Chris Roth

In July, when I chose the theme for this issue--"Transformation: Endings and Beginnings"--I had little idea of what transformations lay in store. Some transformations were already well under way at Lost Valley--a very large turnover in the makeup of our resident community, for example. Others, including two deaths among our circle of close friends and family, came as great shocks. And the change within the US political system that I hoped would be ushered in on November 2 took a decidedly different turn from what I had in mind.

The late-summer/autumn season itself was full of transformations, which delayed my work on this issue until early November. Some were seasonal: in the months of September and October, we brought in the harvest from the summer crops, and when those were killed by frost, we replanted the garden beds with wintertime vegetables. Until the garlic, winter salad greens, and cover crops are in, autumn gardening is a race against the rain--and fortunately (because I delayed magazine work), we won that race again this year. The beautiful transition from summer's green/brown lushness to autumn's multicolored tapestry (parts of it migrating from twig-tip to ground), and from long, warm, dry days to short, colder, wet ones, was the backdrop to all this garden-related activity.

It's time to come clean. I am guilty as charged of feeling ambivalent about this great creative venture called Talking Leaves, as well as every element involved in its production. Nearly twenty-five years after first taking writing too seriously, I am still in recovery from that period; the process of attempting to transfer my experience of reality into written words is still just as often grueling as liberating. What's more, it is always merely a pale representation of what I actually see, feel, and would like to say. Not only am I a frequently-blocked, reluctant writer, who generally enjoys most other things better than reading or writing--but I'm frequently busy with things that seem much more real to me. And, like the firefighter in I Heart Huckabees, I am sometimes overwhelmed by the absurdity and contradictions inherent in the activities we seem to need to engage in as we go about our lives. In this case, the technological infrastructure, materials, and energy use involved in creating a magazine sometimes seem to be poorly aligned with the spirit of what I am hoping TL conveys in its pages.

This is my home
This is my only home
This is the only sacred ground that I have ever known
And should I stray in the dark night alone
Rock me, goddess, in the gentle arms of Eden

--Dave Carter, "Gentle Arms of Eden"

Some readers may notice that this issue's theme has changed from what was originally announced. We solicited submissions about "War, Peace, and Ecology," but we ended up with something a bit different. This issue does include a few articles that discuss war, but it focuses far more on peace--including deep ecology, Permaculture, and other peaceful ways of approaching life. I am happy about this change. The world really does have enough war without our contributing to it and reinforcing it in the pages of Talking Leaves. Any informed person knows the story already, is already saddened, outraged, and probably as educated as much as really necessary in what is going wrong in the world. In this issue, we suggest ways of approaching life-as individuals, as communities, as societies--that provide hopeful alternatives, fresh perspectives, larger contexts in which cooperation, rather than warfare, is the only solution that makes sense for any of us.

Dave Jacke has been a student of ecology and design since the 1970s, and has run his own ecological design firm--Dynamics Ecological Design--since 1984. Dave teaches ecological design and permaculture, and has consulted on, designed, built, and planted landscapes, homes, farms, and communities in many parts of the United States, especially the Northeast, as well as overseas. A cofounder of Land Trust at Gap Mountain in Jaffrey, NH, he homesteaded there for a number of years.

He is the primary author of the two-volume magnum opus Edible Forest Gardens (Chelsea Green, 2005), about creating home-scale food gardens which mimic forest ecosystem structure and function. He will be teaching a Bioneers pre-session workshop at Lost Valley, Tuesday October 11 through Thursday October 13, entitled "Edible Forest Gardens: Integrating Ecology, Design and Agriculture." For more information and registration, email events@lostvalley.org or call 541-937-3351 ext. 112. Also check out Dave's website at www.edibleforestgardens.com; you can reach him at dave@edibleforestgardens.com.

He has created numerous projects protecting rainforests in South America, Asia, and the Pacific through providing benign and sustainable development projects for their indigenous inhabitants tied to the protection of their forests. These projects have been funded by the Australian Government aid agency AusAID, The Australian Council of Churches, and various foundations. He has written and lectured extensively on deep ecology and has been conducting Councils of All Beings and other re-Earthing workshops in Australia, North America, Japan, India, Thailand, and Eastern and Western Europe for fifteen years. He also regularly lectures at universities in Australia, US, UK, and in Asia. In the US, his workshops have been hosted by Esalen, Omega, Naropa, California Institute of Integral Studies, and, most recently, Lost Valley Educational Center, where he offered his "Earth, Spirit, Action" workshop from June 24-26, 2005.