Here are some pictures of a 400+ year old tree that is growing in Nara, Japan, in the Kasugayama Primeval Forest, home of the Kasuga Shrine. From the modern western perspective, it’s just a tree. A rationalist can claim that what makes it sacred is the imagination and values projected upon it by many generations [...]
If your child wants more out of education, is under-achieving, or has trouble remembering what they’ve studied in science, English and history classes, they will benefit from “Our Place,” Biocitizen’s 5-day field environmental philosophy camp. An excellent article in the New York Times explains: In a recent study, Marc Berman, a researcher in cognitive psychology [...]
One very useful way of understanding our environmental impact is to think of “inhabitation.” They are the same thing, for the way we inhabit the earth determines our impact upon its dynamic, living systems. Perhaps you are keeping your thermostat down in an effort to save some $$. This change in your “inhabitation” reduces the [...]
Happy Blue Moon Year! Time, perhaps, to make a resolution or two about what you eat? The industrial meat-producing techniques used by factory-farms are accelerating evolutionary transformations in sickness-causing bacteria and viruses: think Swine Flu. The more the factory-farms use pharmaceutical drugs to prevent disease outbreaks, the more drug-resistant bacteria and viruses are being generated: [...]
June 7-11 high schoolers 14-18 high schoolers 21-25 middle schoolers 28- July 2 middle schoolers July 5-9 high schoolers 12-16 high schoolers 19-23 middle schoolers 26-30 high schoolers Aug 2-6 high schoolers 9-13 high schoolers 16-20 middle schoolers 23-27 high schoolers
Our Place costs $250.00 for five 8:30am-4:00pm, M-F days. Drop-off and pick-up are at the Brushworks classroom in Florence. Students carry backpacks with reading and writing materials, appropriate clothing, food and a water bottle.
The curriculum for Our Place is also the itinerary: Day One: Walking Westhampton – introduction to Thoreau’s essay Walking – streamwalking – the colonial roads of Mt. Tob Day Two: Southern Nonotuck – the dinosaurs of Holyoke – the microclimates, and unique ecological communities, of Mt. Tom – the view from Mt. Nonotuck Day Three: [...]
Tis the season to be jolly—and buy European or organic cosmetics. Our Food and Drug Administration allows cosmetics to be sold and consumed that are not tested for toxicity. In the FDA’s own words: FDA’s legal authority over cosmetics is different from other products regulated by the agency, such as drugs, biologics, and medical devices. [...]
On Tuesday, I dug up the leeks we grew this summer, and marveled at the earthworms wriggling in the hairy roots. Beneath the three inch crust of snow, a subterranean world was writhing with biotic activity— a fact that made me think of “chernozem,” a word I first encountered in Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac: [...]
Longest night of the year—give it a chance… Tomorrow, winter. No turning back.
