Ideas (maximising edge)

Two nights ago, whilst asleep I had a vision. I call it a vision and not a dream because it had no narrative; it was just an image. Soon after I saw the image, I woke up. It was an image of a Permaculture tanker. It was a converted oil tanker, half a mile long, converted into a floating forest garden -based alternative community and human economy, growing its own biodiesel for the engines as well as having wing sails attached for extra propulsion. Who will help me realise this dream? You can buy a second-hand oil tanker for a few million on websites such as this: Tankers

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Two days ago I joined the monthly meeting of the Hatherleigh Edges Permaculture and Community Regeneration Group. This group is not just open to folk from the village of Hatherleigh, but also anyone who can get to the meetings who is interested in sustainable, ecology based community work, starting from Hatherleigh and expanding outwards. After feeling lonely recently, it was great to connect with my neighbours about issues and ideas such as supporting isolated elderly people in our local community and seed swapping.

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Yesterday morning, on my 30 mile cycle to Dartington for continuing counselling foundation skills training with Heartwood, I was simultaneously inspired and disgusted. Inspired by the Devon hedgerows and dry stone walls on the edge of Dartmoor, and disgusted by the fumes from passing vehicles that I could not help but inhale. Where is the network of motor vehicle – free bridleways criss-crossing Dartmoor, allowing cycle and horse travel between towns? Where are the public stables and undercover bike shelters? How’s this for a business idea?: a pub that caters specifically for cyclists and horseriders, with stables (as used to be common) and dormitory accommodation.

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And another thing: Is it Council for the Protection of Rural England or Council for the Protection of Industrial Agriculture?

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Yesterday’s Heartwood training was an introduction to Gestalt theory, in the context of counselling. A gestalt is an organised whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.  Thus, a human being is a gestalt of sorts. Gestalt-based counselling and psychotherapy aims at greater integration of all the parts of a person with each other / the whole, including the physical body and all the various aspects of the mind / personality. There is a focus on the experience of the present moment, and how psychological integration can be achieved in this present moment. How could this approach be used to integrate human society better with itself and Nature? I would love to start a discussion on this theme. Please comment below! Here is some more on Gestalt: Gestalt

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Sometimes, distinct words will pop into my mind as if from nowhere, in the voices of different kinds of people that I have encountered in the past. There is often emotional content to these words, and they often have a double or triple meaning. For instance, yesterday as I was approaching Newton Abbott by bike, the word FTSE / ‘footsie’ appeared in my mind, and I heard it spoken by a woman of my age or perhaps a little younger, with some humour and warmth. It was spoken in a confiding way, as if advising me on the direction I should take (the words often have this feel). The meanings were that first, I could do with paying more attention to the stock market (it could be useful for any entrepreneur) and secondly that it is ok for me to be in a warm, flirty place with women, although I struggle with this. Does this experience sound bizarre? It is just part of my gestalt; it is how my unconscious sometimes alerts my conscious; by using semi-fictional identities of generic characters, based on people I have met in the past or encountered through digital and other media. I think my unconscious has developed this dynamic guiding process in line with my very conscious yearning to ‘learn from everyone in order to help everyone’.

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Positive affirmations: they only work if you imbue them with emotional content, and if you also work to manifest what they relate to. Otherwise they can result in internal conflict and soul-destroying disappointment.

Here are some positive affirmations and wisdom sayings I’ve used, some self-penned, some assimilated from elsewhere: ‘I am enough’ /// ‘I am innocent’ /// ‘I am fearless’ /// ‘Enlightenment is…total observation of Nature’ /// ‘Love is the Law, Love under Will’ /// ‘Enlightenment is…beginning everything with death in mind’ /// ‘Enlightenment is…total freedom from addiction’ /// ‘Character is greater than personality’ /// ‘The best heroes have a combination of vulnerability and strength’ /// ‘Anxiety and stress can often be a sign of doing too much or too little’ /// ‘Private victory before public victory’ /// ‘Victorious warriors win in their hearts before going into battle’ /// ‘Everything is me’ /// ‘The opposite of addiction is connection’ /// ‘Be proactive’ /// ‘Begin with the end in mind’ /// ‘I am not afraid to be a leader. I am not afraid to explore uncharted territories.’

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City-country conduits: Statistics like these show that the world’s population is increasingly urbanised. Articles like these show that humanity could be at risk of a major breakdown of civilisation either this century or the next. Since cities import most of their food, energy and water from outside the city limits, their densely-packed populations are more immediately at risk from a society-wide breakdown in economic and energy infrastructures.  I have long thought that the resilience of civilisation as a whole could be improved by establishing conduits between city and country in a way which increased understanding and communication between rural and urban populations, as well as flows of energy and resources both ways to reduce the impact of infrastructure breakdown on cities, and the potential burden on the country of fleeing urban citizens. This would in essence be a releasing of pressure on cities by ‘merging’ them better with their rural surrounds, but not in an environmentally destructive way. Regional food security is also implied in this vision, so that ideally, polyculture food growing systems would surround the city and provide all of its food needs (not a new idea). Most importantly I would like to see well-planned and sustainable mobility between city and country increased significantly. I smile at the prejudice of ignorance that exists between city and country dwellers. When I am in the city, sometimes even my most intelligent city friends may make ignorant remarks about rural dwellers and rural life, and when I am around my rural home, I will likewise hear fearful and ill-informed remarks about city-dwellers. This isn’t necessary! This kind of two-way prejudice will only make any serious large-scale infrastructure shocks -which as I’ve said are not unlikely this century- be felt worse and dealt with less efficiently.

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Ensuring Earth is fit for the next seven generations: This is the ‘7th generation principle’ of governance and human culture in general, as propounded by various Native American tribes. It is the idea that every human action and every human decision should have a benign or regenerative effect on the next seven generations of humans to live on the planet, by caring for Nature as a whole (that which supports us). By average modern understandings seven generations amounts to 7 x 25 years = 175 years. This benchmark of sustainability is often quoted in modern movements towards ecological living, but we don’t always stop to appreciate that seven generations is 175 years. Perhaps we should. I advocate sitting in meditation, alone or as part of a group, and trying to envision what the Earth might be like in 175 years. It is almost impossible to guess at, which is precisely the point. How often do communities, businesses and governments plan this far ahead? With the the increasing intelligence of our software, one hopes that more of this will be directed towards scenario planning and global strategy with Earth’s overall ecology at its core. If well-directed, and that means by human beings with deep empathy and experience of Nature, AI could be a force for greatness in putting the 7th generation principle into practice. It’s time to bring the wilderness into Silicon Valley!

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DEEPLY SUST: sustainable events management. Don’t you think it’s a good name? Use it if you like and please feel free to credit me. This is just a vague idea I had for a company. Festivals, even the most ecological ones, have dubious sustainability credentials. They involve the transportation of materials and people from miles around, sometimes even from abroad, to all converge on one poor overburdened location before being transported all the way back again. A truly sustainable events management company would look at how different festivals and events could better network with each other and share infrastructures and materials. It would also advise events and festivals within a given region or even nation on how to organise and synchronise calendars for maximum efficiency, skill-share, custom and positive ecological impact between all. Additionally, lasting legacies for all local communities that hosted festivals and events would have to be looked at. How about that for sustainability?

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‘REAL BOYS’, ‘REAL GIRLS’ and ‘TRANSREAL’: Where are the magazines for real girls and real boys, and for that matter, trans kids and the genderwild? When I walk into a big newsagents and look at the magazines sections for children and teenagers, I want to throw up. They are full of damaging stereotypes, plastic toys and the usual bullshit obsession with celebrity. I know that isn’t what every child wants, but somehow, because it’s what most children have been convinced they want, this vacuous culture revolving around Barbie and Action Man -like stereotypes still dominates. Apparently there are no risk-taking entrepreneurs in the children’s magazine industry. Where is ‘Real Girls’ magazine? ‘Real Boys’? ‘Transreal’?

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CO-OPETITION: My idea for a co-opetition is a competition that rewards co-operation over competition at every step of the process. I understand this is a paradox. It would take some clever designing to create motivating and sustainable co-opetitions with prizes. I know there are people doing this already, and maybe I / you can join them. We need innovation to save the world from ourselves, but innovation does not just happen in ruthlessly competitive contexts, as the hyper-capitalists would have us believe. Innovation happens in regenerative community contexts, indeed it must if society is to survive.

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POSITIVE SCENARIO MATHEMATICS: Where are the software designers and mathematicians working together with ecologists, permaculturists, alternative financial analysts, energy experts and complex systems theorists to design scenario planning apps for the lay person, and the activist or business organisation, ensuring the greatest positive ecological impact of all our trajectories, in ways which reflexively weave as many human life-paths as possible into well defined mutually agreeable outcomes? Come on people, get to work!

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ECOMOVES: Where are all the companies that offer to clear houses and bankrupt business premises in the most ecologically sound ways possible? Including the recycling and ‘upcycling’ of objects and materials and selling for profit, using the timing of moving to new homes and premises to introduce more sustainable practices and materials as standard? These companies could build up databases of sustainable clients and businesses with which to woo their customers, providing much more than standard removal and installation services.

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PSYCHEDELIC CARE-HOMES: Where are all the psychedelic carehomes? I mean the ones playing 60’s and 70’s music, the ones with space hoppers, magic mushrooms, meditation, radical politics and all the other signs of the counter-cultural revolution? I haven’t visited any care-homes for the elderly in a while, but the people who turned 18 in 1960 are now aged 76. Are the more alternative and radically left wing elderly types being catered for? Are they being catered for enough?