Economy = Ecology

Isn't it interesting that at a time when we are increasingly concerned about climate change and sustainable living, that world economies are also beginning to collapse? Coincidence? I don't think so!

We humans have been living far beyond our means, both ecologically and economically, for far too long. Over-consumption has replaced the connectedness we have with Mother Earth and spirit and is rapidly driving us towards ecological and economic bankruptcy.

Many people today have hungry souls and instead of using spiritual food to feed their souls, they are using physical food and rampant consumerism. The trouble is, that by using the wrong sort of fuel for our souls, we are constantly looking for more and so the problem continues.

So, what can we do to address this issue?

Well, I garden and try to grow as much of my food as possible, even though it would undoubtably be easier for me to buy it in the supermarket (especially with my current work/study/home juggle). The reasons I try to grow much of my and my family's food are many - I

• enjoy eating good quality food
• like to know where my food came from
• want to reduce my "food miles"
• believe that those to whom much is given (and we in Australia have truly been given a lot!) have a responsibility to look after those resources
• wish to preserve and develop the knowledge-base of sustainable living skills
• want to show others they can do the same
• love the connection it gives me to Mother Earth, nature and spirit

Apart from this, consciously choosing what we consume has led to a reduction in consumption. I am not content to mindlessly shop for things I do not really need. I am not happy to leave lights or appliances on merely for convenience and I choose to handwater my garden and re-use as much water as possible, rather than use convenient systems which consume much more water.

I am by no means perfect and still have a larger environmental and economic footprint than is sustainable - we live in a residence that might house a few families in other parts of the world and I still enjoy indulgences such as chocolate and television.

But I will continue on this journey. Once you start on a journey like this there is no turning back. Once your consciousness has been raised, you cannot become "unconscious". There are many of us taking a similar path - thank you for your company on this journey.

love and light
naturewitch

Using Less and Valuing More

Well, the energy and water bills are in for this quarter, so it's time to make a comparison with the same period last year. Our consumption of:

• Gas is down by 8.5%
• Electricity is down by 15.5%
• Water is down by 8.9%

I am absolutely thrilled! And the best thing is that I don't think it has impacted on our lifestyle at all. We have simply tried to be mindful of what resources we are using. It's amazing what we can all do if we try.

So what have we been doing?

• Not having mega showers, although from time to time we have to remind someone who is taking a while
• Not heating as much - we reduced the temperature by about 2 degrees and covered up a bit more; we were still comfortable and upped the heat a little if people were sick
• Consciously turning off lights and unplugging appliances not in use (except for the TV which is always plugged in because it's too hard to get to the plug and the clock radios and things like that)
• Turning off our computers when not in use
• Cooking some foods such as oats and rice by bringing them to the boil then turning them off and leaving them to cook in their own heat

Things we could do to further reduce our energy and water consumption include:

• Eat more raw food ;} and/or obtain a solar cooker
• Have shorter showers (we try to keep them short, but we're not turning the water on just to rinse or anything like that yet)
• Install a grey water recycling system - we do put the water from the laundry out onto the garden (only with low sodium detergents, of course!) but we are not harvesting the water from the shower yet
• Mulch more in the garden

I'm sure there's a lot more we could do; I don't think we are really doing the hard yards yet.

As for other areas of resource consumption, such as transport - we are using the bus more, but because my partner's children's other home is 90km away, trips back and forth do add up to a bit of petrol. Even so, we have reduced our petrol consumption to one tank or less per week. And growing some of our own food and trying to eat as locally as possible, means our food miles have come down as well.

The other side effect we've noticed over the past year is that we are generating a lot less rubbish. We no longer put our bin out every week and even when it goes out it is generally only half full. Most weeks we would only generate about two shopping bags worth of rubbish. Even the amount we put out for recycling has reduced, as we are endeavouring to re-use things before recycling - most of my purple asparagus seedlings are quite happily growing in tin cans and the potatoes are coming up through a cover of shredded paper.

The way I feel about all this was summed up nicely in an email from the Meditation Society of Australia the other day:

How inspiring it is to walk all day in the sunshine and sleep all night under the stars. What a wonderful experience in simple, natural living. Since you carry your food, sleeping equipment, etc., on your back, you learn quickly that unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. You soon realize what the essentials of life are - such as warmth when you are cold, a dry spot on a rainy day, the simplest food when you are hungry, pure cool water when you are thirsty. You soon put material things in their proper place, realizing that they are there for use, but relinquishing them when they are not useful. You soon experience and learn to appreciated the great freedom of simplicity. - Peace Pilgrim

love and light
naturewitch

The Joys of a Hot Shower and a New Desk

I stood under the shower late this afternoon and gave thanks to the sun for heating the water and thanks to our local authority for having dams that supply us with running water. How luxurious that shower felt! And how many people don't have that luxury?

The truth is that I have been a mad woman today, rearranging bookcases and other furniture about the house, all because I got a desk for my study so I don't have to take over the kitchen table any more. So I was tired and dusty and the shower went down a treat.

When I went looking for a desk the other day, I decided to check out the local classifieds first (always been a fan of second-hand items and op-shops). There were heaps of second-hand desks, many of which people were struggling to sell. I guess that people in Canberra generally just go out and buy things brand new. Anyway, I found the perfect desk in the next suburb for the bargain price of $60.

This got me to thinking about what will happen to all those other desks on the classifieds? Will they all find new homes? Will they eventually be dumped? How much are we, as a society, reusing items for which others no longer have a use and how much are we just going out and buying things new, just because we can? And what is this costing our planet?

I'm pleased with my desk. It meets all my needs and fits the space we have beautifully. The "desk miles" were not that many and we are using something that someone else no longer needed. It was a great purchase for us and also for our planet.

love and light
naturewitch

Compact Fluorescents - Friend or Foe?

In Australia, the federal government is planning to phase out incandescent globes in the next couple of years and only have compact fluorescent bulbs available. The main aim of the program is to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse emissions. This is commendable.

However, there was a story last night on the ABC's 730 Report about compact fluorescent light bulbs - click here for the transcript. Apparently, the compact fluorescent globes contain minute amounts of mercury which can cause significant issues if they go to landfill. They can also cause a problem for children or pregnant women if the globes break and the contents are inhaled. The way it was presented in the report strongly suggested that the compact fluorescents were causing another environmental issue.

Looking at the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) website today, I found another article on the globes - click here. The ACF are saying that while the globes do contain mercury, their advantages outweigh their disadvantages.

What both reports have in common is that they are calling for government-controlled recycling programs for the bulbs. The ACF give a link to the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts which discusses how to dispose of the bulbs, what to do if they should break and collection sites for your state/territory.

We, like many others, have embraced this new technology. Now I'm feeling not so sure about it. Should we return to lanterns and candles for our lighting? Go solar? Should we simply go to bed when it gets dark? Maybe get some glow worms? All suggestions welcome.

love and light
naturewitch

Timely Reminder

A friend sent me this in an email and I was so moved I thought I would put it on my blog. This is a video of the then 12-year old Severn Suzuki addressing the UN Conference on Environment and Development. The speech was in 1992, but it is even more relevant today.

The question is: what kind of world do we want to leave for our children? For that matter, what kind of world do we want to live in when we get older? We need to take action now (actually, a long time ago) and address our overly consumptive patterns of behaviour. They are simply just not sustainable.

Please take the time to view the video (some of you may have seen it already) and think about what actions you can personally take.

My own list will be something like this:

1. Use the bus more often, even when inconvenient
2. Walk more or ride my bicycle
3. Increase our level of self-sufficiency as far as our food is concerned
4. Grow open-pollinated varieties of food crops (instead of hybrids) and save the seed
5. Decrease the amount of meat we eat (it wll be fun convincing the carnivores around here!)
6. Implement some more grey-water recycling solutions in our household
7. Install rain water tanks
8. Reduce our energy and water consumption further
9. Think before buying - we already have too much "stuff"
10. Free-cycle or sell the "stuff" we no longer need
11. Be grateful for what I have
12. Simplify, simplify, simplify
13. Spread the word, educate and lobby
14. Have FUN doing the above (don't want to die from crawling seriousity LOL!)

What's on your list?

love and light
naturewitch

Survival into the 21st Century

I was reading Molly's post on the food crisis and thought I'd post some information I found in a book just this morning. The book is called Survival into the 21st Century: Planetary Healers Manual by Viktoras Kulvinskas, published in 1975. I inherited it from my father, a wise old Piscean who was definitely ahead of his time (or maybe behind it?).

Anyway, the book discusses how to survive in the future and it is interesting that a lot of the issues raised are ones we are now talking about, although it is by no means a book on self-sufficiency. In preparation for survival, the author suggests (among other things):

• buying land at least 100 miles (160 km) away from major cities, preferably in the mountains or somewhere that people won't consider to be agriculturally attractive
• having hidden, underground storage areas for food, water, tools, books and seeds
• storing for each person: 25kg unhulled buckwheat seed; 50kg wheat; 12kg mung beans; 12kg unhulled sesame seed; 25kg navy beans; 15kg honey; 1L liquid kelp
• digging a well for water
• moving to your land at the first sign of unrest
• using a car, but always carrying a bike

The list of food may seem a bit strange, but the author was seriously into sprouted food. I'd like to see some veges on the list, but maybe you'd have vege seeds and grow them once you'd gone to your land.

Quite an interesting read, with a bit of a giggle now and again.

love and light

naturewitch

Our Bees, Our Food

Just saw a story on TV about the Varroa mite. Apparently, Australia is the only country free of the varroa mite, a little critter that affects bees. It rides in on the backs of bees into the colony (or hive) and infects the bee larvae with a virus, killing them.

The reason this is so important (apart from the damage to bees and our honey supply) is that bees are critical in the production of our food. Australia is now exporting bees overseas in a bid to help other countries maintain their food production.

Without bees, many plants won't be pollinated and will therefore not produce their fruit, which is what we eat. The only other option is hand pollination - not really possible on the scale of production of much of our food. Imagine a world without honey, stone fruits, apples, pears, melons, pumpkins, almonds and avocadoes, to name a few of the foods that could be affected.

This is yet another reason why it is so important for us all to take some responsibility for producing the food we eat. Every step you take to grow your own food will reduce your impact on the environment, as well as securing yours and your family's future.

So get into your gardens and plant some food, even if it is to put a few lettuce seedlings or herbs in a pot on your balcony. Every little bit helps and you will enjoy the freshness and vitality of your own produce. And the satisfaction of creating a meal from your own produce is unparalleled. Happy gardening!

love and light
naturewitch

Living Simply and Being Grateful

Given all the current issues around food, energy and the future of our planet, you might like to read this http://doing-it-naturally.blogspot.com/2008/04/even-as-child-i-was-mule.html
Molly has expressed it all so beautifully.

I was reflecting on this and thought that one of the keys to living simply, sustainably and reducing our consumption and load on the planet is to be grateful. The rationale behind this is that if we are grateful for what we have, then we are less likely to "want" other things (stuff!) and therefore to consume less and live within our planet's means.

So I thought I'd start by writing down ten things I am grateful for:

1. my loving partner, family (including the cats!) and friends
2. being able to go to bed each night, knowing all my loved ones are safe, fed, clothed and housed
3. being able to see, hear, touch, feel, taste, walk, talk, laugh, sing, dance, live
4. my back yard in which I can grow food and muck around in the dirt
5. my income
6. living in Australia and all the good things that brings with it
7. my old sewing machine (it's 26 this year, but still a trooper; last year I had a serious case of sewing machine envy when a dear friend bought a new machine (she really needed it!), but I got over it)
8. the fresh air I breathe every day, just by opening a door or window
9. the stash of fabrics and wool I have for quilting, sewing, knitting
10. sunshine and laughter

So here's the challenge - what are ten things you are grateful for? Would love to hear.

love and light
naturewitch