A profound statement

I share with you a statement we discussed in class this week. Reading it and typing it out again sends a chill down my spine. The great wisdom held by tribe people around the world may well be able to pull us all from this false reality we live in today.

‘In 1851 Seattle, chief of the suquamish and other Indian tribes around washington’s Puget sound, delivered what is considered to be one of the most beautiful and profound environmental statement ever made. The city of Seattle is named for the chief, who speech was in response to a proposed treaty under which the Indians were persuaded to sell two million acres of land for $150,000.

How can you buy and sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them? Every part of the earth is scared to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries memories of the red man.

The white man’s dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juice in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man—all belong to the same family.

So when the great chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The great chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children.

So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us.

The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you the land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father. The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes and feed our children.

If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father’s grave behind, and does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care. His father’s grave, and his children birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.

I do not know. Our ways are different that your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of the insect’s wings.

The clatter only seems to insult our ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by the midday rain, or scented with pinon pine.

The air is precious to the red man for all things share the same breath, the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days he is numb to stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports

The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow’s flowers.

So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept. I will make one condition- the white man must treat the beasts of the land as his brothers. I am a savage and do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be made more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive. What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children that we have taught our children that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the son of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected.

Even the white man, whose god walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see. One thing we know which the white man may one day discover; our god is the same god. You may think now that you own him as you wish your own our land; but you cannot. He is the god of man, and his compassion is equal for the red man and the white. The earth is precious to Him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

The whites too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. But your perishing you will shine brightly fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man.

That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.

The end of living and the beginning of survival.

Check and balance

Organic farms, biodynamic farms, conventional farms, they are all the same!

Overworked farmers and farm hands, full of diesel guzzling tractors and machineries all aiming to increase crop and livestock yield, so that they can feed this ever growing and very demanding world. And in parts of developed society you have groups of people using their strength and energy perform activities like crossfit, or running on a treadmill in an air conditioned gym when they could be contributing their strength to pulling a plough, hoeing the land or simply weeding.

Sometimes this warped and misguided part of society just do not deserve the food they eat to just expend it on something mindless like this. Where is the balance?? Where are the checks and measures.

Oh wait, we do have one very bias measure: money

The farmers are tired, the people working on the farms are worn out, the machineries keep breaking down and the animals looks lost. Maybe it's just today, or maybe it's the weather, winter is setting in and now comes the time for self reflection and thinking, and so I conclude with this:

If everyone takes charge of growing their own food, and manage their calorie intake in accordance to energy expended on food production perhaps achieving a close looped system, the world may yet become a more balanced one, and you will get fit in the process of doing it ;-)

Products Of Mother Earth

Interesting fact I learnt this week.

'We're all connected' humans, plants and animals, just look at the chemical makeup of hemoglobin and chlorophyll, the structure of the cells are the same, the only diffrence comes from the core of iron and magnesium.

If you put chlorophyll under UV light it will give off a red glow and vice versa for blood.

Uncanny isn't it.

Think about this when you drink your next glass of milk

We go by everyday consuming food not being aware of what it takes to produce that piece of cheese or that glass of milk. What goes on in a dairy industry is away from many peoples general awareness, it's a ugly ugly industry and dairy farms are generally a very depressing place to be.

I spent the last 3 days working on an organic dairy farm, 200 cows cross bred between the holstein and freesia, this create a breed that is able to produce up to 7000 liters of milk a year from one cow! These cows are not the work of nature but a manipulation of humans growing demand for milk and milk related products, and the ultimate victims are the cows themselves. Most cows have lots of trouble carrying their huge udders around something whic was bred into them, they're more prone to injury due to the disproportionate body frames, many sprained ankles, tumor on legs and broken backs. They don't lead a particularly good life being forced through the milk production line twice a day they hardly ever get time out at the fields. The calves spend their first 4 days with the mother and are weaned off, this cause great stress for both calf and mother. The cows kept in a concrete floored barn literally swim in their own piss and poo.

I'm depressed, and very saddened by this whole experience, but very glad I was able to see and work for a couple of days in this dairy farm. If I do consider to continue drinking milk in the future I will be more aware of where my milk comes from before buying, but i'm leaning towards dropping dairy from my diet altogether.

Life on college

Being surrounded by the seasons again is refreshing from the monotony of Singapore's tropical climate I've been surrounded with these past month. Weather is starting to get Chilly and the leaves are turning red then brown and finally will fall back onto the ground, the mushrooms are receding and the last of the autumn squashes are harvested and feasted upon. This is the season when the earth breaths in, a time when it rest and recover only to breath out in spring again and give life to all around.

Enjoy!

The grounds of Emerson College, really a place of outstanding natural beauty

Can't be in Agriculture school without a vegetable garden

College life with people, picking mushrooms and feeding people with it, I think the drummer had too one too many mushroom ;-)

Pepenbury an area for adults with learning disability where they do horticulture therapy, arts and craft and woodwork. They also work with animals which helps them keep in touch with nature and ground them to become more aware of their surroundings! A very special place!

Exact Sensory Fantasy

The 16th century was a huge turning point for the human race, this was the period where the world moved from the golden ages where we were connected to the spiritual world to one that is driven by reason and sense and with that direction it has brought us to this day in the 21st century.

In the old ages people viewed the world as the centre, we’re the centre of the universe and the sun, moon, mercury were thought to be revolving around the earth, this was all based on what they could see when they looked into the sky, they had no telescope, they had no complex mathematics to calculate the projection of the stars and planets.

People during that time of what we call the golden ages in Rome, Greece, China, middle empire of the arab world viewed themselves as being part of nature, in tune to the rhythm of the seasons. They viewed the world by first understanding their inner self, they were subjective and full of sympathy and fantasised and dreamed, they walked among the gods in their own spiritual world. The art of that time distinctively represented this mindset of people of that time depicting goddesses and angels, they believed that they were part of the cosmos among the goddesses and gods and are one with nature.

During the turn of that century from the 1500 to the 1600, 3 distinct events happened in Europe that changed the course of human development forever. Copenicus and his discovery of the cosmos and how all planets revolve around the sun, the earth was no longer at the center and all that was thought of before where god was supposely suppose to reside is now revealed to be of nothingness, in 1543, Mercator developed the first atlas and created the first view of the world, a few years later Vesalius dissected the human body and documented it into a book, we were now seen as blood vessels, bones and muscles and have proven that we no longer posses a spiritual soul in our chest. These 3 development brought a new age of reasoning, gods and spirituality was being questioned, it has become a world dictated by sense and logic, people started to view the world from the outside in, no longer concerned about their inner being, but driven by objects and antipathy observing things from a distance hoping to form an exact view of something, never getting too close for any sympathy. This in turn brought about the age of science and the world as we know of today.

Something changed in the 1500, humans started to lose their inherent connection to the world and to nature. Has science and the age of reasoning really brought about progress? How do you define progress? Has this progress caused an in-balance in the world we live in today?

Osho says:'in this age of reason, we are masters of knowledge, but orphans in wisdom" humans have evolved now to the stage where we use our upper cortex of the brain more - the reason brain. and left the lower cortex, the feeling brain behind. We have to re-connect and achieve an equilibrium as floating too far right or too far left has it’s own circumstances; seen in Goethe work of Faust and Werther.

Perhaps this so called progress of the internet and mass communication would be a tool that would help the human race reach enlightenment quick enough to get us out of this mess and maybe bring warmth back once again into our lives.

You are what you eat: The danger’s of eating out of season

Eating out of season has been something we never questioned, fresh salad in winter, spinach and fresh strawberries during x’mas. In the northern hemisphere this equates to the unnecessary luxury of imports, science and fossil fuel has also enabled us to grow vegetables in a heated greenhouse out of season for businesses to reap the benefits of economic value from these vegetables when supplies are low and demands is at it’s peak; carbon emission aside what is the true cost of eating food that are grown out of season?

To understand this we need to look at how a plant works. The plant extracts nutrients such as nitrates from the soil and stores this within the plant turning this into protein and sugar used by the plant for growth. For this to happen it requires sunlight for photosynthesis and in winter the hours of sunlight will decrease significantly.

Scientific research carried out in the 60s on spinach and lettuce (Spinach and lettuce are two of the vegetables that has the tendency to hold on to nitrates) has shown that these vegetables while grown in shade contain a higher level of nitrates than those grown in full sun. Imagine the growth of vegetable out of season in a heated greenhouse in just 6 hours of sunlight? The amount of nitrates in the spinach of lettuce may far exceed what has been deemed safe.

The truth to the matter is, consuming excessive amounts of nitrates have been scientifically proven to be one of the major factors that cause cancer; this has also been a huge topic of debate within the EU on the level of nitrates being discharged by the conventional agriculture industry into the water tables of Europe.

We cannot fool nature, trying to grow something that is out of season in a heated greenhouse powered by fossil fuel is a sign of humans excessive demand, we need to respect the forces of nature and live within the seasons and with this understanding and respect we may be duly rewarded by her.

You are what you eat: The Adam's Apple

How many of us actually understand the food that we eat? Where it comes from? How it is grown and what quality they possess? Many of what we know are passed down by our parents, Television and now the internet and many a time we blindly fall into a cycle of blind faith and believing that something is actually good and safe for us!

We all love a good salad with fresh cherry tomatoes or perhaps a potato salad and this is more so in the west, whilst in tropical south east asia eggplant and chilli dominate many of our local dishes but what value do these vegetables bring to our health and are we actually eating the right stuff or are we slowly poisoning ourselves?

Potatoes, Tomatoes, Chili, Peppers, eggplants are all part of the nightshade family, infamous for it’s poisonous quality. They contain solanine a neurotoxic chemical used as a sedative that has varying effects on the human health. Try eating a whole bunch of potatoes for 3 meals a day 7 days a week, and you may start to feel sluggish, tired, a headache will set in, and as you increase the solanine levels in your bloodstream you will start to feel ill or depressed and hitting a few hundred milligrams can kill you in less than 30 mintues. But that’s not it, other chemicals are also present in potatoes such as scopolamine ,atropine and nicotine. Scopolamine has been used as a "truth drug"; atropine is a hallucinogenic drug also used to treat cardiac arrest; and nicotine of course is an addictive insecticide

Stenier through his study and his connection of the spiritual realm has classified potatoes with an intrinsic quality of causing general heaviness to the body creating a levity effect to the mental body and bringing it down to earth, the mental body enters a state of unconsciousness and drive people towards a false sense of security.

The tomato plant, a gorgeous vegetable producing sweet fruits high in vitamin C and other goodness. Again part of the nightshade family it contains most of the chemicals mentioned above. Stenier through his observation of the tomato plant realised that it is a self content plant that pulls itself away from the environment, it didn’t need to be rotated like other vegetable and can live in the same spot for many years without any degeneration of the crop. And if you were to use compost made from tomato plants, that is, if you were to let the tomatoes grow in their own compost, they would grow even better. Tomatoes have no desire to step outside of themselves, no desire to step outside the realm of strong vitality. That’s where they want to stay. They are the least social beings in the entire plant kingdom. They do not want anything from strangers, and above all, they do not want any fertilizer that has gone through a composting process; they reject all that. This is the reason that they can influence what works independently within the human or animal organism.” And because of this Stenier has said:’ people diagnosed as having cancer should immediately be forbidden to eat tomatoes, because cancer from its very inception makes a certain part of the human or animal body independent of the rest of the organism.”

Please don’t be alarmed with what I’ve shared here, life has to go on and a lot of the time these vegetables bring more goodness to our life than the poison within them, awareness is your best weapon and remember to always do things in moderation.

There is more than meets the eye

It is strange returning to college again after being away from the classrooms for so many years. Being here at Emerson College where the Biodynamic agriculture college sits has been nothing but positive. The vibe of the college is something I can't explain with words, there is a distinct flow of energy and a buzz that you probably would never find in a typical school or educational institution, this is contributed mainly by the diverse and unique set of students doing courses from the visual arts to storytelling which is one of the most amazing and unique course I’ve come across.

Set in the idyllic countryside town of forest row, which incidentally is also a transition town the college is bordered by 2 community supported biodynamic farms, Tablehurst farm produces most of the meat that is sold to the local community, chickens, lamb, beef, pigs and turkeys which are fattening up for Christmas as we speak. Plaw Hatch farm which is more like a mixed farm with vegetable production as it's main focus. Walking through the farms today gave me a mere glimpse of the beauty of Stenier’s philosophy and how the farms are not only a place for honest food production but also a place where communities are fostered. The farm provides a space where they include community members with learning disability, adults with various aliments such as autism, down syndrome live and work on the farm giving them a purpose in life, a sense of belonging and defiantly works at integrating them into the larger community. This is truly a very special and unique trait of many biodynamic farms, just imagine the good it can do for society and it’s most neglected members!!

I’m truly excited to what will happen next, being around and studying with people that have similar interest in nature plants and animals, talking to the storytelling students and being amazed at how they structure their thoughts and speeches and mingling among the visual artists who views the world in shapes and forms;

I just have a feeling that this would be an experience that would change me forever!

The start of my new journey..

So we’ve come to the end of phase 1 of the pathlight food garden project. We’ve now a functional food garden with 6 vegetable beds, a keyhole garden a clover shaped garden which was originally a pond, a zig zag border, a tepee trellis, a very rustic fence, an innovative door, composting set-up, the mighty worm farm and module 1 of the farming curriculum.

Throughout the project duration we constantly discover something new about our bodies and realised our threshold point for hard physical labour, working in the epic enter of the tropics has also been a real test at times when the sun refuse to budge. Hard labour has always been something I feel that many Singaporeans would out rightly shun. But I was proved wrong when we were able to assemble a team of passionate Singaporeans, together we planned, we designed, and we laboured and I’m mightily proud that this food garden has been built from the ground up with the help of the wider community.

So the time has come when I have to bid farewell, phase 1 has been a very fruitful journey for me!! I’ve learnt a lot from so many people and most of all I’ve learnt a lot about myself. Nature is a good teacher and has taught me: patience, respect and balance working on the land have brought me to understand life a lot more. This has made me realise that I now need to return to England and bring back a sustainable farming model; Biodynamic farming may perhaps be the key to a successful organic system.So I go back to school for a year and a half in the south of England where I will pursue my Biodynamic agriculture diploma.

I leave you now with a video i made that charts the progress of our unfinished journey:

Internet for people like us

Whenever you're feeling a little down, maybe stuck in a rut. Maybe you're looking for inspiration, something to do. Or you know your heart is seeking something a little more in life. Something's just not right. Buddha called it Dukkha - a wheel out of kilter. Something's missing. So if you are feeling like this - here's a great site I recommend : www.helpx.net This is a wonderful resource and listing of all the wonderful rural places/farms/B&Bs in the world that need volunteers in exchange for food and accommodation. Its like wwoof, but this organisation has a really good website that wwoof doesnt. Simply because it has 2 things wwoof doesnt. Photos, and reviews.

We have already used helpx.net look for our 2 hosts in Spain last year and they were great.

Now am feeling a little out of it, so will spend some time browsing the wonderful places I could go to. Shall I start in Asia? Or shall I venture to Americas today?

Another resource fantastic for wanderlusts like us if you havent already heard of it

Couchsurfing - http://www.couchsurfing.org/ - A wonderful open community of the world that will lend you a couch (or a bed) if you need to crash for a couple of days. The usual paranoid questions like "Eh, safe or not?" will be answered by "It's actually quite safe because there are reviews of a hosts you can read, and also, u get to meet people who are usually of the same mindset as you. Likes to travel, meet new people, and are open to new things and new ideas.

The internet really is taking over the world in many aspects. But I am sure glad that its serving alot more good than we ever thought possible. People are given voices. And things are alot more 'open' and transparent than ever before.

My little Tropical Oasis

Having a personal project is always a nice escape and definitely good for the soul. I've tried to create an escape on my tiny balcony, filling it with lots of plants a pond, trees, bamboo trellis built by my own hands, and a balcony composting operation! What have I learnt from this experience?

Impermanence of life: The garden changes almost daily, nothing is permanent a plant that thrives today may not do so well a month later. Flower comes and goes. The garden is just like

our lives, always full of surprises always changing never constant.

Listen to nature: Don’t try and fight it, go with the flow of nature. Some plants will do nicely in your environment whilst others won’t. Face it and accept it, don’t try and change it, because it just ain’t worth it.

Enjoy!!

Spearmint lemon balm and something from a marigold family and my proud lotus

A somewhat sweeping view of the balcony

Little clusters within the garden creates perception of depth

Compost bin

On the road to self sustainability

Finding beauty in the little things...

Having a BBQ =)

Singapore Farmers Party

It's no royal show, but the singapore garden festival is as close as it gets to the royal show western farmers are familiar with. We were invited to the kranji countryside association farmer's party where we drank, ate locally produced food and made merry with hokkien songs which depicts the crux of the local farming scene.

Thank god for these group of people, without them...our country would be oh so boring Singapore, these down to earth group of people are the type of Singaporeans you have to meet and not the rubbish banker wankers you get sneering at you in downtown singapore.
Enjoy!!

The pathlight farm team from L to R, Bjorn, Denise Phua (The champion for all matters related to Autism and disability causes in Singapore, Respect!!), Chia chia and Lai Hock

With the famous Ivy Singh of bollywood farm on my side!

Xiao xi (frog farmer) and Kenny (plant nursery)

The GUI gang =)

Of Swales and Drains

Freak weather, heavy rainfall during the traditionally dry months of the year is really hampering work on the land. With climate change and the global shift in weather patterns it seems like we're getting more rainfall than ever, whatever happened to the promise of dry and hot sunshine to compliment the rise in greenhouse gases is beyond me. But hey the only consolation is that as people working close to the land, any small shift in weather pattern makes us more aware of how fleeting nature is and how we’re just little minions of planet earth so very small and insignificant.

Putting in strategies in a bid to help soften the extremities of weather will be one of our greatest challenge. We’re in for stretches of hotter days with bursts of very heavy rainfall, the soil condition will suffer, the plants stressed, extremities are never a welcome sign for the agricultural sector which thrives on consistency.

Building a rubble retaining wall for our swales

A half dug swale flooded, well good to know that it works

The Soil chef

The consistency of our local soil is less than desirable. Most available grassland around built up areas are once construction wasteland where rubbles are dumped and then buried, who really know what these irresponsible construction companies has buried into the ground. So far digging the land we’ve found lots of metal stuff, concrete waste, and god knows what other stuff leached into the ground with all the development happening around the area.

Getting the soil mix right is a fundamental step to the success of any garden or vegetable growing operations. Our local soil is clayey, yellow and acidic and not even a beansprout will grow once it gets compacted. My soil recipe aims to build structure, introduce air pockets, improve drainage while retaining moisture to create the ideal soil mix for any type of plants or vegetables, oh and yes don’t forget a pinch of gardening lime to push the PH to a more workable 7!

Here’s my seed starting soil recipe

2 parts compost

1 part perlite

1 part coco peat

1 part burnt rice husk

Mr Lim mixing up a batch of soil like an experienced chef

The finished product

100% germination rate testament to the soil mix and crystal's loving sowing skill

Woofing in Singapore

It hard to imagine staying in Singapore and trying to lead a life that we’ve chosen, a more self sustainable life in a maddening city of crazy commercialisation and development. A city of little to no inspiration and motivation for people like us seeking a good life in a smallholding! Very suffocating indeed!!

I’ve however found a little piece of sanity within the last few months and in the recent few weeks I’ve had a most fulfilling experience. I’ve finally started work at Pathlight School, Singapore’s first school for children with autism. A social project by GUI led by me and a team of dedicated volunteers we’ve tilled the land and are working towards improving the lives of these children by imparting farming skills to them so that hopefully they can one day be employed by Singapores non existent agricultural industry, what an irony!!

I’m a man of very few words so I would let the pictures tell the story:

Mr Lim and Chia Chia measuring the Veg planter beds

Clearing the land Mr Lim in action, his muscles and dedication puts me to shame

Me! the noob farmer in action. Note to myself wearing flip flops while farming is not very smart.

A farm in the making: Our raised vegetable bed and a footpath by the side

No more pitter pottering around my small little garden and being excited with a few strands of lettuce, I've now entered the big time serious stuff haha

Stay tuned for more.....