Green Gal

An apprenticeship update & an exploration of what our treatment of weeds perhaps reveals about the limits we place on compassion It's already week eight of the Apprenticeship; time has truly flown by here at the farm and gardens! This evening in the Farm Center I'm surrounded by apprentices playing charades, others prepping for tomorrow's meals, and bouquets of fragrant and enticing flowers from our flower and bouquet class yesterday. Earlier today, I learned a bit about how to grow peppers as well as the many different kinds of peppers in the world. (The article we read and reviewed this morning is available online here .) We will be growing 67 different varieties of peppers in the Chadwick Garden alone this season, totaling more than 1500 individual plants throughout the garden! These will all be planted by hand. Sometime next week, we've been promised a dried and smoked pepper tasting session, as well as a potato and garlic varieties taste t...

Effective teachers, educators, and mentors learn with their students, and they never stop seeing themselves as students. They are my third grade teacher who was actively involved in her community and took the time to learn about our families, to bring our families into the classroom, and to bring our class into her family’s home at the end of the school year. They are the college instructor who admitted his own philosophical questionings right there with us, giving the floor to students who were inspired by what they knew, empowering students to share and engage in class by acknowledging the value of their thoughts and passions. Even outside the classroom, every individual we meet—whether younger or older, student or teacher—has something to teach us, an ability to open up our perspective on the world so that we can make a connection and learn. Being open to listen to others’ teachings and the opportunities they bring to nourish the lives of those around them is what it means to live i...

“¿Cuál dirección tomamos?” le pregunta el hijo a su padre. “A la derecha, hijo,” él responde. El hijo y el padre montan en bicicletas por las montañas del bosque, montando entre los árboles. Pueden sentir el sol en sus caras, aunque tienen los cascos que dan sombra a parte de sus pieles. El aire hace frio, pero sus corazones circulan el sangre calor por sus cuerpos fuerzas. La senda tiene curvas pronunciadas. El hijo está en cabeza de su padre en la senda. Su bicicleta roja cruza encima de las rocas, y él maniobra las curvas con la aptitud. Pero no espera por los seres en su dirección. “¡Puma!” grita el hijo. El animal está en la senda, tan grande y maravilloso. Tan salvaje.La bicicleta del hijo patina con la presión de los frenos, pero la bicicleta no deja. La puma se abalanza sobre el hijo, pero el neumático de atrás torce y golpe la puma en su pecho. La puma está lanzada a la tierra. El padre deja su bicicleta. Los ojos de todos están abiertos. Mirando. Todos los corazones...

And I must tell you, listen, there is a heart that beats strong and true and guides the soul who speaks as we are, what we feel, expresses life unmediated by custom but pierces the skin like bullets made by God. We are those who share and say and are what we exist as, what is and what will be is, what cannot be changed by the hues of the skies but instead are that which things are by night and darkness and absence. What is positive is felt, what is negative is pacification of the world; we grow from positive pain and piercing poignant sorrow and that gives us the world of positive power, a sense of peace and joy that is so strong it is felt and heard and seen and all other things pale in comparison with it. Schopenhauer is wrong when he says that happiness is negative and sorrow positive. Sorrow and happiness are both positive; it is satisfaction, contentment, life without will or striving or love or passion that is negative. Happiness, richly and constantly new-hued-yet-true-to-it...

"Coyote! Coyote!” Guitar-string strumming with a borrowed pick, punctuated with foot stomping and an old man with a beard and the biggest grin bongo drumming his palms on the podium, which had been pushed to the side before the evening began. The student sways gently to the beat, watching from behind eyes as others lose themselves in the evening, their bodies pulsing with everything that is present in the room. Something holds the student back, a deeply trained disconnection between body and the pervasive consciousness of situation. The beat goes on, smiles form that will ache the cheek muscles as folks leave that night, infused with something remarkable like that most vividly diverse mushroom display contributed by other students, they are foragers of fungal fruits. Awe and respect for the mushrooms in the back of the room, physically and psychologically behind this strangers-neighbors-friends human connection, behind the music. Everyone calls out, reflecting not only the singer’...

“why is light” if i could capture the joyful emanation of soothing mid-memory loveliness that is this light of gold on this crest of world i would open myself and breathe (inhale) its warmth and release (exhale) from every pore its emanations             you would be intricate plants and sprawling grasses breathing in life (stretch)             from sun from sky (breathe in more fully your life, live fully in oxygenated experience) and only, you may only ask us why     “sunscape” sunscape all i see is sun gold breaths cover the skin of Earth with glowing, like the glow of our cheeks after (what, what does this evoke in your subconscious) afternoon was heated, hot, sweat on skin, and now is calm-temperatured all bodies simply are (are you simply is...

I was pleasantly surprised to come home this evening to find a new comment on my blog, alerting me that I had been nominated for the Sunshine Award by Canopy Avenue ! I was delighted and honored, as well as excited because when receiving this award, you are given the task to nominate 10 more blogs for the award! Here are the award tasks: 1. If you are nominated, you must blog a post linking back to the person/blog that nominated you. 2. You must answer some questions, nominate ten fellow bloggers and link their blogs to the post! 3. You should comment on your nominees’ blogs to let them know you’ve nominated them. Here are the questions: 1. Who is your favorite philosopher? Today, Martin Heidegger because I'm reading him in a class in college right now, and because he wrote this: "The threat to man does not come in the first instance from the potentially lethal machines and apparatus of technology. The actual threat has already affected man in his essence. The ...

A few hours ago, I returned home from the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference at UC Davis (click here to read others previous posts I've published about the conference). My notebook has 10 pages, front and back, filled with ideas, best practices, reminders, and contact information from others who attended the conference, which brings together students, staff, and faculty from higher education institutions (and others who work with higher education) throughout California. I attended the conference because I work in the Sustainability Office at UC Santa Cruz, and next year I will be leading a team focused on Education & Outreach to our campus community regarding not only the work our office does, but also the work of the sustainability community at UCSC in general. This year, I've worked on developing our  monthly newsletter , our new  student-written blog , and our growing Facebook page , and next year...

It's already Wednesday, and I just haven't had the time to update the blog since Monday, which fortunately means I've been busy exploring the opportunities of the conference and the campus! I've attended many workshops, learned some great take-aways, and have spent some time exploring the UC Davis campus. For now, I'll take a step back and return to Monday evening's activities, and later this week, I'll write about the workshops I've attended. The California Higher Education Sustainability Conference kicked off Monday night with keynote speaker Dr. Mitchell Thomashow, who spoke about the Nine Elements of a Sustainable Campus. Click here for a written document about the nine elements, or watch a video from a different event on the same topic, below: One of the major take-aways that I learned from his keynote address was that "How we act is how we live," meaning that the ways in which we live day to day make up our life, not the ...

Need another reason to recycle? Sometimes it's easier to just toss a recyclable into a nearby trashcan than to wait until you find a recycling bin, but here's a good reason to wait and dispose of it properly: "Paper takes up 40-50 percent of the volume in American landfills. Despite the growing commitment to local recycling programs, the amount of paper is steadily rising--up from 35 percent in 1970. The rest of a landfill consists of in descending order of volume, construction/demolition debris, metals, plastics, other materials, food and yard waste, and glass." That quote is from my Archaeology textbook, Archaeology: Down to Earth by Robert L. Kelly and David Hurst Thomas (4th edition, published 2011 by Wadsworth CENGAGE Learning). A lot of the stuff listed there is recyclable and shouldn't even be in the landfill. We could save a whole lot of space for actual garbage by recycling things that are recyclable--especially paper! On another note, in core class toda...

I'm writing an essay right now. Okay, well not right this minute, but I'm in the process of writing an essay. Topic: Basic tenets of Malcolm X's philosophy compared with Martin Luther King Jr. Supposed to be 4-5 pages. Almost at 5, and I've still got a few more paragraphs about Malcolm X to write. Greeeeat! So I thought I'd share some pictures I just took in my room since that's definitely going to help me reduce my paper length. Enjoy! Why, yes, those are Egyptian hieroglyphs! My boyfriend is taking a class in hieroglyphics, so he wrote my name for me! My desk, where I am about to continue writing my essay. (BTW, that white thing next to my Malcolm X book is this awesome tool that keeps your book propped open so you can eat, transcribe or hands-free read your book! You should get one!) The quote on my white board. My Stevenson Core class teacher, Mr. Schafer, spoke about Heidegger on Friday. I'm enjoying every minute of my finite journey toward death! Yeah...