Our Place campers learning environmental philosophy in the field (youtube link!). The best part of Thanatopsis: Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements; To be a brother to the [...]
—at William Cullen Bryant‘s Homestead: where he wrote Thanatopsis, “America’s first great poem”!
Have you ever seen the Oxbow? Our Place takes campers to it— From Thomas Cole‘s’ Essay on American Scenery It has not been in vain–the good, the enlightened of all ages and nations, have found pleasure and consolation in the beauty of the rural earth. Prophets of old retired into the solitudes of nature to [...]
The prompt was “explain this place to your mother—what it was, how it got this way, what to look for and do while you’re here.”
In parts 1 & 2 of this meditation, I’ve shown how our over-the-top consumerism makes us hog the world’s natural resources and invade nations so we can continue the hogging, and how our hoggishness corrupts our political, economic and legal culture. Now let’s consider Thomas Jefferson’s definitions of citizenship and freedom. Volumes have been written [...]
Yesterday I outlined the way in which our over-the-top consumerism gives our government a reason to invade other lands, and subjugate and dispossess other people, with the intention of reducing the $$ cost of the materials we “need” to perpetuate our over-the-top consumerism. Talk about a feedback loop! We have been told, even by former [...]
After 9/11, Mr. Bush had the chance to summon the country to a great nation-building project focused on breaking our addiction to oil. Instead, he told us to go shopping. Thomas Friedman, NYTs After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush didn’t call for sacrifice. He called for shopping. “Get down to Disney World in Florida,” [...]
A biocitizen is a person who is a citizen of the bios, ie. life. Bios is not an abstract concept. It is the absolute, uncontrovertible basis of all human and non-human being. It is chemical, physical, and dynamic; and it is perceivable and knowable as one’s own, and all other’s, reality. Abstract concepts are projected [...]
This post from the NYTs about purslane, an easy to find weed and superfood, brings me back to some of the discussions we’ve had at Grown in Westhampton. Permaculture means “permanent culture,” and is a concept more or less allied with the concepts of “sustainable economy” and “support your local farmer.” In its most authentic [...]
Gearing up here in Westhampton for our 1st Picklefest, and I thought I’d relay some of the biocitizen-y things we are talking about as the Fest approaches—7pm, July 26th, Westhampton Memorial Library. Picklefest is an event focused on teaching people the art of making their own raw, vinegar-free, naturally fermented pickles—the classic German-Jewish Dill pickle. [...]
