How To Future Proof Your City and Your Home

Imagine A Future We Want

We have got to imagine and give our attention to a world where problems are addressed and we stop the mass extinctions and the ruination of water, soil and everything that sustains life.

Yes that is a couple looking out from a jetty to salmon jumping and off in the distance a spectacular sunset. The painting is called 'Let's Look After This Place'

Make Sure Social and Ecological Matters are Held Above Economic Interest

First we will need to make sure that corporate and government greed stop dominating social and ecological awareness and necessary change. The citizens of Iceland by the thousands turned up at the government offices every saturday to protest the corruption. After six weeks the entire cabinet and head of the banks resigned. Then the citizens, by lottery, nominated a committee of citizens to work on what formulating new policies and structure. Everyone...everyone! was allowed to email in ideas, requests, visions or indeed show up and all the major themes were addressed. This was a way to get the old boys club out and a democratic representation of the people in. How interesting would that be!

This time, the unicorn beats the dragon even with his superior strength. The unicorn is almost exhausted as he has been giving the dragon the benefit of the doubt for so long - like us, assuming everything on the supermarket shelves is safe to eat, assuming that big companies bring jobs and improved economies, assumng that government ministers are interested in democracy and wouldn't let our land, sea and air envirnonment be destroyed. We couldn't foresee that they would infact protect the perpetrators, hide the damage reports and refuse to charge a tax. How does the unicorn win? Like humanity, it will be through piercing truths, the light of awareness and the willingness to show up, with independence of mind, fearlessness and the grit to stick to a mindful productive lifestyle individually. This painting is called 'Showdown'

 

Picture Yourself Having a Good Time

We need to look forward to a future, not dread a couple of poor options. So far, when we think of 'going green', we picture having to garden 10 hours a day and still possibly not have enough to eat, live by candlelight, give up  the car and holidays. Our imaginations are not put to good use like this. The truth is that there is a way more enriching life ahead.

I, for one, know that living quietly in rural Ireland is a minute to minute adventure. Looking out the window is much better than TV. Nature is funny, it's miraculous, it's industrious, it is both independently doing its own thing and yet thankfully responsive to a little attention. And, on the whole, animals and neighbours are kind to one another. This is good for your heart and for each generation, to see that generosity, accommodating one another, sharing and hanging out are what makes life worth living. Let water be our treasured local currency.

And the water here, there is enough for everyone. I feel we have had the internet long enough to know that all the people of the world need water and we have also seen enough to know that the animals, wild and tame, must no longer be used. I gather we have only 20 years and probably not even that to correct the erratic water patterns we're precipitating with current behaviour. Floods and droughts can't be managed, we need clemency. It is also too late to simply be a conscientious objector - opting out of the rat race. We need to get together, make plans, help each other, participate in communities. Here, we considered starting a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture scheme where a neighbourhood pays a little to a farmer each week for the local farm to produce organic food for them. As there is money before the produce, there is a shared risk of a bad harvest and also shared benefit of a bumper harvest. As it turned out, we were all growing loads anyway so the community became more about dinners and music. This painting is called 'Evening Drinks With Mark' 

How Wellbeing and Caring For Plants are Inextricably Linked

So, what about the wellbeing promised by participating in urban farms? I gather Detroit was a dying city. It went from 2 million to 700,000 residents when Ford and other motor parts manufacturers left. There are miles and miles of derelict homes and bigger buildings. This is what relying on an unsustainable business looks like. 'Unsustainable' means relying on fossil fuels, computers, chemicals, animals, fresh water. Out of the chilling scene in Detroit though 1200 urban farms have cropped up. Everyone interviewed described them as sanctuaries and yet they are hugely productive.

Small Manual Farms are 4 times more productive than Large Mechanized Farms

Following major experiments there, it was discovered that small farms, worked manually, are far more productive - 4 times more productive than monoculture farms. The latter involve land covering hundreds of hectares producing one crop year in year out, relying on chemical fertilizer to revive the soil, massive combine harvesters, tractors and diesel, GMO seeds and pesticides to combat the rife pests and diseases.

In any natural habitat there is a mixture and we can recreate that, through permaculture, like hiding basil in the shade that it likes, of tomatoes. The tomatoes are protected from pests by the strong scent of the basil and then above both can be a grape vine. This light canopy means that there is light but less and less need for water as they collectively retain water in the air and soil....and of course we're also describing here the makings of a delicious mediteranean salad with lashings of wine possible too.

Cultivate Patience Too

Savour the still moments. Cultivate patience. This painting was called Communing but now is called 'Waiting For The Farrier'  This is one of those things that just has to be done. Nobody knows from where the farrier will come, from which direction and what sort of young colt he might have just had to deal with. This can be said about nearly all our interactions. It will all be better if we are relaxed, accepting and forgiving of tardiness. Try not to be gruff and take things personally. As the horse does, see everything and everyone as a reflection of yourself.

Demain, Manana, Tomorrow...Different ways to look ahead...but look we must!

This film we watched and discussed, up in the George Bernard Shaw centre last night, was inspired by a few people who had read an article describing the imminent extinction of the human race. It came out in 'Nature' a magazine in the June 2012 edition. They went around to see what people are doing about it. It is such an important film, I would love the cinema to have been packed. It is coming next to Kilkenny though, so do see it there or wherever you are. It is called Demain - meaning Tomorrow.

It is a french film and has won awards. For those who can't do subtitles I can confirm that it is all in English so no problem there... thank God the rest of the world is better at languages than we are!! We all know the word in Spanish though: Manana! It has a major association with putting off what needs to be done, suggesting that today let's relax and think about it all again tomorrow. Demain is different, it is asking a question: What sort of a tomorrow, what sort of a future are we able to offer the next generation?

Younger Days Older Days: Diptych

'Younger Days' when we still think we might be sitting on a golden egg

'Older Days' when we savour a choice of seeds, steamed courgette and Eccles Cake.

I'm saying all this as I want everyone to get excited about what is possible. For the poor, the rich, the young, the old, the whole animal, vegetable, mineral.

Get Informed and Involved: Let Rajenda Singh be your hero too!

See the films, join a Community Garden, get politically active, start a group and remember that, in a sense, every day is 'World Water Day'. You wouldn't want to be without it.

This week, the Demain film, last week was World Water Day. I watched a heap of videos - one by Bruce Lipton, my hero of energetic clarity and one called Bless The Water, a new short film. This was the one where I was introduced to Rajendra Singh who has brought water back to 5 riverbeds which had been dry for 60 years! He says that water 'starts in the eyes'. If you feel water in your eyes when you see suffering, then healing is possible. He is talking about compassion but he is also talking about faith. I know for a fact he has faith as he tried making little dams, in the river bed, in the hope of harvesting some of the monsoon deluge to use at another time of year. It was only when they completed their 365th dam that the water was finally redirected, the aquifers and wells filled up and the river became a perennial river - a fresh gushing waterway, all year around! So we need faith as well, in our ideas. Don't give up on them.


water-man-of-india-makes-rivers-flow-again

The bad news is that 
95% of the earth's water is already contaminated. There are filters and all sorts for drinking water that eliminate some of the things but recently I have become very interested in Dr Emoto who studies how water holds memory and therefore how its composition can be corrected with clear intention. This might sound like a more formidable task than just buying a filter but as an energy worker, it is just an ordinary day at the office to care for my drinking water and the streams around. I am perfecting ceramic coasters to do the job for people, a jug can sit on them overnight. Be amazed by how well every water cell in your body responds to the attended to input!

This is Plato's Water Symbol, one of the original forms he dedicated his life to reflecting on. It is also Metatron's Cube, supposedly one of the most powerful manifesting tools there is in geometry. Let's use all these old teachings to create the future we want. We have to release ourselves from any victim of circumstance ideas, long enough to allow in some epic visions of what is possible. Are you up for it?

 
Bless The Water brilliant short film by Uplift

Prayers work because our thoughts are not in our heads they are out in the fields having an impact - Bruce Lipton

Prince Ea: Humans have a tendency to take things for granted and thinnk they will find a technological way out of problems but gratitude is the antidote

How To Change The Production of Food: Greenpeace

When I say get politically active I mean write to TDs and say things like,
Why do you want the citizens to pay for 90% of fresh water use in Ireland when they only use less than 8% of it?
Please would you insist that Shell and whoever is buying their Mayo gas wells off them that they must pay for their use of fresh water from now on and preferably manage it properly too. Every drop of gas has to be cleaned with fresh water, they are using millions upon millions of litres with impunity at the moment. The sale of the plant is the perfect opportunity to renegotiate terms, where Irish people and Ireland itself benefit and are preserved.
Please also charge and monitor manufacturing use of water. They are also not charged and yet flush every machine repeatedly and use fresh water for a multitude of production aspects.
Why are we promoting beef when it takes 15,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of beef.
Why are we promoting dairy when the price goes incrementally lower with every additional litre on the market?
Why are we not promoting organic farming, when products command a higher price and now that bees are on the endangered species list...

What ever comes to mind, just write or ring and show that you know and want change!  Thanks a million and as Nature will also thank you, may your ship come in soon!

'Our Ships Coming In'