Animated Water

It has finally rained. After about three months of record dryness, wet stuff fell from the sky. Just as the sun seems to spur joyful growth from the plants, rain has a similar effect. After the rains my stunted sage plant gleefully put on new growth. My squash is now over 6 feet long.

Water is the life blood of the garden. It brings to life not only the plants but the millions of microbes and insect life in the soil. How the water falls and flows through the soil is of maximum importance to a healthy garden. One of my garden mentors taught me that the only way to know how to properly wet my garden is to get wet with it. During a rain there is a lot to learn by standing in it, watching how it falls, where the rivulets of water snake along the ground, where it pools and where it is sucked into the soil.

However in a food garden, rain is not always enough and irrigation becomes necessary. Yet the state of our water system is dire. Not only do we waste a shameful amount of water, but we poison it as well. There are predictions that our oil wars will soon turn to water wars. Even here in the Northwest where our water is allegedly the cleanest in the country, it is processed with chemicals and “enriched” with fluoride. Our ground water and sewage systems are overwhelmed with pesticides, cleaners, petroleum products and pharmaceuticals. Overcome with toxins and pollutants, filtered of it's natural minerals and beneficial bacterial, our water has, as scientist Joan S. Davis would put it, lost it's wisdom. We drink this water and we eat it through our food.

Much of what I am learning in this study is how to garden with a sacred intention. Whether it be weeding, interacting with pests or watering, focusing with an good intention can elevate the self and the act, imbibing it with creative energy. However I hear rumors that this intention has a healing capacity. Masaru Emoto is somewhat infamously known for his work with water crystals. In one experiment Emoto exposed water to degrading or affirming words, froze the water and took microscopic photographs of the crystals that form as it freezes. The photographs Emoto produced are said to show that degrading words causes disconnected and malformed crystals, and affirming words created beautiful and intricate crystals.

Sandra Ingerman has done similar experiments to detoxify water calling the process transmutation. For the experiment a group is gathered in a ceremonial meditation with a focus on healing an intentionally toxified receptacle of water. Ingerman would test the pH of the water before and after meditation, and found that post meditation the water indicated lower levels of toxicity.

Naturally, the scientific community has issue with these experiments, and I'll admit, I'm skeptical. However, I can't deny that it makes sense. I know from experience that a positive and generous intention can have a great affect on my interaction with animals and other humans. But these physical life forms are a combination of a variety of elements, water making up more than half. 'Life is animated water' is a famous quote by scientist Vladimir Vernansky.

Why limit the healing capacity of our intentions to animate beings? And really what does it hurt to meditate while I water my garden on the life giving capacity of water, thanking the water for it's gift, and praying that the water can somehow overcome the abuse we've put it through. Regardless of whether or not it does any healing to the water, I believe it will do healing to me.

Orginally posted on growfoodfeedspirit.blogspot.com

Sink or Swim

The nature of salmon recovery spans regions, cultures, geographies, and lifestyles. Because of this diversity of interests, efforts to restore salmon have become significantly disseminated. Small organizations and site-specific interest groups sprout up when existing organizations fail to align agendas, meet requests, or expand the scope of their projects. Unwilling to give up on the mission, energies are cleaved to form an organization in order to address the specific goals that were previously unattended.

At the agency level, workgroups are delegated to focus on particular issues affiliated with salmon restoration. Since taxpayer money is funding these types of restoration projects, advisory committees are formed for each region and/or project to ensure that the funding is being effectively utilized. It is common for each watershed to have their own council and some even have satellite organizations that while still associated, work on recovery issues in adjacent communities. Spanning the Pacific Northwest, there are thousands of NGO’s, community groups, industries, and governmental organizations working on one specific goal, salmon recovery, but do it in a way that fulfills a specific niche.

This diverse approach to salmon restoration can be beneficial by allowing each community to address and design projects to best fit their restoration needs. However, this has created a vast network of efforts that are detached from one another. Adding to this fragmentation is the competitive nature of applying for federal and private funding on which many organizations rely. As a result, communication and collaboration between groups hardly exists in most regions.

Maintaining status quo at this point is proving to be ineffective on the larger scale as the salmon populations continue to decline and the movement struggles to gain a political foothold. In order to truly create a strong and vibrant movement, organizations need to find a way to unite. This collaborative process can help eliminate redundant and overlapping projects which will then free up resources that can be redirected to areas of need. Personal agendas and small town politics inherent in this effort need to be reminded of the fundamental goal to restore salmon to our waterways. Organizations need to take the initiative to reach out to one another and start brainstorming ways to communicate, share ideas, and work together.

The timing is critical and the work is unprecedented to unify such an expansive and divergent movement, but the longer we wait the more we will lose. Uniting these energies will be advantageous by creating a lean, streamline, and efficient movement mimicking the very nature of the species it is fighting for.

Science In Our National Parks

When national parks were first established there was little understanding of the resources they contained. Park boundaries often failed to include the complete ecosystems and often did not encompass enough land to support critical habitats. Over the years this lack of understanding has led to resource management issues, loss of resources and in some cases small problems have turned into large ones.
It is unquestionable that the mandate of 1916 that established the National Park Service and protected irreplaceable examples of our nation’s ecological, cultural and historic heritage, but the current science and research program of the national parks is fragmented and lacks the direction that it needs in order to research, understand and preserve these national treasures. The current science program in the park service also has to share its funding with the resource management division. This collective management approach often discounts or reduces the importance of one or the other of these very valuable activities, research and management.
The current Park Service research and resource management practice is divided into three levels as follows:
I. In the Washington office
II. In 10 regional offices
III. In individual park units
The Washington office develops policies and standards, sets priorities, and coordinates research programs. The 10 regional offices conduct and coordinate most of the research that take place within each of the individual park units leaving us with not one plan but ten different plans, each one different in every way. Through contracts and agreements some parks arrange to have research conducted with parties outside of the park system often including universities or independent researchers, while in other parks most of the research is conducted by park personnel. The National Park Service maintains a smaller research staff than any other federal agency making it almost impossible for park personnel to conduct the necessary research.

In the early 1960’s, when the first assessments of the NPS science programs were being conducted, two reports gave significant recommendations regarding the current science program. Both the Leopold report (named after A. Starker Leopold) and the Robbins report (named after William J. Robbins) recommended strengthening the science program. The Robbins report of 1963 states:

Research by the National Park Service has lacked continuity, coordination, and depth. It has been marked by expediency rather than long-term considerations. It has in general lacked direction, has been fragmented between divisions and branches, has been applied piecemeal, has suffered because of a failure to recognize the distinctions between research and administrative decision-making, and has failed to ensure the implementation of the results of research in operational management…It is inconceivable that property so unique and valuable as the national parks, used by such a large number of people, and regarded internationally as one of the finest examples of our national spirit, should not be provided adequately with competent research scientists…as elementary insurance for the preservation and best use of the parks.

Although this report clearly stated the inadequacies found in the current science program there was little done to address the recommendations made in the report. Later in the 1970’s the parks were still plagued with the problems of inadequate funding and argument over who would direct such work. Again in 1977 another report, the Allen and Leopold report, recommended that the NPS give science and research more say in planning and policy making, and again little action was taken. Groups such as the National Parks Conservation Association and The Conservation Foundation published more reports criticizing the management plan and drew widespread public attention on the threats to the parks. Then in 1980, under congressional pressure the NPS conducted an extensive and comprehensive assessment of the parks and their threats. This report documented serious, extensive problems in the parks and recommended these actions: conduct a comprehensive inventory of park resources; establish accurate baseline data and conduct monitoring to detect changes in resources and ecosystems; focus attention on threats associated with adjacent lands; and improve the ability of park managers to quantify and document the effects of various threats. Ironically these were the same suggestions made by previous independent reviews of the parks management plan. Nine years later another report known as the Gordon report criticized the NPS for not fulfilling its obligations to the management and research of their resources. In all over a dozen major reviews over a period of 30 years had all suggested the same thing, and all met with little or no efforts to implement the recommendations.
Our parks today are faced with a myriad of threats. Often the unique qualities, attributes, and resources that led us to preserve such parks are being destroyed. They are subject to a diverse array of human influences, damage to air and water quality, noise pollution, erosion, and an array of inappropriate activities that threaten the aesthetic characteristics and jeopardize the integrity and stability of their ecosystems. For example, the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 severely damaged coastal habitats in Kenai Fjords and Katmai national parks. The extent of the damage is unknown because inadequate research, understanding, and cataloging of park species and ecosystems had not yet been conducted. These are but some examples of the importance that research and science plays in understanding our parks and their resources. It is critical to understand cause and effect relationships within our parks in order to understand if a change to that system is a natural fluctuation or if it is an unintended consequence of something else.
The concept that parks are isolated and removed from adjacent human influences is faulty. Boundaries alone will do nothing to ensure the health of our parks. We need long term monitoring, research, data collection and critical and systemic analysis of information in order to understand the threats to our parks. Our world is dynamic and ever changing, we need a plan to include science and research in our parks that is able to adapt and change with our world.
The National Parks Conservation Association’s Center for State of the Parks program was developed in 2002 to assist the parks in assessing threats to the parks and understanding their resources. They frequently conduct studies within parks to determine threats to the parks and to advocate for more funding for research. These studies are then made public and can be viewed at http://www.npca.org/stateoftheparks/reports.html. The reports and database created by these studies makes available critical information for congress and the public in order to provide up to date and accurate information needed for decision making and funding.
Since the national parks are our canaries in the coal mine and often are the first places that experience quantifiable information about environmental changes and threats they provide critical information regarding global environmental change. It is obvious that our parks have the potential to enlighten us about our natural world, yet this potential has yet to be realized and tapped. This is why it is vitally important that they develop a thorough, comprehensive, and ongoing research plan that involves NPS researchers and scientists as well as independent scientists in order to ensure its longevity and accuracy. The time has come to realize the potential that our parks have to offer for our understanding not only of the parks themselves but of our changing world and its natural processes. It stands to reason that if the National Park Service was created and charged to protect our most treasured natural resources science should play a crucial role in that process.

Works Cited:
States., United. Science and the national parks. Washington, D.C: National Academy, 1992. Print.

Improving our nations food system



In addition to reading books, doing interviews and writing reflection papers on the subject of the local food movement in North America, our group is also responsible for watching different videos where Michael Pollan (a renowned food activist) talks more deeply on the subject.

The video I watched was a Bill Moyer interview (I have posted part 2 of that interview for your viewing pleasure) I found it an excellent summarization of the many different faucets I have been learning about regarding our nations food system.

The sharp rise in heart diseases and diabetes over the passed 30 years is in direct correlation to the increases in proceeded foods intake for the average American.

Michael Pollan refers to this crises as a literal fresh food desert. There is a rise in demand for locally grown organic produce in urban areas specifically among low income and underserved communities. Many city stores offer countless processed food options and very minimal varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables. It is my opinion that this is entirely unacceptable. Having a healthy diet is an individuals choice but many families do not even have the option to eat healthy having no access to fresh food.

Luckily there is a slow food movement in the works and many farmers markets have begun accepting food stamps and there are also a demand for fresh produce to be served in schools http://www.farmtoschool.org/ hospitals http://www.worldchanging.com/local/seattle/archives/008389.html and jail http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/blogs/80days/2009/06/table-for-two-at-the-county-jail.html

Pollan encourages us to all grow a garden and to cook again he claims that we have turned cooking into a spectator sport, and if we were to spend the time that we watch cooking shows actually cooking we would find we have plenty of time to make dinner. He promotes cooking as the best way to declare your independence from the culture of fast food.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?pagewanted=6&_r=1

We have gradually lost touch with some of life’s basic pleasures. We have bought into the propaganda that this country can not feed itself without help from corn syrup. We need to work together organizing our agriculture using sustainable farming practices and not being afraid to spend and afternoon in our kitchens.