Preparing the Soil for Community Cultivation

Soil, Light, Darkness, and the Cool Refreshing Gift of Water.
In all, they are supporters of life.

Soil bacteria, fungi, and insects infiltrate every niche and space in the underworld creating a rich soup of goodness for our plants known as humus (grow chick peas or garbanzo beans with herbs and spices to make hummus). Which leaves us with the fatal question of how do you prepare the soil?

It depends but this post is about Community in relation to soil and gardening. (Give me some time and I'll write about soil another day.)

When it comes to the development of human necessities and other luxuries, the main limiting factor is people. To build homes, install gardens, or to establish community, all require willing and capable individuals to establish, maintain, and develop the communal link to succeed in any feat.

By doing so, infinite opportunities and networks form much like the mycelial network of fungi with plants roots and all other soil life. This extension enables the necessities for human development and growth to become a reality through our communal imaginations.

The fatal question is how do we develop the necessary links to actualize this potential?
To conquer this feat, it helps to look at the history of mankind's relationships to each other and the evolution or succession of empathy that is occurring.

In comparison to Permaculture Design methods, the development of sustainable and prolific ecosystems are guides in co-creating the landscapes we dream of. In the same way, communities can be guided towards similar outcomes through our observation and analysis of our past, present, and potential way of life.

Looking into Past Communal Relations
A great video and speech that opened my eyes to the development of human relationships is a Renaissance Society of America video on the Empathic Civilization.

Jeremy Rifkin describes the communal relations that have advanced with time. We have evolved from relating to our blood ties and viewing others outside of our family as alien. In time, as knowledge and information became prolific after the advent of agricultural irrigation we developed a new type of empathy through religious ties. As communities developed, new relations formed to create nations.

(Listen and watch to the program if you wish to get further details. Lets move on.)

Co-Creating the Community of Today for Tomorrow
Much as tribes coalesced to create new potentials, we are on a new stage today, a world of communal networks and relations. It begins by realizing that our blood ties are to each other and everything in this world (even our beliefs and ideas) are very much the same when expressed through peaceful actions and gestures instead of abstract words and ideas.

Disintegrating our own personal wants and focusing on our necessities is bridging the gaps between individuals and organizations. As an example, schools are beginning to partner with outside organizations to create the environment conducive for youth development with the benefit of academic and personal success in life for all parties involved. Furthermore, nonprofit organizations are finding methods of infiltrating the for profit world to add ethical elements into the business world.

Elements and design features of co-creating a successful community partnership are dynamic just like ecological systems, which can be terraformed in a number of ways.

Understand that It is Inevitable
Yes, Community Cultivation and Networks are inevitable just as nature will create prolific ecological systems with time. If left alone to it's own wits, it'll happen naturally just as the soil built itself up without any outside influences and actions and will do so with or without you or us. It'll just happen a lot later in our frame of time. (Estimated 100-400 years to build a centimeter of topsoil)

In a permaculture design, it's essential to sit back and watch the elements unfold. Allocation of personal needs and desires, climate, landforms, soil, plant and animal life, and more, all contribute to the formation of ideas for a particular area. In a similar fashion, understanding the dynamics of a community and its resources are pertinent in creating successful partnerships for particular projects. It could be beneficial to take the time to map community assets and networks while observing the societal dynamics. It's not going to be the same for a city as it is for a rural area. In relation to gardening, the desert is going to need more development and potential work than the tropics.

Design and Implementation of Community Cultivation
Developing relations and networks takes time just as it does to build the soil. There is a saying that the first year a garden sleeps, the second year it creeps, and the third year it leaps.

An important lesson I learned from Community Cultivators and educating children is to make it fun and interactive. Many times, I believed that the community around me and the children were at fault for not participating in an event or a lesson. Ultimately at the end of the activity, I began to look at myself.

In a similar fashion to gardening and farming, people often view nature as the enemy. The diseases, pests, and ailments that are affect our landscapes are often blamed on natural systems when it is us who are at fault for destroying the soil foundation. Do not be hasty to blame others or yourself. It's all a learning process.

With the appropriate lessons, the internal development of yourself will encourage the motivation and action to get yourself into the playing field as well as the passion to communicate and develop it within others. As the relations grow, the processes and ideas will naturally flow to achieve the feats and developments that are essential for a community base, which means don't set any expectations.

As an example, many community gardens here in Dallas-Ft Worth have created the idea that a garden will be prolific and abundant in the first harvest or season. This assumption creates a mind frame that expects the garden to yield phenomenal results. Although this can happen with proper planning and implementation, if there are shortcomings that are not communicated people can get discouraged and dissuaded to continue the project or to continue their journey in gardening while the "masters" stay behind to maintain it themselves. This single idea has created more work at some of these locations for annual gardening, to find new gardeners, or persuade the dissuaded ones to come back. Instead of having a community garden, they manifested a working farm with high expectations.

Likewise, community cultivation is an ongoing process that requires time, energy, and love. Given these essential resources, the development is left to infinite opportunities. Just like the food forest (paradise), we can cultivate the foundations to actualize the unlimited potential of ourselves through each other and create self-sustainable loving relationships that cater to all of our necessities and more. In fewer words, community cultivation is the pure joy of over abundance within cooperation and collaboration.

Enjoy every moment of it.

A Day of CommUnity

Join us for a day of CommUnity on the passing of 10 years since 9/11.

A Day of CommUnity is a collective fundraiser presented by LoveATX benefiting local community organizations (see list below). We will be...

* providing a place for local community and organizations to connect and share
* sharing information about healthy, creative, conscious, and sustainable living
* encouraging involvement and collaboration within the local community

The LoveATX mission is to empower the Austin community and support local economy. A Day of CommUnity will feature Austin-local organizations and artists creating a healthy, conscious, and sustainable culture. We believe real change comes when well informed individuals confront their responsibility to develop well informed masses.

"A dream you dream together is reality" - John Lennon

Start your Sunday with guided meditation, breathing, and yoga from 12pm-1pm.

Local Speakers:

* David McCully from Evolver Austin - Energetics and importance of community, building a culture based on ecological values and creative collaboration.
* John Edwards from Urban Patchwork Neighborhood Farms - Urban farms, CSAs, and ideas for developing communities.
* Chris Pearson of DIYthemes - Your abundant potential with proper use of technology, start your website now.
* Austin Time Exchange Network - community program, enables individuals to exchange services with one another by sharing skills within a network of people in Austin.
* more to come... stay tuned!

Local Organizations:

* Community Cultivators - Helping individuals realize the abundant potential of community through the cultivation of ~ mind, body and soil (aquaponics display & more).
* Creation Flame - meditation, art, healing, and eco-friendly open source construction.
* The S.H.I.R.E. Institute - Sustainable Habitats Incorporating Renewable Education.
* Backyard Transfarmers - Connecting the dots for urban farming - Aquaponics R&D
* Austin Time Exchange Network - community program, enables individuals to exchange services with one another by sharing skills within a network of locals.
* Austin Center for Holistic Healing and Yoga - Creating space within and around.
* Love Tribe - Engaged in a spiritual and ecological work that is grounded in our bodies, helping to germinate a new, more sustainable culture based on abundance, vitality and sharing.  or
* Ashram 5 Monks - consciousness, Kirtan, Bhakti yoga.
* Scene Machine - community owned and operated art/performance label and venue management cooperative
* Dois El Gato Tees -unique conscientious t-shirts for unique conscientious creatures.
* EcoSteve - Inspiration for progress & "I make Austin weird" tees.

Workshops coming soon... check back to sign up for workshops!

Event will include:
*Local Food Vendors
*Local Artists
*Local Performers (music, poetry, circus)
*Workshops (yoga, meditation, holistic health, sustainable methods)
*Activities for all ages

Suggested $10 donation (no one turned away)
$5 to LoveATX and costs and $5 to additional local organization of your choice! See below.

Choose from:
*Community Cultivators
*Creation Flame
*The New S.H.I.R.E. Institute

If you are interested in providing a workshop/presentation or representing your organization please email LoveATX at loveatxproject@gmail.com.

LoveATX is a project of LoveUnity Foundation, a local start-up nonprofit. Read more here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/LoveUnity-Foundation/130787056993169?ref=ts

Consensus, Community and Addiction

Our ability to cultivate the reality we seek is determined by our ability to communicate constructively. Community is the result of a conversation and, by the very nature of this conversation, community is inherently multi-dimensional. We all have different stories to tell and we all see reality through a different set of lenses. The variety of these perspectives is both the greatest challenge and the greatest opportunity for the cultivation of CommUnity. In this way, 'Community' can be seen as the 'Communicational Unity', otherwise know as consensus.

The complexities of communicational unity increases with each additional perspective. Thus the inherent challenges of consensus decision making. At the same time, each new perspective brings new opportunities to make decisions based on a more clear and holistic interpretation of our collective reality.

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes." - Walt Whitman

In this way, new perspectives add value and build better models for our collective reality. Now let us consider, we are approaching a world population of 7 billion people. Furthermore, many of us are beginning to recognize our interdependence, not only with 6.9 billion other people but with the vast diversity of organisms in our environment as well. Indeed, even our own bodies are made up of more bacteria than human cells. Taken further, what we consider to be our cells are actually a cooperative union of a verity of different bacteria. How then can we hope to make decisions that are considerate of such vast diverse perspectives?

Often we find it difficult to even consider ourselves completely. That pint of ice cream sure tastes good! But the impacts it has on our body is rarely taken into consideration, that is... until that perspective is illuminated through a visit to our doctor or a shameful moment on the bathroom scale. "Ugh, how did we let ourselves get so out of control?"

"Earth provides enough for everyones need, but not everyones greed" - Mahatma Gandhi

Ecologically, we find ourselves in a similar state to one who's "let themselves go". At first it tasted so sweet, how were we to know these indulgences would result in ecological dis-ease? Sure, there have been cells of the body along the way that were warning us to put down the ice cream or, at the very least, to moderate our consumption. But the perspective that our choices were leading toward self-destructive abuse were not illuminated or heeded in time to avert the onset of what now amounts to a compulsive addiction.

Today, with the conditions of our global dis-ease becoming so apparent we can no longer turn a blind eye, our collective challenge is to put down the ice cream and motivate the rest of our body to get off the couch and exercise, before it's too late.

"A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

This is where we have to make a choice about how we make decisions. Are we going to yield to and continue enabling those parts of us that just want one more bite while other parts of this figurative body are screaming for a return to a more healthy lifestyle? Apparently, there are enough cells left in our crucial nerve centers that crave the continuation of our consumption, irrespective of the result. And, just as with any new exercise routine, the desires of our addiction only become louder as we struggle for remedy.

In time, the parts of us that are addicted to unhealthy behavior can be re-trained to appreciate and even encourage healthy behavior. But that reality may still be some ways off. For now, it's going to take a serious amount of motivation to convince our addicted cells that it is time to get off the couch and shape up.

"We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely... change is due to want-power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now." - George A. Sheehan

With the behaviors of addiction, we often find ourselves in what can only be described as a pattern circular communication. The conversation spins around, no conclusions are reached, no decisions made, and little action is taken other than to continue to satisfy our craving for that which we are addicted. For the health of our collective body, it's important that we recognize when these patterns are occurring and cut them short. There is no need to waste any more time trying to convince the addicted part of ourselves what needs to happen. We will be thanking ourselves later. In the meantime, we can expect to throw a violent fit in protest of the initial discomfort of this dramatic redirection of our energies.

As a result, some might conclude that we can never find consensus with the irrational parts of ourselves however, with this I must disagree. Through constructive communication and the conviction (as well as clear evidence) that what we are doing, however painful, is part of the process of healing, consensus can eventually be restored.

"There are no bosses, only coordinators of information" - Helen Samuels

It's starts with small circles of community like Tierra Viva in Mexico City that reach consensus, even on a small scale, and move in a constructive direction, despite the enormity of obstacles and challenges they face. Empowered with the knowledge that they are providing a service that is creating real and tangible benefits for their community, they do not look to leaders to guide their decisions. They merely allow their actions to speak for them, and the proof is in the preverbal pudding (not to be confused with that tasty ice cream - if you can excuse my over use of this analogy).

Tierra Viva is not alone. There are several other examples of the successful application of motivated and informed action followed by inclusive communication. The City Repair Project in Portland, Oregon is perhaps one of the most direct illustrations of how this approach can produce positive outcomes and even result in a consensus with the less than rational parts of our culture.

Community is cultivated through Communicational Unity (i.e. consensus). A consensus typically begins on small scale (just a few pushups to get started). If the outcome of the community's actions result in clear benefit, and the conversation remains constructive and inclusive, the community has the opportunity to broaden not only the scope of its impact but also its perspective. And, as our perspectives increase, our decisions become more informed. Before we know it, we've developed a rigorous workout that is challenging, invigorating and healthful.

We can't wait for someone else to do this work for us. We have an obligation to get off the couch and take control of our future. Don't waste time looking for consensus... cultivate it. The new you awaits!

The Principle of Self-Regulation and the Litterless Box

"The purpose of a functional and self-regulating design is to place elements or components in such a way that each serves the needs and accepts the products, of other elements. (Mollison 1988, pg 37)"

In Permaculture, this one principle inspires to create a system that requires the least input for the most gain. It also encompasses true analysis of certain elements and could potentially eliminate the need for unnecessary labor and energy.

Take for example the Permaculture Chicken. The chicken has needs: food, water, shelter, grit. It has intrinsic characteristics and behavious: breed, colour, flying, scratching. Lastly, it produces elements: eggs, manure, CO2. These factors require careful analysis and consideration when planning a site or an area for chickens to thrive.

Designing around these elements will also give us an easier time when it comes to the least amount of maintenance possible.

So imagine, the manure could be scooped up and thrown into a compost bin, but instead why not put the compost bin beneath them. Even better, why not incorporate another element to eat the manure. You could put the chickens above a fish tank and allow the manure to drop in and feed the fish. The nutrient rich water could then be used to water plants. Another element that can be incorporated are worms. The manure can drop down to feed the worms.

However. . If you do use worms you have to remember that chickens scratch. This will cause them to dig up the ground and find the worms and eat them. How do you remedy this? You put another barrier where they can't reach the worms and where the manure can easily drop down to feed them. If you wanted to, you can remove the barrier and let the chickens feast on a product that they helped create.

So. ..

This principle is universal. It can be extended to any element even dogs and cats.

Here's an example with cats. A behavior of our feline friends is that they'll scratch up potted plants and do their business in it, piss and poop. People get frustrated with this and they go to extreme measures to fight it. Furthermore, they spend money buying cat litter and other miscellaneous things to keep the litter box smelling and looking nice. They even buy mechanized tools to clean the box for them, which ends up scaring our furry friends to a shitless state.

Going back to the chicken example, why not integrate existing elements to eat and take care of the elements that cats produce?

Here's our prototype. The Black Cat Collective in Ft Worth including myself came up with the idea of creating a litterless box.

Step 1. Get a box and fill it up with some leaves and bulky materials for bedding material for some earth worms.












Step 2. Fill it in with Earthwroms preferably Red Wigglers. They eat manure (yummy)










Step 3. Fill in the bed with compost and then aromatic herbs. If you put in plants, think about their needs. Some will do fine in shade and some do better in sun.












Step 4. Take away the kitty litter box and see it if works. We're trying it out right now and will post updates on the progress.

If you want to purchase one, we'll have a product in a few weeks.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, this design is utilizing not just the poop, but the urine as well. The plants should help to absorb the urine and use the urea as a fertilizer source. We'll most likely also dig the poop into the soil so the worms will get to it. A friend within the collective mentioned cats pooping in drier type soils, so the top part is lightly mulched to provide a dry surface. Hopefully, this will keep the worm bin moist, prevent the plants from drying out too much, and allow our cat friends to do the dirty inside the bin.

References:
Mollison, Bill. Permaculture: a Designers' Manual. Tyalgum: Tagari Publications, 1996. Print.

Get your project on!

Community Cultivators is very excited to share with you the amazing community that is under cultivation in East Austin. It seems like every week several new and exciting developments happen all at once. It's been awhile since we've been able to take the time to capture some of the most amazing developments in on this site. Let's get you up to speed!

Over the course of this past year Community Cultivators started investing in development projects at the Permaculture Park in East Austin. We collaborated with ape99.org to put together few workshops and produce a couple videos you can check out here.

As development progressed, we started hosting workday potlucks to share all the fun and excitement we saw building. Each week, the potlucks ebbed and flowed and we realized that our work projects needed to expand in order to accommodate more participants. 

There were many challenges to this stage in our community's growth. At the same time as our community was expanding... part of the household that was hosting the potlucks was relocating across the street. As each new Sunday rolled around, we confronted these challenges by sharing our ideas for this new space and the community reacted with astounding love and generosity. Within a few weeks an entire 4 bedroom house was cleaned and renovated, gardens were installed, fruit trees planted and a whole yard (previously covered in rusty metal and broken glass) was cleaned, raked and sheet-mulched. It was quit an impressive show of the potency and potential of what was growing up around us!

Today, the Permaculture Park is joined by the Dead-end Homestead (across the street), The Womb (adjacent to the Park and the original location of the Sunday Potlucks... now reborn) and, most recently, The White House Austin (a developing art studio and collaborative a few lots up the road). Everyday has brought new and exciting developments to the East-end of Pennsylvania Ave.

For a time, while we were in the throes of relocation and oppressive summer heat, we considered shifting the potlucks to every other week. At first this seemed like it would relieve some of the pressure of the households involved and allow for more organization of our workdays. This, however, mostly just led to unintended consequences such as a general confusion as to when the next potluck would be held and who might or might not be there.

It wasn't long before we were back in the swing of the weekly potlucks. And, with the development of The White House Austin and the rebirth of The Womb, our original potluck location, the community took on a renewed vigor.

Thanks to the vision of Nettie Tiso and her "Womb-ates" a project board was constructed to capture the diverse array of projects that were already in process. We still haven't found a way to dispel the summer heat but we did find a way to manage our projects so that we can enjoy productive activities, in a community setting, without the threat of mass heatstroke.

Now, no matter what time you arrive on Sundays, you can almost assuredly find a project (or several) in action. This past week, while a group was helping Andy Howell construct self watering container gardens (great for apartment balconies or any area where space is at a premium) another group was building a long trail into the beautiful wood behind The White House Austin, while yet another group was touring the Permaculture Park.

We also encourage you to bring your own projects to the table. There is nothing in this word more empowering than to see a community of passionate and loving people take up a project with you. With incredible synergy you'll witness projects that would take you months to complete on your own come to fruition in mere moments!

It's truly inspiring to witness the transformation of these various spaces. The Community Cultivators mission is being actualized in spades by the activity on Pennsylvania Ave. in East Austin. Before too long, it will be time for find new fertile ground to spread the seeds of community. What's happening on your street? Could you bee the next pollinator of a community in your neighborhood?

Join us this Sunday, July 24th for a fun filled day of pallet house construction, trail building, screen-printing, sheet-mulching, building self-watering container gardens, etcetera... while sharing skills, enjoying new friendships and cultivating a vibrant community. 

There is also a very exciting event on the horizon for next week. In addition to our normal Sunday Potluck, the Dead-end Homestead will be hosting an Adventure Kickoff party for Yours Truly. That's right, on Saturday the 30th of July, you are all invited to celebrate the first day of my new adventure. Please check out my personal blog Adventures in Cultivation for more details!

Celebrate [y]Our Interdependence!

This July 3rd, Community Cultivators will be participating in the first annual LoveATX Interdependence Fest @ Austin Art + Music Partnership. We're excited to be apart of this event and celebrate our interdependency with the folks at LoveATX! 

LoveATX is a project of LoveUnity an organization who works to build "home-town security" by empowering local communities and developing local economies. The Interdependence Fest is focused on informing and empowering the local community by:

providing a place for local communities and organizations to connect and network

sharing information about healthy, creative, conscious, and sustainable living

empowering and developing local community and economy

encouraging interdependence/collaboration between individuals and organizations

Sounds like our kind of event!

So, come out and join us on July 3rd and celebrate [y]our interdependence with LoveATX and Community Cultivators!

The fun continues...

Our community continues to ripple out from the Deadend Homestead, Permaculture Park and our new friends at The Shire! We were all so excited this past weekend to have so many friends and family to our Sunday Potluck. Through the selfless efforts of so many loving cultivators we continue to accomplish more than we could ever really expect.

Sharing the love at Pecan Street Festival with EcoSteve
and The Shire.

Each week brings about new wonders for us here at Community Cultivators. Recently, we spent a weekend with EcoSteve and our Shire friends at Central Texas' oldest and largest free art festival, Pecan Street Festival held right here on 6th Street. With thousands of people we shared the beauty of abundance and community through earth plaster and solar cooking demonstrations as well as our miniature off-grid aquaponics system.

The festival was a great success and we managed to even divvy up our resources and continue our contribution to the new Deadend Homestead. If you haven't heard the news, The folks of the Deadend have taken over the house at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue and, with the help and encouragement of so many loving friends and cultivators, completed months worth renovations in mere weeks.

Cardboard, soaked in water and enriched with nutrient tea
is used as a weed barrier and fungal habitat. I deep layer
of wood mulch over the top of that and you've got
the beginnings of a beautiful garden... or orchard!

This past Sunday, we had a great time transforming a formerly dilapidated space, full of broken glass, rusty nails and other hazardous unknowns, into a massively sheet-mulched garden space.  Through the continued generosity of organizations like Wheatsville Co-op, and Davy's Tree Services, we've upcycled bale after bale of cardboard and several yards of wood mulch into rich healthy soils ready to bring vibrant new life to this once "dead-end".

The exchange of skills and knowledge are not limited to mulching and household renovation projects. We have a lot of fun learning new things and sharing our talents within the community. Nettie Tiso with Racecar Apparel put together a screen-printing demonstration and workshop. Her new spring collection features farmers market fresh produce and an exclusive run on Community Cultivators shirts and tanks. We're very fortunate to have so many talented folks in this community!

Nettie of Racecar Apparel preparing the screen for our
beautiful new Community Cultivators tees and tanks.
Special Thanks to Denton Weaver for the design work!

If you've yet to make it out to one of these incredible events don't worry, you're not alone. And you can also take comfort in the knowledge that we will continue to cultivate our collective communities, one potluck at a time.

Attending a potluck is easy. Simply click the 'like' button on the right hand side of this blog and we'll keep you informed of all our events through facebook. Not on facebook? No problem! Come out and visit us any time at the dead-end of Pennsylvania Avenue near 12th and airport or contact us via email.

From a manageability standpoint, we've decided to cut back on the frequency of our now famous potlucks. We are now only hosting potlucks every other Sunday afternoon. You are of course encouraged to stop by any time and we always welcome new visitors. Having the potlucks less frequently will allow us to be more intentional with our efforts and insure that we are providing the best possible experience to everyone involved.

Finally, I'd like to invite you all out to a wondrous adventure at the Hundred Acre Wood for the second annual Grackle Fest the weekend of June 3rd - 5th. Community Cultivators will be continuing in the spirit of Sunday fun with 2 hours of workshops on Permaculture, Aquaponics and Community Cultivation starting at noon on Sunday, June 5th. Something for everyone!