A Full Weekend Visit with APPLE Outpost Videographers
Cooperatives and Perma-Cultures in Eugene
written by Janaia Donaldson, from APPLE Nevada City, CA outpost, on Mon, 2006-06-26 00:02.
==House Cooperative, Car Cooperative===
Our first Peak Moment conversation
this morning was set in the living room
of a lovely Craftsman style home
in a spacious neighborhood in east Eugene, Oregon.
Dark-wood panels, framing the wall of windows
that open onto a view of a tree-shaded three-story Victorian,
built to house larger families a century ago.
In our coming era of energy-decline,
I think many will find themselves living
in larger homes with extended "families."
The Walnut [Street] cooperative is one place where that is
happening now. It is a living community, a shared household,
one of many intentional communities arising throughout North America and the world.
I had an animated conversation with Tree Bressen about the 6-year-old housing cooperative living in two large early 1900's houses now joined to be one house. The ten members pay for food--they rotate making dinners weeknights-- rent, phone, utilities, insurance, etc. for just over $500 month per person!
A beautiful model for sharing more and consuming much less.
Tree not only shares a home, she shares a car. She is a member of a three-year-old car coop whose 7-9 members share a biodiesel Mercedes. They've even developed scheduling software that is available to others wanting to start a car coop. (See www.biocarshare.org.)
Tree facilitates and teaches communication skills for other intentional communities, co-housing groups. She may be coming to Nevada City in April...hope so! She's got a lot to share with us.
====Suburban House Permaculture Transformation===
Our second taping was a walkabout in a "suburban reclamation project." Nope, it's not what you might imagine with those words. It was Jan Spencer's permaculture-based reworking of a fifty-year-old suburban home.
A big back yard filled with vegetable-and-flower gardens
Berry bushes and cherry trees
An "edible hedge" along the fence, fruit trees above, berries beneath.
Three hens making manure for the compost.
A south-facing solarium bringing heat for winter
Solar hot water on the roof
whose gutters collect rain then stored
in two tanks--1600 gallons--
about half of Jan's irrigation needs for a season
The concrete driveway broken apart
has reappeared to line "water features"
little ponds to soften the landscape.
A bungalow-being built
a garage-now-studio
increasing suburban density.
Like Tree's cooperative sharing more consuming less.
***=== Hear Ye! Hear Ye! ===****** Jan is coordinating a
Permaculture Bioregional Gathering on August 25-27 in Eugene. Jump into your carpools, the prices are way low, they're going to have a lot of good workshops, see how to do it on the ground. See www.eugenepermacultureguild.org.
==== A New Paradigm for Development====
Just around the corner from Jan is Ravi Logan's serene Dharmalaya center. A serene Nepalese Quan Yin greeted us in an alcove by the front door of the octagonal sanctuary.
This is a spiritual center and permaculture model. All the resources here are folded back to nature --bioswales to recharge groundwater, composting toilets for fertile soil, gardens blooming from these riches.
Our too-brief hour conversation with Ravi and Jason Schreiner of Cascadia Commonwealth Institute covered a lot of ground: the need for a paradigm shift towards a solutions-oriented, comprehensive model of development based on balance. It's a model of decentralized democratic control: Not corporations, not governments, but cooperatives, and entrepreneurs.
Meet the essential needs locally, while retaining global networks like telecommunications as this new global consciousness enfolds us all.
=====Collapse--Ancient Civilizations and Ours===
Anthropology Instructor Dr. Guy Prouty is drawing comparisons between prehistoric civilizations and our own -- looking at the patterns and what's likely ahead for us. Every civilization goes through expansion -- increasing energy input and complexity, and then collapse -- which means returning to less complexity.
Collapse can come from overreach, like the Roman Empire's military occupations, and now America's. It can come from overpopulation, environmental decline. We're seeing all these factors at play now, Guy said, and the transition to a less-complex phase could be bumpy.
We can smooth that transition by knowing it's a natural cycle for civilizations. Begin to simplify now. Get out of debt, build community ties with your neighbors, toss out your television, start your gardens.
Less complexity will be easier now when it's voluntary, and bumpier if we wait until we have to. He's optimistic about our having a richer, more connected life on the other side of "collapse."
=======WHEW!!=====
It's been a very full two days (only TWO days??!?) with rich conversations and visits with generous, caring people. I feel like we are meeting family.
We're also pooped! Setting up in each new location requires us to assess lighting, background, sound, furnishings, the movement of the sun, how many cameras to use and dozens of other variables. In Eugene it included noisy weed-eaters in the background, and a skylight needing a cover. Robyn likes to live-mix with three cameras so there's much less editing at the other end. And that takes about 2.5-3 hours of setup.
So we've schlepped
our crates of cables
and cases of cameras,
Adventure and new learning are a constant
within the variables of each new situation
We got wonderful interviews
We met wonderful people
We learned new things
Folks encouraged our Peak Moment work
We are privileged to be capturing
These beginnings
And sleep will feel very very good tonight.
A Full Peak Moment Day in Eugene
written by Janaia Donaldson on Sat, 2006-06-24 22:59.
Bathed by nice sunny weather, we set up for our Peak Moment interviews in a thick-walled Straw Bale Studio at "Maitreya EcoVillage" in residential Eugene. We interviewed Melanie Rios, who learned of the Limits to Growth (including but much more than oil) with Donella & Dennis Meadows thirty years ago.
Melanie emphasized the social and *joyous* aspects of life post-peak oil, and the communication skills we'll all need to learn and practice in our groups and in a post-carbon societies--including conflict resolution. Also an entertainer, Melanie's original skit "The Three Little Pigs Meet Peak Oil" has gotten a number of showings in Oregon and is continually being modified. There--a new art form!
Our next guest Krishna Khalsa brings his devotion as a Sikh to service in entrepreneurial projects and ideas. He also brought us some really yummy, "gunchy" (substantial) kitcheree and yogi tea, saving us from midday hunger pangs. (Recipes to come). Krishna is interested in food security, and wants to see people really reconnect with the earth, with this apple tree -- Being to Being.
He envisions turning upside down the current relationship between capital and labor, with collectives of people (labor) hiring capital (farmland) for mutual benefit. He's working with a farmer who has offered his 450 fruit trees to the community--to prune, harvest, care for the trees and share the bounty.
Doug Black talked with us about the work of Postcarbon Eugene, which brought Richard Heinberg to town last January to a crowd of 1500 people. Doug's penchant is for the one-on-one canvassing and educating. He's working on a Peak Oil resolution to bring to the Eugene City Council, but recognizes it'll take awhile to achieve it. Doug is the "hub" person who connected us with the locals we're interviewing here for Peak Moment.
Doug is an avid biker, as are many people in this "bike-friendly" town where there is one mile of bike trail or lane for each five miles of roads. We enjoyed seeing people of all ages biking around town -- today going to the grower's market filling an entire block in the middle of downtown.
Doug persuaded Fraeda Scholz to lend us a bike for a ride tomorrow. Her family builds bikes of all types right there in Eugene--a local business building something essential for the future. She's lending us a Bike Friday, a foldable lightweight bike--and told us of others even lighter and smaller--you can carry them on the bus.
Our day ended with a tour of Maitreya Ecovillage with its owner, green builder Rob Bolman. We saw the straw-bale studio with compressed dirt floor, a lovely wood triplex and their own home, lovingly made of "gently harvested" and re-used materials and their own hand-made windows and doors. There are around 25 residents in the multiple buildings on these several city lots being reclaimed from suburbia. My favorite was the cob house, made of wood chips and clay slip, sculpted more than built. The lovely ceiling was thin aspen branches beneath burlap sacking. Felt so organic and homey, right up to the oval windows. The Hobbits surely live in a Cob house!
We ended the day with a delicious low-key homemade potluck with about eight or ten permaculture-post oil friends, and we talked of post-carbon futures and responses, conferences and get-togethers, Permaculture and the Peak Moment show, what we're learning from various groups as we take Peak Moment "on the road." And now off to bed--another full day of tapings tomorrow!
written by Janaia Donaldson, from APPLE Nevada City, CA outpost, on Mon, 2006-06-26 00:02.
==House Cooperative, Car Cooperative===
Our first Peak Moment conversation
this morning was set in the living room
of a lovely Craftsman style home
in a spacious neighborhood in east Eugene, Oregon.
Dark-wood panels, framing the wall of windows
that open onto a view of a tree-shaded three-story Victorian,
built to house larger families a century ago.
In our coming era of energy-decline,
I think many will find themselves living
in larger homes with extended "families."
The Walnut [Street] cooperative is one place where that is
happening now. It is a living community, a shared household,
one of many intentional communities arising throughout North America and the world.
I had an animated conversation with Tree Bressen about the 6-year-old housing cooperative living in two large early 1900's houses now joined to be one house. The ten members pay for food--they rotate making dinners weeknights-- rent, phone, utilities, insurance, etc. for just over $500 month per person!
A beautiful model for sharing more and consuming much less.
Tree not only shares a home, she shares a car. She is a member of a three-year-old car coop whose 7-9 members share a biodiesel Mercedes. They've even developed scheduling software that is available to others wanting to start a car coop. (See www.biocarshare.org.)
Tree facilitates and teaches communication skills for other intentional communities, co-housing groups. She may be coming to Nevada City in April...hope so! She's got a lot to share with us.
====Suburban House Permaculture Transformation===
Our second taping was a walkabout in a "suburban reclamation project." Nope, it's not what you might imagine with those words. It was Jan Spencer's permaculture-based reworking of a fifty-year-old suburban home.
A big back yard filled with vegetable-and-flower gardens
Berry bushes and cherry trees
An "edible hedge" along the fence, fruit trees above, berries beneath.
Three hens making manure for the compost.
A south-facing solarium bringing heat for winter
Solar hot water on the roof
whose gutters collect rain then stored
in two tanks--1600 gallons--
about half of Jan's irrigation needs for a season
The concrete driveway broken apart
has reappeared to line "water features"
little ponds to soften the landscape.
A bungalow-being built
a garage-now-studio
increasing suburban density.
Like Tree's cooperative sharing more consuming less.
***=== Hear Ye! Hear Ye! ===****** Jan is coordinating a
Permaculture Bioregional Gathering on August 25-27 in Eugene. Jump into your carpools, the prices are way low, they're going to have a lot of good workshops, see how to do it on the ground. See www.eugenepermacultureguild.org.
==== A New Paradigm for Development====
Just around the corner from Jan is Ravi Logan's serene Dharmalaya center. A serene Nepalese Quan Yin greeted us in an alcove by the front door of the octagonal sanctuary.
This is a spiritual center and permaculture model. All the resources here are folded back to nature --bioswales to recharge groundwater, composting toilets for fertile soil, gardens blooming from these riches.
Our too-brief hour conversation with Ravi and Jason Schreiner of Cascadia Commonwealth Institute covered a lot of ground: the need for a paradigm shift towards a solutions-oriented, comprehensive model of development based on balance. It's a model of decentralized democratic control: Not corporations, not governments, but cooperatives, and entrepreneurs.
Meet the essential needs locally, while retaining global networks like telecommunications as this new global consciousness enfolds us all.
=====Collapse--Ancient Civilizations and Ours===
Anthropology Instructor Dr. Guy Prouty is drawing comparisons between prehistoric civilizations and our own -- looking at the patterns and what's likely ahead for us. Every civilization goes through expansion -- increasing energy input and complexity, and then collapse -- which means returning to less complexity.
Collapse can come from overreach, like the Roman Empire's military occupations, and now America's. It can come from overpopulation, environmental decline. We're seeing all these factors at play now, Guy said, and the transition to a less-complex phase could be bumpy.
We can smooth that transition by knowing it's a natural cycle for civilizations. Begin to simplify now. Get out of debt, build community ties with your neighbors, toss out your television, start your gardens.
Less complexity will be easier now when it's voluntary, and bumpier if we wait until we have to. He's optimistic about our having a richer, more connected life on the other side of "collapse."
=======WHEW!!=====
It's been a very full two days (only TWO days??!?) with rich conversations and visits with generous, caring people. I feel like we are meeting family.
We're also pooped! Setting up in each new location requires us to assess lighting, background, sound, furnishings, the movement of the sun, how many cameras to use and dozens of other variables. In Eugene it included noisy weed-eaters in the background, and a skylight needing a cover. Robyn likes to live-mix with three cameras so there's much less editing at the other end. And that takes about 2.5-3 hours of setup.
So we've schlepped
our crates of cables
and cases of cameras,
Adventure and new learning are a constant
within the variables of each new situation
We got wonderful interviews
We met wonderful people
We learned new things
Folks encouraged our Peak Moment work
We are privileged to be capturing
These beginnings
And sleep will feel very very good tonight.
A Full Peak Moment Day in Eugene
written by Janaia Donaldson on Sat, 2006-06-24 22:59.
Bathed by nice sunny weather, we set up for our Peak Moment interviews in a thick-walled Straw Bale Studio at "Maitreya EcoVillage" in residential Eugene. We interviewed Melanie Rios, who learned of the Limits to Growth (including but much more than oil) with Donella & Dennis Meadows thirty years ago.
Melanie emphasized the social and *joyous* aspects of life post-peak oil, and the communication skills we'll all need to learn and practice in our groups and in a post-carbon societies--including conflict resolution. Also an entertainer, Melanie's original skit "The Three Little Pigs Meet Peak Oil" has gotten a number of showings in Oregon and is continually being modified. There--a new art form!
Our next guest Krishna Khalsa brings his devotion as a Sikh to service in entrepreneurial projects and ideas. He also brought us some really yummy, "gunchy" (substantial) kitcheree and yogi tea, saving us from midday hunger pangs. (Recipes to come). Krishna is interested in food security, and wants to see people really reconnect with the earth, with this apple tree -- Being to Being.
He envisions turning upside down the current relationship between capital and labor, with collectives of people (labor) hiring capital (farmland) for mutual benefit. He's working with a farmer who has offered his 450 fruit trees to the community--to prune, harvest, care for the trees and share the bounty.
Doug Black talked with us about the work of Postcarbon Eugene, which brought Richard Heinberg to town last January to a crowd of 1500 people. Doug's penchant is for the one-on-one canvassing and educating. He's working on a Peak Oil resolution to bring to the Eugene City Council, but recognizes it'll take awhile to achieve it. Doug is the "hub" person who connected us with the locals we're interviewing here for Peak Moment.
Doug is an avid biker, as are many people in this "bike-friendly" town where there is one mile of bike trail or lane for each five miles of roads. We enjoyed seeing people of all ages biking around town -- today going to the grower's market filling an entire block in the middle of downtown.
Doug persuaded Fraeda Scholz to lend us a bike for a ride tomorrow. Her family builds bikes of all types right there in Eugene--a local business building something essential for the future. She's lending us a Bike Friday, a foldable lightweight bike--and told us of others even lighter and smaller--you can carry them on the bus.
Our day ended with a tour of Maitreya Ecovillage with its owner, green builder Rob Bolman. We saw the straw-bale studio with compressed dirt floor, a lovely wood triplex and their own home, lovingly made of "gently harvested" and re-used materials and their own hand-made windows and doors. There are around 25 residents in the multiple buildings on these several city lots being reclaimed from suburbia. My favorite was the cob house, made of wood chips and clay slip, sculpted more than built. The lovely ceiling was thin aspen branches beneath burlap sacking. Felt so organic and homey, right up to the oval windows. The Hobbits surely live in a Cob house!
We ended the day with a delicious low-key homemade potluck with about eight or ten permaculture-post oil friends, and we talked of post-carbon futures and responses, conferences and get-togethers, Permaculture and the Peak Moment show, what we're learning from various groups as we take Peak Moment "on the road." And now off to bed--another full day of tapings tomorrow!
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