(Approximately a 6 ​minute read)

​​​You ​have important, worthwhile projects you want to work on. B​ut some days ​you struggle ​to motivate yourself to get the washing folded. ​

​​Humans are easily distracted from tasks that are important and valid, but that feel difficult or uncomfortable, because there is a lizard on the control panel who is obsessed with comfort and wants immediate gratification.

(Approximately a ​5 minute read)

​This is Part 2 of a Series about the “lizard brain” – made up of the oldest parts of the human brain​ ​that co-exist with our more recently evolved brain regions​.

​The lizard brain ​is obsessed with ​safety and comfort​; it ​cannot understand ​that there is a future; ​and ​it ​can completely bypass ​your rational brain when it feels threatened or stressed​.

​The lizard brain is responsible for all the procrastination and avoidance behaviors we’re so familiar with – overwhelm, being easily distracted, feeling unmotivated, difficulty prioritizing, seeking comfort in inappropriate ways, and many others.

These are not “weaknesses,” so much as strategies that your lizard brain uses to try to keep you safe and comfortable in the present moment.

​Are there ways to mitigate these apparent human weaknesses, or even turn them into strengths? Read the article at PermacultureNews.org, and find out. 

​Part 1 of this Series is here. 

(Approximately a ​5 minute read)

​​Did you know there’s a lizard in your brain that’s the source of all your resistance to difficult, boring, intimidating or uncomfortable tasks?  

And that this lizard can be re-trained, using Permaculture principles and (un)common sense, to help you reach your goals (instead of sabotaging them)?

This Series of articles will show you how.

Here, in Part 1, I’ll explain the human brain structure in very simple terms. We’ll meet the “lizard brain” that lives in the base of your skull and find out what makes it tick. 

By the end of ​this article, you’ll understand why procrastination and avoidance are such frustratingly common human behaviors. ​

Read the article at PermacultureNews.org.

(Approximately a 6 ​minute read)

(Approximately a ​4 minute read)

​Up until around the time ​we became parents, ​Alain ​and I ​never questioned our assumptions about freedom. ​​

​​The story of our time says ​this is ​normal:

• to ​be chained to debt and to schedules, 
• to have ​little or no control over where our food originates, 
• to be walled off from nature, 
• and to be more connected to ​each other via screens than in person.  

​This post describes how we began to question that story, and to re-examine ​what freedom means to us. 

​(Approximately a ​5 minute read)

​This morning when I went to feed the animals, I thought I’d start with collecting some pigeon pea for ​the horses, and see what I could find for the pigs​ in the fodder forest while I was there.

​Our fodder forest is a small beginning in my long-term goal to ​eliminate our dependence on fossil fuel-based agriculture.

This article lists 8 of my favorite multi-purpose fodder-and-food plants, and some of the ways I use them.

Read the article ​at PermacultureNews.org.

(Approximately a 6 - 7 minute read)

When your friend says, “Remember that camping trip?” they are not just recalling dry facts, the names of campsites, stops marked off on an itinerary. 

Your friend is recalling a host of felt perceptions and experiences that have shaped the relationship you share and have become part of who you are.

(Approximately a 6 ​minute read)

Thinking for yourself, to me, means understanding what influences your thoughts, questioning everything, and then making your own informed decisions with consideration for the short AND long-term consequences to yourself and other living beings.

Aside from building more autonomy and self-reliance into your life, ​this kind of thinking​ will help ​dismantle the existing growth-at-all-costs system that relies on consumers who don't think for themselves.