The following is from a dear friend and correspondent who went to Waldorf School in Europe perhaps 50 years ago:
When I went to the Zurich Waldorf School, I had weekly gardening lessons from Grade 4 - Grade 10! When I left the school I could make composts, look after sheep, make apple juice, seed any crop, harvest crops properly and make jams or freeze/dry them, cultivate any garden, distinguish between good and bad soils, insert Biodynamic Preparations into the soil and composts, plant a tree, milk a goat, shear a sheep, calculate compost/fertilizer input(s) into garden and field, solidly care for a garden and more.
The times have changed substantially and our Waldorf Schools should be even more interested in such work (classes). Yet, the opposite is the case. One has barely time to plant a bulb with a Kindergarten class or seed a field of wheat with a Grade 4... in order to make bread. Yes, in Grade 4 we plowed our own field. We seeded our field and harvested it.
EASY STEPS to a better world
Our media keep us focused on irrelevancies. It's time to pay attention to what really needs to be done - what can quickly transform our lives and our world. Here's my list. What's yours?
• End terrorism - This can only happen by reducing the causes of terrorism. Start with our own government's actions. Then join together internationally to deal with the few fanatics that remain.
• Achieve energy independence - Our dependence on fossil fuels generates trade imbalances and wars to control oil. Solar and energy efficiency can reduce building and industrial energy use 90%, while saving money. We can reduce our oil need 90% in ten years. Keep our economy moving - but do it by producing things that make a real difference. High-speed trains, 100mpg cars, homes ten times as efficient as today's.
• Achieve equitable material sustainability for the planet - This is the only route to peace and progress. Along the way, it deals with global warming, peak oil, the causes of terrorism, and brings us back into balance with our values.
• Get out of debt - Foreign debts and unfair trade agreements are one of the root causes of international anger against our "global" culture. Getting out of debt at home individually, as businesses...
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How do we dramatically cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, lessen our dependence on fossil fuels and become more energy-efficient without arguably wrecking the U.S. economy?
So far, no one's come up with a viable answer, largely because we keep looking at global warming from the same angle. The result is tunnel vision - we keep missing the forest for the trees with remedies like cleaner cars, fewer smokestacks, more renewable energy sources. Each is necessary, but solves only part of the problem.
The Revolution Will Not Be Invoiced
Burners Without Borders, a new movement for social change borne out of the Burning Man festival, is rewriting the rules of activism
by Charles Shaw reprinted by permission from Conscious Choice Magazine, consciouschoice.com
Forget what you think you know about activism and community service. Forget the Non-Profit industrial Complex with its centrally controlled organizations. Forget grant applications and fundraising drives, complex tax codes and government regulations. Forget political correctness, groupthink, forced neutrality and censorship.
Burners Without Borders (burnerswithoutborders.org), a new movement for social change borne out of the Burning Man Festival, does away with all of that bureaucratic detritus. Taking its cue from Doctors Without Borders, Burners Without Borders is led only by an idea: that of a boundless, leaderless movement, based on gifting and community, that seeks no publicity, recognition, money or power. All it seeks to do, like its progenitor, is to build community through addressing social needs, creating art and healing the deep wounds of a disconnected culture in the throes of anomie.
