Podcast 24/52 – I wanna be a farmer!

Publicerad den 14 juni, 2015 av Helena Roth

Man, this was such a surprising episode with fact upon fact that made me drop my jaw, over and over again. Just incredible! What, what, what, you ask, eagerly, wanting to know what made my mind do cartwheels while listening.

Peak Prosperity on Sustainable farming 2.0 with Paul and Elizabeth Kaiser. That’s the one. That’s the podcast you just must listen to. And I really mean it, even if you have no inkling whatsoever to farming or even cultivating the teeniest carrot in your garden.

I just didn’t know. There’s so much that is wrong with the way humans cultivate the land today, and even though Paul and Elizabeth can only briefly describe some of the things they do differently, the results they are getting speak for themselves. At their farm, Singing Frogs Farm, They gross a whooping 5 times more per acre than the California average gross revenue per acre. Five times. Let me spell that out for you again: FIVE TIMES.

And they do it, by working with nature rather than against it. If I am to sum it up, that’s what I would say. They go with the design of nature, rather than oppose it. Simple eh? Well. Yeah. But apparently not. Since they are a rare exception to the rule. But hopefully, the results they are getting will speak for itself, and will make more people open their eyes to what is possible when we shift from against-ness to with-ness.

After listening to the podcast, I am definitely thinking about what I can do in the garden at home, in the vegetable patches as well as the flower beds and so on. And while I might not pack up and buy a farm, I will definitely be rethinking my current gardening practice. I have no doubt that I will bring some of these things into my gardening from now on. Because it feels like there’s no turning back. I’ve seen something that cannot be unseen. Like cracking the reading-code. Once I got it, it was hard to understand what it felt like before I could read.

Please listen to this episode and let me know if you were as surprised as I. If so – what surprised you the most?

Podcast 18/52 – slow money while foraging

Publicerad den 3 maj, 2015 av Helena Roth

Svara

Today, as I was riding my bike home from singing with my choir in the church this morning, I stopped to pick stinging nettles and ground-elder. I am filling my freezer with quickly blanched nettles and ground-elder, to savor during the winter. And of course I am using the green gold on a weekly basis at home right now as well (green smoothies, pies and lots of other things).

nettles and ground-elder

So as I was picking I listened to Woody Tasch from Slow Money on Peak Prosperity, a podcast I’ve blogged about before. A lot of the episodes are way above my capacity, as it’s centered around economics, and I’m neither interested or knowledgeable about economics, I willingly admit. But this was really interesting. Slow Money is sort of the investment equivalent to Slow Food. In the words of the organization itself:

Slow Money catalyzes the flow of capital to local food enterprises and organic farms, connecting investors to the places where they live and “bringing money back down to earth”.

There’s been two episodes recorded with Woody, but I listened to the most recent one, from 2014, so scroll down a bit on the page to find it.

And possibly, the reason this episode was right up my alley is perhaps because:

This is about culture. This isn’t about economics. It’s about what’s more important, economics or culture? And guess what? In the United States, we have spent the last hundred years proving to ourselves that economics is much more important than culture.

And yes. It’s very deliberate that Woody speaks about culture, the word that both brings with it images of tilling the land, growing food and other useful plants, as well as the customs of the society I live and work in. And for me, it’s not an issue I have to think long and hard upon. Culture is more important that economics. Economics is a part of culture, and the culture within the economic system is part of the problem for sure. So there’s a challenge for us, to change that culture. That’s part of the reason why Peak Prosperity exist in the first place.

What’s more important for you? Culture or economics?

Podcast 8/52 – Dinner with Einstein, Jung and Herbie Hancock?

Publicerad den 22 februari, 2015 av Helena Roth

Listened to this episode of Peak Prosperity the other day, and since then have listened to it another two or three times. It’s a conversation between Christ Martenson and Andrew ”Treebeard” Graves on becoming the change we wish to see, and exploring the development of inner resilience.

And they go deep into stuff that really resonates with me in many ways. Sometimes perhaps simplifying a bit much, but still, there’s a lot of what they speak about that I agree with.

So, since I’ve talked and written much the past quarter on listening for that which I don’t already know, I’m now challenging myself to write about what I heard that was new to me… hm, let’s see… *reading through the transcript of the podcast, trying to find something that sticks out as new to me*

First of all, listening to this conversation as such, on a podcast such as Peak Prosperity surprised me, but also made me quite happy, because I’m hoping it will resonate with the Peak Prosperity community, and will lead to even more people actually starting to look within.

And also, I’d like to join in on that dinner conversation with Einstein, Jung, Herbie Hancock and Chris Martenson. I sort of knew Albert Einstein have said something like this: “People think I had these great ideas, but it was not me. I just opened myself up and creativity flowed through me. I was a vessel.” but I had no idea Carl Jung and Herbie Hancock felt the same. I actually had to google Herbie Hancock, because I’ve never really listened to him. Found a great tune quite fitting to the theme of the podcast itself actually:

Imagine all the people living for today.
Imagine all the people living life in peace.
Imagine all the people sharing all the world.

Now there’s a vision to dream of.
I do. I dream of that, and I try to act it too. I see the potential for it, the possibility that exist in every moment. A world where we live as one. And becoming the change we wish to see in the world is the only way to get there, I believe. Do you?

Knock you upside the head with a shovel?

Publicerad den 19 juli, 2014 av Helena Roth

I’ve written over and over again about the podcast of Julia Butterfly Hill interviewed by Chris Martenson on Peak Prosperity. Find it on iTunes or here: http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/85294/julia-butterfly-hill-living-meaning

I talked to you about how every so often, the way life works, sooner or later, life might pick up a shovel and knock you upside the head with it. When we get resentful, fearful, and anxious, it is like picking up the shovel and hitting ourselves back in the head with it. It does not actually pick up the shovel and use it for something constructive. It just knocks us back in the head with it. Whereas if we can shift our thoughts, we can maybe take that shovel and do something constructive with it.

Now. I know there is no way for me to control what thoughts come into my head. NO WAY! I cannot control this. However. If/When I get a ”You silly twat, I’m gonna hit you over the head with a shovel”-thought into my head, what I can do is control how I react on it. When Julia say ”shift your thoughts” this is how I interpret her. I don’t have to act on the thought, I don’t have to believe the thought, and I definitely don’t have to act in a way that doesn’t serve me. I can just as easily act in a way that does serve me.

It’s all thought, it’s not Truth.

I’ve become better and better at not hitting myself with said shovel. Because, you see, I used to be champion of the world in this field, for a long long time. But I realized that it’s not serving me AT ALL to hold this world championship title! So I’ve gradually learned not to go there, not to believe the ”You silly twat, I’m gonna hit you over the head with a shovel”-thoughts, and more importantly, not to hang onto them. When they come, they come. Nothing I can do about that. But I have a choice in how I respond and relate to that thought.

There’s a quote by Wayne Dyer that goes like this:

You create your thoughts,
your thoughts create your intentions,
and your intensions create your reality.

Now. I agree with the two latter parts, but not the ”I create my thoughts”-part. Because I don’t create them. So I’d like to rephrase:

So, what do you do when you get a ”You silly twat, I’m gonna hit you over the head with a shovel”-thought? And does that response serve you?

Where is away?

Publicerad den 11 juli, 2014 av Helena Roth

I’ve written several times before about the podcast of Julia Butterfly Hill interviewed by Chris Martenson on Peak Prosperity. Find it on iTunes or here: http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/85294/julia-butterfly-hill-living-meaning

Here’s another part of that podcast that really hit me hard:
Unfortunately, in privileged societies, we are so disconnected from the impact of our choices. And one of the examples that I started using years ago that thankfully is now finally making it into the cultural conversation is:

When you say you are going to throw something away, where is away?

And the fact that we have that word proves how disconnected we have become because away is a place. And it is here. It might not be right in our backyard, but we all might have different houses; we share one home. There is no such thing as away. Away has people attached to it. It has places attached to it. It has animals attached to it. The fact that we think there is an ”away” is a magnifying glass into how little we realize how much of a difference we truly make.

Honest to God, I’ve never really thought about it this way. I mean, my lifestyle has a smaller ecological footprint today that it did ten years ago, and I try to minimize it more, but still, I’ve never gone fully into the thought of AWAY not existing, of it being a place. Which of course it is!

Huh. Have to ponder that one even more I feel. And perhaps it’s time for another listen to this podcast, that really made me go Oh, Ah, Uhuh, over and over again. Did it provoke the same responses in you?

No vision in what is wrong

Publicerad den 4 juni, 2014 av Helena Roth

I’ve written before about the podcast of Julia Butterfly Hill interviewed by Chris Martenson on Peak Prosperity. Find it on iTunes or here: http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/85294/julia-butterfly-hill-living-meaning

I had a number of oh yeah-moments listening to Julia and here’s one of them:

I tell people we need to turn off our televisions, go out into our communities and tell a vision. And that is not ”this is what is wrong with the world, that is what is wrong with the world, and this is what is wrong.” There is no vision in what is wrong.

I am a pro-person, rather than an anti-person. However, a lot of proactivity stems from a wrong, a problem, some glitch that we identify and which chafe enough so we want to act on it.

For me the glitch is the school systems, they chafe, and I am not comfortable with the way it is today. So, I act. The #skolvåren-movement in Sweden that I am a part of is one way I act, and is a good example of what Julia states. #skolvåren ask Why school? to get people to start to think about what society we want to help create and shape. And the vision we share is to create a sustainable learning society.

For me, visions point forward, into something we want, not away from something we don’t want. Do you agree that there is no vision in what’s wrong?

Extraordinary means extra ordinary

Publicerad den 3 juni, 2014 av Helena Roth

Julia talks about having something worthy to give our lives to and deconstructs the word extraordinary in a great way:

I really do see so much in people, this desire to have something worthy of giving our lives to, because we give our lives to so much that really is not worthy of it. And I think even if people are not completely conscious of that, their spirits, their hearts, their souls feel it. And that is why we turn to self-medicating and numbing ourselves with shopping, over consumption, movies, television, drugs, alcohol, and all these things we do. Because there is something deep within us, even if we do not recognize it and cannot name it, that wants to have something worth giving our lives to. So there’s something powerful about that arc of what takes ordinary and makes it become extraordinary.

I tell people the only thing ”extraordinary” means is ”extra ordinary”. Extraordinary people are ordinary people who come up against something that calls out their greatness. And they choose to say ”yes” to that calling even if they do not know where it is going to lead them or how it is going to end, but they cannot choose to walk away. I call it the choiceless choice—that we could choose to not say anything. We could choose to walk away. But to do that would kill off a piece of ourselves. So even though we could say no, we have to say yes. And there is something about having something deeply meaningful to say yes to, to give our lives to.

There is something quite liberating in the deconstruction of the word extraordinary into extra ordinary. Sometimes I think the fear of not being extraordinary makes people doubt that they have something to give to the world, that their gifts are not good enough. I disagree with that. I think a few extra doses of ordinariness is just what the world needs. What’s your ordinary gift to the world?

Impossible not to have an impact

Publicerad den 27 maj, 2014 av Helena Roth

Julia Butterfly Hill interviewed by Chris Martenson on Peak Prosperity is am amazing podcast that I sincerely propose that you listen to.

You can find it on iTunes or here (where you will also find a transcript of the podcast if you’d rather read): http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/85294/julia-butterfly-hill-living-meaning

When I listen to podcasts and stumble upon a gem, I usually make a screen dump on my phone (since I basically only listen to podcasts via my smart phone), and Julia had me screen dump all of eight times. I will not tell you about all of these hidden diamonds at once though.

Julia said something which made me stop, breathe, take in and totally accept what she was talking about, when it comes to having an impact. This is what she said:

… because no choice happens in a vacuum, it is not only spiritually impossible, it is scientifically impossible to make no difference. And we need to deeply get that.

It is actually impossible as a person on the planet today to make no difference, to have no impact. And so the question: ”Can I make a difference?” It is a myth, it is a lie, it perpetuates a disease of disconnect. It makes sure that we are good consumers. It makes sure that we feel disempowered. When we get that every single choice makes a difference, because it is impossible to make no difference, we actually realize that seven billion of us and growing are activists. We are all actively changing the world, even if we do not see the impact of that choice.

And so the question stops being, ”Can one person make a difference?” And the question then becomes, ”Okay, I do make a difference. What kind of a difference do I want to make with the gift of my life? What am I committed to seeing in the world? And how can I have my life be a contribution to that?” So it is not ”can I make a difference?” It is ”I do make a difference.” And we need to deeply, deeply, deeply get that.

Now, given the recent election to the European Parliament, and the hopelessness that I can see as a result of these results, really getting it, that I, that You, have an impact, I think is a huge factor in turning towards a feeling of hope, rather than numbing hopelessness.

Can you see how it is impossible for you not to make a difference in the world?

HERO – the coach

I will hold a space for you, for exploration, discovery and insight

Etikettarkiv: Peak prosperity