his bandwagon and remain committed to a new vision that is possible.
It's a ground swell. This is how you get things going folks!

Website: The Better Block

7 June 2013

Intentional Communities In Spain

8th Life (Canary Islands)

We believe that stopping the destruction, working to build soil, restore ecosystems, heal our addictions, change organizational structures of the global economy & learn to live in community starting locally ... are the most important & urgent jobs to do now.

Website: 8th Life



Matavenero (Castile & Leon)

Website: Matavenero 



Sunseed (Andalusia)

Welcome to the Sunseed Desert Project, a hands-on practical centre for low-impact living and environmental education in Andalucía. At this lively international community, staff and volunteers work and learn together to develop, demonstrate, research and communicate alternative ways of having less impact and a smaller environmental footprint. Situated in a Los Molinos del Río Aguas, in a beautiful valley in southern Spain, Sunseed is off-grid and committed to low impact living and environmental stewardship.

Website: Sunseed



Valle De Sensaciones (Andalusia)

The project 'Valle de Sensaciones' is creating a space rich in nature, whose design, installations and sustainable infrastructure are allowing people to experiment with a wide variety of projects that revive the senses, including the conscience, and help to recreate a profound contact with the spirit of nature, the basis of our life. A space where various creators find fertile soil for the development of new initiatives between Art, Ecology and Technology. Another objective is to transmit the whole range of knowledge and inspiration out of the creation of this project. Beside the thematic areas of permaculture, green building, ecotecnology, and many other, we like to mediate a different attitude towards the need of changing our lifes, where each iniciative is enriched by creativity, art, music, spirituality, sensuality and by the spirit of comunal living.

Website: Valle de Sensaciones 

Ecoaldea de Lakabe (Navarre)



Other Ecovillages & Communities in Spain:
(Click for link to website)

Escanda (Asturias)
Falcon Blanco (Ibiza)
KanAwen (Catalonia)
Los Portales (Andalusia)
Flores de Vida (Catalonia)
Matricultura (Canary Islands)
Taller Karuna (Castile & Leon)

Iberian Ecovillage Network

6 June 2013

Intentional Communities In Portugal

Awakened Life Project

A short introduction to a sustainable community in central Portugal that is pushing the boundaries of collective human potential. The Awakened Life Project is a non-profit association situated in a beautiful and wild ecological reserve in the mountains of Central Portugal. Part retreat centre and 21st century spiritual ashram, part permaculture farm, part integral evolutionary education hub, the Awakened Life Project is a multi-dimensional evolving organism and movement of (r)evolutionaries that is being co-created by a growing network of people throughout Portugal.

Website: Awakened Life Project



Tamera

Tamera in Southern Portugal is an international training and experimental site for the development of peace research villages and healing biotopes worldwide. Under the motto "Think Locally, Act Globally," approximately 200 people live, work and study in Tamera. Tamera’s aim is to develop an example of a model for a nonviolent co-existence of people and between people and nature. The main tasks of Tamera are: the education of young people within the "Monte Cerro" peace study, the building of a village model called "Solar Village" which produces its own food and solar energy, and global networking under the name of GRACE.

Website: Tamera



Osho Garden

Osho Garden is a communal project to create a living space where ecological gardening and meditation go hand in hand. We are registered as an Osho Information Center. The project started in 2010 and presently our accommodation is limited to a maximum of about ten people. We welcome visitors who want to participate and enjoy community life, spend time in nature and join the meditations, workshops, meetings, gardening and health food preparation.

Website: Osho Garden



Terramada

Isn’t Terramada like ”home”? A place where we can belong instantly and leave knowing we are a part of it even when apart. One Global Family. We share a wonderful gift in being Terramadians, in a community that is created by our principles of love, harmony, truth and freedom. By the labour each one of us who have tilled the soil, made the website, baked or organised or participated in an event or workshop has given.
Terramada needs your help to evolve into an ethical village and community, Where more people can visit and be inspired by our lived philosophy: Living as one, loving as one, in harmony with the Nature and each other. Creating a new world based on the heighest visions of ourselves by developing the power of our spirit.

Website: Terramada



Sustainable Living Projects, Courses and Events: Eco Living Portugal



5 June 2013

Inner Worlds, Outer Worlds

Inner Worlds was created by Canadian film maker, musician and meditation teacher Daniel Schmidt. The film could be described as the external reflection of his own adventures in meditation. As Daniel came to meditative insights, he realized that these same insights were discovered over and over in spiritual traditions around the world and that all traditions share a common mystical underpinning. He realized that it is this core experience that connects us not only to the mysterious source of all creation, but to eachother as well.

Part 1: Akasha

Akasha is the unmanifested, the "nothing" or emptiness which fills the vacuum of space. As Einstein realized, empty space is not really empty. Saints, sages and yogis who have looked within themselves have also realized that within the emptiness is unfathomable power, a web of information or energy which connects all things. This matrix or web has been called the Logos, the Higgs Field, the Primordial OM and a thousand other names throughout history. In part one of Inner Worlds, we explore the one vibratory source that extends through all things, through the science of cymatics, the concept of the Logos, and the Vedic concept of Nada Brahma (the universe is sound or vibration). Once we realize that there is one vibratory source that is the root of all scientific and spiritual investigation, how can we say "my religion", "my God" or "my discovery".



Part 2: The Spiral

The Pythagorian philosopher Plato hinted enigmatically that there was a golden key that unified all of the mysteries of the universe. The golden key is the intelligence of the logos, the source of the primordial om. One could say that it is the mind of God. The source of this divine symmetry is the greatest mystery of our existence. Many of history's monumental thinkers such as Pythagoras, Keppler, Leonardo da Vinci, Tesla and Einstein have come to the threshold the mystery. Every scientist who looks deeply into the universe and every mystic who looks deeply within the self, eventually comes face to face with the same thing: The Primordial Spiral.



Part 3: The Serpent And The Lotus

The primordial spiral is the manifested world, while Akasha is the unmanifested, or emptiness itself. All of reality is an interplay between these two things; Yang and Yin, or consciousness and matter. The spiral has often been represented by the snake, the downward current, while the bird or blooming lotus flower has represented the upward current or transcendence.The ancient traditions taught that a human being can become a bridge extending from the outer to the inner, from gross to subtle, from the lower chakras to the higher chakras. To balance the inner and the outer is what the Buddha called the middle way, or what Aristotle called the Golden Mean. You can be that bridge. The full awakening of human consciousness and energy is the birthright of every individual on the planet. In today's society we have lost the balance between the inner and the outer. We are so distracted by the outer world of form, thoughts and ideas, that we no longer take time to connect to our inner worlds, the kingdom of heaven that is within.



Part 4: Beyond Thinking

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We live our lives pursuing happiness "out there" as if it is a commodity. We have become slaves to our own desires and craving.
Happiness isn't something that can be pursued or purchased like a cheap suit. This is Maya, illusion, the endless play of form. In the Buddhist tradition, Samsara, or the endless cycle of suffering is perpetuated by the craving of pleasure and aversion to pain. Freud referred to this as the "pleasure principle." Everything we do is an attempt to create pleasure, to gain something that we want, or to push away something that is undesirable that we don't want. Even a simple organism like the paramecium does this.
It is called response to stimulus. Unlike a paramecium, humans have more choice. We are free to think, and that is the heart of the problem. It is the thinking about what we want that has gotten out of control.The dilemma of modern society is that we seek to understand the world, not in terms of archaic inner consciousness, but by quantifying and qualifying what we perceive to be the external world by using scientific means and thought. Thinking has only led to more thinking and more questions. We seek to know the innermost forces which create the world and guide its course. But we conceive of this essence as outside of ourselves, not as a living thing, intrinsic to our own nature. It was the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung who said, "one who looks outside dreams, one who looks inside awakes." It is not wrong to desire to be awake, to be happy. What is wrong is to look for happiness outside when it can only be found inside.

3 June 2013

Food Is Free

The Food is Free Project is creating a repeatable model of growing food and community. It is our vision and wish to empower you with the knowledge and know-how to transform your block and neighborhood step-by-step. Using salvaged materials we are building front yard community gardens for all to share. Imagine walking down a block lined with fresh produce ready for the picking. Neighbors not only growing food together, but becoming friends and supporting one another.

Website: Food Is Free