Monthly Archive for June, 2011

I want to farm in Costa Rica

matt published on June 30, 2011 in zeitgeist. 6 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I want to build a permaculture farm in Costa Rica.

I want it to be completely self-sustaining.

I want it to be run by solar electricity and use water-conserving methods.

I want to grow coffee, nuts, fruits and vegetable, herbs and spices.

I want to spend all day with my wife and daughters and teach them my secrets to life.

I want to build a small community that is filled with positive people that look after each other.

I want to go on marathon runs through the mountains and jungles every day.

I want to get my goods from a small local town that I can contribute to.

I want to build a small studio and teach BJJ to ticos.

This is what I want. For me, for my wife, for my kids and for my friends and family and for the world.

Explanation: My wife and I have decided that this is what we want to do with our lives. We are now working towards it by saving money, finding people, making plans and so on.

Now I have found that most of the time, the things that people want to happen, normally only happen if they keep taking about their ideas and sharing them with whoever that will listen.

So this is me, sharing them with you.

We were originally dreaming of doing this here in Oklahoma. But, the other day had an idea to make our dream a little bit better. Let’s do it in paradise! Sort of what Jackson and Melissa are doing in Hawaii, but in Costa Rica!

Thanks for reading you guys.

Much love,

Matt

P.S. I want to let you all know that you are absolutely amazing. Joining the Superforest team has changed my life and my family’s lives drastically for the better. You are all so wonderful and I am so glad that I have the chance to share my ideas with you all along with the Universe.

What’s Your Water Footprint?

heather published on June 29, 2011 in food, technology, transportation and zeitgeist. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Hey SuperForest! Check out this awesome Water Footprint Calculator from National Geographic! It’s a really cool tool to help you become fully aware of how much water you are using based on your lifestyle. I found it especially interesting how much water it takes for certain food items!

Speaking of water, it’s been raining like crazy here in Ottawa! We’re celebrating Canada Day on Friday so hopefully the sun will come out for the big day!

Yours in love with water’s healing properties, grateful for water and more aware of how I can use less,

SuperForester Heather

Struggle of the Everyday Man

matt published on June 25, 2011 in zeitgeist. 15 Comments Tags: , , .

I have a wife and two daughters. I have a house and a car. I have a job that requires me to work 8 hours per day plus a 1 hour commute and 1 hour lunch. I have car insurance, medical insurance and homeowners insurance. My wife has a night job that requires her to work 30 hours per week.

I would like to think that I am a pretty average American man. Except that I am 21 and younger than most other people in a similar situation. This has made life a little harder for us, but has also given me a few advantages. Most men in my situation would look at them selves as “stuck” because they would have been in this same grind for over a dozen years. Since I have not been doing this day-in and day-out for so long and I am still “young”, I find myself more willing to take a chance with my life than my co-workers and other people around me.

Since the beginning of 2011, I have been working towards building my own Zero One right here in Oklahoma. After re-watching 30 Days: Off the Grid (where they take two regular single people from NYC and put them in an off the grid village for 30 days), I was reinvigorated. It really lit a fire back under me to try something like that. Then, I looked around my property and saw all of the progress I have made thus far (which is not much). I grew broccoli and some herbs this year and that is it. The rest of the work I have done is just to maintain the property.

When I was mowing last weekend, I was thinking of why I hadn’t accomplished nearly as much as I had planned on. Then it hit me: I have no time. I have no energy either. I am away for 10-11 hours per day at work while my wife is at home with the kids. Then when I get home, my wife has to rush off for work and leave me alone with the kids. We normally only have one evening and one weekend day per week where we are all together.

I want to give my kids more attention and effort, but I don’t have the time.

I want to create a beautiful and abundant compound, but I don’t have the time.

I want to keep a healthy diet and get regular exercise, but I don’t have time.

I am ready to shuck all of my unnecessary belongings and get the ball rolling. But, I have a few reservations:

I have a two year old and a nine month old. What will we do for health care for them?

How would we pay for the land we are occupying?

It’s even taken me two weeks to write this short of a post. I am ready and willing to jump in with both feet. I have some answers and ideas buzzing around in my head, but any feedback would be great.

Scythe Vs. Weedwacker!

jackson published on June 24, 2011 in technology. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

Go scythes! And so quiet! A scythe is a permies best friend.

Melissa’s Journal: Contradictions in Another Way

melissa published on June 24, 2011 in art, build, celebrity, food, superforest journal, technology and zeitgeist. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

(via)

Aloha SuperForest!

My recent post Another Way inspired a back and forth between an anonymous SuperForester and me, which has inspired me to share the continued conversation via this post…

SF Reader: Do you get to live for free on a farm in exchange for work? Or do you and Jackson pay rent? It sounds almost feudal. Do you think that is a better model?

Me: Aloha! Thank you for your questions.

We have been doing both of these things. At Zero One at Jesse’s House, we were doing purely a work/trade. There wasn’t an exchange of money nor were there set hours. It was a very freeflowing work environment. We each understood what needed doing to reach our long term vision, and each person following his or her bliss, doing what felt good for them in each moment, created a very well-oiled machine. Things were accomplished and there was always forward movement happening.

Now, we are at Zero One Love Gardens, where we are paying rent using money that was gifted by Jackson’s parents while we figure out a way to raise enough money to buy the land.

I can see how it would seem feudal, and in some ways it is. Work the land in exchange for a place to stay. However, in feudalism, the vassal’s principal obligation to the lord was to “aid”, or military service in exchange for the land itself. In our system, we are simply talking about an equal opportunity work agreement in which someone needs a place to sleep and put a few things and in exchange works the land for part of their time. 12-20 hours a week in exchange for a place to live, water and food ain’t half bad when I consider the many hours I used to work, often doing something I loathed so that I could make enough money for rent.

Feudalism was a system people used to acquire land. We’re just talking about an alternative to renting a space for money. I do think it’s a better model. I get to set my own hours, choose my daily tasks, have a space to call home, have fresh food and water and still go play at the beach.

SF Reader: Thank you for your reply and continued exploration. I was curious before, but now I’m just confused. I think what confuses me is that you are choosing to rent a space for money instead of taking advantage of the unique opportunities you mention. This is not an issue of do as I say, not as I do, but something more…

From my understanding, “lord” Jesse pulled the plug on the well oiled machine of his “peasants” 1 year into a 3 year deal at his whim alone. From what I read it was not received well. Imbalances in power and wealth often aren’t. Now you seek to exchange the dreaded american cash for an ownership interest in property. To what end? If a better system is currently out there, why not participate in it? Clearly, there are land owners willing to exchange their space for your help. Are they not doing it well enough? Not well enough that you still feel comfortable recommending this life path to others? I don’t see how you and Jackson aren’t just using his parents money to create your own sense of independence.

Please help! I must be missing something!

Me: Jesse’s decision to pull the plug on Zero One is confusing for me. My experience of the story was one of a communication breakdown that eventually led to its end. The original arrangement at Zero One was like a business agreement in which only Jesse and Jackson had a stake in any profits from the land, which they were to split 50/50. This was later opened up to include Augustin, Mea, and me.  No one ever had a stake in owning the land itself. Jesse was the financial backer of the business. Then, for reasons unbeknownst to me, Jesse became unable to tell us what he wanted. He communicated that he wasn’t happy with the team of people chosen, but not why he was unhappy with us. This made for a very confusing series of communications.

Most of my questions to Jesse regarding why  Zero One ended, the reasons behind decisions made, and overall pono in the whole situation have remained unanswered or unclear. I feel there has been an unwillingness to communicate (in person/skype/phone call) honestly, openly and without fear of offending each other. I have asked for and would like the opportunity to speak with Jesse about all of these things. I would like the opportunity to take responsibility for my mistakes and learn from them. Without someone telling me where they saw I went wrong, I am only left with an opportunity to make up stories about why things happened the way they did, just as Jesse has been able make up stories about what happened at Zero One when he wasn’t around. I’d like the opportunity to responsibly share those stories with each other, get all the cards on the table, and then make some semblance of what happened, why, who, how, how much, etc. Until that time, we’re all just makin’ shit up. Perhaps it didn’t go down exactly as intended and there is still confusion to be sorted, but one thing that is clear is my gratitude for Jesse’s willingness to play this game and share his abundance. Thank you, Jesse.

Now then, in February, Jackson’s mother gifted him $10,000. I was there when she gave it to him. She told him to use it for rent, traveling, to feed us, and whatever else he saw fit to do. Jackson decided to share that money with me. (If you’d like to know what prompted that decision, I’m sure he’d be happy to explain.) When Zero One ended in May, at least half of that money was left. We had many many options come our way in terms of where to go next. From traveling to renting an apartment on the North Shore to hiking into the Kalalau Valley and living off the land. After what had happened at Zero One, we thought what if we had the opportunity to have our own land without having someone over us to pull the plug willy nilly, how amazing would that be!? We decided that unless we got a Big YES for the next place to live, then we would go to Kalalau.

Well we got a Big YES. Through a fantastically amazing series of choices and coincidences, we found ourselves the new stewards/tenants on a working permaculture farm with hundreds of fruit trees already producing, a giant (overgrown) garden of collards, kale, tomatoes, and Mexican papayas, a running fresh water stream with a swimming hole, a greenhouse, work shed, and two livable structures for a mere $1500 a month, which we paid through September. (First month, June, free in exchange for cleaning up the land, which had been trashed and left to grow over by the previous tenants and $4500 for July, August, and September.)

This might seem like a lot of money to pay for two people to live on a piece of land. However, we’re not planning to live on it alone. We have taken advantage of this opportunity and used this gifted money to support ourselves and people in this community. In the one month we’ve been there, we have had five people come and stay for a night or two, and in exchange, they have cleaned and organized buildings on the land that were trashed, many hours of work completed simply in exchange for a place to sleep. We currently have two couples temporarily living on the land. In exchange, one couple is staying in a stucture and cleaning it, painting it and totally reviving it. The other couple is staying on one of five tent platforms, are master gardeners at a permaculture farm on Maui, and are giving us expert advice and work on the land.

To specifically answer your questions, I am offering up first step alternatives for people looking for another way of living. This isn’t to say that I believe someone should give up all they have, move to Kauai and work on someone else’s land for 20 hours a week forever. Though why not? What’s the difference between that and working behind a desk for 40 hours a week so that I can pay rent on someone else’s mortgage?

What I am suggesting is a gateway option for getting out of mainstream capitalism. I have participated in work/trade exchange and now find myself with a potential chance to acquire land and share it. We are taking this opportunity to share this land with others and collaborate to implement our own ideas and systems, not because they are better than other places, but because we can. If you found yourself in a situation where you had the chance to be on or buy a piece of land that provided food and water for life and implement your own creations and explorations, would you not do it?

So are we using Jackson’s parents’ money to form a sense of independence? No, it is Jackson’s money, and we are using it to support and feed ourselves and the people around us while we use the land and our new systems to implement energetically positive ways to make money so that we no longer need our parents’ help. (My parents still help me a great deal as well.) Our goal is to acquire this piece of land, through whatever honest, energetically positive means necessary. Does that include asking for help from the people around us? Yes. Does that include continuing to work very hard to pour our love and energy into this land? Yes. Does it include getting very creative in ways to make, save, and prevent having to spend money? Yes. Are we willing to do all of these things? Yes.

As an example, in the past nine months, had I been living in a place where I had to pay rent, I would have had to make anywhere from $500/month-$800/month given my varied living situations, so by living in a work/trade, I elliminated the need to make $4500-$7200. Also, had I been getting paid by Jesse instead of living on his land for “free”, I’d have charged him minimum of $20/hour. So at that rate, and estimating on the low end of things, working 4 hour days, 20 days a month, for 9 months, I’d have made $14,400. So I alleviated a man from having to pay me, just me, nearly fifteen thousand dollars, just as the people who help us on this new land prevent us from having to pay money. Thus far, we’ve had five people work a total of about 25 hours, so essentially, at a $20/hour rate, we’ve “gained” $500 because we didn’t have to pay someone to do the work these people did.

We would like to use this land, for as long as we have it, to make money through various methods: Guests – workshops, renters, vacationers, Grants – if we become a 501c3,  Value added product – dehydrated fruit, juices, smoothie mixes, natural shampoos, soaps, Tours, events, concerts, and to support craftspeople and artisans – monetary exchange for a place for them to work.

I am not perfect, this system is not perfect, and I do not claim either to be true. It is an experimental system in which personal responsibility is emphasized and contraditory practices are often used until we are able to fully sustain ourselves in this new way. The world is in transition, and until the transition is completed, we are having to operate gradually in a one foot in, one foot out fashion. I would prefer to have the land and be able to funtion so that I am fully supporting myself and don’t need assistance from the people around me, but that’s not reality. I will always need the people around me, just as I need you to ask me these questions, which help me to further examine my own choices.

Mahalo!

Melissa

Jackson’s Journal – Sharing Is The Way Forward

jackson published on June 24, 2011 in build, food, superforest journal, technology and zeitgeist. 6 Comments Tags: , , , .

(AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer)

Good Morning SuperForest,

When I think back over my life, I notice an interesting thing regarding the way I was taught to feel about sharing. As a child I was encouraged to share with the people around me and the cohesiveness/mood of the group was the focus. Share your cookies, share with your siblings, bring something from home to share with the class.

Then subtly the focus shifts. When you reach grade school, sharing is both encouraged (share this book, share these lab supplies) and discouraged (no peeking at your neighbors exam!)

Finally, when you reach a certain age, sharing becomes a joke. It’s everyone for themselves. Friends share with one another up to a point. Parents share with their kids until they reach a culturally determined age, and then they cut them off financially. Companies share information and ideas only for profit. Resources and ideas are now guarded and kept private. Gates go up. Bars go on the windows. The walk in closet becomes a walk in safe.

Kids play open participation games, like store, or hide and seek, or tag. Adults play competitive me vs. you games.

That is an interesting and sudden reversal of conditioning!

As children we are taught the abundance model, where there is enough to go around. A short while later, that teaching is turned on its ear, and scarcity/fear becomes the rule. We build vaults. We build fortresses. We buy guns and hire guards.

I think that this is an interesting thing to consider given the current state of world affairs.

Our planet is in serious trouble and the great majority of humans are powerless to do anything about it. A tiny percentage  of human beings has both the vantage and the advantage to see that the current situation is unsustainable, and move to do something about it. If you are reading this, then you are among that tiny percentage.

What we must do is this: Grow food. Lots of it. Fast. Organically.

To put an emphasis on healthy soil, healthy plants, and healthy babies would save this country and its self-inflicted culture of disposability. I believe that if we can save the citizens of the United States from themselves, we can convince the world not to follow in our destructive behavior, and leap frog our mistakes, hopefully staving off environmental and societal collapse.

For to grow abundant food organically means so many things beside an end to hunger. Working outside in the air brings health, vitality, and a connection to place and to community. When the garden is in place and productive sharing once again becomes the base model of behavior. Abundance begets abundance.

Working the land side by side brings people together, and when people join forces and share, somehow, semi-magically, everything gets done. Everyone gets taken care of. All it takes is open communication and a willingness to compromise.

Here is my vision for the future:

There are only three things of real value right now: organic food, clean water, and shelter from the elements. Everything else; money, gold, jewels, deeds, rights, copyrights, patents, etc. are losing value as the need for the top three increases. If the environment and our ecosystem continues to collapse, then food, water, and shelter will be the only things of value.

To stave off hunger and an uncertain future, I suggest selling everything that is not essential for living. Use the money to buy land/tools/food/supplies. Unless your job is absolutely essential for the successful continuation of your species then you should quit. Focus your efforts on finding land, learning to grow food, and learning all about permaculture that you can. Your job was a part of the scarcity model and therefore a part of the problem. Focusing your efforts on growing your own food is a part of the solution to how we shift the world to an abundance model. Remember, people work jobs to buy food and rent shelter, to pay for medical care and schooling for themselves and for their children.

All of these things should be free. And they must be free, if we as a species are to survive the coming environmental shift.

Using the permaculture/ohana model of living, we partner up with one another. Some of us have land, some of us have capital, some of us are gardeners. The goal is: abundant food. We must team up to garden and rebuild and replenish every square centimeter of soil possible, that we may feed as many people as possible, as fast as possible. To do this, we must treat one another like family. We must be open to and accepting of each other, in all our imperfect glory.

If you have money, land, gardening/permaculture skills, then you sit in a lifeboat. Around you the water is churning with the panicked thrashing of billions of refugees. We must aid these people. It is beyond our duty, or our moral obligation. Treating the Have-Nots with the same love and aloha that we treat our family is the only thing that will save our species from its self-destructive behavior. We must partner up and feed people in order to survive. The Have-Nots dramatically outnumber we Haves, and unless we provide for them, I fear that all will descend into destructive chaos.  There is no need for this. We can make proactive moves to ensure that the chaos is constructive instead of destructive. Let’s make those moves.

If there is to be a future, where there are tuna in the oceans, forests and glaciers, and clean water and air for our children, then we must grow food right now. We must partner up and grow food, and share the resulting abundance. We must heal the land and in doing so, heal the wounds within our minds. First we were taught to share, and then not to share. In the garden we can heal this schism within us.

We must be as children once again, and share the abundance with each other. There is always enough for everyone if you are willing to share.

Let those that have money share their money. Let those that have land share their land. Let those that have the skills to grow food and steward land share those skills. Let the future be the story of how the human race united in a garden. Let us forget the ancient (and now quite boring) tale of blood and smoke and starvation.

This is my prayer for my species.

I have chosen to share my thoughts with you, though it troubles me to put these words to silicon. But if my words can inspire even one of you to explore a life in the garden, then it is worth it.

I say what I say not to frighten or repel, but to remind: Study permaculture. Study yourself. Study the world around you. Keep your mind wide open. Explore. Enjoy fear as a reminder that there is still room to grow.

There is an entire world to regrow in any way we choose, SuperForesters. Let us play the game and not have the game play us. If you choose to heed my advice and I am dead wrong about the current state of the world, (and I dearly hope I am,) then you will still be surrounded by food, clean water, and shelter, which is a fine place to start from. That is my hope for you all. Your own food, your own water, and your own shelter, and people to share those things with. Abundance.

Love to All,

Jackson

(image by flickr user Elkin)

 

 

Found Poetry: Summer – Part II

jordan published on June 24, 2011 in art. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Every month SuperForester Jordan “rediscovers” a literary gem from the vast treasure trove of an art form that, in our technological age, has become largely under-appreciated and “lost”.

Before Summer Rain by Rainer Maria Rilke

Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don’t know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone’s Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren’t supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.

A reminder from a friend

adib published on June 22, 2011 in zeitgeist. 3 Comments Tags: , .

Hello friends, it’s been a while since I last posted here and I hope everyone’s doing awesome.

Today, I’ld like to share with you an email that my friend Chia Chia wrote in reflection of a work-trip to Shanghai that we had. Reproduced with her kind permission, this is a reminder to myself of what I can do for this planet of ours.

A bit about Chia Chia – she is a full-time volunteer at a Singapore-based non-profit organisation called Ground-Up Initiative. Here’s how they describe themeselves.

About Ground-Up Initiative (GUI)

GUI is a community-based and volunteer-driven non-profit organisation that brings together people who value reconnecting with and nurturing the land. Since April 2009, we have progressively built a Sustainable Living Kampung (SL Kampung), based at Bottle Tree Park, Yishun, where we promote environmental awareness and responsible practices by encouraging more people to come together to work, learn, play and in the process, care for humanity and the earth. SL Kampung is open to the public. To find out more about us, do check out our website  at http://groundupinitiative.org/ or visit our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/groundupinitiative

 

Read on my friends. Cheers!

 

—–

of Detached Cities & the need for EARTH CARE, PEOPLE CARE & FAIR SHARE

One of my biggest takeaway from this exchange is to hear from the locals, and one of my aki friend who has been working in Shanghai, their thoughts on how Shanghai is developing. Quite disturbing but it rings true of our cities is that people are increasingly feeling detached from the very city they build…feelings of angst..helplessness. My friend told me “i know of the problems, but there’s nothing i can do.”

Seeing this strengthens my belief that we have to rethink our track of development. The urgency of this cannot be ignored. We do have opportunities and are in a good position to influence the people we work with, the clients we work for, the materials we use, even our own families and friends etc.

“Work” is taking up a majority of our modern lives now…and it is easy to get pigeon-holed into our lives as “professionals”…Architects, Engineers, Developers etc. A common grouse i hear from my friends is “life is tough…”. When they hear of what I’m doing in Ground-Up Initiative, the common response is that “Wow! U’ve earned enough to go into retirement?!” or “Why are you giving up Architecture?”.

Even on this Shanghai trip, i’ve been asked the same questions. To me, i’m simply living my life…responsibly. To have deep consciousness and gratitude…to share and care for people and the very Earth that supports us all.

We are blessed in many ways… there are many people in our societies who do not have the opportunities and options like we do. How then do we pull our skills and resources together to create positive change? to have sustainable development not at the expense of the less privileged, not at the expense of environmental degregation?

 

of HARDware Vs HEARTware : the strange case of Sanitarywares vs Funny Bunnies / Fan Bing Bing Syndrome

We are lacking not in Hardware, but in Heartware.

a simplistic example will be how we’re talking more about the “funny bunnies” than the sanitary products we see at the Expo during our Shanghai trip…the stampede of people rushing to see Fan Bing Bing rather than the latest brands of bath wares. The social connections are what engages & draws people together.

What we build plays a big part in this “supply & demand chain”, currently driven more by Wants than by Needs. It is disturbing to know of what drives our Youths today…How Youths are willing to sacrifice their sense of smell for technology (see attached report “Truth About Youth”) and how a Chinese teen is selling his Kidney for an iPad2!

If this is the future we’re headed for, a society of Wants…all talks on sustainable technologies, environmental conservation will be feeble attempts to slow our paths to self destruction.

If i were to redefine Architecture, I’d like to see myself as being an “architect of life”, it is not only about the buildings or landscapes we design…it is also about building relationships with the people we work with, the people we’re designing for and the greater Earth that we all share..

To Connect and to Heal our environments and the people around us.

It is not a lofty aspiration, everyone of us Can do it. It is only a matter of making the choice.

 

to Live, to Green and to Give

we need to redefine “Progress” and it take everyone’s effort to make the shift in perspectives.

Only when perspectives & attitudes change will we see a shift towards a model for sustainable development. Redefining economies, our built environment and our landscapes. Here’s to share a ted talk link about the “Happy Planet Index”. Ultimately, are we not seeking happiness in our lives? To be able to Receive and to Give is a blessing…

http://www.ted.com/talks/nic_marks_the_happy_planet_index.html

 

…of Dreams & Possibilities

i do dream of a better world…to turn dreams to realities takes time & effort

If you’ve managed to read this far into my email and find that things resonates, lets come together to explore the possibilities ahead.

I will be travelling in Europe from 06-25.June and may not be checking on my mails regularly. But do write and we can link up when i’m back.

That said, you guys are always welcomed to come by our SL Kampung and get to know the many interesting & sincere people who are part of this movement. From engineers, to accountants, social workers, psychologist, artists, graphic designers, chefs, students, teachers, neighbourhood aunties and uncles, young & old…

For those of you who came before, i’d like to emphasis that it is not just about urban farming per say. Urban farming is a platform and a starting point for us to reconnect with Nature and People. It is the building up a community that supports one another that is the key.

it is not about Ground-Up Initiative as an organisation…but Ground-Up Initiative as a Movement to inspire positive change, first in ourselves and then our Brave New World…

Jackson’s Journal – I Have Become Them

jackson published on June 19, 2011 in zeitgeist. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

(image via flickr user haekal_muhamad)

Good Morning SuperForest!

This here picture is the female mosquito doing her thang, sucking blood out of a human being. She will use this blood to nourish the clutch of eggs she carries within her. When the eggs are ready, she deposits them into a still pool of water, where they begin their life cycle, first as underwater nymphs, then as full fledged mozzies of their own.

Why do I mention this? I’ve got a theory!

You see, many people here on Kauai have noticed that when they first arrive on the island their sensitivity to mosquito bites is high. They get bitten and red welt-like bumps appear, itching and annoying for ages. But as one settles down into an area, a definite drop in sensitivity becomes noticeable, to the point where long time residents don’t even bother with mosquito nets at night, and rarely if ever complain about getting bitten.

It stands to reason that here on Kauai different sub-species of the master mosquito species have adapted to fit into each of the islands many micro-climates. Moving from one micro-climate to another exposes one to an entirely new sub-species of mosquito, and the desensitization process must re-occur. But re-occur it does and soon after moving you settle down and soon after that the mozzies seem to stop biting.

Why is that?

My theory is this: If each mother mosquito is using your blood to nourish (i.e. grow, i.e. use as base material to create from,) her young, then you are very slightly, but definitely, related to that brood of mosquito offspring. The new brood is literally made up of your blood. Now the females of this new brood get to biting you, nourishing yet another round of you-based offspring, which grows to adult mosquito-hood and the process continues. As you are bitten, you become the base material for each successive brood of mosquito offspring, eventually rendering you invisible to them.

Eventually you are surrounded with mosquitoes made of you. The adult mosquito lives for four to eight weeks. Spend six months in one micro-climate with one master species of mosquito biting you, and soon enough the genetic difference between you and your little buzzing friends diminishes to the point where for them to bite you would be too much like a sort of cannibalistic incest, and they leave you alone. Until your next move.

Love to All!

-Jackson

SuperForest Humanifesto – The Translations

mathew published on June 16, 2011 in art, celebrity, superforest journal and zeitgeist. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

picture-91

Dearest SuperForest!

Some of you who may have explored the site might have discovered that our many translations of the SuperForest Humanifesto are not working! This is about to change! I am going to get to work in the next few days to get them back up for your viewing pleasure. We will also be adding up a new translation: Swahili! Big thank you to SuperForester Rahim for his contribution! So soon we will have the Humanifesto able to be read in:

Italian, Spanish, Bahasa Indonesia, Hungarian, Japanese, Dutch, French, Polish, Korean, Portuguese, Danish, Swedish, Arabic, Mandarin, Romanian, Greek, Afrikaans, German, Russian, and Swahili!

BUT We still are looking for:

Latin, Gaelic, Farsi, Esperanto, Vietnamese, and any others we’ve forgotten.

So if you  or anyone you know could help translate the Humanifesto please send us an email!

 

Happiest Birthday to SuperForest Twins!

mathew published on June 16, 2011 in celebrity, superforest journal and zeitgeist. 6 Comments Tags: , , , .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AARON & JORDAN!!!

I need not say how much these two are loved around here, but I will anyway! YOU TWO ARE LOVED! Have the happiest birthday!

Love,

Team SuperForest

Melissa’s Journal: Another Way

melissa published on June 15, 2011 in art, build, food, superforest journal, technology and zeitgeist. 8 Comments Tags: , , , , .

(via)

Hiya SuperForest! I was recently contacted on Facebook by a friend’s mother inquiring about my life here on Kauai. I am grateful for the opportunity to share this with her and with all of you.

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Dear Melissa: I don’t mean to pry into your life, it looks like a lot of fun. But how do you and yours support yourselves? I would love to live in Hawaii and just live off the land, but it looks harder than I think it would be. A lot of fun but that’s not how life really goes, is it?

 

Aloha!

Thank you so much for inquiring about my life! It’s great to hear from you!

One of the biggest differences here versus mainland US is that many people here see traditional capitalism; work for money, use money to live alone or with one or two others to create a sense of Independence and “make something of yourself” as an old and unsustainable way of life. Here, we have searched and found alternative ways of supporting ourselves. There are many work/trade opportunities that most mainlanders don’t know about or don’t believe is possible over there. Many people work 12-20 hrs a week on farms owned by other people in exchange for a place to live, showers, and food harvested from the land. These places to live are often just a place to put a tent, and most people live very minimally and simply. I don’t need much to live here. I could realistically survive with a backpack, a tent or hammock, two changes of clothes, and enough knowledge about the food that grows wild here. If I trust that the Universe will take care of me, then I will be taken care of with minimal effort. The traditional capitalistic model is one that thrives off of the idea of scarcity. And I now see and know that we, as Americans in a first world country live in total abundance, but only if we allow ourselves to see it, believe that we deserve it, and are willing to share our own abundance in whatever form that comes.

I, for instance, am a photographer, videographer, gardener, caretaker, nanny, manager, computer technician, mediator, counselor, house cleaner, etc. And when I find I need something I don’t already have or know how to do, I am able to trade my skills for others’ skills or goods. So when my friend, a hair stylist, needs someone to take care of her kids while she and her husband go to a party, I ask for a haircut in exchange. No need for money! :)

That’s not to say that I never need money. But when I do, I am able to conjure up some way to make it or have it gifted to me. It’s all in how willing I am to play this new game. The old capitalistic/scarcity paradigm is boring and old to me. The new game of figuring it out as I go along with trust that I will be taken care of is much more entertaining. I have the freedom to create my own reality, without anyone else dictating how, when, where, who, why I am going to do it.

I am fully admittedly incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to explore this new way, to have people in the form of Ohana (extended family) all around me that love, support, and encourage this new way. And I want to share it with everyone that I know.

There is another way.

I hope you are happy and healthy and having so much fun!

Love + Aloha,
Melissa

Jackson’s Journal – What Is SuperForest?

jackson published on June 15, 2011 in superforest journal and zeitgeist. 10 Comments Tags: , , , .

(image by flickr user CubaGallery)

Gooood Morning SuperForest!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this lovely site, and the people who write for it and work on it. What is it that binds us all together? What is the common thread that embroiders our lives into this quilt of growth and inspiration?

We are SuperForesters.

But what does that mean?

We are all bound together by our shared experience of the Humanifesto, which I wrote four years ago, as a clarion call for myself and people like me to take responsibility for our own lives and thoughts and feelings. To make ourselves “the Environment.” To reclaim the word environmentalist and shift the definition away from treehuggers, and protestors, and eco-saboteurs, and re-cast it as you and me, living our lives, doing our best.

The Humanifesto states that to be happy and to succeed, I had to take full responsibility for my life, in totality, and that meant taking responsibility for EVERYTHING. Everything. Life, the Universe, and everything. All that I saw, thought, felt, said, and did. Everything.

That is a great deal to take responsibility for. Why did I write such challenging words?

I mean, how can one read the Humanifesto and continue making trash? How can you say you wish to take responsibility for the environment and still live in a world of such destruction and cruelty? Not just live in it, but actively participate in it? How can you read those words and then just go on living your normal life?

I couldn’t.

When I wrote the Humanifesto, I was living in New York. I lived on the seventh floor of a high-rise apartment building. I didn’t know my neighbors. I barely knew myself. I collected my trash and walked it down the hall to the trash chute where I dumped it into a black tube and watched it disappear from my life. I pooped in a flush toilet and watched as countless thousands of gallons of clean drinking water were used as a vehicle to flush my waste away. I walked the streets and saw empty buildings and empty lots, and on the sidewalks in front of them I saw empty people leading empty lives, homeless and hungry, standing feet away from shelter and productive land. None of this made sense to me. And yet, all of it made sense. It was the American Dream at work. The Haves protecting what they had from the Have-nots, who suffered. All suffered together in a continuous ring of suffering and isolation.

I decided to make a change in my life.

SuperForest became my training ground. My dojo. A place where I could record my journey as I set about taking full responsibility for my life. The Humanifesto lists six things that I feel should be inalienable human rights: food, shelter, water, communication, freedom from violence and oppression, and education. SuperForest would be the record of my attempt at achieving those six things for myself and then for those around me. Put on your own life-vest first, and then assist other, my thinking went.

Four years has passed since then. I went from living a rather disconnected and isolated life in a high-rise in New York city to living on a permaculture farm in Kauai, stockpiling my trash and composting my poop. I went from being rather unhappy and dissatisfied with my incredible life, to living in a state of bliss. Rapturous bliss. And it all started with my decision to take responsibility for my life.

If you have read SuperForest from the beginning, you may have noticed that the attrition rate among writers and contributors is rather high. People come into the SuperForest orbit, get enthused, start sharing their journeys, and then poof! Disappear. In my old way of thinking I would have thought that it was all my fault. That I was to blame. My antics, my explorations, my words, my ideas, these all somehow pushed my friends away. Now I know better.

You see, SuperForesting is the most challenging thing I can think of. This dance, this tightwire act, this walking meditation, is very intense, and requires much of a practicing SuperForester. If I am going to try to achieve the six freedoms in the Humanifesto, it is going to take a lot of work, and require that I give my life a thorough examination, to see what, if anything, is standing in the way of me taking full responsibility for my life, my happiness,  and the achievement of my goals.

So SuperForesting to me has become a combination of participatory journalism at its truest, combined with personal growth, permaculture, and the practice of complete engagement in each moment of my short life.

No wonder most people come sniffing around, enjoy the upbeat and personal tone of things here, get invested, realize just how much work there is to do on themselves and their environments, and then flee. It is scary and intense to engage your life on that level. Much easier is to return to the old patterns of the quest for money and material gains, formalized education, chemical dependency, sports, politics, pop culture, and all the tried and true means of distracting oneself from the gravity and perfection of each moment.

But SuperForest, the Humanifesto, and I will not let go that easily. For once you have realized that YOU ARE THE ENVIRONMENT, and that by extension, everything is you, then it is darn near impossible to get that sticky thought out of your head. You can distract and distract and hide and distract some more, but in a part of your mind, you will always know what you are doing. You are running. You are hiding. You are running and hiding from yourself.

I came to Kauai a year ago to slow down, face myself, and see what there was in me that I liked and what I wanted to shed. Here in the stillness and motion, I have been able to examine myself, my conditioning, and decide to become an active participant in this game called life, or SuperForest, or whatever you’d like to call it. I have never been so happy. Each day, Melissa and I look at each other and we say thank you to the Universe for allowing us to live like this. Each day is a meditation on bliss, and love, and aloha. Here on this small island, I can see very quickly the power of my words and actions, and how quickly my motion ripples through the fabric of existence for the sixty thousand-odd inhabitants of this wonderful aina.

You can read this and say, well, of course it’s fun and easy to live on Kauai, and be a rich kid, and have a rock star father, and not have a job, and be debt free, and spend your days in a garden. My writing this may be infuriating for some of you to read. Good. I invite you to examine that energy, look directly at it. Dance with it. Because every time I have been jealous or angry or upset with another human being, it was an opportunity for me to practice the Humanifesto and grow through my negative conditioning.

That is SuperForesting. Every single time I get upset or angry, I have to sit and think about why I am upset and what my anger says about me and the way I’m living my life. I must deal with this energy responsibly, (for it’s my energy to deal with) or risk leaking it onto the people and places around me. I have to be the one to turn the other cheek, to be the bigger man. I have to find a way to deal with my trash. I have to find a way to deal with my poop. I can no longer in good conscience simply flush it away for future generations to deal with. I have to grow my own food, and work to rebuild the health of the soil. I have to befriend my neighbors and treat them well and with respect. I have to do unto others, and give thanks for those who abuse me and my love.

Taking on this challenge has been hard, and I have made many mistakes. I don’t mean to make it sound like I am a saint, but I am very very happy, in a way that I don’t see many other people being.

Remember, one happy person is all it takes to change the world. That happy person should be you. What is standing in the way of that happiness? Is it time for a change? I believe I can help.

So SuperForesters, my challenge to you is this: Take another look at the Humanifesto. Really give it a good old read. If you read it and it rings true to you, and you wish to begin SuperForesting in earnest, then decide right here and now that you are in charge, that experience begins and ends with you. That you are the Alpha and the Omega. You are the Universe. The Universe is you. What you do with that knowledge is up to you, but if you are interested in helping me and many others build a better world as an old world crumbles, then this site will be our meeting place. This site is where we share our daily practice. This is our nexus and the germ from which a new culture will emerge. A culture of personal responsibility. Beyond good and bad, beyond judgments, beyond government, above and beyond all that you thought previously possible. Here is where the world is reborn daily.

Here is where we make our stand, together, as one, united, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Love to All,

Jackson