Welcome to the new Talking Leaves. With this issue, we introduce several major changes:
2002 Spring
Notes from the Editor
2002 Spring | Editor
Dear Reader, Completely virgin-tree-free paper stock, of a much higher quality than our previous newsprint stock. This is Vanguard Recycled-Plus, made of hemp and post-consumer fiber by Living Tree Paper Company, whose founder/director, Carolyn Moran, started Talking Leaves in 1989 and guided it as publisher and editor through its first eight years. When she attempted to switch Talking Leaves to virgin-tree-free paper (containing no virgin tree fiber) in the mid-1990s, she discovered that the alternative-fiber paper then available jammed her printer's presses, so she decided to start her own paper business, which soon took on a life of its own and absorbed most her time and energy. We have used her tree-free cover stock since she invited Lost Valley to assume the role of TL publisher in late 1997, and we are happy to finally be able to print the entire magazine using her paper.
Reasons for Hope: An Interview with Ethan Hughes (The Blazing Echidna)
2002 Spring | Chris Roth In May, 2000, a fleet of colorfully caped bicyclists left Seattle for a four-month, 5500-mile trip across America. They dubbed it the Haul of Justice. Dressed as self-created Superheroes characters such as Hugman, Turquoise Seeker, and Therapy Dog, they committed themselves to "doing good": being of service to others wherever they could find people to help. Ethan Hughes took on the persona of The Blazing Echidna (the echidna, also called the spiny anteater, is a burrowing nocturnal mammal related to the duckbilled platypus).
Following Gandhi's dictum, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world," the group undertook projects of all sizes, from picking up trash and moving baseball bleachers to installing community gardens, helping to build a new library, and finding a lost whitewater rafter. They also painted over 600 faces, spontaneously led games in city playgrounds, invited all strangers to join them at their meals, danced and sang a song at every state border crossing, and held memorial services for thousands of road kill animals they encountered along the way. Through pre-arranged sponsorship by friends and family back home, riders also raised money for various nonprofit organizations. They did plan a few stops in advance--to help nonprofits seeking to address the roots of problems (e.g., teaching low-income families how to grow their own food, instead of just feeding them)--but most of their trip unfolded spontaneously.
Mulberry Truths
2002 Spring | Jesse Wolf Hardin (Lone Wolf Circles) Search and you will find courage and compassion in the acts of animals, contentment in the embrace of shifting clouds or a turquoise sea...and enlightenment in the lessons of a single mulberry tree.
Well-managed orchards are impressive, but the rareness of wild mulberry trees makes them the most special of all:
Seek friends and lovers, causes and careers, places and moments that embody character and meaning--not those that conform best or produce the most.
Hikers who are busy talking may walk right under a tree's branches without noticing its berries:
The entire natural world is constantly trying to engage, instruct, and nourish us. There are lessons, gifts and miracles all around, if only we'd wake up and open to them.
Food Paradise Lost
2002 Spring | Deborah Turvey "The great American food experiment has failed." Dr. Christiane Northrup's comment made on a recent PBS special comes to mind every time I see another morbidly obese person on the street or hear that the cancer rates have jumped from one in eight to one in three in recent years. It also causes me to reflect on the real causes for epidemic levels of adult onset diabetes and the widespread incidence of depression in our culture. For the past 50 years, America has been at the forefront of taking food from its natural whole state and altering it to fit our very mechanized, technocratic, and high-speed society. Modern day food and our newly adapted habits around acquiring and eating it have left us physically, spiritually, and psychologically bankrupt. We are estranged, frightened, and ignorant of the natural processes that comprise the growth and cooking of whole food.
It both saddens and troubles me to hear our son's preschool teacher say that one of the most difficult lessons modern day toddlers have is to sit together and eat family style. Setting the table, eating with utensils, and not rushing are new experiences for many. Most of them eat by unwrapping fast food in their car seats in a traveling car.
Envisioning Sustainable Food Systems: Permaculture Design with Real People in Mind
2002 Spring | Chris Roth Will real people eat an "ideal" diet--and if not, is it really ideal? In a sustainable food future, where do ethics and appetite intersect? These questions and more motivated a small research project I undertook one Friday afternoon in early January.
As part of the Permaculture Teacher Training Course taught ` at Lost Valley January 7-13 by Jude Hobbs and Tom Ward, the fifteen students broke into several groups to consider ten- and fifty-year visions for their land and to prepare presentations related to these visions. The Lost Valley Group included all four staff facilitators for 2002's Organic Gardening, Permaculture, and Community apprenticeship program. We talked about how the Lost Valley community might look in a decade or a half century if we continue to develop it according to the principles of Permaculture.
