Nourishing Parks
August 1, 2012 by The Dove · Leave a Comment
America has the finest high-tech medical care in the world. If a person is in an accident, the emergency care is exemplary. We also have dedicated, energetic scientists working hard to develop new treatments every day.
I think one area we have not fully accessed is nature and indigenous knowledge. There is still a place for science within this realm, working in harmony with the natural world and people who live in close communion with it to learn from them how we too can do so more gracefully. Preventative health care begins with focusing on sustainable agriculture. This will also help stabilize the climate and prevent war, as hungry people are more belligerent. If you think I am joking, try fasting and working at the same time, and see how long you last.
Traditional crossbreeding of plants is safer and wiser than genetic engineering. Researching and testing the most reliable healing plants and fruits in each region of the earth provides a fertile field for academic and commercial institutions. If we try to leave nature behind, we will not get far, as evidenced by our current state of crisis.
For example, blackberries are incredibly healthy. They grow wild all over the Pacific Northwest of the United States. There is a wonderful blackberry breeding program at Oregon State University that has developed a number of delicious (thornless even!) blackberry varieties. If everyone in this region had a blackberry bush or free blackberries available, many health concerns could be assuaged. Daily berries (in season) really do make a difference in health. Blueberries could be cultivated freely throughout the Northeast. Mangos, avocados, and peaches can be grown in the warmer regions of the country. People’s health is in part determined by the quality of their food and drink. Organic farming will restore the land.
Before you protest and say this will never happen—asserting that we have public space set aside for nature and parks, but only planted with ornamentals—get a load of what the city of Seattle is doing!
In the neighborhood of Beacon Hill a seven acre plot is being planted with grapes, apples, raspberries, blueberries, pears, plums, pineapple, guava, persimmons, and other fruit trees, as well as herbs, chestnuts, and walnuts! It is called the Beacon Food Forest, and was designed in 2009 by students in a permaculture class. beaconfoodforest.weebly.com
The trial plot of two acres is being planted this summer, with the remaining five acres to be completed at a later date. This will be a true, sustainable food bank! Here is a video showing the first plantings:
The founding members of the project hope to educate the community of the benefits of permaculture through the site. Margarett Harrison, lead landscape architect, states, “This is totally innovative, and has never been done before in a public park!”
Jenny Pell, permaculturist, explains, “People worried, ‘What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?’ That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we have none at the end of blueberry season then it means we’re successful.”
Local residents have been enthusiastically pitching in and signing up with comments like, “Put me to work – I can’t wait to get my hands dirty,” and, “Let me know when I can show up with my wheelbarrow.” Help with propagating, mulching, and pruning is welcomed. “People will come in and for example help cut the raspberries back and then be able to take home five or ten raspberry plants to put in their own backyard!” proclaims Pell.
“When we met with all the different people from the community, what they wanted actually was fruits and berries and big nut trees- that was their biggest request. So, we’re looking at paths with berry bushes on both sides, and we’re going to have mixed fruit orchards, and big nut orchards. It will be the largest food forest on public lands in the United States.”
A couple of other folks worldwide have been at the forefront of this movement to get free produce to everyone while reforesting the earth. Kenya’s Queen of the Trees Professor Wangari Maathai inspired the planting of 47 million trees in Kenya and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her contribution to “sustainable development, democracy and peace.” Her vision of environmental stewardship rather than plunder of natural resources (which has been the accepted norm) has inspired many people. She especially encouraged women to plant trees, beginning the www.Greenbeltmovement.org in 1977.
When she started her work, Professor Maathai saw that “behind the everyday hardships of the poor—environmental degradation, deforestation, and food insecurity—were deeper issues of disempowerment, disenfranchisement, and a loss of the traditional values that had previously enabled communities to protect their environment, work together for mutual benefit, and to do both selflessly and honestly.”
Simply put, Professor Maathai said, “If you destroy the forest then the river will stop flowing, the rains will become irregular, the crops will fail and you will die of hunger and starvation… We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk.”
Anthony Anderson of www.growparadise.com states, “When we realize that we can quite easily and quickly begin to grow paradise right where we live, our power returns to us! Growing paradise requires nothing but the spirit of love and growth within us. We invite you to become a part of this, whether directly or by spreading the ideas and growing paradise in your own backyard and local community. Grow paradise. It is ours if we really want it.” He has seeded food forests in Minnesota, California, Arizona, and Cape Town, South Africa.
David Wolfe started the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation www.ftpf.org, which is a nonprofit charity dedicated to planting 18 billion organic fruit trees to “benefit the environment and all its inhabitants!”
“We envision a place where one can have a summer picnic under the shade of a fruit tree, breathe the clean air it generates, and not have to bring anything other than an appetite for the healthy fruits growing overhead. A world where one can take a walk in the park during a lunch break, pick and eat a variety of delicious fruits, plant the seeds so others can eventually do the same and provide an alternative to buying environmentally-destructive, illness-causing, chemically-laden products.”
A pioneer in community agriculture, Farmer John of www.angelicorganics.com states, “Agriculture is an underpinning of our culture. The irrepressibility of life on a farm continually manifests in myriad splendid expressions of life. This glorious unfolding provides us with the sustenance of food, while endlessly nourishing the creative spirit.”
I am very grateful for the amazing hospitals and health care workers we have in this country. They are overburdened, however, because of a lack of preventative and conservational care. With a focus on collective, populist, sustainable agriculture to grow healthy food and medicine for all, chronic disease will diminish, as much chronic degenerative disease is caused by diet and stress related to survival. Food is our first primary need. A plant-based diet is advocated as a foundation for health by leading physicians like Dr. Oz, Dr. Weil, Dr. Chopra, and Dr. Mcdougall.
Combining the skills of doctors, nurses, herbalists, midwives, doulas, shamans, gardeners, farmers, artists and other healers in the community, medicine can evolve beyond a solely symptoms-oriented approach to exploring the source, the roots of imbalance and disease. To do this we must look for help toward our origin and our sustenance – the earth.
For those interested in getting closer to the earth in the LA area and visiting the local farms, go to www.pickyourown.org/CAla.htm.
By Ashley H.
Sources:
1. Blazing a Trail for a Better Bounty of Oregon Berries. (2011, July 26). Retrieved from www.oregonlive.com.
2. Seattle Food Forest. (2012, March 9). Retrieved from www.loe.org.
3. Husted, K. (2012, March 1). Seattle’s First Urban Food Forest will be Open to Foragers. Retrieved from www.npr.org.
4. Leschin-Hoar, B. C. (1, February 2012). It’s Not a Fairytale: Seattle to Build Nation’s First Food Forest . Retrieved from www.takepart.com.
Why I Don’t Wear Sunscreen (and Never Will)
January 10, 2010 by The Dove · 13 Comments
I don’t wear sunscreen and never will.
I stopped using sunblock the moment I stopped being a beauty editor a few years ago. A combination of gut feeling and research told me what I was being told to “protect” my skin with was little more than a poison (and poisonous it is).
From One Idea, Big Things Sprout
November 13, 2009 by The Dove · Leave a Comment
A new generation of eco-commerce is arising out of the dust of Amazon.com’s explosive growth – online shoppers, particularly parents, are more concerned than ever about product certification, safety and customer feedback. Enter Sproubaby.com, the brainchild of eco-preneur Jody Sherman. To cater to this more discerning market, his online baby products shop features only items vetted through expert, family and personal reviews.
Laughing When its Not Funny
August 3, 2009 by The Dove · Leave a Comment
As a Laughter Yoga leader I am often presented with the question of “what if it just isnt funny?” There are many times in our lives when nothing is funny. Everything thing has turned upside down, we experience grief, are bogged down with life circumstances, are sick or just simply forget to have a moment of enjoyment. Its easy enough for this to happen to all of us. Its called LIFE.
Whats Hiding in Your Sunscreen?
July 13, 2009 by The Dove · Leave a Comment
Nanotechnology has changed what we eat, wear and apply to our skin unfortunately with little regulation and little understanding of the long-term consequences, both to our own health and that of the natural world.
7 WAYS … TO HEAL THE EARTH
July 5, 2009 by The Dove · Leave a Comment
1.
Women Unclear on Global Warming Causes: Survey
Results from the America’s first national Womens Survey on Energy & the Environment show that women want the country to move to clean energy sources-but they dont completely understand the electricity sources used today, the impact of electricity on clean air and what causes global warming.
(Editor’s note: The number one cause of global warming is the raising and production of livestock.)
The nationally representative survey of 801 women 18 years or older, commissioned by Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP) in collaboration with the Womens Council on Energy and the Environment (WCEE), shows women want the United States to move toward clean energy sources, and more than half (57%) are even willing to pay $30 more per month for it.
“Women have a huge stake in our nations energy future and can play a vital role in moving our country toward clean sources of electricity, such as wind, solar and nuclear, that do not pollute the air we breathe or contribute to global warming,” said Barbara Kasoff, president of WIPP. “With so much resting on the energy and environment policy decisions we make today, every womans voice counts now more than ever.”
The survey also shows:
77 percent of women take primary or equal responsibility for paying their electricity bills, including 9-in-10 (91 percent) of unmarried women and 7 in 10 (70 percent) of married women.
Virtually all women (97 percent) are conserving electricity, and they are doing so through a broad range of steps such as lowering thermostats; turning off lights and appliances when not in use; purchasing energy-saving fluorescent light bulbs; keeping their homes cooler in winter; and installing energy-efficient appliances, doors, windows, or insulation.
91 percent of women, including 86 percent of married women, play a dominant or equal role in conserving electricity at home.
When it comes to the countrys energy policy, twice as many women (43 percent) cite moving to clean energy over any other issue (reliability or affordability of electricity) as their most important goal.
Women are enthusiastic about solar and wind energy, both clean energy sources: 90 percent and 89 percent, respectively think they should play a very or somewhat important role in our countrys energy future.
The report also found women are unclear about electricitys effect on the environment. Electricity-generating power plants are the biggest cause of global warming in this country, more than cars and trucks or any other source. However, only seven percent of women are aware of this. So while women believe clean energy is very important, they do not completely understand the connection between electricity and the deterioration of our environment.
BREAST CANCER DECEPTION by Mike Adams
June 20, 2009 by The Dove · 2 Comments
Why its great: Naturalnews.com founder Mike Adams lifts the lid on the lucrative breast cancer industry. It’s a shocking, tell-all report that reveals how conventional breast cancer detection and treatment programs are actually designed to ensnare women into a very harmful (but highly profitable) system of toxic treatments that will only cause permanent damage to her health. “It’s the report the industry would prefer to censor, because it contains startling truths about how the cancer industry actually feeds upon the continuation of this disease while censoring natural cancer prevention strategies that could halt 90 percent of all future cancers starting right now,” Adams says in the report that’s available online here.
Whos reading it: Women who are are looking for alternative treatments to health-destroying radiotherapy and chemotherapy. It’s also attracting attention of health care professionals who are turning to natural therapies, as they begin to understand chemical treatments are the real killers in the “cancer war”.
What youll learn: Mike Adams (The Health Ranger) says it best:
The top 18 causes of breast cancer that you can control or change;
How breast cancer provides billions in profits for drug companies;
Why the breast cancer industry isn’t looking for a real cure;
Which simple nutrient prevents 77% of ALL cancers;
The latest research on natural breast cancer prevention therapies that really work;
Names and web addresses of my top recommended anti-cancer herbs and supplements;
The real reason why cancer mortality is much higher in blacks than whites (and why you were never told the truth about this…);
The shocking truth about the miserable failure of over-hyped breast cancer drugs;
How chemotherapy causes permanent organ damage to cancer patients;
Why “pink products” are often just a marketing sham;
Why the cancer industry ultimately doesn’t want people to prevent cancer;
How certain cancer non-profits are actually front groups for Big Pharma;
How the cancer industry victimizes black women by keeping them ignorant of simple cancer prevention strategies;
The truth about deadly mammograms (and why mammography harms ten times as many women as it helps!);
The top 22 ways to prevent or even cure breast cancer;
Which anti-cancer foods work best to halt tumor growth;
How the male-dominated cancer industry exploits women for corporate profits;
Which breast cancer non-profit you can really trust!;
Which herb from the Amazon rainforest shows powerful anti-tumor activity;
Why your geographic location on the planet impacts your breast cancer risk (includes graphs);
Why running in circles to raise money for a “cancer cure” is a complete waste of time;
How top cancer non-profits have abandoned cancer prevention in favor of screening and “treatment”;
Want to know more? Head to www.naturalnews.com/Report_Breast_Cancer_Deception_0.html
Healthy Diet? Kick the Supplements
June 14, 2009 by The Dove · Leave a Comment
Goji, maca, noni, bee pollen — health has replaced hair dye as the cool thing to “do”, but a quick walk through the market can leave the well-intentioned health enthusiast feeling nutritionally confused and downright inadequate.
Bank on Green
April 4, 2009 by The Dove · Leave a Comment
A new study has revealed a shift in broad-based green thinking to more practical green action – as well as a focus on activities that have near and long-term economic implications.
