I wanted to post another update from my garden and update from our Permaculture Meetup, which blogged about some time ago (Here’s our meetup group site: Oakland County Permaculture Meetup). Recently, I hosted what we call a “permablitz” or a …
Living in Harmony
Strawbale Studio and Tar Sands Oil Pipelines – The Clash of Worldviews, Part I
As I’ve discussed a few times on this blog, we have an oil pipeline going through our immediate area in South East Michigan. The first “phase” of the project went 1/2 mile north of my home in 2012-2013. This was …
Community and Connectedness: Extending our understanding of “tribe”
Sociologist Geert Hosfede* has a set of cultural dimensions (which you can look at here) that helps us understand broad differences in culture. These aren’t absolute by any means, but they do give us some baseline indications of how cultures …
As Within, So Without: Blight and the Magical Garden
There is an old magical adage, first written by Hermes Trismegistus, that goes “As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul…” I’ve spent a long time in trying to understand this statement, see it …
Finding the Balance in Providing One’s Own Sustenance: The Time-Intensive Example of Canned Corn
I’ve not been blogging as much as I did a few months ago for a simple reason–the harvest is upon us. Starting with the black raspberries in June to seeking out wild mushrooms the start of apple and autumn olive …
Embracing the Sacred and Understanding the Druidic Garden: Growing and Preserving Your Own Food
When I was a child, I used to read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. In her books, Laura spends a lot of time talking about food preservation–slaughtering the pig, making maple sugar, making “head cheese”, sowing crops, cutting hay for …
Garden Trellising – Bedframes, Sticks, and other Repurposed Items!
This year in my garden, I focused on growing “up” rather than “out” and spent a lot of time finding and using trellises. Last winter, I purchased and read a book called “Vertical Gardening” by Derek Fell; after reading it, …
Wild Medicinal Plant Profile– Reishi Mushrooms (ganoderma tsugae), or, The Mystery of the Stumps Revisited
In a post I wrote about over a year ago, I told the story of the “mystery of the stumps” where I described my relationship to the forest where I grew up, the forest to which I belong. I told …
Township Ordinances and Front/Back Lawn Battles – My Own Story
In my post a few weeks ago about what I called the “Garden Resistance Movement” (where people are converting their yards to gardens, etc.), I alluded to the fact that I was now on the front lines of this particular …
Barn Raisings: Building Sustainable Structures and Communities of the Future
I’ve been blogging a lot about sustainability and community–and this is for good reason. I’ve come to understand, as I worked my way through the AODA’s 3rd degree (where I investigated the relationship of druidry as a spiritual practice and …
The Garden Resistance Movement – Replacing Front Yards with Gardens and Food Forests
Note: I have been composing this blog post for quite some time. This past week, I received a letter from my township about the “state of my lawn” and now find myself in a similar position to those I was …
Ode to the Tree: The Importance of Trees and Human Health
What’s the value of a tree? What’s the value of a forest? I’ve explored these themes before, but I want to come back to this in light of some new research put out by the Pacific Northwest Research Station, and …
Garden/Homestead Updates – June 2013
I wanted to spend a bit of time on my garden updates–its been a while since I showed progress. So here’s what’s happening at the Druid’s Garden (zone 6a, South-East Michigan, USA). Photos were taken about 4 days ago. Chickens …
A Guide to Composting with Tumblers, Sheet Mulching, Worms, Chickens, and Piles
Composting is a very easy way to integrate natural processes and nutrients into your garden, flower beds, and life. While various statistics exist, most commonly, I’ve seen statistics that suggest that up to 50% of what we throw away in …
From Consumptive Spaces to Productive Spaces: The Lawn as a Site of Change and Growth
In America and many other industrialized nations, one feature dominates the landscape, especially in the suburban areas of the great cities–the green, pristine, velvety lawn. The lawn is so ubiquitous in American culture that a huge industry of chemicals, tools, …
Historical Reenactment and Reskilling – Learning from our past
A great deal of discussion exists within the sustainability/transition movement concerning the loss of “old” and sustainable skills and the importance of reskilling to help preserve the future and live comfortably in it. The concept of reskilling is a simple …
Climate Change and Growing Food: Creating Resilient Polyculture Crops for Spring Weather
In Michigan, last spring (2012) was one of the warmest on record. By early April, I had beautiful spinach and lettuce crops; the crops were bolting by mid-May. The warm weather took its serious toll on our fruit crops—most berry …
Garden as Sacred Sanctuary
The garden is a sacred sanctuary. The calming nature of the plants; the patterns of light, water, and growth; and the tranquility the garden provides are unmatched. This world we live in is so busy, so full of concrete and …
Book review and Personal Response to John Michael Greer’s “Not the Future We Ordered: Peak Oil, Psychology, and the Myth of Progress”
In today’s blog post, I’m going to review John Michael Greer’s newest book, Not the Future We Ordered: Peak Oil, Psychology, and the Myth of Progress. To review this book, I am going to start with an extended personal example …
Review, Video, and Discussion of John Michael Greer’s Detroit Community Lecture, “Not the Future We Ordered”
Recently, our druid grove brought John Michael Greer to Michigan, where he did a book signing and gave a talk on the fall of industrial civilization. If you are interested in either druidry or sustainability, John Michael’s works (on druidry, …
Building Community – The Oakland County Permaculture Meetup and How to Form a Permaculture Group
I think community and community building should be a critically important part of any sustainability efforts. When I first became interested in sustainability and permaculture, I checked a bunch of books out of the library and set to reading and …