down to earth

The earth is our mother; we must take care of her. I sang these words on Tuesday in the Dances of Universal Peace, as part of the Transition Arts festival over the Easter weekend. This chant comes from the native American tradition, from people for whom nature is sacred, who lived the words, not as an ideal but as practical, interdependent survival.

Now, only a small proportion of people on this Earth live within her carrying capacity. And most of those aspire not to. Only a tinier proportion of those people actually aspire to live within the planet’s means, and these are generally native people. A scattering of native tribes around the world have survived intact because they have, unlike us in the west, continued to take care of the earth in a way that doesn’t damage her or deplete her.

Last week new calculations from nef (the new economics foundation) revealed that on Easter Sunday this year, 12 April, the UK in effect stopped relying on its own natural resources to support itself and started to 'live off' the rest of the world. This day creeps earlier each year. It’s worth taking some time to ponder what this means, especially to other human beings. There is simply less to go around because of the choices I make.

It’s not a question of feeling guilty; that’s just a waste of time. It’s a matter of taking positive, effective action. That will mean something different for each one of us, and in the years to come we'll be learning what that means. For we are entering a time of Earth Care and Earth Repair, the age of Ecology. Every single choice we make about what we eat, how we travel, how we share with each other, allows us to start to practice Earth Repair, from this moment. We have a huge amount of power of choice; far more than we have been led to believe. As the song goes, Her sacred ground we walk upon, with every step we take.

As the sap rises, I’m currently deepening my understanding of Earth Repair on my new allotment. I’ve been a permaculturalist for 15 years, but I’m now learning from the greatest teacher of all, our Mother. And just like the happy man in this video, I’m finding that the rewards are many.

vision on

I set out this week to write about the Tescopolisation of Britain’s towns, after a trip to Scotland and the Midlands. I scrapped that and started to complain about how police are turning peaceful protests such as those at the G20, which I attended last week, into riots. But both times I felt my stomach churning, my jaw tightening.

Is this what I choose, to oppose what I don’t want? Or do I choose to attract what I do want, even if it’s a dream? But dreams do come true, whether they are personal or global. The more we realize that, the more powerful we become in creating a better reality.

This week I have been dreaming of root vegetables because it’s that phase in the biodynamic moon planting calendar that I’m working with for the first time this year. I have a three-day slot in which to plant the rest of my onions and shallots, beetroot and carrot seeds into the fine seed beds that Andi and I created last week. Maybe we’ll even tuck the chitted potatoes in to rows before next week, when it’s the turn of the leaf vegetables. Then I’ll plant up my new planter with lettuces; it was donated to me by a wonderful new venture, Food Up Front, created by Transition Town Lewes’s Food Group who provide free ex-recycling bins filled with compost and soil and instructions on how to grow abundant food in a small space on our doorsteps and balconies.

A couple of years ago I discovered that a few Lewes groups had been selected to contribute towards a vision for the 12-acre light-industrial area of North Street, and that that ‘vision’ was being engineered by the fact that a major developer was part of the conversation - he was peddling plans for 800 flats and a new clone-town shopping centre. I was told that although the discussion group was closed, I would be able to contribute to the vision for the area via Lewes District Council’s website. Several of us wrote in our visions - which are well worth a re-read. My contribution was an article from the Sussex Express, set in 2020, celebrating the fact that the community-run scheme had won an award for the most creative energy descent plan and use of local resources. The fictitious newspaper article praised the District Council for averting the plans of the developer and goes on to describe some of the award-winning aspects of the North Street development, including a biomass plant, an affordable housing scheme on stilts, a raised bed training growing area and an alternative transport hub.

In real life, Angel Property has since speculatively bought up nearly all the riverside on North Street, but because of the recession, it now seems that the developer is likely not to be developing the area. At the time I wrote the article, it seemed like a pipedream. Now that community land is no longer so attractive to gold diggers, perhaps the time is coming for North Street to be developed ‘by the people, for the people’. Read the 2020 vision under Transition Town Lewes here.

thanks allotment

To my sheer delight I discovered last week that I have an allotment. Having at last reached the top of the Landport waiting list I have by remarkable good fortune been allotted the land previously cultivated by my friends Chloe and Tilo. Once again, my gratitude in advance has been heard (thank you)…

This is a lovely embryonic Permaculture patch, with fruit trees and bushes, a mammoth rhubarb and another giant rosemary now in full-on pale blue flower. Plus five full compost bins and an equal number of water butts and a very leaning shed… Any gardener reading this will understand the depth of my joy at being given land to caretake. For the gardening instinct runs deep among us. Evidence shows that we humans have been growing our food, mostly small scale, for 14,000 years, long before the advent of so-called civilization.

When I dig out the weeds, tamping down the clods of soil with my hoe to a fine tilth seed bed, when I sow peas as I did this morning, I am re-enacting a sacred and life-giving act that runs back and forth through the generations. It’s an act of love and interdependence, human to land, hand to soil. As I lean over in the hoeing and the seeding it’s as though my body remembers the work of all the past generations of growers. Our present fossil-fuelled supermarket fed way of life is only that of my generation – my grandparents knew how to grow a tomato or two, as did my father, even if it was just as a hobby.

This is the month in which we sow most of our seeds for the year to come, hoping and praying for a perfect balance of light, heat and wet, fondling, feeding, the soil that will nourish us. We are totally interdependent on our Mother Earth, our soil. Though most of the other allotmenteers seem to prefer a scorched earth approach, to a permaculturalist that is anathema; I will be covering the soil with straw mulch and green manures like clover and phaecelia, feeding it with nettle and horsetail teas and sprays. Dreaming into being my future food. All is well in the garden. As William Blake put it:


To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

the power of love

It’s strange to admit this: I feel like I’m learning to receive love for the first time in my life.

I’ve had a rough week, with poisons, and then more poisons to counter their side effects, leaving my body feeling like it’s been hit by a bus. My animal, instinctive, spirit seems to be crying out: ‘let me out of here!’ And yet, I am discovering a strange cocoon of love, not deliberate love in reaction to my distress but the background level of love that we take for granted every day of our lives. Not a day passes without a gesture of kindness – an invite to a cup of tea, a postcard from a cousin, a friend dropping in with another book by Barbara Kingsolver, a bunch of liberated daffodils 'liberated' from the park, someone crossing the road to hug me when I’m feeling my most unlovable. It’s an inescapable tidal wave of love!

Last week, Matthew, a teacher from Lewes New School, which I put a lot of my own heart into some years ago, did a sponsored 100-mile bike ride to raise money for our family to spend on ourselves, a holiday perhaps. They pooled £1000! Yes, I am in awe of the power of love, a tangible spiritual force that is so much more powerful than any of the transient concerns of my body or what the politicians and news creators would have us believe.

And love is what’s going to get us through this time of great change. I’m convinced of that now. It’s time to stand up for what we love, and I am planning to contribute to the shindig (it’s not really a protest is it when you’re having so much fun?) on 1 April highlighting the problem of the G20 so-called leaders trying to keep the show on the road at all costs. The wonderful Marina Pepper - above - who is leading the Black Horsemen of the Apocalypse (meeting at Cannon St at 11 - see you on the 9.17 from Lewes with flowers or a pillow – don’t ask), sent this video, One Love. Cos that’s what it’s all about isn’t it? That’s the real agenda.

hair today...

I woke up on Monday and decided to shave my head. So I took myself to Andy and Marvin’s barber shop on Fisher Street and asked for a Kojak. Andy explained that they only cut very close to the head and after asking me three times if I really wanted a Number One, he took out his electric cutter and started. You might want to close your eyes, he warned me; this might not be easy for you.

I’d started to think about this decision the night before, when, as I was combing my hair using my fingers, it was coming out in whole handfuls. The chemotherapy was finally taking its toll and though the sight was rather entertaining to my son, it was starting to creep me out. In fact, the whole hair loss thing had been far harder than I’d expected. The lion in me was starting to feel rather mangy.

Andy meanwhile was being very funny, and kindly keeping my mind busy as he shaved: ‘So, how’s the chemotherapy going? Are you seeing the light at the end of the tunnel yet? And I don’t mean the kind of near-death light…’ When he had done and I opened my eyes, I felt a thrill of delight and freedom. I put on my beret and cycled home, waving goodbye to all the blokes in the barbers shop – I felt we’d made each others’ day.

At home the reception was mixed. Dirk commented rather Dirkingly that I looked like I’d come from a prisoner of war camp; I think it’s a rather visual reminder that I am ill, even though I feel well and the cancer is regressing. But within hours I had support: Nimmy taught me how to create African head-dresses; Julia brought a fetching bonnet for going shopping in; my daughter Rose helped me accept that a wig under a beret looks pretty natural. And Vivianna’s massage lotion has kept my scalp fresh and oiled. I keep wanting to go outside naked-headed but when I have, to collect logs or wave a friend off, I sense that people have found it rather disconcerting. Am I brave enough to help educate the public about the effects of chemotherapy or shall I just keep this new sense of carefreedom to myself?

the other Lewes pound

I spent Saturday on my friends Robin and Tuti’s new land near Cooksbridge broadcasting green manure over a 1 acre field that had been ploughed and tilled. The four of us walked up and down the field in a group, spread out 2 metres apart, broadcasting the seed in a horizontal figure of 8 pattern, adjusting it to the wind. After a picnic lunch, Robin and Edward pulled a hand made harrow (Robin is developing AppropriateTechnology) over the ground to cover the seed. The whole operation was efficient and hugely pleasurable. Probably not as fast as a machine could do it, but far more - appropriate.

On Sunday I planted a forest garden in the patch of land opposite St John’s Sub Castro. It used to be the town pound, where stray sheep were brought to be claimed. Last spring a few of us Transition Towners, with Ruth O’ Keeffe of Lewes Little Gardens, sheet mulched the weedy ground (cardboard then compost then straw, overplanting it with a prolific crop of marrows, courgettes and nasturtiums). When I dug into the soil it was writhing with worms and soft and crumbly, with an intact weed-free structure ready for planting in. In a couple of hours, I planted blackcurrants, raspberries, grape, tayberry, rhubarbs, alpine strawberries, Jerusalem artichokes, horseradish, and a range of herbs including chives, garlic chives, sorrel, sage, rosemary, salad burnett and lovage. Marrows for my neighbor and self-seeding herbs are to come. The permaculture concept of a forest garden is that it mimics nature, with plants taking up space in different levels and, by using perennials and self-seeders in a straw mulch, to minimize the amount of maintenance needed, including weeding and watering. Probably the most work I will do this year is to harvest the crops and share them with my neighbour, who owns this tiny garden.

Here is the inspiring 90 minute film Farm for the Future, that I mentioned last week, and here is a very funny 9 minute film about Transition Towns.

outgrowing the growth

I’ve discovered that it’s possible to simply outgrow problems. And that I am at last growing up. These last couple of years I’ve felt like a child, powerless in the face of humanity’s cancerous Kamakazi suicide mission. Yet also knowing also that this is the perfect world, a kind of warts and all Garden of Eden. Cancer happened because I forgot to laugh at the joke, and grief settled in like a cool corrosive mist. But now it’s different. I can read the news without pangs of fear of what’s ahead. I can listen to people talk about their flying holidays without feeling like going AAARGH! I’m not in denial, but neither am I suffering.

I also know, first hand, that you can’t tell an addict to change; all you can do is wait with compassion till they hit rock bottom. There’s no point in trying to help humanity to change in advance; we are going to outgrow the problem, even if we die out in the process. This is going to be a rear-view mirror job, just like the economy. All we can do is love what we love, and permaculture is one of the best ways I know of doing this.

While planning to plant a small forest garden on St Johns Terrace this weekend I watched this wonderful BBC documentary about the future of food and farming, and came across this quote by Carl Yung:‘I always worked with the temperamental conviction that in the last analysis there are no insoluble problems, and experience has so far justified me in that I have often seen individuals who simply outgrew a problem which had destroyed others. This ‘outgrowing’ revealed itself on further experience to be the raising of the level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose on the person’s horizon, and through this widening of his view, the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not repressed and made unconscious, but merely appeared in a different light and so became different itself. What, on a lower level, had led to the wildest conflicts and to emotions full of panic, viewed from the higher level of the personality, now seemed like a storm in the valley seen from a high mountain top. This does not mean that the thunderstorm is robbed of its reality; it means that, instead of being in it, one is now above it.'