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

Garden of Marvels: Flowers have SEX (audio)

Seven, Isoceles, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; author Ruth Kassinger (ruthkassinger.com), Host Sonali Kohlhatkar (UprisingRadio.org, March 7, 2014)

You smell so loving and sexy, and now I know why! (The Commons Getty Collection)

 

BOOK: A Garden of Marvels: How We Discovered That Flowers Have Sex, Leaves Eat Air, and Other Secrets of Plants

Danielle Harangody, Palm Beach (FayEtte Bikinis)

For centuries, much has been known about human and animal physiology. But the study of plants, called botany, is a relatively new field. 

 

Plants and trees are a mystery to us. They do not seem to move except in the wind, they do not have mouths we can see, and we do not actually see them eat. They reproduce in mysterious ways, quite unlike animals. Yet, they are the basis of all animal life on the planet.
 

Author, gardener, and guest Ruth Kassinger

Now gardener Ruth Kassinger, author of Paradise Under Glass, has a new book tracing the history of botany. It makes it accessible to anyone who wants to understand house plants, backyard vegetables, and larger questions about ecology and the environment. LISTEN