Growing food at the White House forms the last, symbolic point in Michael Pollan’s plan for rethinking our food system. And there’s no doubt that this system needs some serious rethinking—currently, food production and transportation contribute 1/3 of our country’s greenhouse emissions.

Check out the video below, and go to EatTheView.org to sign the petition urging the Obamas to use some of the White House’s extensive gardens for food production.

This Lawn is Your Lawn from roger doiron on Vimeo.

Tell us what you think!

image by pingu1963

As I have rolled the concept of Enough around in my head I have come to realize that it isn’t just material things my family has enough of. My family has a pretty solid base of love and stability and for that reason alone we are lucky. We have strong family ties, a roof over our heads, a nurturing environment for learning and growing and all of our physical needs met. That is an abundance that so many people in so many places simply do not have.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. I think a lot of the over-consumption that has gone on in recent years is a result of human’s need to create beauty. From the smallest children to the elderly there is a strong desire to create beauty and function for us and for others. What if we channeled that need for beauty, functionality and creation into making this world a better place to be?

It’s a lovely idea and a good one, but when you get down to brass tacks it can be difficult to know where to begin. That’s a huge challenge, making the world a better place. What is better? What does that look like? What makes a real difference and what is a band –aid or a crutch? How do we meet others who are working towards the same goals? If there are no organizations filling a need we perceive, how do we go about starting one? What are the potential pitfalls involved in such an exercise and how can they be mitigated? This is what I am struggling with. I don’t really know where to begin.

Practical Minnesotan that I am, I am starting out with what is right in front of me. I am not personally going to be able to save the world, but by starting out and trying to make a difference in my own community I am at least doing something. My church has been the easiest place for me to begin because it contains a lot of really positive, service oriented people. I’ve talked in other articles about the children’s mentoring organization I have signed up with and the chapter of the Community of the Cross of Nails that others and I would like to start at our church.

In addition to those volunteer opportunities, a friend and I are putting on a Christmas tea on the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas as a fundraiser for the children’s mentoring organization. The tea will be held on the Sunday after Epiphany and for the entertainment we have lined up a couple of elderly women who are history buffs to tell us stories about the old days in our town and in our church. The idea is that in the spirit of the gifts of the wise men (that is what Epiphany remembers) we are receiving the gifts of history and wisdom from our elders and giving the gift of hope and encouragement to the youngest generation.

I also think that moving beyond enough is about more than just volunteer work. It’s about seeing the needs we meet in everyday life. It’s calling a friend who’s having a tough time, or smiling at a lonely older person who’s waiting for the bus. It’s treating all people, no exceptions, with dignity.  It’s having real and respectful conversations with people, especially those I disagree with. Those are things I can do right now from right where I am on my journey.

image by pingu1963

I love how, in this article, Stella progresses from recognizing that her family has enough to sharing the overflowing abundance of love and energy with those outside her family. Instead of working to make our own individual dreams of come true, what if we decided to come together and dream bigger dreams? I see so much possibility there ... -ed.

Every November, before the post-Thanksgiving rush I take a day and wander my favorite toy stores trying to get ideas for my kids for Christmas. I love toys, especially the kind that foster creativity. Children’s creativity inspires me with its limitlessness and freedom. There’s something so pure in the way they imagine and combine ideas largely unchecked by self-consciousness and reality.

Still, as I strolled the aisles of the natural toy store fingering beautifully hand crafted wood animals and looking at all kinds of interesting games and playthings I began to realize that, really, my children have enough.

Play is learning for children, and I have always approached it in that way. I can see in my kids, and I vividly remember from my own childhood the absolute joy of discovery and learning. I’ve tried over the past couple of years to provide the kids with good solid toys like blocks, a dollhouse, a play kitchen, a train set, books and art supplies. I’ve scoured yard sales and thrift shops, enlisted the support of family and friends, and in the end I think we’ve done a pretty good job. My children’s days are filled with enriching, creative play.

Abundance is a wonderful thing. Overabundance is not. Overabundance kills creativity. It fills in the gaps that imagination and resourcefulness would otherwise fill. I have always wanted a crazy big dollhouse—something sprawling and castle-like, or a Victorian manor with secret passageways and cozy libraries with roaring fires and lots of little busy people running to and fro. I never got it and now I’m glad I didn’t. Instead I filled notebooks with stories and pictures of my wonderful imaginary dollhouse. I made extra rooms for my regular dollhouse from shoeboxes and the underside of the table and beds from napkins and even socks. I think I learned infinitely more from wanting that dollhouse and not getting it than I would have learned from the actual dollhouse.

Enough is a really beautiful thing. It’s the goal, isn’t it? To have what you need and enough of what you want that you really enjoy it? So the question now is what to do with our enough?

On the practical, everyday level I’ve been thinking about how Enough will affect our plans for Christmas. I love holidays and I want my kids to have a magical childhood experience. I don’t want to end gift giving all together, but I do want to scale it back and refocus our attention on the non-material things that bring us joy.

I want it to be a season of experiences instead of a season of stuff. I want them to remember baking cookies with friends and family, decorating the tree, attending the Santa Lucia parade and the amazing Lessons and Carols choral service at our church as much as they remember opening the gifts. I want the gifts they do open to be meaningful even if they are spare.

Instead of creating an unfulfillable expectation of more, I want to find a way to emphasize our gratitude for being some of the lucky ones who do have enough. I think it is time to channel our energies into making a difference in the world instead of just focusing on our desires and ourselves.

Tomorrow’s article will discuss the broader implications of Enough and how we can use Enough to focus our energies on creating a better world.

In 2006, after working for a few years as a senior editor for What is Enlightenment? Magazine (now EnlightenNext), I returned to teaching and performing music.  In so doing, it became apparent that music is still with me. It’s in my blood. When I’m at the piano, I give every ounce of my attention to each note, each span of silence, the arc of each musical phrase. I shape sound and silence like a potter shapes clay. In return, music gives me doubtless confidence—in beauty.

I recently read a short statement from integral thinker Steve McIntosh, and the penny dropped. McIntosh placed my experiences in a far-reaching context. He said that the advancement of human culture is pulled forward by beauty. He called beauty—and truth and goodness—evolutionary “attractors of perfection.” As we awaken to these primary values, they “draw us forward into increasingly more evolved states and stages.”

These days, I perform regularly: in rural churches, at stylish cafés and elegant country inns, at weddings, at funerals, at fundraisers, even at bowling alleys. The people who hear my music come from diverse social and economic backgrounds. Some who wholeheartedly respond to my playing are life-long republicans (one is close to George W. Bush), others are dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. Music touches something in us that’s more essential than these distinctions. That gives me hope.

In my last posting, a pre-election interview with global activist Dr. Don Beck, he spoke about the need for a new kind of leadership—one that transcends partisan politics. His emphasis was an apt one. As it turned out, 58 million people in the US voted for John McCain and 67 million chose Obama. We are still a divided nation and our problems are enormous.  I am inspired, however, by what this country represents and by what it can become. I remember the Pledge of Allegiance: “…One nation under God, indivisible.” That motto instills in me a powerful and disarming sense of patriotism.

Barack Obama, an African American, was just elected to the highest office in the United States. I was amazed, as many were, to see him walk across that long platform in Chicago to declare his victory on the evening of November 4th. I have a dream that America, under President-elect Obama’s leadership, will become the nation whose lofty credos are inscribed on so many of our government buildings in Washington. I am optimistic that this country can regain its standing as a beacon of possibility for millions around the world. Hopefully, this is a new beginning.

I believe that the power of beauty can and should be called upon to help catalyze this transformation. Beauty awakens that place in us where we are far more alike than dissimilar.  Beauty emanates from our deepest selves. In light of the immense challenges we face, that dimension of us should be activated consciously and intentionally, awakened by evolutionary attractors of perfection such as transcendent music, to move us towards a wholly new future.

Two years ago I was asked to perform at a campaign fundraiser for Deval Patrick, who subsequently became the Governor of the State of Massachusetts. He was making an appearance here in Berkshire County. For the occasion, I created this interpretation of America the Beautiful.

Can we hang on to that new world smell?
(Image by pauladamsmith)

Has this ever happened to you?

Something exciting is calling you to action, and you hear the call. But in the gap between hearing it and doing something about it, you lose the thread. You might be unsure where to start, you might be unable to choose between several interests, or you maybe you just fall victim to inertia, and your enthusiasm wanes with each passing day.

Sooner or later, you’re back to where you started, far less excited and a little more cynical in what you think of the whole idea of “being called” anyway.

I know this has happened to me. I’ve had great experiences with gifted teachers and leaders, but what do those experiences mean if they don’t end up changing my life? If I don’t change in response to them?

The answer is: they become like pictures taken from a vacation, lovely memories wrapped in plastic in the archives.

On the other hand, when we allow amazing experiences to change us, we grow. When we stretch ourselves to integrate important events into who we are, we honor their significance. If we let it, the light of truth glimpsed in a single moment can illuminate our entire lives.

I hope more than anything else that we can bring the light we saw on Tuesday night, November 4th, into the rest of our lives. As I said the other day, the ball is rolling and we have momentum on our side. We need to keep it going.

How to do that is the next question. There are so many projects going on, so many problems to be solved, and so many ways to contribute that it can be a little overwhelming. From food justice to environmental education to energy efficiency, we have a lot of area to cover. Where to begin?

Here are some good questions to answer as you think about how you want to contribute.

1. What is interesting?
Really consider what fascinates you. Do you like talking to people about their families? Watching bugs? Taking things apart? Biking through your neighborhood? Think about what you’d really enjoy doing to help create the future. It can and should be fun!

2. What needs the most attention?
Look around your community. Is there something that stands out to you as just wrong? Something that seems like it could work a lot better if someone just took care of it? Maybe you can be that someone by taking responsibility for something that’s being neglected, and helping it thrive again.

3. Is there anything I’m uniquely suited to do?
Do you have any specialized gifts or training that could be of use? Are you positioned in a social or professional network with great potential? Got a burning idea that needs to be fleshed out? If you see a clear role that you are in place to play, play it!

4. What are my family and friends doing?
Ask around and get this conversation going with the people you see every day. You may be surprised which of them are contributing in different ways.

Once you have some ideas that sound appealing, start Googling and see where you can run with them. Some good places to start:

• VolunteerMatch finds opportunities based on interest and location (even virtual location). I typed in 15210 and seniors and got 50 matches right off the bat.
• Wiser Earth is a growing database of non-governmental organizations working on environmental, social, and justice issues. There are over 110,000 groups represented on this site!
• Meetup.com lets you find others who are interested in the same things you are. These groups aren’t specifically based on volunteering, but there are lots of environmental meetup groups, book clubs, discussion groups, etc.
• Helpothers.org is an informal network of people doing nice things for others. Positive contributions don’t have to be made via formal volunteering arrangements—they can be as simple and sweet as the stories on this site. Reading through these small, lovely acts always inspires me to think of random ways I can increase the net happiness in the world.

Remember: Any project is better than no project.

It might take you a little time to figure out your next steps. But it’s important to take those steps soon—before your enthusiasm wanes and invigoration turns into memory. Give yourself a little time to explore, but not too much.

Folks are often loathe to jump into new endeavors, but the truth is you will never know if something is right for you until you try it. If you get involved in a project and you don’t like it, you can always gracefully bow out and try something else.

But sitting around trying to decide—that is, inaction—almost always leads to inaction. So don’t get stuck in analysis paralysis. Pick a project and get started.

Then come back here to The Sunny Way and tell us about what you’re doing, who you’re meeting, and what you’re learning.

His experience said yes. His commitment to doing what he saw that needed to be done helped him to “unwittingly come into knowledge that is incredibly important to the universe’s own problem-solving.” Amazing food for thought as we begin our Activism challenge. Commitment plus faith minus ego equals progress.

What do you think?

image by Ctd 2005

“Change has come to America,” says our new President Elect, and I have to agree. Since his big win last week, things have just felt different. The Sunny Way idea of taking responsibility to positively create the future we want no longer seems like something on the fringe—we’re all mainstream now and it feels good!

Now is what writer and scientist Jean Houston calls “Jump Time.” The old paradigm is stretched to the limit—as evidenced by our economic and ecological crisis—and the new is just beginning to take form. Many of us can feel this momentum, and we want to do something with it. In fact, we MUST do something with this impulse for change and evolution and the amazing feelings that come along with the sense of possibility before it all dissipates into memory.

Great experiences are important only in how we allow them to transform our lives. Having seen what is possible, a little bit of heaven on earth, it’s now up to us to act on that vision and bring more and more of it into reality. In service to the idea of working tangibly to create the future we want, we are starting a challenge based on activism. Stella and I are both working on projects to increase community and encourage growth in our little corners of the world, and we hope you will do the same. 

Here’s Stella’s explanation of the mentoring project she is getting involved with in—KidsHope. In the next few days I’ll post about the Carrotmob event I’m working on here in Brooklyn.

Please let us know about actions and projects you are working on as well. Now that the ball is rolling in a big way, let’s keep it going!

***

KidsHope is an organization that pairs adult mentors with at-risk kids for an hour a week. Each mentor is paired with one and only one kid. By focusing on one child the mentor is able to devote their focus to building a caring, consistent relationship with the child. During the hour the mentor helps the child with their homework, plays games and offers encouragement.

I have to admit that I have not done a lot of official volunteering in the last several years. I’ve always tried to make a positive difference in the world through my relationships with others, but the usual excuses involved with early motherhood have gotten in the way of official volunteering. I’ve been devoting my time to raising my children and providing them with a loving, safe and comfortable home.

While that is incredibly important, and will always be my first priority, I’ve decided that if I want to raise children who care about their community and the world they live in, the best thing I can do is set an example. I need to show them that volunteering and service to others is important to me by living it.

I feel very strongly that taking the time to show children that you care and that you believe in them is one of the most effective ways to change the world.  This world desperately needs adults who are not afraid to take on challenges. We need adults that believe that even a small act of kindness or a small step in the right direction can lead to a great good. We need adults who have the courage of their convictions and the chutzpa to act on them. We need adults to approach problems constructively, creatively and thoughtfully.

As far as I can see there are two ways to ensure that the world has more of these adults, make the choice to be one and commit to providing the next generations with the support they need to become one. I hope that by my decision to support KidsHope I am able to do both. I want to offer the child I am paired with a real sense of their value and a hope for their future. I want my own children to see that real good comes from reaching outside of yourself and your own concerns and valuing the lives of others. Finally, I am excited to see in what ways this experience changes me. I have never in my life given wholeheartedly without gaining more than I had given.

image by maluni

Stella’s pieces on how to live the good life outside the current spend/consume paradigm constitute an amazing resource. When creativity takes the place of credit, I find myself enjoying myself more, building deeper connections, and really thinking about what I’m doing. This is how a new world is made—by consciously deciding how we want to live and relate with each other. -ed.

I know a lot of articles about frugality suggest curbing socializing and entertainment and paint them as frivolous activities, but I see them as essentials. Just like a marriage, you can’t have a strong and lasting community if you don’t take care of it. In good times, a strong community is a joy, and in times of crisis, those relationships become critical. It’s worth it to devote time and effort to creating and nurturing community connections.

At the same time, we need to remember that entertaining doesn’t have to be nerve-wracking. Something that has struck me in the last few years is how much more formal entertaining seems to have gotten—it’s become synonymous with having a party or an event. We don’t just have a friend over for a cup of coffee at the kitchen table anymore. Even our kids have “play dates.”

I can’t help but wonder if this is because our relationships with other people aren’t as close as they once were. When I am in that first stage of getting to know someone I am much more likely to fuss over a big meal or fuss over the state of my house. Once I get to know people better I don’t sit around worrying, “What would they think?” anymore. When my close friends come over I might take the laundry out of the living room and down to the basement, but I’m probably not going to apologize for it if I don’t.

Entertaining at home can be a lot of fun if you take the right approach. My biggest obstacle to having people over to spend time together is perfectionism. A couple of years ago I decided that I had to overcome that. I was feeling really lonely and I just couldn’t afford to be meeting friends out for coffee or a movie as often as I would have liked.

I would love to have a Martha Stewart-like clean house, a fabulous three-course dinner and a beautifully set table, but that’s not my reality and it’s not worth isolating myself or confining my socialization to dinners out to keep up appearances.

Don’t get me wrong, I love putsy gourmet meals and good wine as much as the next person, but they aren’t necessary to have a good time. I’ve decided that people are just going to have to take me as I am. The result has been amazing. I have developed more friendships and deeper friendships than I had in the past and I am beginning to feel like I have a strong, caring support system.

Activities

The first thing I have tried to do is dispense with the idea that having people over necessarily means having people over for dinner. When I was younger my friends and I thought nothing of going to each other’s houses for a few hours for activities that had nothing to do with food. They’d play guitar together and I’d listen or occasionally sing, we’d make a stupid movie with someone’s parent’s video camera or we’d build a luge track in the backyard. One friend had a “read your favourite Robert Burns poem” night at her house.  I even hosted weekly tea parties for my mostly male friends at my first apartment. That’s the spirit of fun and camaraderie I’m looking to recapture.

If you’re not going to have a meal it can be fun to have gatherings centered on an activity. Crafts are always fun and this time of the year it’s nice to have an excuse to work on gifts or just stuff to keep you warm in the winter.

I used to go to a knitting group at my friends Anais and Jordanne’s house. We’d knit in the garden when it was warm enough and in the house when it got chilly. Everyone brought an appetizer, dessert or beverage and we’d chat and learn from each other. That knitting group is where I learned to knit in the first place. Last winter a friend of mine had a similar party at her house here in Minnesota.  The gathering started at 7:00PM and by the time any of us bothered to look at a clock it was after midnight.

Another thing we’ve been doing lately is getting together to play Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I know a lot of people are really against video games and I think some of the claims that video games isolate people have some merit, but sometimes they are just good fun. I don’t actually own a gaming console and I probably won’t ever buy one but I really have fun playing at my friend’s houses. It keeps the game social and interactive and makes it a treat versus an everyday activity.

The options for activities are as endless as our imaginations. I’ve been thinking lately about hosting a poetry slam later this winter when we’re all bored and it’s too cold to go outside. On Halloween we went to a friend’s house for trick or treating and it could be fun to sit around the bonfire telling scary stories with the older kids once the little ones are sleeping.

My friend Mari wants to have a card-making party to make interesting, unique Christmas cards. My dad has been attending something called the Argument of the Month club where people get together, have some beers and discuss a pre-selected topic for argument. How’s that for getting over the culture wars? Come on over. Lets have some beers and some pigs in a blanket and chat about climate change. Sounds like a good time to me. These kinds of gatherings are at least as much fun to me as your standard dinner party.

Food

When a meal is the focus of the gathering there are lots of options for making a fun and inexpensive time of it.

Lately we have been getting together with some friends of ours on a weekly basis to share dinner. They bring part of dinner and we provide the rest. For example the first night they brought quiche and I baked some bread and a cake. It is inexpensive for everyone and it is even better than going out to dinner. There is no pressure to hurry up and clear the table and when the kids get bored they wander off to play. For a while after the meal my friend and I go for a walk and my husband and her husband go off to play video games or watch a movie.

The potluck style of the gathering really helps keep things informal and saves everyone some money. Since my friend and I are both really fond of cooking it’s also a fun chance to try new recipes out on each other.

I’ve been thinking that in addition to potluck style gatherings it can be fun to cook together. I’ve done this once or twice in the past year and I’d like to do more of it. We could find a recipe we’d like to try and assign each person some of the ingredients to bring or we could make it more spontaneous. We could visit a cool ethnic grocery store or a farmer’s market, see what ingredients call to us and devise a menu on the spot—our own version of Minnesota Iron Chef. By splitting the cost we’d still be saving money and it would be a lot of fun. This would be a great time to try a recipe that calls for something I’d usually be hesitant to buy. Maybe that $5 jar of horseradish jelly I’ve been eyeing is worth a shot if there are 5 of us willing to try it.

Another thing to consider is that you don’t always have to host people for dinner. Some friends of ours had us over for breakfast a while back and it was just lovely. They had monkey bread, scrambled eggs, pancakes and bacon. I brought some of my homemade apple syrup and a jug of apple cider. Breakfast is usually pretty inexpensive. Coffee or tea and a treat, or beer and appetizers are always fun too.

The point is to enjoy each other’s company, have some great conversation, and laugh—we don’t have to convert a barn to a dining hall or put up 1,000 votive candles a la Martha Stewart to make that happen. Community is about reality—real relationships built on discovering, helping, and sharing with each other. When we get beyond the desire to superficially impress each other with our clever consumption, we can build these real connections and interact on a deeper level.

Victoria’s homegrown garlic

Most of us have noticed that the arena of locally grown food has been developing rapidly and attracting more and more people. These days, a straightforward vegetable garden is the tip of the iceberg. There are all different types of gardens; backyard, raised bed, rooftop, window boxes, community garden plots, urban farms, and school gardens.

There are the how local can you go types of challenges, like the ultra serious Dervaes 100 foot food challenge.  Even president-elect Barack Obama will have the opportunity to build an organic farm on the White House lawn through the WHO Farm project. I can’t wait for that day to happen!

The potential of seriously growing food crops in urban and suburban settings represents the next shift in food production. Gardens are excellent learning tools for children, bring people together, and feed people healthy food. Food miles are decreased, built landscapes are enlivened, and wildlife, especially insect species, are offered new habitats. We can create a new community of life by reinventing the land surrounding preexisting homes and infrastructure. 

Gardens are easy to neglect because gardeners usually do it as a hobby rather than as if their lives depended on it. What would it be like to take a household garden seriously, like you mean business instead of something to fall back on in the summer between supermarket or even farmers market trips? What if more of us spent a larger chunk of our time growing our own food by utilizing the assorted tools, methods and know-how that has developed over the last 30 or so years from the organic farming, urban gardening and permaculture movements? 

Homegrown lettuce

This summer, my goal was to grow a constant supply of lettuce and keep up consistently with garden maintenance. I have usually started with high hopes, then after planting, have assumed that I can sit back and relax. The bulk of the effort in gardening, as in most things, is at the beginning when everything has to be planted as soon as the earth warms.

Now, it’s November and I wonder: Is it wiser to start with a small garden and increase from there each year, or to set your sights very high and get inspired by the sheer abundance that the garden produces figuring out how to use the produce as you go? Setting high expectations with a willingness to be flexible seems the way to go. Maybe the only way to glimpse gardening as a viable way to produce more of our food in our future is to jump right in and find out.

I’ve seen and heard of farmers and gardeners who did not prepare for how they would handle and process their harvests. Tomatoes are a prime example. Tomatoes ripening on a vine branch will not wait for when we are ready to pick them. They have their own clock. The consequences may be that a lot of them rot, time was wasted in planting at all, or somebody had to step up and make some sauce.

Being challenged drives us to come up with new solutions, whereas if we choose to be negatively affected by the enormity of something, we will probably collapse. This positive tension brings us closer to others; often the only way for us to develop new solutions is by asking others to contribute their energy and expertise. This amazes me with hopefulness. Isn’t it funny that most of us have no clue as to the enormous potential that is waiting to explode if we tap into it? It’s similar to our own human capacity; we don’t know the strength of our bodies or the capacity of our minds to devise solutions till we test them out.

Homemade sauce from homegrown tomatoes

So this summer, I did set my garden sights high and I grew some new varieties of veges. But I also did fall short in consistently maintaining my garden. That was my biggest challenge; planting on time, weeding, harvesting and pruning. This shows me the gap between my highest ideals and my actual level of commitment. It also shows me the staggering potential of a small plot of land. And this potential is exciting to me as it is to many other Americans.

Planting a garden is only part of the responsibility. Harvesting vegetables when they are at peak ripeness and storing them correctly is just as important. In the last two months I have been busy preserving garden produce: pears, tomatoes, figs and lettuce. I harvested every day and preserved in small batches.

I referred to Putting Food By for advice. Through this process, I inspired a couple of novice gardeners to expand their own gardens and was able to feed friends, family and strangers too. Below are some examples of how I creatively wove various threads of my life together by preserving the harvest.

• First, I combined time spent repetitively peeling and slicing our hard neck garlic harvest (that started to rot in September) with listening to Ken Wilber’s Kosmic Consciousness talks. Hard neck varieties of garlic are not good keepers, but are big on flavor. Years ago, I learned from farmer Elizabeth Henderson that a simple way to adjust to this characteristic is to chop up the heads, pack them in small jars covered with olive oil, and freeze. Then move the jars to the fridge as you need. Although an initial investment of time, it makes for quicker cooking later on. Stepping back, I saw that all this chopping while listening to Ken Wilber’s integral theory could be understood from his AQAL model. This was a cross quadrant use of time, where I drew upon the upper right, exterior-individual (culinary intelligence), lower left, exterior-collective (agrarian), and upper left, interior-individual (intentions, spirituality).

• We could not eat all the lettuce I grew, so I gave it to a neighbor who delivers garden produce to a nearby soup kitchen called the INN- Interfaith Nutrition Network.

• Tossing out these purist ideals: only store in glass, never plastic, buy from small businesses, and pressure can.  Well, I visited my local, family owned hardware store, but they were not selling any large glass jars or earthen vessels. A few weeks later, I found the perfect sized glass jar at a Wal-Mart upstate. I bought it with reservations, but then decided that while it is good to have ideals, they shouldn’t cause me to waste time or be rigid about minutiae.  I started lacto fermented sauerkraut in it today. Some books to guide you in making your own lacto-fermented delights are Wild Fermentation, or if you’re making it with children, Bottle Biology clearly explains the fermentation process.

• Use what I have: Use all the jars and containers I already have:  glass jars, and plastic takeout containers, all good for freezing the harvest.

• Involved my family in the pre-processing preparation. My father was a big help trimming string beans, sorting beet greens and peeling garlic while he watched TV.

• Time Management: Breaking down big tasks of picking, sorting, cutting and blanching into size-able chunks, doing a little bit each day.

• Tailoring preserving to my time and space requirements. I decided not to pressure can, because I had small quantities of a variety of fruits and vegetables. I opted for freezing instead; tomato sauce, fig and nut conserve, frozen chard, frozen green and purple beans, peach jam, and basil pesto.  I poached the Bartlett pears; once in vanilla syrup and the second batch in red wine.  I gave these away as presents.

• Of course there is more to do: rotate my compost piles, dry calendula blossoms, and make parsley pesto for freezing.

Did you have an abundant harvest this past summer or enjoy preserving your harvest?  Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

Like many people, lately I’ve been a little obsessed with the results of the presidential election. Every time I hear the words “President Elect Obama,” I get a thrill up my spine. Possibility is in the air; I can feel it and it seems like lots of other people can, too. It is with this electric sense that now is the time when we can make things happen that I turn my attention back to Pala, the practical, functional society of Aldous Huxley’s Island.

When we last discussed the book, we talked about the Palanese conception of family, and how a diversified family structure allows children to grow up in a world of options. In the next chapter (chapter 8), Will asks to spend a little more time in Pala, to learn about all the options which are part of the Palanese way of life, and Dr. MacPhail decides to allow him to stay for a month, even though he works for an oil man’s newspaper and oil companies have been trying to make destructive inroads into Pala.

“When in doubt,” said Dr. Robert, “always act on the assumption that people are more honorable than you have any solid reason for supposing they are.” Reading this phrase, I couldn’t help but think of the way President Elect Obama ran his campaign, appealing to the better angels of our nature and a desire to create a better world. Who would have thought that so many Americans would respond to this hopeful message?

After years of culture war politics-as-usual, I had been half afraid to bring up big ideas in mixed company. Sometimes it seemed as though conversation might be impossible in the heavily rutted political field—instead of connecting, we often seemed to get stuck in the ruts of polarized thinking, spinning our wheels and grinding our gears. But since last Tuesday, I feel no hesitation in asking people what they think. It feels like that rutted field doesn’t exist any more—or, perhaps, through Obama’s election, we’ve started to rise above it.

Huxley talks a great deal about the ruts of ideology and religion, and how dangerous it is to build a society on this uneven ground. When people are connected to strict ideas instead of each other, cultures lose flexibility and find themselves locked into destructive patterns. In contrast, Pala is built on relationships between people, and ultimately on the relationship each person has to herself and to life itself.

Dr. Robert shares the story of how his great-grandfather Dr. Andrew MacPhail and the Old Raja became friends and started reforming Pala. Dr. Andrew had been practicing medicine in Asia for several years when he heard that the Raja of Pala was deathly ill and needed help. He arrived on the island to find the Raja consumed by a massive brain tumor.

Although he had little in the way of anesthetics or disinfectants, Dr. Andrew was moved by the Raja’s pleas for help. He decided to try an experimental procedure he’d read about some years before, in which a patient was anesthetized by putting him into a trance. For several weeks, Dr. Andrew fed the Raja up and, in between meals, kept him in a trance to allow his body to get a little stronger.

He also used the trance state to rehearse the surgery with the Raja, taking him through every bit of the procedure and telling him how it would feel and how his body would respond.

Ultimately, the surgery was a success and the Raja recovered fully. More importantly, Dr. Andrew and the Raja became friends who were convinced that the impossible could in fact be made possible. If Dr. Andrew could perform this incredible, implausible surgery and the Raja could come back from the brink of certain death, what else could they achieve? They dedicated their lives to finding out.

Right now, I feel as though America is where Pala was at that moment—full of possibility and energy and faith in ourselves. If the American people can look beyond what we think has divided us and instead focus on what we share ... if we can give up fighting and take up discussion ... if we can stop scrabbling in mudslinging and instead look up to an integral man with a great mind and ask him to lead us into a new way of living ... what else can we do?

Right now, the sky is the limit. Injustice and cynicism are not inevitable—they are choices we make. Last week, Americans proved that we are a capable of making different choices and backing them up with action. We’ve jumped to the next level, and now we must remember the stunned, happy glow that has illuminated the country for the last week as we do the work of making that level real, stable, and tangible in our lives.