Shadow Government 101

I have been appointed as a cabinet member of Wisconsin's shadow government. Before you get thinking too far down the track that the term shadow conveys something nefarious or underhanded, let me just say that those who profess to run the show today are the ones who are operating from dark and dismal motives, perpetrating a litany of evil deeds upon the populace and operating in closed door sessions (out of the light of day) to subvert our democracy. I have not even had a chance to meet all of the other representatives of our shadow leadership, however, the fact that they are willing to serve without pay, work for the betterment of all the citizens of our state and to do it with compassion, insight and integrity is enough for me to know that when we actually meet in person, the others will be friends that I have not met yet. The only reason that the term shadow government has meaning is when we understand that the glaring inequality of the current system necessitates stark shadows exist as well. My own approach to perception of the term is that most of us cannot look directly at the lights that illuminate our current state of affairs, nor would we want to blind ourselves in that way. When we attend to the shadow side of the searing lights, we find operators that are most often hidden, behind the glare, who only guide the eyes of those who most often let themselves be led by "Oooh, shiny."

The photo below represents the urge to sanitize and distract us from our own history. It is a bronze-clean version of a coal miner, forged for the sole purpose of trying to make wage slaves into heroes. The anonymous "workers" who sacrifice their lives for our consumerist society deserve more than a sculpture to tell their sad story. Early death, families without fathers and poisoned rivers, contaminated by acid mine drainage are much more telling aspects of our/their servitude. The mall has now closed, the mountaintop left abandoned because the poverty in the coal region did not allow enough wealth to be siphoned off for the power and control freaks making the decisions as well as the money from the "development". Local citizens sacrificed another mountain to feed the beast, but the hunger was too great and the oligarchs walked away, unsatisfied, leaving destruction, and even greater poverty in their wake. The uberwealthy have made sure that they will never be held responsible for their folly, nor will we be allowed to know the true costs of their parasitic ways until it is too late and they have moved on to their next host.

I took this photo in a brand-new mall in the coal region of PA. The mall had not been opened yet, but the mountain which it capped with concrete, steel and blacktop had been pulverized and lowered several dozen feet to get enough fill to level the parking lot, build the entrance and exit ramps for easy access from the interstate and for the enrichment of "developers" who only had one thought in mind, extraction.

The eye is drawn to the light, as surely as the insect is drawn to fire. We use our eyes, most frequently, to make sense of our world. Members of the shadow government of Wisconsin will have to understand that much of what we cannot see has more power to change our lives than most people can imagine. Not seeing things cannot make them go away and not looking at the writing on the wall only assures that our decision-makers are operating our economy, the environment and the future blind. In a strange turn of events, they have begun to believe their own lies. Trickle-down theory was mentioned just this morning in a "news" broadcast. The wealthiest among us have a vested interest in telling us that it is a real and beneficial thing but what the lie truly exhibits for we, who look deeply into the shadow side, is that our rulers still have not come to terms with the ultimate outcome of letting the rich have their way with everything.

Instead of corporate shills, willing to pander to our wealthy lords, the shadow government is made up of individuals who have kept their moral footing amongst immoral choices and actions of the media, our judiciary, the constabulary, the billionaire class, those who advocate for dumbing down our population and those who have our economy in a stranglehold. We will be researching a better way forward, we will be continuing to expose the Chinese finger trap that is the "consumerist society" which we have been presented and we will be unleashing, to the greatest extent possible, the truth behind the lies of the oligarchs through press releases, documentary evidence and sculpting, for the general public, a creative tableau that will make clear what has been going on in the dimly lit corridors of power that have taken the will of the people out of the hands of government and placed it squarely in the hands of the unimaginably wealthy.

Over the next two years, we will be seeing far more willful groundwater contamination, at the hands of the extractors, who have no regard for our ecology or the results of their actions. We will be seeing more train derailments and pipeline ruptures, unleashing oil spills along the path of least resistance for dirtier oil. The fabric of our economy will continue to fray and the shadow government will continue to research not only the continued state of decay, but advocate policies that can stem the flow of toxic chemicals into the environment. We will attempt to move public opinion in ways that help us recover from the spiraling death throes of our military industrial complex and with skill and a bit of luck, we will help guide the conversation toward the knowledge that our debates, even the terms of our debates have been driven by those who abhor change, reap the benefits of inaction and sap the vitality of workers for their own benefit. We all are coming to understand that even the most free amongst the 99% are wage slaves. The vast majority of us are given untenable choices and there are ways to move the discussion away from merely "us" vs. "them".

My own special interest is in "sustainability" and as such, my work will be in the area of sustainable development, agriculture and broadening the discussion on the issue of education. Instead of stealing elections and making excuses for the schism between public opinion and the outcomes of stolen elections, our shadow government will continue to focus on what works. The sham system that has been created to keep us in servitude is no longer working and instead of the subversion of democratic processes, your shadow government will act as both pressure relief valve, for those who have reached the end of their desire to participate and healing salve for those who know that there exists a far better way to meet the needs of greater numbers through love, the sharing economy, abundance theory and equitable distribution of the fruits of our labor. We welcome questions, participation and information designed to further this discussion.

Magic Beans U.S.P.S. (Untited States Postal Service)

I have said for years that the best way for the Postal Service to turn around budget woes is to go to MWF (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) delivery. Transportation of mail, through the expansive vehicle fleet is the single largest cost of their service. Continue to pay staff at current wages and try to utilize available hours for neighborhood involvement or community building. Imagine hundreds of thousands of USPS emissaries across the nation, making a difference in their families, home life and neighborhoods. This would reduce carbon emissions by nearly half and provide the biggest bang for the buck for those that want to slow climate change. The waiting of a single extra day should not cause any trouble on mail of any type save those that already incur extra charges. I have looked at the numbers, over half the postal service costs are transportation. Reducing red ink is as easy as stopping the funds hemorrhaged into the oil (fossil fuel) economy. A day of reckoning is upon us, either we will treat the planet with a bit of humanity and honor, or we will perish through ineptitude.

A second way to increase revenue is to make advertisers pay their way. If any for profit company wants to utilize the US mail, they should pay full freight for that piece. This unnecessary subsidy of corporations is hurting real people who have to lug that waste paper around! The incentives for cutting this beast's head off are many, but the benefits would accrue to everyone save the .0001%. Corporate welfare is class warfare.

We have the right to demand what serves the most of us the best, whether it be in things as deeply personal as our relationship to Creator, or with the Earth and the rest of creation; as communal as our food system or our education, or as public as either the rarefied echelons of governors who run our collective affairs and as mundane as how we each get our mail. We need to think what one of us would even be willing to run down a couple blocks for less than fifty cents, much less ship it all the way across this great nation? It is time to put on our big boy pants and get down to the matter of fixing the matter once and for all.

People over profits! This bean was once rare. When I first planted it, I was lucky to get a few pods with a few beans in each. After selectively harvesting and replanting the best each year, I now have only a few with only three seeds. Ideas are much the same. If we tend them and make good choices, weeding out the crap and re-investing only the best, they come out just fine. Anyone who tells you that they have all the answers is just kidding, but when they agree that we could all experience a lot more by trying than wringing our hands, studying the matter further or ascribing blame. If we invest in our best, give back to the community and become exemplary corporate citizens, abundance flows.

The Heart Box

I have had a propensity throughout my life that borders on the miraculous. Things find me. Objects. Many of these things are of little use, but others are extremely useful and frequently border on the mystical. For instance, when I lived in downtown Green Bay, the driveway used to change phase at lead\st twice during each winter, from relatively firm frozen dirt to mud and back again when it either dried out or froze thoroughly. About the same time, I discovered an old hippie commune that I spent time at when I was a child, was being torn down. They had a spring house that was getting buried under fill dirt and so I rescued enough stone slabs from the foundation to pave the driveway.

When I felt the need to make movies, a camera and editing equipment came to me.

When I was a child, we used to do scavenger hunts through the neighborhood, asking for simple things like a rubber band or paper clip. These events always found me to be the first one back with all my items, relishing my good fortune. As one finds relatively quickly, the abundance that can come with this sort of luck is both a blessing and a curse. I kept every stainless steel toaster that came my way for several years. Toaster ovens, toasters and electric rotisserie units seemed to be attracted to me and I covered a wall with them, making quirky retro art of them.

Recently, however, I'm finding that this abundance is worthless if not shared. Like with the electric appliance art, without giving it all away, these objects hold no intrinsic value. For many years, I found silverware. For over a decade before that it was rubber baby doll parts. When I first got to Green Bay, I was amazed at the number of single shoes that I would find, just laying in the street. I often wondered what event, or events led up to someone deciding to jettison just one shoe from their life on a random city street.

Two consecutive years in a row, on Memorial Day Weekend, I found sleeping bags in the same spot along the highway. And several times, while walking, I have found dollars, or fives, once even a twenty. Dumb luck you may say, but when you live a blessed life as I have you know that something larger than mere luck is at work. I have found white gold rings, which were eventually stolen from me, my own lost wedding ring (actually a friend found that one, in one of his garden beds that I had helped him till up the previous fall.) A tiny key fob with only two keys on it in a pile of rocks we had made on the shore of Lake Michigan. I have found two boats, three bikes, two guitars and countless tools, food and materials, just left to rot, blown away or otherwise left for trash. Useful things that have enriched both my life and the lives of countless others.

I do not lack much, except cash, but these things that come to me are either made immediately useful of they go into what I call the heart box. You may have a heart box yourself, but if you do not, I encourage you to start one. These things that go into one are your gifts or blessings. Things that have come to you, often unsolicited that come in abundance but only have value when given away. I'm not talking about cobbing every lighter that you ever touch so that you can have a lighter stash and give them away and the point is not to go buy a bunch of useless crap that you can give away. If you pay attention, there are things that you can share all around and nearly at every turn if you allow yourself to "see" and look for opportunities to share. I love to make wine, but if I were to drink as much as I make, not only my life would be negatively impacted, but so too the lives of those I come in contact with. Sharing my abundance allows me to do what I like to do and enrich the lives of others who in turn may not have had the resources to make their own wine.

Remember, no abundance has inherent value, until it is given away.

ECO-Tours - The Skinny

When we first started, about a dozen and a half friends who understood that for us all to have a comfortable future, some sacrifice today was necessary. We were not brutal, coarse of brash, but rather compassionate, helpful and concerned for the well-being of all creatures. Humans tend to think from a species-centric place, affording the natural world no quarter in their world view. I do not want to paint with too broad a brush, but for those who are exceptions to this world view, you know who you are. Our founder, and author of most of what you read here at The Otherfish Wrap, continues to pump his own funds into these efforts. What began as a performance art project, completely funded with his own tax returns has grown into a regional force for good that has broken through all self-imposed ideas about what might constitute a success. Our efforts have crossed any limitations and boundaries we may have envisioned into a lifelong pursuit.

The past two autumns, we have been able to plant over one million trees per year. The resulting trees are favored by birds and we fully expect this to enhance the impact as birds become agents of further change over the years! The best thing about bird bombs is that each seed packet will land wrapped in a boost of fertilizer. When our first plant-ins took place, we would show up with a hundred or two small seedlings and within a few hours, they would all be planted and watered in, then we would retire to a campfire, or picnic table, share a mostly vegetarian pot luck and have time to share our insights, hopes and dreams with one another amongst the tiny trees that would one day transform the areas that we took under our wing. Today, many of those first trees we planted are towering giants, casting shade on fields, homes, paths and hillsides that had been dessicated and lifeless just twenty years ago. Some hug the banks of streams while others are shielding the brow of hills across Northeast Wisconsin.

At this point in  our development, we are seeking a more diversified and consistent donor group. We would like to begin to keep a regular office, rather than always meeting in our living room or kitchen. We want to have space to meet in larger groups increasing our effectiveness further. We are about to begin our plant-ins in the watershed of a second Great Lake, Superior and doubling our efforts will require double the time, money and human effort and further increasing our efficiency and effectiveness. Anyone interested in our work is encouraged to contact either Tony C. Saladino, our director, through facebook or donate through our link to Paypal. We always welcome in-kind donations, as well as any opportunities to share our knowledge, skills and attitudes with curious ecotourists and further our guests' understanding of sustainability issues, permaculture and efficient use (and re-use) of resources. This blog is beginning to reach a significant number of people and if each one who reads an entry would donate just a dollar, it would allow us to plant an additional tree each and every day! To put this in perspective, an acre of temperate forest, in climax condition provides home to between 300 and 320 mature trees. We continue to transform acreage, one tree at a time, one seed at a time. One thing we have seen proven out over the years is that a single acorn holds within it the miracle of a great oak. however, if it is not planted, there is no chance of it growing, ever.

If you are planning to be in either Northeast Wisconsin, or along the Lake Superior Shore, let us know ahead of time and we will prepare a unique ecotour for you. If you want to see energy efficient homes, plant trees, or just walk amongst beautiful wild rivers and waterfalls, we can show you them. If you would rather tour an organic farm, learning how to make your own lifestyle more sustainable and pare down your carbon footprint, we can share insights into ways of going about that too. We are continuing to provide living examples of bringing together folk wisdom and natural healing and food production with modern technologies that are appropriate and scaled to provide higher quality of life at less expense. This revolution is not being televised, although there are some sources of information on the internet, the best way to learn many of these important lessons is through seeing and doing them. We always welcome guests who are serious about finding their own path to sustainability.

Come, see what we are doing and revel in the abundance of life, in step with Mother Earth.

Fear Is Not A Family Value

Homo sapiens need a wake up call. Our hearts and minds have been heavily armored and who can blame us. The news programs and networks, that have proliferated and the "reality" television shows show us the most awful images and posit the most fearful views of life for us ad nauseum. We have been terrorized by the media for so long that it seems almost naive to trust, believe in, or count on anyone else. Other than our religious and political leaders, who have the most to gain from lying to us, we can include commercial interests, murderers, thieves, crazy people and sexual predators to the list of people who may be lurking around every corner. We have been led to fear nearly every bite of food that enters our bodies and every fluid that exudes from us as well. We now are beginning to understand that our water may be dangerous, the air definitely is and the very ground that we walk upon is "filled" with bacteria and fungus that might kill us if we have contact with it.

This morning, on a local news program, I learned that a local municipality is embarking on a program that will cut down hundreds of ash trees on city property to prevent them from being killed by the emerald ash borer, an invasive insect that only feeds upon these wonderful shade trees. The fear of what might happen is being allowed to dictate to us how we will act, what we will do and how we think about our relationship to the world around us. Similar issues are played out daily in operating rooms across the US. There are probably few of us by now that have not heard of women being told that by having a mastectomy, or hysterectomy, they may be able to outlive their genetic "predisposition" to die from cancer, or that exposing their breasts to radiation might just save their lives. Fear is probably the most profitable industry to be in at present, although we are on the whole healthier and more secure than at any time in our history.

Before you let your mind wander down the slippery slope of what you have been told, we are actually living in the least violent time in history. that being said, we are all going to die. If we live long enough, it is almost certain that we will pray for a quick and painless death, but fortunately or unfortunately depending on your perspective, doctors will almost certainly try every trick that they have up their sleeve to extend your life, expend more and prolong your life as long as possible. Feeling that heroic measures that allow people to suffer just a few months or years longer is worth their effort. It has been over a year since my father passed away, so I'm not just saying so because I am filled with grief. after his second, and third heart surgery, the effort to rehabilitate himself was extremely painful and no amount of schedule one narcotics could touch his pain. Luckily, when he was driving under the influence of these drugs, he did not kill anyone. I'm sure that it was mostly because of quick thinking and rapid action on the part of those who saw him coming in the nick of time. The last time I rode in a car with him, he nearly took out three other cars within about a mile.

The things that we really should be spending time in fear of often go unnoticed.I have shared with many people my feeling that the true terrorists in our midst are the millions of drivers who continue to use their cell phones in the car. these people just don't know when they are going to kill. doctors too fit into that category as well because iatrogenic (doctor caused) deaths, from prescribed medications are approximately equivalent to all deaths in car accidents in our country. Some sources have documented the fact that they are even a greater number. If we are to trust one another, we need to be acting in a trustworthy manner. The almost universal rejection of responsibility in our culture has fascinated me for the better part of half a century. In the last few weeks I have been reminding myself of the fact that when we point at others, there are three fingers pointing back at us. We are encouraged to fear by the powerful interests who wish to divide us and keep us isolated amongst our neighbors.

When we investigate most of the subjects that get covered by the popular press, we find that the causes and effects of these events are frequently left out of the coverage. The heroic actions of those who exhibit bravery or courage are usually not covered, nor are the actions of those who quietly persevere. These activities, quite often, don't photograph well or take place behind the scenes. My contention is that these actions and activities are far more common than we ever realize. Living is not a series of investments in insurance, or installing locks on everything that we value, nor is it the blocking out of all that threatens our way of life or ideas. In fact, the happiest people on Earth spend the least time on these sorts of activities. I have always wanted to be a preacher of sorts, but the reason is pretty much the opposite of any preachers that you might have heard speak before. I openly admit that I cannot tell you what to do. I'm not even sure that what I might say is right and i certainly don't want anyone to take any action in my name or in the "name" of the Lord or Lady, but rather because it is coming from your heart. I often write about the fictions that our minds spin for us into the illusion of truth. The ego is adept at lying to us and the weak of heart often subvert their true selves for the edification of their own deceitful egos. I am not who I think I am. Neither are you. The threats to your health and well being that you believe in do more to take you away from living your bliss than you may ever know. I apologize to those of you who may understand this already, but what speaker can resist the urge to preach to the choir from time to time.

Living our lives requires that we accept some risk. The more we hide behind layers of fear, the less we are able to see and understand the world as it truly is. There are many who reap the benefits of us shuttering our windows, living with our heads in the sand and turning our backs on those in need. We all have the power to live heroic lives, lives of infinite abundance and lives that recognize the fact that each and every human being is entitled to a life of love and realization. If each one teaches one, the process of growing into the people we want to be, rather than victims becomes much easier. We need to let go of fear if we are to have the power of love flow through us. The values that came down to us from our parents and theirs have been assaulted, attacked and undermined by the media for the better part of two generations. The threats that we face today are straw men, fabricated and propped up by those who want us to leave the churches, our government, the financial institutions and the schools available for their use as tools of oppression and they also want us to relinquish the airwaves to be used as an insidious tool for spreading fear. If we allow them to sell us a bill of goods that states that our children, their mothers, the elderly, teachers, gays, unions, pot smokers, liberals and conservatives are "the problem", then we will be sufficiently afraid of everyone and everything and we will be unable to do the things we need to do to break free of these mental shackles. We are always left to make one decision either from the depths of our hearts, or from our own tiny ego. Will we lead lives of quiet desperation or will we rise to the challenge that faces us today? I am willing to stick my neck out. Please look into how you might follow your own bliss and let me know what you find.

The Luckiest Child Ever Born

Before the superstitions of the modern age, a tiny being was born into this world who was never challenged with the concept of separateness. They were at once a being of the ether and of the Earth. Their blood flowed with a power subtly reflected by the shimmering surface of a great river. Their bones animated the strength of oaks an their mind was clear as a winter's night. They were one with the great and lesser powers that thrived around them and as a result, they verily buzzed with the collected lives and joys of Creator. Logic and proportion paled in their eyes when faced with the ultimate reality, within which they swam. Like the Great Barrier Reef, each moment, space and time was inhabited with a stunning array of burgeoning life, inspiring wonder and awe.

Each time a bridge to new awareness was to be crossed, their mother encouraged them and their father helped them to build the bridges to the other side. The forces propelling them forward on their quest was direct, yet slowly arcing as light waves are bent through space by gravity. The long view of their life was eclipsed by an ever attentive nature and deep sense of this one eternal moment. Their every need was met through the abundant glens and forests around their home. The many-fold increases that took place around the projects and diversions which they undertook were not unexpected. They planted a magical pea seed that gave back dozens more, they planted a lowly potato and were returned a dozen more to plant and harvest the next year. They took time to craft only what was needed and necessary for their family, their friends, their community and gave their wealth of spirit away, contained in all that they had created.

This lucky child, had the ability to transform the world upon which it was put in ways that still mystify after many lifetimes. This child is us. From the empty pot springs the greatest feast and so it is with this child, in each of us. The longing and isolation that we all feel from time to time would remain unknown if we interacted with the world as a child. We may need a mother to encourage us, but that can always be found in Earth herself and we may need a father to help us to build our own bridges as well. The unending track of the sun (Son) can substitute for mere mortals if we need it to. Surrounding ourselves with what brings in light and protects us from the raging storms that may swirl about us is part and parcel to our growth.

A wise old woman once said, "Don't shit where you eat." As we learn to tailor our sense of self to fit more comfortably upon the mantle of who we really are, there is less and less room to hide the ugliness of duality and separation. We are one with all that we experience. Our reality unfolds from ideas and images that we plant in our own minds. I wish you the insight and discipline to plant a garden worth harvesting.

We are all storytellers. We all have the power to share eternal truths through language, yet we often forget that the greatest fables rest on a firm grasp of reality.  I encourage everyone to share their stories and look to the great traditions that brought us to life, infusing their wisdom with the immediacy of our age. To look upon our lives as the ancients did, the mere hint of materialism can gain no purchase on our illusion about who we truly are. We are the fountainheads of eternal blossoming, but we must transcend our egos to unleash the flow of Creator's energy. Let me guide you on to the next level of our collective development. Let me plant a seed in you that grows into collective abundance for us all!

These sorts of stories can also be found at: otherfishwrap.wordpress.com
All funds raised through these sites will enhance our tree planting efforts across Northeast Wisconsin and soon in the Lake Superior Watershed as well! Please give appropriately, to transform the planet! The give away is the most powerful tool on Earth, use it wisely.

How To Live On Nothing

A favorite book of my youth by this title had these first words to say, right up front in the introduction, "First steal this book." In essence that is what most folks on the internet do, they steal information, often information that was produced by at least one other person. So it is in life as well and before we go too deeply into practicing this skill, let me say that at best it is somewhat rhetorical. Nothing but air, food water...and you are off to the races down many long and slippery slopes. We must always consume some things and exchange gasses, that is part of what animates us. I think we learned in Science Class in seventh grade, that all organisms eat, excrete, exchange gasses and reproduce. So, apart from these things, which can each be entered into in ways that may or may not have either positive or negative consequences. In fact, some methods for doing each of these defining acts, can have both positive and negative consequences. However, entire books could be written about each of these matrices and those tomes are for the most part written.

As many are fond of saying, "Don't sweat the small stuff, it is all small stuff." In relation to interplanetary and galactic scale, that may be true, but within the ionosphere, on this planet, there are important forces and trends that we need to take into account for quality of life to remain constant or improve. A very dear friend from college days dropped in and taught me that "If you can play with the kids, bake bread and do dishes, you will never go homeless." this, I have found to be true. What I would like to know is why so few people know about it or are unwilling to learn these basic skills. The small stuff really matters more than we can know because an endless series of relationships passes from our simple actions through chains of causation to create the environment that we must face daily. When I buy an item made with sweatshop labor, or that has been produced with a tremendous toxic legacy or requires vast stores of energy to produce, all of the ramifications of creating that product are an accepted "cost" of making that choice. The very device I am using now may have been produced with little more than high tech slave labor, sadly I don't even know if it was. Each of us must make certain choices and we will each be responsible for our own part in making the world of tomorrow.

I cannot possibly tell anyone what to do, but certain things that I have studied led me to make certain choices that worked and I can share them with you for better or for worse, you may not want to try them, but they may spark your own creativity into finding ways to live better on less in your life that will enrich your quality of life while greatly increasing your standard of living. When I was young, a trip to the dump or a junk picking run seemed a great way to both keep things from being land filled, or when I was really young incinerated. I even graduated to dumpster jumping for food when I became an adult. Certain rules apply, especially if you do not want to get sick, but I would estimate that hundreds of thousands of meals are thrown away each day in our country alone. Many pigs in our country eat better than people in some parts of the world. Being people of privilege, you would think that we would have more of a sense of obligation toward more equitable distribution of our great wealth.

A few packets of seed can, when carefully tended, produce many bags full of food I have found packets of viable seed for as little as $.05. What is the return on that investment? sorry to do the math thing again, but it helps to illustrate that although you may not really live on nothing, that living in abundance with plenty to give away can be done for a pittance if you allocate your time appropriately. Say each bag of food weighs in at 10 pounds. With some crops it might be less, but many other crops would be more than ten pounds per grocery bag. Conservatively, there would be a bag for each seed packet, again many would be more than that but some would be fewer. So fifteen cents investment could yield three bags or thirty pounds of produce. now, overt he past year or two, groceries have gone up tremendously. what used to average less than a dollar per pound has risen, in some cases to over three! Again let us take a conservative number like two dollars per pound. $0.15 yields then, $60.00, a four-hundred fold increase in value! Having tended gardens, three packets of seed could not take more than about an hour to plant, an hour to thin, perhaps another few hours through the growing season to weed and top dress with some compost. Even if you spent a few hours watering , which would be a lot, you could assume that you were paying yourself very conservatively at a rate of 7-10 dollars per hour. Not at all shabby if all your needs are met through playing with the children, baking bread and washing up the dishes.

Living on nothing then is more about cultivating a way of life that is of service to others and rewarding to yourself. Often, when I go to work, it is more for the fun and camaraderie than for the paycheck. If I just wanted the cash, there are more regular things that I could do but I probably wouldn't enjoy them nearly as much. For a time, I kept a small notebook and when conversing, I would note things that other people liked or enjoyed, needed or were on the prowl for. Perhaps, in the days of big old TVs with their wooden stands, someone would see my fish tank displayed in the cabinet and want one. I would take on part of their desire and perhaps find one for them, noting the size aquarium they wanted to put in it. I would hear that someone wanted to start hanging their clothes out to dry and within a week I would find clothespins at a rummage sale, things like that. even providing the service of shopping for a shut in in your neighborhood can bring unfathomable joys that cannot be bought with currency. A favorite saying that I heard when I was very young, but that always stays with me is, Desire is a trap, and liberation from desire is moksha (enlightenment). Living the truth of that statement is a challenge, but one that pays great rewards.

I could go on about hundreds of other ways to conserve and collect massive rewards for minimal effort. However, I was warned against throwing out too many ideas, so as not to disorient the potential newbies. instead, if you want more ideas send a SASE and five dollars (or something of equivalent value) to me at: one, double four, five Porlier Street Green Bay, Wisconsin five, four, three-0-one. We can also make the transaction on Paypal, just use my email once you get there for the account. (tnsaladino42@hotmail.com I will return a list of 100 things that one can do to save at least five dollars each over the next year. That alone, if you practiced every one would be a payback of 100 fold, again conservatively. Where the real value accrues is in getting your life back and truly, what is the real value of that? Priceless.

Okay, one more, just so you know I'm not fooling around. during the eighties, we began to get upset by the cost of canned beans, we ate a fair amount of them, primarily because they were reasonably priced, but the cost kept escalating. We began to buy fifty pound sacks of dry beans and cook them quickly in a large pressure cooker, to save fuel. Then we would can them in quart jars. Our accounting was that the quarts cost us about $0.25. At the time I believe that twelve ounce cans were $1.60. this was a bit more than 1/3 as much for over six times the cost. It took a few hours, but would feed us for many weeks on what we would spend for a few days of food from the store. The keys to all of these techniques are many, to think outside the box, invest in your own time, learn something and find ways to get better quality for less cost. This, in turn, usually creates opportunities to share deep connections with others by having more to share, examples of the ways your life is enriched and provide examples for others to follow on their way to their own process of living more lightly on the planet.

Storm Clouds Over the Cultural Divide

At this pivotal moment in history, there are powerful forces that think we are meant to feel threatened from every side by news of impending economic collapse, if we don't implement austerity measures, get the government out of the business of regulation of commercial interests or elect our leaders by the measure of their "morality". We find that in several regions, all around the world, social upheaval continues to disrupt daily life and dethrone leaders who have ruled with iron fists for decades. Ironically, in the United States, the failed policies of the recent past (nay, a generation or more) are being trotted out as our only salvation from a road to hell. Politically charged ill winds have brought some of the most heavily laden rhetoric in generations to decision-making tables. The very rhetoric often verges on terrorism itself, proclaiming dire consequences if action is not taken. (or certain other actions are.) With greater frequency religious zealots rear up to claim political power. They use the same charged rhetoric and encourage a return to failed policies, isolationism or "end time" myths to inform their approach to both social policy and international relations. Long estranged and disenfranchised people in many countries and regions are pushing for their turn in the driver's seat of power and control. These dark skies have been roiling for decades, but the storms that they are spawning are larger than any that have come before.

The deluge of change that we experience next will be beyond any military power to stop or any government to guide. The fallout from decades of abuse and neglect will overwhelm any attempt to control it, the social levees and dikes that have been constructed, between class, ethnicities, cultures even between the sexes cannot stand. we are one people, sharing one finite planet. Collectively we must address this fact.  When we do, it will not be possible to hold back the tide of humanity that will come crashing down around governments, worldwide. This is not territory that we can claim to know, for it has never been traversed. The shock of the new that we have lived through will pale in comparison to the tide of mounting change that will sweep clean much of the political landscape across the planet. If every finger were to be placed in the figurative dike, it would not be enough to stop truth from leaking out into the population. Every attempt to stop real and meaningful change will be overwhelmed by people power. Those who have benefited from manufactured fear and loathing of all that is different, misunderstood and deemed threatening and fear whatever they do not know, are about to have to take a backseat to decision-making of a totally different kind. The lies and hate that they have manufactured is melting under the intense light of instant global communication. The lies that were constantly propped up under the old paradigm, with more lies and lies on top of that, are falling like dominoes stacked in concentric circles around the shaky foundations of power that have served them for generations.

One discreet part of this manufactured mental landscape, the dying world view of Servoglobe (the technocrats whirring buzzing machine) requires us to believe that an electron that we send hurling through a wire for but a moment of usefulness is worth the poisoning the planet with nuclear waste that will be hazardous and require the utmost security measures for tens of thousands of generations.

The calm before the storm lasted nearly a century and the powerful changes that have been wrought worldwide have finally combined to create the most difficult time for human beings in history. Not only are we seeing the results of unbridled lust for money, but the concomitant raping of the landscape. Not only have we been thoroughly inculcated with the myth that humans are naturally brutish and offensive, but told the softer lies that "Nice guys finish last", that there is a "war" between the sexes and that "Boys will be boys."  Having lived in over a dozen cities, I can tell you that there is not a single one that has benefited from sequestering their poor in food deserts, mega development schemes, the changing economy or the gentrification of our great land. Chances are, that worldwide, the changes brought on by wealth management, human resources and the dehumanizing influence of capital have been similarly destructive elsewhere. Our beautiful walkable city, complete with electric street cars and train service through the urban Fox River Valley down to Milwaukee, over 100 miles away, the same train service that linked our town to the two biggest ones sixty miles (100Km) to our North, has been gone for two generations now and it looks as if, without major change, we will never get that sensible and beautiful lifestyle back. Instead we have poured ourselves into growing numbers of automobiles that continue to choke the ever widening roads at unmanageable cost. Instead of having a gem of a city with a distinct core, walkable neighborhoods and grocers on nearly every corner, we have to drive over a mile to get expensive food and more than five miles to get good food at reasonable prices. The food desert that has been established over the center of Green Bay has created more and more difficult conditions for larger and larger numbers of people as the cost of transportation has escalated. The "nice" hospital has been established outside the beltway and as wealth disappears from the cities, the tax burdens associated with aging infrastructure and social programs falls on smaller and smaller numbers of poorer and poorer people. In days of old, even slaves had to be treated well enough to make them healthy and strong, otherwise slave owners would have invested foolishly. Today, we are told that there are ten workers for every job opening and that we need to scale back our expectations for salary, hours, vacations and/or flex-time and keep our heads down if we want to remain employed.

Over the course of many generations, the wealthy have enslaved us. The cultural divide itself is a manifestation of their wish to remain segregated from those they oppress. The higher the mountain separating them from us the better, at least for them. Forget the fact that with great privilege comes great responsibility. Many have been fooled into thinking that the ultra wealthy had something on their side that was preferable to what we were allowed to have on our side. Rather like the valley people in the theme from Billy Jack, many swore that they would have it for their very own. Hundreds of billions of tiny pains have resulted from the century of striving to get "ours". Countless children have been neglected while Mommy and Daddy have run off in pursuit of wealth. The familiar but tired strains of the cultural elite to "pull ourselves up by the bootstraps" rely on having the ability to buy expensive boots. Even our language is based on exploitation and long held beliefs that the poor deserve their lot in life. The term "wrong side of the tracks" comes from the fact that prevailing winds would blow coal ash, clinkers and the acrid smoke of the railroad into neighborhoods that were unlucky enough to be downwind. There now exists a tool called a toxic release inventory which allows us to get a company by company breakdown, a business by business estimation of how much pollution is released into our neighborhoods. Of course the regulated community are the ones who compile the data, but I'm sure these reporting requirements are being proposed by the current batch of uneducated fanatics. We all need to look it up and learn how to read it. TRI Toxic Release Inventory TRI. Don't forget, I want you to know about poison in your air! Without knowing, you can't do much about it.  That's how bad things happen, people don't know enough to be scared. Even though this database can help us to understand the nature of our exploitation, many feel powerless to change things, when we account for the toxic and carcinogenic compounds that routinely flow through our neighborhoods and not unusually, the poor are often closer to the plume and less able to be able to afford to pick up and move, do we not have the responsibility to speak out against the causes of cancer and disease?

Rather than running from these problems, or hiding our heads in the sand, the coming storms will require us to capture the high ground and begin the long process of sorting out the difference between needs and wants, wresting power from the people who have had their way with us for generations and finally acting in accord with the logical approach that acts as if the future generations were depending on us. There have been breakthrough moments like this throughout the arc of time between ages where this has been done on a tiny scale, nearly forever. Everyone in the tribe had to adapt to new information. With more power beneath our fingers today than a dozen Guttenberg Presses could have given you in 1450, we are able to snap our attention to hundreds of concepts per hour and discover discreet elements of disparate disciplines at will. Now don't consider me rash, I don't expect everyone to even pursue enough data to make coherent arguments, but as the inevitability for change becomes available to more and more folks, we will hit the perfect concentration of ideas at just the right pressure and suspended angst will crystallize around things akin to condensation nuclei in atmospheric physics and meteorology. some of these crystallizations will be schools, farms and new lending institutions, not-for-profit groups, pagan groups and loacalizers, those who work as agents for mediating the flows of goods and services in more local economic structures.

The potential for jobs in an economy based on people, profits and the planet is nearly infinite. Unlike what the technocrats would have us believe, treating the planet as if we just have one means learning to organically adapt, learn to live lives of grace, leave little impact and enrich each location that we pass. Humans were made to walk, just doing that more can transform society. In fact, in some parts of the world it is about the most revolutionary thing you can do! walk and ride bike, take the billions of gallons of gasoline off the table as a bargaining chip. Stop feeding the beast. Petrodollars are hemorrhaged out of nearly every State in the USA. Likewise, with coal (read electricity) eighty percent of our fossilized carbon, coal comes from just six states. (over 50% comes from the top three coal-mining states.) The more demand we create, the deeper we will dig into the earth's crust for more. Sustainability demands sipping from finite reserves while spending our time building better lifestyles that inhibit waste and throughput. Throughput is the resources that do not accrue as investments but transform themselves into waste within our budgets, our bodies, our families and our homes. The limits don't end there though, it has reverberations through our neighborhoods, our workplaces and the community. Of course, the tendrils of this new way of being extend to the ends of the Earth as we slow the devastation, redirect the dollars and start to make sense.

First Harvest In Full Swing

The cornucopia is overflowing, abundance surrounds us and fills the larder. Simultaneously, our news programs are full of how shaky the economy is, how dangerous it is to be alive or how terrible someone else has it. My heart tells me that the rhetoric about the dire straights the super rich are in, and how quickly that will "trickle down" to us are overblown. The same suits that have skimmed off hundreds of billions of dollars for nothing more than shuffling paper are included in "talks" about how best to save their stake in the American Dream. White collar crime has never been more robust and certainly has not been more lucrative. The garden that I tend is pumping out produce that has a definite value. I invested early and consistently over time and now the rewards are flowing in. The thieves that put our economy on the ropes were siphoning off unearned income and wealth while putting nothing of value on the table.

 Banks, investors and loan officers are fond of saying that the needy company needs to put in their "pound of flesh", but their tails are so securely swaddled with our tax dollars that when they are on the brink of falling, we will rush in and save them. Nature itself is not too big to fail. If we deem any part of our economy as too big to fail, it ignores natural systems. When things grow exponentially, at a certain point, they must stop and begin to decay. Sad fact, fact nonetheless.
We share a planet, we are engaged in the exploitation of resources that come from the planet's crust. Increasingly, but sadly, not fast enough, we are utilizing both solar and wind to meet our "need" for electricity. Sustainability will demand of us as much inventiveness and creativity as met the needs of the industrial revolution. The next revolution will not look like most revolutions. Rather than destruction and mayhem, our next big shift will be to greener pastures, more agribusiness, local cooperatives and communities that are meeting their own needs rather than relying on high paid "experts" from far away. Economic power has been wielded over rural America for more than a century. Breaking the bonds that inhibit farmers from thinking for themselves, being good stewards of the land and keep them from fostering lasting positive environmental change in the nation will be hard. It may take a generation of education and complete revision of current agricultural policy. The bounty of Earth, when she is cared for, is almost beyond comprehension. It is time to begin acting like we know it. The miracles that keep us alive on Starship Earth need to be encouraged and upheld as the best model for human behavior. Give back, make no waste, store up calories during the fat times and conserve what you have earned by real work and attunement to Nature's Cycles.

The good that surrounds us and tips the balance away from chaos is not based on any intelligence or thought, but feeling. Each and every human on the planet needs to get clear about their own hearts. If anyone still needs proof that who we think we are is not who we are as much as what we feel is. We really need not distract our attention, the heart is the only hope we have for the future. That is why the Earth religions are gaining converts so quickly. Goddess is alive in our hearts and after the bad press that the male deities took over the past couple centuries, we cannot trust any man to not be infatuated by reason. Ultimately we must either choose what a wise friend of mine called Servoglobe, the penultimate Disneyesque technocrat's dream, or rediscover Gaia, the feminine and giving nature of ecology. We currently spend more on health care and get poorer outcomes than most of the rest of the world, yet next year I assure you, we will spend even more to be sicker. Just as our food sickens more and more people each year, but we will not question what we put in our mouths. Another sure bet is that there will be more soda commercials, and even worse diabetes. With the wealth of life sustaining potential all around us, the only thing that gets in the way of recreating Eden is the greed and self centered belief that we are in a competition for scant resources. Don't forget to integrate the concept of the cornucopia into your daily life, don't worry about what will come from being moved by your heart and always remember that none of this could have been bestowed upon us without love and hope borne on wings of abundance.

Musings of a Local Foodie

This week, I was so sick that we had to pay a relative to brave the lush garden beds to bring in a tiny fraction of this year's harvest. He discovered a couple dozen acorn squash, spread over two beds and three walkways, five pounds of red potatoes, a gallon or so of green beans, a giant box of beets and a gallon or two of carrots, a quart of elderberries, various and sundry greens and a flat of super juicy tomatoes. I'm guessing that most of the food came from seeds that we paid no more than five dollars for. The squash alone would have cost more than that at the local market. As much as I would like to say that I was born with farmer blood, the opposite is probably closer to the truth. My wife and I spent less than three days total on the garden this year, most of it pulling waist height weeds and harvesting peas, turnips, broccoli, and various herbs. If I had been healthy I might not have wanted to brave the garden because of the "mosquito problem". The last sixty days brought nearly twenty inches of rain. The last storm alone dropped seven and 1/4 inches on our "neck of the woods". The local meteorologists say that it only rained about three inches,(2.87 to be exact)but that was at the airport on the opposite side of town.
As the local mosquito population has risen, the urge to be out in the garden has decreased, so things were pretty much on their own until this week. We finally got a mosquito control system that we just love. Garlic oil concentrate. We mix up a gallon or two in our sprayer and dose the yard and garden, making it possible to actually get in there and do things. There used to be a veritable cloud of the little blood suckers no matter where you went in the yard and garden, but after two applications in as many days, they seem to be staying away.
I'm just amazed that with no more than a passing interest, the annual removal of mulch and the planting of some tiny seeds, even with virtually no weeding, the earth can be so incredibly productive. I have garlic, a few leeks for seed, two kinds of potatoes, several varieties of tomatoes and a dozen other food crops, all burgeoning from a space not much larger than out kitchen. The acorn squash, perhaps, is the most impressive. It is a rouge survivor of the last winter's compost pile. From that one tiny seed came tendrils that wind up and over the pea trellis, two garden beds and if we had not gotten out there this week, it might just have engulfed the other half of the garden. We've gotten at least a dozen squash plants so far and the vines are still covered with blossoms. Who needs to fret about a percentage or two in the stock, or real estate market when a single discarded seed can come back and feed you through the coming winter? I have access to several garden beds across the street, as well as those in my own back yard, but the simple truth is that I am too lazy to walk the two hundred feet back and forth to those garden beds.
My asparagus tastes as good as that which I can harvest from the plot at our rental, but the whole bed is closer than even the first plant across the street. I could grow a lot more tomatoes if I pressed even a single bed into service over there, but the delicious red fruits taste better when they come from less than fifty feet from my kitchen door, decidedly better than if they were from over two hundred feet away. I would love to have a bit more dirt close at hand and under my authority, but for now, I'm doing my best just to keep up with the harvest as it is. Do I really want more when I can barely handle the surplus that exists already? I would love to write more, but my responsibilities to the harvest are calling.