Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting a truly amazing place, Dune Lakes Lodge, to check out the premiere of their new film ‘Spirit of the Dunes’ and to learn more about Natural Horsemanship.
To me, natural horsemanship seems to be about about energy. It’s about creating a giving relationship with another intelligent animal and about learning to see our own behavior as an indication of how animals, and indeed other people will react to us.
This wonderful short film, directed by my new friend Christianne Van Wijk, is a wonderful and poetic description of the bonds that are formed during natural horsemanship and the ways in which, when we are open to it, the horses also help us to learn about our own true nature.
Horses have an amazing power to heal and to teach. They offer unconditional friendship, experience a wide range of feelings, and provide immediate, honest, observable feedback in response to our interactions with them. Horses are sensitive to nonverbal stimulus, which makes them astute therapeutic guides. They are social beings that bring us insight into group dynamics and our individual roles we play in our daily lives. – Dune Lakes
Spending time at a place like Dune Lakes is a beautiful and gentile reminder that we are all students in life and that our learnings come not only through other human beings, but also through animals and our relationship with the energies of the earth.
The trick is to find a place where we can be still enough ourselves to truly listen.
After my time at the Permaculture convergence, I couldn’t wait to check out the Earth Dome’s at Solscape in Raglan that people were talking about!
These beautiful buildings are constructed using mostly materials that are readily available on site and are truly remarkable to stay in.
The inside of the Earth Dome is extremely comfortable, warm and welcoming. For me, it was a wonderful lesson on what is ‘enough’ in a house. The Earth Dome is simple, but homely and the other communal facilities provided everything else that was needed without wasting space or resources.
Earth Domes are built using an innovative tequnique called ‘earth-bagging’, where clay, pummice, cement or other avaliable materials are pressed into bags and then layed in consecutive layers on top of one another using barbed wire to hold the bags in place. Once this process is complete, the houses are then covered in a lime-plaster to finish and waterproof. These Earth Domes were constructed by a wonderful New Zealand company, Shelter Craft. Check out their website to find out more about how to learn to build one yourself.
The idea behind these experimental buildings, is to look towards the future and ways of creating beautiful, functional and eco-friendly homes that are also friendly on your wallet! The driving force behind the Earth Dome is to help create a world free for Mortgage Debt. A wonderful and hopeful concept!
And there is nothing like walking out of your Earth Dome and into a wonderful, organic food garden, designed using the principles of permaculture. Overall Solscape was a truly wonderful experience and a step in the right direction for the future!
The 12 permaculture design principles are thinking tools, that when used together, allow us to creatively re-design our environment and our behaviour in a world of less energy and resources.
These principles are seen as universal, although the methods used to express them will vary greatly according to the place and situation. They are applicable to our personal, economic, social and political reorganisation as illustrated in the permaculture flower.
The ethical foundation of permaculture (centre) guides the use of these design tools, ensuring that they are used in appropriate ways.
Each principle can be thought of as a door that opens into whole systems thinking, providing a different perspective that can be understood at varying levels of depth and application.
This info was sourced from Permaculture Principles. Check out the website to find out more.
The last days have been nothing short of amazing. The 11th Annual Australasian Permaculture Convergence has been one of the best experiences of my life. Almost 700 people form all over the world descended on the small, rural town of Turangi, New Zealand to learn, share knowledge and work to build a brighter future for planet Earth!
The convergence was packed with many amazing speakers, workshops and lectures on topics ranging from things like seed saving and composting, all the way through to fermentation workshops and how to build your own sustainable houses. One of the speakers that I found most valuable was Dan from Seed Head Design, who spoke about Food Forest Gardens. As many of you know, I am currently embarking on a project to turn my family 1/4 Acre into a Food Forest and so many of Dans lessons were worth their weight in gold for me!
As amazing as the convergence was, one of the most valuable experiences I had out of the trip was visiting Awhi Farm, Turangi’s own permaculture haven. Here at the farm, teams of WOFers work year round to grow paradise on earth. It was amazing to see the principles of permaculture come to live on this beautiful 10 acre property.
The farm is a haven for experimentation, epecially in sustainable building design. Many of the structures that you find at the farm are unique building tests as bright, young minds set themselves to the task of building techniques for the future.
The kind people at Awhi let me try out their composting shower, which is nothing short of incredible! Here, piles of compost are used to heat water which provides a really hot shower for up to 10 minutes. Once the water has run cold, it takes only 15 minutes for the compost to re-heat the water.
Above, you can see the piles of compost at work. The structure behind the compost heap houses the shower. This really is one of the coolest outdoor shower ideas I have ever seen put into practice!
Awhi Farm truly brings the principles of permaculture to life. It is the ideal blend of old and new technologies and most importantly, it is home to some of the friendliest and most loving people on earth. If you’re keen to see more photos from my trip to the farm, you can check them out on my facebook page.
To top it off, the perfect way to finish the weekend was a visit to one of the most spectacular volcanic areas that the North Island has to offer. The Tongariro Crossing! At just under 20kms, this is a perfect 1 day hike. It’s a must see if you are ever in the National Park area of New Zealand!
For the first time in a long time, the Australasian Permaculture Convergence is happening in New Zealand! I’ll be heading down to beautiful Turangi along with 500 other individuals all dedicated to making the world a cleaner, more beautiful place! Stay tuned for updates!!
There’s no better way to spend the long weekend other than spending time with friends and family and getting out to reconnect with nature!
I’m so lucky to live in such an amazing country where it is so easy to appreciate the raw natural beauty of the planet.
Spending time out in nature together is a great way of really connecting with friends. There are no distractions, no televisions, just time to appreciate each others company.
And the views are amazing from up here!!
There’s no better way to end the day than with a roaring fire on the beach – and amazing food and wine to go with it! Cooking directly in the ashes of the fire – there’s really nothing like it.
Happy Easter Everyone! Have an amazing time. Enjoy the beautiful world that we live in! :)
This weekend I had the privilege of listening to a talk from one of my favorite all time food authors, Sally Fallon. Her book, Nourishing Traditions is based on the nutritional teachings of Weston A. Price, a man who dedicated his life to re-discovering the secrets of indigenous nutrition.
This well-researched, thought-provoking guide to traditional foods contains a startling message: Animal fats and cholesterol are not villains but vital factors in the diet, necessary for normal growth, proper function of the brain and nervous system, protection from disease and optimum energy levels. Sally Fallon dispels the myths of the current low-fat fad in this practical, entertaining guide to a can-do diet that is both nutritious and delicious. – Amazon
By learning more about the foods that we should eat for optimal health, we also discover more about our relationship with the planet, as care of our plants and animals go hand-in-hand with our own health and well-being.
One of the biggest and most significant changes that I have made to my own diet over the past few months is the addition of raw milk. The below photo shows happy, organic, pasture feed dairy cows that now supply me with nutrient dense raw milky goodness!
The quality of the food that we buy makes such a difference, not only to our own health and well-being, but also the health and well-being of the planet. Remember, in the long run, we suffer the negative effects of modern farming techniques such as mono-cropping and animal feed lots. After all, nobody really wants to support the kind of practice shown in the photo below.
Take some time to get to know a local farmer. If you are not sure where to start looking, get in touch with someone form your local Weston A. Price Foundation chapter and they will be able to point you in the right direction. In my opinion, learning to live as close to nature as possible is the answer to so many of life’s problems. I sincerely believe that when it comes to sustainability, the answers lie in decreasing the quantity of food that we consume, whilst at the same time increasing the quality.
It’s well worth taking a look at this book and learning more about the discoveries of Weston A. Price. It’s packed with loads of great information on things like making your own cheeses, ciders and fermented goodies, as well as how to prepare grains etc for optimal digestion.
Click on the above image to check out the book on Amazon. There is also loads of information about Sally Fallon’s work all over the internet, and in my opinion it’s well worth checking out. Happy, healthy people = happy, healthy planet!
Richard Heinberg- whose latest book describes The End of Growth- isn’t looking for when the recession will end and we’ll get back to “normal”. He believes our decades-long era of growth was based on aberrant set of conditions- namely cheap oil, but also cheap minerals, cheap food, etc- and that looking ahead, we need to prepare for a “new normal”.
The problem, according to Heinberg, is our natural resources just aren’t so cheap and plentiful anymore, and he’s not just talking about Peak Oil, Heinberg believes in Peak Everything (also the title of one of his books).
Heinberg thinks for many, adjusting to a life where everything costs a bit more, could be very hard, but he also thinks the transition to a new normal might actually make life better.
“Particularly in the Western industrialized countries we’ve gotten used to levels of consumption that are not only environmentally unsustainable, they also don’t make us happy. They’ve in fact hollowed out our lives. We’ve given up things that actually do give us satisfaction and pleasure so that we can work more and more hours to get more and more money with which to buy more and more stuff- more flatscreen tvs, bigger SUVs, bigger houses and it’s not making us happier. Well, guess what, it’s possible to downsize, it’s possible to use less, become more self sufficient, grow more of your own food, have chickens in your backyard and be a happier person.”
This is not all theoretical. In the backyard of the home Heinberg shares with his wife, Janet Barocco, the couple grow most of their food during the summer months (i.e. 25 fruit & nut trees, veggies, potatoes.. they’re just lack grains), raise chickens for eggs, capture rainwater, bake with solar cookers and a solar food drier and secure energy with photovoltaic and solar hot water panels.
Their backyard reflects Heinberg’s vision for our “new normal” and it’s full of experiments, like the slightly less than 120-square-foot cottage that was inspired by the Small Home Movement. It was built with the help of some of Heinberg’s college students (in one of the nation’s first sustainability classes) using recycled and natural materials (like lime plaster).
Heinberg admits it’s not a real tiny house experiment since they don’t actually live in it- his wife uses it as a massage studio, he meditates there and sometimes it’s used as a guest house (though that’s hush hush due to permitting issues). But their tiny cottage points to the bigger point behind why a transition to a less resource intensive future could equal greater happiness.
“Simplify. Pay less attention to all of the stuff in your life and pay more attention to what’s really important. Maybe for you it’s gardening, maybe for you it’s painting or music. You know we all have stuff that gives us real pleasure and most of us find we have less and less time for that because we have to devote so much time to shopping, paying bills and driving from here to there and so on. Well, how about if we cut out some of that stuff and spend more time doing what really feeds us emotionally and spiritually and in some cases even nutritionally.”
Check out this fantastic video as it dives into the ideology of the Occupy Movement. There is a lot of wisdom behind this!
“Love is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says ‘more for you is less for me.’ But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. This shift of consciousness is universal in everybody, 99% and 1%.” ~ Charles Eisenstein
Yesterday I had the privilege of visiting a truly amazing place, Dune Lakes Lodge, to check out the premiere of their new film ‘Spirit of the Dunes’ and to learn more about Natural Horsemanship.
