Two Different Kinds of Healthcare – Part 2
Part 2 of 2; Part 1 is here | Approximately a 6 minute read | Originally published 5th February, 2019, on PermacultureNews.org
How did we become dependent on the doctor visit and the prescription? What happened to the ways we cared for our families before modern pharmaceutical medicine?
When the globalized economy replaces local ways of living, people exchange broad skills and community-reliance for specialized career paths.
Instead of sharing time and resources with family and neighbors to meet everybody's needs, people start to work jobs to pay for basics — and also for new commodities that are assumed essential to living a modern life.
Paying for your needs with money means you need not rely on friends and neighbors, so families and communities are no longer so tightly bound together. Instead of relying on themselves and each other, families now rely on corporate providers and outside experts.
Local knowledge fades away and the understanding of natural remedies grows dim, all but replaced by the profitable kind of medicine that only experts know.
Two Different Kinds of Healthcare – Part 1
Two Different Kinds of Healthcare - Part 1
Part 1 of 2 | Approximately a 6 minute read | Original version published 30/1/19, on PermacultureNews.org
Our culture loves the quick fix.
The quicker it works and the less effort we have to put into it, the better we like it. We have fast food, fast internet, fast aps, and... pharmaceutical medicine.
Pharmaceutical medicine is the medical equivalent of fast food – its fast, its convenient, and it erodes our health over time.
In contrast, at-home healthcare and natural remedies are like home-cooked, real food – they take more time and effort and they work more slowly.
Over time, at-home healthcare and natural remedies build robust health on many levels, individual and collective.
Backyard Chickens, and the Interconnectedness of All Things – Part 3
Backyard Chickens & the interconnectedness of everything - Part 3
Part 3 of a Series | Approximately a 6 minute read | Originally published 19th October, 2018, on PermacultureNews.org
This article shares the funny antics of one of our roosters, whose stories include such things as nesting boxes, interested hens, and a falling wheelbarrow.
It concludes on a more serious note, with the question,
"Can good husbandry, regenerative agriculture, and morally right living, be defined in terms of happiness and connection?"
If you are interested only in rooster adventures, this article will be fine to read by itself.
But if you missed the earlier articles in the series, and you’re interested in what backyard chickens have to do with the interconnectedness of all things, you’ll need to go back to the beginning of Part 1. Part 2, if you need it, is here.
Backyard Chickens, and the Interconnectedness of All Things. Part 2
Backyard Chickens, and the Interconnectedness of All Things - Part 2
Part 2 of a Series | Approximately a 6 minute read
Originally published 10th October, 2018, on PermacultureNews.org
This article is Part 2 of a Series that is mostly about chickens – not how to care for them, but how to appreciate them as being more complex and interesting than most of us give them credit for.
If you are interested only in chickens, and especially mother hens and chicks, this article will be fine to read by itself. But if you want to know more about where interconnectedness comes into the story, and why it’s important, you’ll need to go back and read the beginning of Part 1.
Backyard Chickens, and the Interconnectedness of All Things. Part 1
Backyard Chickens, and the Interconnectedness of All Things - Part 1
Part 1 of a Series | Approximately a 5 minute read.
Originally published Oct 3rd, 2018, at PermacultureNews.org.
This 3-Part Series starts off with our cultural lack of understanding about our place in the web of life, which is at the root of why our efforts to address ecological destruction aren’t working yet.
If you were mainly interested in chickens, stay with me – I’ll get onto backyard chickens in the second part of Part 1, and then I’ll stick almost entirely to chickens for the rest of the Series.
Please note, though, that this is not a “how to take care of chickens” Series (you can find those everywhere).
This is about how to appreciate chickens as more than just egg-layers and garden-scratchers. And, by extension, how to appreciate any living thing beyond just its immediately apparent functions.
Do We Still Need Non-digital Ways of Remembering and Sharing Experiences?
Do we still need non-digital ways of remembering and sharing our experiences?
(Approximately a 6 - 7 minute read)
There are aspects of re-experiencing and sharing a story, that cannot be digitally preserved.
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.
Getting Together
Why Getting Together Is So Hard To Do
(Approximately an 8 to 10 minute read for the average reader)
Did we lose more than we gained, when we advanced from "social mammal," to "modern individual"?
Earlier in my life I didn't see the point of sitting around chatting. I was in a hurry. I had a lot of urgent work to do, and not enough time to do it.
Important things, like connecting with each other just for the sake of it, don't feel urgent. They hover quietly in the background.
Sometimes those important things hover, unattended, until we get to a point in our lives where we look back and wish we had done more socializing, and less striving. More giving and connecting, and less acquiring and directing.
An Illusion of Independence
An Illusion of Independence
(Approximately a 4 minute read)
In the modern world, independent individuals and nuclear families are artificially sustained by a fossil fuel dependent, growth-at-all-costs system that cannot last.
The alternative that most appeals to me is a world in which we live interdependently – in direct relationship with each other and with the web of life that can sustain us indefinitely, so long as we care for it as the extension of ourselves that it really is.