As I was saying…We consider our lives to be sacred, and we rebel at the thought that we are property. Accepting these truths, we can arrive at the conclusion that nature is sacred without having to look backwards in history; and this is how. Theology: Our bodies, and everything human beings have ever known, felt [...]
THE JEFFERSONIAN CITIZEN Thomas Jefferson’s definitions of citizenship and freedom were deeply informed by the Epicurean tradition of Natural Law, which he adapted to suit to the frontier perspective of the Anglo-Europeans who invaded Native America. Believing that “following nature” led to personal and collective happiness, Epicurus said: “If you do not reconcile your behavior [...]
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,” [...]
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 [...]
How we think of time is how we think of nature. Erland Scriviner No doubt we behold the many doomsday scenarios—today it’s the the mass extinction of flowers—with a strong sense of moral outrage. Lately, though, so many things are going wrong that we ought to be amazed. Our species has the ability to understand [...]
