Recreating the Garden of Eden: sustainable gardening

There was and is a Garden of Eden and it is right outside your door, or maybe it is by a south facing window, or maybe it is in the basement under grow lights. Nature is perfect; it was created to have the answer to our every need.

The hypnosis of product advertising has led us to believe nature is imperfect. Pharmaceutical corporations and big agriculture corporations spend billions of dollars to convince us our good health and increased life span is the result of their chemical cocktails and genetically modified foods.

The real reason for increased life span was cleanliness--- people washing their hands, cities creating sewers, and the piping of clean dinking water to our homes. Currently, our longevity is declining in industrialized nations. Why?---Because of un-natural chemical pollution from pharmaceuticals, and chemical agriculture poisoning our water and our food plants.

How can we find our way back to the Garden of Eden?

We create an Eden by learning about sustainable food production and we by becoming caretakers of our land and water resources. Permaculture and hydroponics gardening are two methods for reclaiming food security. Food security in the USA is defined as access to enough healthy, clean food for an active, healthy life.

Permaculture

Permaculture is the practice of sustainable land use through ecological design, ecological engineering, and environmental design.  It develops a garden design and self-maintained planting systems modeled on natural ecosystems. The core ideals are: Take care of the earth; Take care of the people, Share the surplus.

Permaculture emphasizes organizing landscape design patterns for functionality and by species.  The plants are placed for the ecosystem’s maximum benefit and to minimize waste, human labor, and energy input. (Of course the initial garden creation does take some effort but on-going labor is greatly reduced, and yields are higher on smaller plots of land.)

Bill Mollison, Australian ecologist and University of Tasmania professor in the 1970’s, initiated the concept of permaculture. He tells us we should be working together as stewards creating a sustainable world. Permaculture is a combination of the words "permanent," "agriculture,” and “culture.”

Mollison believed sustainable living needed to be based on the observed patterns in nature. Natural systems, such as forests and wetlands, are sustainable providing for their own energy needs and the recycling of their own wastes. The different parts of a natural ecosystem work together to perform important tasks. By applying an integrated understanding of the ecosystem to garden design a sustainable agricultural system is created.

The permaculture specialists are aware that many of us are not naturally gardeners. Their design goal is to integrate the surrounding natural areas with our homes, apartments and other buildings to produce an abundance of food. The ecosystem is set up to function with a minimum of effort and labor---gardening should be more like recreation than work.

Hydroponics

The word hydroponics comes from two Greek words, "hydro" meaning water and "ponics" meaning labor. Hydroponics is the practice of growing plants in either a bath or flow of highly oxygenated, nutrient enriched water.

Soil-less gardening or hydroponics has been around for thousands of years. Two of the earliest examples of hydroponics are the hanging Gardens of Babylon and The Floating Gardens of China. Scientists started experimenting with soil-less gardening in the 1950s.  Countries, such as Holland, Germany, and Australia have had great success with hydroponics crop production for many years.

To grow plants in soil, biological decomposition breaks down organic matter into the basic nutrient salts. These salts must be dissolved in water for uptake by the plant’s roots. There must be a perfect nutrient balance in the soil for a plant to receive a well balanced diet. The existence of ideal soil conditions is rare due to a lack of good organic matter on the soil surface, chemical contamination and biological imbalances.

Hydroponics has advantages over soil gardening. Plant growth rate is 30-50 percent faster than a soil plant and the yield is also greater. Because of the extra oxygen in the hydroponics growing mediums, root growth is stimulated and the root system absorbs nutrients faster. The plant does not have to search the soil for nutrients, which are being delivered to the plant several times per day. Hydroponics plants have fewer bug infestations, funguses and disease.

Hydroponics benefits our environment and us: A.) Uses less water than soil gardening (because of the constant reuse the nutrient solutions), B.) Fewer pesticides are used on hydroponics crops, and C.)  Topsoil erosion isn't even an issue. Hydroponics grown food is nutrient dense. While most soil grown food from Big Agri-business is grown in depleted soil. If agricultural trends continue to erode topsoil and continue to waste clean water, hydroponics may soon be our best solution for food insecurity.

There are many experts in permaculture and hydroponics to help you get started in creating your sustainable food source. There are several different styles of hydroponics gardens. Your available land will determine your permaculture design. These techniques are intended to be naturally
organic. There are also many do it yourself (DIY) resources. With a little time, a small monetary investment, and a little effort you can recreate your Garden of Eden.

As we work toward self-sufficiency we can leave behind fears of food scarcity. Remember good, healthy food is the best medicine

http://hydroponicshabitat.com/

http://www.permaculturenow.com/video.html

http://midwestpermaculture.com/

http://www.heathcote.org/

http://www.chelseagreen.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT_2VVXA7SY

http://www.howtohydroponics.com/

http://www.7billionothers.org/content/goodplanet-foundation

https://www.hydroponics.net/learn/hydroponic_gardening_for_beginners.asp

Earthactivisttraining.org

FIRE IN THE BLOOD, a film on the right to generic drugs

FIRE IN THE BLOOD is a documentary film by Dylan Gray (released 2013). It is an award-winning documentary that is profound for its truth and disturbing for profit over humanity. It is a profound story of courageous individuals trying to bring medicine to the AIDS stricken in Africa and disturbing because pharmaceutical companies are able to use patent law to block the use of generic drugs leading to the deaths of millions. 

A patent is a right granted by the federal government to an inventor to exclude others from making, using or selling the patented invention. The patent law tactics used to deny Africa generic drugs are the same tactics pharmaceutical companies use every day to inflate the cost of cancer drugs in the USA. 

The film tells the story of how Western pharmaceutical companies and governments blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs for the countries of Africa and the global south. FIRE IN THE BLOOD is the story of the people who decided to fight back. The documentary is available in DVD, or on demand TV. To watch for free: http://www.freedocumentary.tv/fire-in-the-blood/

Gray, the the film's Director, had read a news article, in The Economist, about the ‘power struggle’ over low-cost AIDS medication for Africa and the global south. The article indicted the coalition of activists, generic drug makers, public figures and civil society organizations as conspiring to bypass international patent laws.

“One of the characters in our film, Dr. Yusuf Hamied, who’s an Indian generic drug maker, [discussed in The Economist article] was talking about how [Hamied] was bringing in low-cost antiviral  medications to Africa. ….To my mind, [this was] a very good thing that he was doing, but they were going out of their way, I felt, to attack him, but it wasn’t clear why.” Gray told journalist Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! —independent news organization.

There are 35 million people in the world living with HIV/AIDS and 25 million of these live in sub Saharan Africa. The film investigates the effect of international patent laws compared with the needs of in those suffering the ravages of HIV/AIDS.

Gray told Goodman “The historian in me was just completely shocked and scandalized that, A) I didn’t know more about the story, and, B) that there was so little written about it… something that had killed 10, 12 million people, and it seemed to have happened almost without a record…. I mean we consider this to be the crime of the century.”

Gray tells us 84% of worldwide research for basic drug development comes from government and public sources. Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars per year are spent on finding new and better drugs. He describes the levels of profiteering on patented drugs as shocking and out of all proportion to the expenditures involved especially since tax dollars are subsidizing the research.

The film traces how Big Pharma refused to allow countries to break patents and blocked the importation of cheap generic AIDS drugs causing millions to die because they could not pay for treatment.

Gray explained that the writer of the article, in The Economist, seemed intent on damning Dr. Yusuf Hamied, head of the socially conscious Indian generic drug company Cipla, as a “pirate.” Hamid had developed an economic generic of the HIV/AIDS cocktail of antivirals. Gray sought out Dr. Hamied in Bombay several months later and through him met a number of the people who become key contributors to the documentary.

Journalist Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now! a national, daily, independent, news program, interviewed Dylan Mohan Gray, director of FIRE IN THE BLOOD. She tells us the problem, access to low cost generic drugs, continues today. The World Trade Organization continues to block importation of generic drugs in many countries because of a trade deal known as the TRIPS Agreement.

Mary Easton, historian on the website historyworkshop.org.uk comments “Companies which claim they need to charge astronomical prices in order to recoup their huge expenditures on innovative research actually do precious little such research…” They spend huge amounts on marketing, lavish executive salaries and lawyers to extend lucrative monopolies.

Easton contends governments, who actually fund global basic drug research are giving the fruits of this research away to giant, profit-crazed corporations. These corporations sell these drugs back to governments and the public at wildly inflated prices. The luckless taxpayers who funded the breakthrough research suffer and die without receiving any benefit from it and may well go bankrupt in the process.

Easton states “Regulating “Big Pharma” is the only area of politics… where you find people on the right [conservative] side of the political spectrum howling in favor of government-granted monopolies…this can only happen with the complicity of officialdom…national governments [are not] fulfilling their mandate to protect the public interest.”

In Africa HIV/AIDS affects the whole society: men, women, children and even babies. Seven million HIV positive African people need generic drugs now but can’t access them because of limited supply due to increased pressures for patent protection even in low-income countries. There is worldwide advocacy for patent protections to be suspended, which is allowed by the World Trade Organization in times of crisis.

Dr. Peter Mugyeny, Ugandan physician, tells Amy Goodman “There was a misinformation, worldwide misinformation, that AIDS drugs were too expensive to manufacture. The second misinformation was that Africans would not be able to use these drugs, that it was impossible to use these drugs in the African condition.

…. Well, [Dr. Yusuf Hamied] just literally announced that it is not true that these drugs can only be manufactured at such an exorbitant cost. He demonstrated that they could be [produced] at relatively affordable cost, which would save millions of lives because of affordability.”

Goodman tells us in Africa [Big Pharma] drug companies were charging $15,000 a year per patient for a triple, antiviral cocktail. Dr. Hamied cut that price to less than a dollar a day from $15,000 to $350 for the year. These pharmaceutical companies used patent and trade laws to block Hamied's generic drugs from use.

As consumers and citizens of one of the most powerful countries on earth we must realize that medicine patent laws need to change. There are ways to write the laws regarding research that will allow for companies to make decent profits but still allow for those who are suffering to afford medication.

Laws are meant to serve people not to be used to enrich the elite. We need to demand that our legislators work for the citizens year round, not just during election season.

http://www.freedocumentary.tv/fire-in-the-blood/

http://globalhealthsciences.ucsf.edu/education-training/blogs/masters-corner/fire-in-the-blood

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/23/fire_in_the_blood_millions_die

http://fireintheblood.com/blog/browse/news

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/15/business/questcor-pays-135-million-for-rights-to-competitors-drug.html?_r=1

Nemenhah: the Sacred Sahaptan Healing Way

I have been searching for my community of healers and I found it in the Nemenhah/ITO religion! And I am now a Medicine Woman in the Nemenhah/ITO (Indigenous Traditional Organization).

Nemenhah is a haven of support for alternative healing practitioners. All religions are seen as sacred and the individual brings their current religious beliefs to Nemenhah as a foundation. The Nemenhah religion is focused on the practice of healing ministry and the right to the healing way of life. It offers legal protection in the USA under the right to freedom of religion.

The Nemenhah religion is a restoration of an ancient Native American teaching in which healing is a spiritual pillar of the church. Sadly, there are groups of people that find this restoration threatening to existing religious, cultural, medical and legal power structures.

I studied with Phillip R. "Cloudpiler" Landis who is leading this restoration. He is the President and Presiding High Priest (Tehk Tiwehkthihmpt) of the Native American Church of Nemenhah (NACNEM). The Nemenhah were an ancient, indigenous people. There are no current Native American Tribes called Nemenhah.

According to Chief Cloudpiler, the Nemenhah people were an ancient, indigenous people who lived in parts of Central America, North America, the Pacific Islands, Japan, Korea, China and Tibet. These peoples left evidence and writings of their ancient sacred ways so the Nemenhah might be restored in the future.

The writings are called the Mentinah Archives and are the sacred histories of the people known anciently as the "Nemenhah" (people of the truth). The stories trace their history and journey into the land now known as the "four corners" area of the USA.

According to greaterthings.com, the histories were allegedly written upon plates of various metals, processed animal hides and paper velum.  Allegedly, the records were archived in several locations in North and Central America anciently. The only surviving copies of the Nemenhah histories are strictly guarded in libraries at a non-disclosed location in Sanpete County, Utah. 

I joined the Nemenhah/ITO through the ancient covenant of Spiritual Adoption. This Ceremony of "Making of Relations," is the process for taking initial orders and is the essence of Nemenhah Ministry. I choose to participate in an intensive weeklong study culminating in status of Nemenhah Medicine Woman and minister of the church.

The Five-Fold Mission of the Nemenhah is the healing of individuals, healing of families, healing of communities, healing of society, and the healing of the planet through the use of natural healing methods, natural materials, and the guidance of spirit (Wayaykihn). This is the Sacred Sahaptan Healing Way; so all people may become healers through Wayaykihn.

http://www.nemenhah.org

http://www.nemenhah.org/faqs.html

http://www.greaterthings.com/Records/Nemenhah/