The Herb Walk, Bee Canyon, California

Wm. Broen (FYH), Xochitl, Pat Macpherson, Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

Herbalist Broen distributes Follow Your Heart water and trail mix (Wisdom Quarterly)

Beware of toxic fires! (WQ)

For the Japanese Mahayana version of the Buddha's birthday -- which we traditionally celebrate as the three-times-blessed day of VESAK on the full moon day in May (5/14/14) -- we went out on the Follow Your Heart HERB WALK with Herb Pharm herbalist William Broen into Bee Canyon in the Santa Susana Mountains.

The turn out was overwhelming, and it slowed the walk with repeated safety warnings. All we wanted to do was touch everything, nibble, and find artesian springs bubbling up after the recent rains on the drought tolerant chaparral. 

The crowd was large as we set off (WQ)

The lore was fascinating, the Sun was spectacular, the breeze was unexpected, and there was even a Native flute interlude under a coastal live oak as one participant took out elderberry branch instruments and entertained us. A kind garter snake dashed by, we were told never to touch Moon flower (datura, Jimson weed), and we planned our hike for the following day.

City denizens enter the wild (WQ)

• Medicinal Plant Herb Walks
• VIDEO: Science: Plants talk to each other
• The Real History of St. Patrick's Day
• Buddhist Dream Interpretation
• Buddhist JOKES! Do Dalai Lamas laugh?
• Buddhist Christmas: Xmas in Japan

Know Your GMO interactive board (pinterest.com/followyrheart/good-to-know)

Permaculture Design Course (Living Mandala)

Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Living Mandala, Permaculture, Social Enterprise and Leadership Program: 7 Stages to Sustainability Permaculture Design Course

Kat Steele (Esalen, Urban Permaculture Guild)

Living Mandala -- in conjunction with Empowerment WORKS and a host of community leaders, social entrepreneurs, visionary organizations, and amazing educators -- presents a groundbreaking 7 Stages to Sustainability Permaculture Design Course starting in less than a week!

 

Of all the more than 100 courses, workshops, and events Living Mandala has co-produced over the last six years, this one is going to be exciting.

Looking for an exceptional, manageable, affordable, and accessible PDC? This is an amazing program to support getting projects, social enterprises, and long term goals off the ground from Vision to Impact. It is an amazing opportunity! See more at livingmandala.com/7SS

UPCOMING

7 Stages to Sustainability (7SS)
Permaculture Design Course:

Permaculture for International Sustainable Development and Social Entrepreneurship 

4 Modules, 13 Days

March  27-May 18, 2014
MA Center /GreenFriends Farm, Castro Valley, California

Regenerative Leadership: From Igniting Our Purpose to Cross-Sector Co-Creation
March 27-30, 2014
MA Center /GreenFriends Farm, Castro Valley, California

Ecological Design in Action: Appropriate Technology, Measurable Impact and What it Takes

April 10-13, 2014
MA Center /GreenFriends Farm, Castro Valley, California

Social Enterprise for Synergistic Partnerships and Resilient Communities: From Harvest to Market to Reinvesting the Surplus
May 1-4, 2014
MA Center /GreenFriends Farm, Castro Valley, California

The Soil Food Web Intensive, March 2014 (livingmandala.com)

A Tongva Native American Garden (and Tibet)

Xochitl, Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Pitzer Arboretum; Hendon Harris

When the world was a garden: Los Angeles' original inhabitants the Tongva tribe

Pitzer College has a hidden treasure: a Native Tongva Garden (pitzer.edu)

 

Native American Tongva, Chumash, Anasazi (Hopi, Puebloan peoples), and in fact all indigenous people made use of all of the plants at hand.

Berries were abundant, particularly a local favorite [alongside elderberry], the manzanita (Spanish "little apple") a.k.a. madrone. Sobochesh, as it was known to the Tongva, was useful to eat, drink, and use as natural medicine.
 

A lotion made of leaves is an excellent treatment for treating exposure to poison oak, or they can be simmered into a tea to cure diarrhea, urinary infections, and headaches, a poultice for skin sores... The blossoms are also useful.

Arroyo Seco Foundation (facebook), March 22

While berries are wonderful, every plant is useful, from yucca to sagebrush to wild buckwheat to black sage and, of course, sacred white sage... Pitzer College, at the eastern extreme of modern Los Angeles County, at the base of massive Mount Baldy, has prepared a hidden treasury of plant uses and folk cures.

Other Tongva Indians will be on hand along with Wisdom Quarterly this Saturday for the Fourth Annual Hahamongna Walkabout in JPL's front yard in Pasadena.

Native American (Tibetan) Buddhism

Native Wm Leclair with Buddhist brothers (BP)

What is the Buddhist connection? Not only are the similarities between the "Indians" of India, Ladakh, Tibet, and the mountainous parts of Asia -- the Karen, for example, and other tribes in Burma, Thailand, Bhutan, and Nepal -- and the "Indians" of America patently obvious to anyone who looks, there is a historical reason for it.

Gomari, Tibet/China (Rietje)

Hendon Harris (Chinese Discover America) helps us understand, and Rick Fields laid it out in How the Swans Came to the Lake: A Narrative History of Buddhism in [Ancient] America. But as early as 1885, American historian Edward P. Vining knew that a group of Buddhist monks from Afghanistan had come to the New World, that is, long before Columbus, they "discovered" America and brought the Dharma to the Native Americans. See An Inglorious Columbus about the Buddhist discovery of America.

QUESTION

Native dance, Hemis Gompa (Stella Peters)

Harris, responding to Native American Buddhism and Tibet, writes in to ask: In Wisdom Quarterly's opinion is the Native American "Ghost Dance" revival movement, which started in approximately 1880 and ended violently at Wounded Knee in South Dakota in December 1890, directly related or religiously or culturally linked to the Tibetan "Ghost Dance" tradition celebrated to this very day? Please explain the reasons for your opinion.

ANSWER: Hendon, we only know it's possible, and we wouldn't be the first to notice. We will have to consult with our non-resident expert, H.M. Harris, to see if it is probable. (We hope he reads this and sends us the answer soon).

• Native American Walkabout 2014 (March 22)
• Early Chumash and Tongva cultures (PDF)
• Native American Buddhism and Tibet
• The Tibet-Pueblo [American Indian] Connection
• Buddhism among the Pueblo Indians, USA
• Native American Ethnographic Study: Ventura
• A Sneak Peek into Santa Monica's "Tongva Park"
• Pitzer College (Claremont) John R. Rodman Arboretum