Hello to everyone

[Philippa]

I am a qigong practitioner, mother, gardener, dog lover, environmentalist, degrowther and watcher of life.

I like growing my own food and walking through forests. I like making pottery, harvesting herbs and writing poetry. I like beaches, mountains, rain and birds, coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon.

I hope I can contribute to the discussions here and learn and share some knowledge.

Thankyou.

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

Welcome!

[Cobie]

Hi Philippa. Welcome to the forum. 

[Nungali]

On 1/2/2023 at 9:32 AM, Philippa said:

I am a qigong practitioner, mother, gardener, dog lover, environmentalist, degrowther and watcher of life.

I like growing my own food and walking through forests. I like making pottery, harvesting herbs and writing poetry. I like beaches, mountains, rain and birds, coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon.

I hope I can contribute to the discussions here and learn and share some knowledge.

Thankyou.

 

I like your likes .  I  too enjoy gardening ,including growing some food ,  ( I worked in Bio-dynamic agriculture for a while )  living in harmony with environment.  Luv dogs but dont have one   .... BUT I do have the benefits not having a dog brings  ..... got pademelons hopping around my place  ;

 

 

A lot of the food we grow here is exotic , as well as  indigenous , many years back the local doctor bought seeds back from Sth America and planted a rainforest garden ,  so we have wide range  ( its a sub-tropical environment ) .

 

Walking through the forest ?       We have some  good ones here .... a unique environment ;  across the  small river that borders the north of the property and 15 mins drive UP  the road

 

https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/conservation-and-heritage/gondwana-rainforests-of-australia

 

a unique environment ;  across the  small river that borders the north of the property and 15 mins drive UP  the road

 

 

 

I am not a potter but I have always liked potters ; most seem to have a certain practicality and a 'down to earth' nature about them . I do a bit of herb gardening , culinary and medicinal, including native remedies .  Done some extractions, concoctions and alchemy with them . I'm also a poet ... perhaps I should say  , used to be , a poet  and story teller / bard  but thats just about died off now , mostly due to the internet and other medias .       We got great beaches here , the mountain range comes close to the coast here so beach is 1/2 hr drive away , so best of both worlds ; sometimes the beach has no footprints on it , even on weekend in summer . 

 

I am up river  in the foothills .

 

As far as 'rain ' goes .... well, I am in a rain forest    ... and birds galore ;  three near front door  recently had kookaburra nestlings ( and then fledglings )   all sorts of birds ; lately there has been a   ' froggy  '   and a 'mopoke'  ( aka 'more pork' or 'boobook' ) doing a duo outside the window  at night , sending me off to sleep .  Here is a recording of them calling  together

 

 

And I always have coffee in mornings , just before sun rise  ... while I annoy people on Daobums    ... after noon , its always tea ....  just dont give me a nasty 'tea bag' cup of tea .

 

- where is your 'habitat '  ?

[Barnaby]

Welcome Philippa!

 

And: do you have to do that, Nungali? I'm going to have to blow all this money on a plane ticket to Australia now... 

[Philippa]

On 03/01/2023 at 8:51 PM, Pak_Satrio said:

Welcome!

Thanks

I have looked at this forum for a few years now on occasion. I have ditched Facebook recently but find that I need to actually converse with others so I am hoping to do that here.

[Nungali]

23 hours ago, Barnaby said:

 

 

And: do you have to do that, Nungali? I'm going to have to blow all this money on a plane ticket to Australia now... 

 

Oh good .... I will expect to see you in my secret training camp  .

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Nungali

[Philippa]

On 04/01/2023 at 6:50 AM, Nungali said:

 

I like your likes .  I  too enjoy gardening ,including growing some food ,  ( I worked in Bio-dynamic agriculture for a while )  living in harmony with environment.  Luv dogs but dont have one   .... BUT I do have the benefits not having a dog brings  ..... got pademelons hopping around my place  ;

 

 

A lot of the food we grow here is exotic , as well as  indigenous , many years back the local doctor bought seeds back from Sth America and planted a rainforest garden ,  so we have wide range  ( its a sub-tropical environment ) .

 

Walking through the forest ?       We have some  good ones here .... a unique environment ;  across the  small river that borders the north of the property and 15 mins drive UP  the road

 

https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/conservation-and-heritage/gondwana-rainforests-of-australia

 

a unique environment ;  across the  small river that borders the north of the property and 15 mins drive UP  the road

 

 

 

I am not a potter but I have always liked potters ; most seem to have a certain practicality and a 'down to earth' nature about them . I do a bit of herb gardening , culinary and medicinal, including native remedies .  Done some extractions, concoctions and alchemy with them . I'm also a poet ... perhaps I should say  , used to be , a poet  and story teller / bard  but thats just about died off now , mostly due to the internet and other medias .       We got great beaches here , the mountain range comes close to the coast here so beach is 1/2 hr drive away , so best of both worlds ; sometimes the beach has no footprints on it , even on weekend in summer . 

 

I am up river  in the foothills .

 

As far as 'rain ' goes .... well, I am in a rain forest    ... and birds galore ;  three near front door  recently had kookaburra nestlings ( and then fledglings )   all sorts of birds ; lately there has been a   ' froggy  '   and a 'mopoke'  ( aka 'more pork' or 'boobook' ) doing a duo outside the window  at night , sending me off to sleep .  Here is a recording of them calling  together

 

 

And I always have coffee in mornings , just before sun rise  ... while I annoy people on Daobums    ... after noon , its always tea ....  just dont give me a nasty 'tea bag' cup of tea .

 

- where is your 'habitat '  ?

I am in the Granite country, much further up the hill. I have spent 30 years in the bush, but I find myself now living in a town. it took some getting used to, especially having neighbours, but it's not too bad. Not nearly as restricting as I thought it might be and made easier by being near a large park.

In the bush we had no pademelons but had eastern grey kangaroos and wallaroos. Also these tawny frogmouths, along with a heap of other birds, from the smallest little thornbills to the largest wedge tailed eagles.

You look like you might be near Murwillumbah? Or somewhere in that vicinity?

My landscape is not as soft. It's a bit more crystallised, sharper and can turn from a high mountain meadow to a fire scape within a few short weeks. When it does rain it is much changed. Textures are emphasised and twigs crunch but dont snap.

The granite boulders are powerful and create niches for lots of species.

Including me.

Thanks for your reply.

[Cobie]

On 01/01/2023 at 11:32 PM, Philippa said:

… degrowther …

Didn’t know that word, I’d initially thought it was a typo.  Looked it up now; yippee, good word. That’s me too. 
 

 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Cobie

[Nungali]

31 minutes ago, Philippa said:

Thanks

I have looked at this forum for a few years now on occasion. I have ditched Facebook recently but find that I need to actually converse with others so I am hoping to do that here.

 

... so, where is your habitat  ? 

 

 

( as soon as I hit post on this , your reply came up .......   magic  !  ) 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Nungali

[Nungali]

13 minutes ago, Philippa said:

I am in the Granite country, much further up the hill. I have spent 30 years in the bush, but I find myself now living in a town. it took some getting used to, especially having neighbours, but it's not too bad. Not nearly as restricting as I thought it might be and made easier by being near a large park.

In the bush we had no pademelons but had eastern grey kangaroos and wallaroos. Also these tawny frogmouths, along with a heap of other birds, from the smallest little thornbills to the largest wedge tailed eagles.

You look like you might be near Murwillumbah? Or somewhere in that vicinity?

My landscape is not as soft. It's a bit more crystallised, sharper and can turn from a high mountain meadow to a fire scape within a few short weeks. When it does rain it is much changed. Textures are emphasised and twigs crunch but dont snap.

The granite boulders are powerful and create niches for lots of species.

Including me.

Thanks for your reply.

 

I had not realized we where on the same island .     So I told you about stuff you already know .   Granite country 'up the hill'  sounds like  'New England ' Armidale /  Tenterfield somewhere ?   I like that environment ... and the boulders .  We have a slight intrusions of granite here   ( Bellinger valley , so south of Murwillumbah  )  at places like Glenifer pools - idyllic !   I note when camping on that country, if it rains , it soaks in and even grass is dry not long after it stops .  Here, its more clay and turns to mud .

 

I am interested to hear your ideas on 'degrowth' as well .

[Philippa]

7 minutes ago, Nungali said:

 

I had not realized we where on the same island .     So I told you about stuff you already know .   Granite country 'up the hill'  sounds like  'New England ' Armidale /  Tenterfield somewhere ?   I like that environment ... and the boulders .  We have a slight intrusions of granite here   ( Bellinger valley , so south of Murwillumbah  )  at places like Glenifer pools - idyllic !   I note when camping on that country, if it rains , it soaks in and even grass is dry not long after it stops .  Here, its more clay and turns to mud .

 

I am interested to hear your ideas on 'degrowth' as well .

Yes, close to Tenterfield. And you must be on the way to Dorrigo, Thora perhaps? Nice country.

 

I became interested in degrowth after a deep dive into what are the causes of our environmental crisis. I began to realise that we can't just keep up our same type of lifestyle and expect the planet to heal itself. And switching to "green growth" is not going to reverse the damage. It's like we are in the same race but we have just switched horses. The issues of being a destructive human on a finite planet are so deeply embedded in our disconnect with nature that we need a complete reappraisal of what it is to be a human on earth. All indigenous cultures recognise and value our connectivity with earth, but it is what has been forgotten through western capitalism and devalued. Degrowth seeks to recapture that connection and rewrite the relationship we have with nature.

 

I read Jason Hickel's "Less is More" recently. He artriculated and consolidated all my thoughts on degrowth and proposed a path forward to steer us away from destruction towards deep connection. There are lots of other authors and podcasts to investigate that I haven't got to yet. My aim is to keep learning.

[Nungali]

I became interested in it way back via anthropology .  Now many of our serious problems are related , in some way , to  not just overpopulation but the whole 'expansionist' mind set - the idea of continual growth and expansion based on concepts of limitless land and resources available .   It even came down to the home level of the community I live on . Years back  we had to put in development plans ; how many house sites would we have . To my surprise people wanted far too many . My position is ; these things can not be infinite , they must have a limit and that means a limit must be made .... why not make the limit on the comfortable healthy sustainable side instead of 'close to the edge' or over it .

 

I have done some interesting studies on isolated and contained groups ; in that situation , you work it out or its extinction ; two cases come to mind ; one is a remote Pacific Island that had a long history of   stability with a fixed population due to limited resources . They came to light  years back when a bad cyclone went through the area  .  Some of their lifestyle methods where exposed in the media , and that caused outrage , so I suppose  they dont operate as they did any more .

 

Another  area of interest is Lake Biakal in Siberia .  I've written some posts tracking  ' the essential good teachings ' in some religions and how they manifested . Tracking them backwards   from the east to west ;  Tibetan Buddhism  ( and perhaps all Buddhism ? )  came out of reformed Bon , which was reformed by by teacher Miwoche  who bought it from Pamir area ( south east central Asia ) Zoroastrianism came from an eastern influence in a similar area  ( that is to the east , from Iran )  which was also a reformation of an earlier tradition ;  both seem connected to Bo a form of Siberian Shamanism and probably evolved out of it via traveling teachers and traders  coming down from the north.  Bo can be tracked back to ( and it still holds central significance ) Lake Biakal ,  which seems to have been an Ice Age refugia , ie  surrounded by ice and glaciers  yet habitable in , possibly because of the geo thermal nature of the Lake .   The main teachings they have in common seem to be  laws and respect for environmental protection and animals , both wild and domestic , greater equality of the sexes,  certain customs ( which make the archaeology easier to track as well ) like 'air burial' , a more egalitarian society , the replacement of sacrifice rituals with offerings of appreciation etc .

 

I think the case with Lake Baikal example is , if you are isolated in a limited area with fixed resources you HAVE to work it out ... or perish .... many probably did , but we can see that those that did survive offer some evidence in their survival , so they probably have a lot to teach us .

 

The same with  many indigenous people ; Australian Aboriginals offered many classic examples . Some dispute that  ... " They burned down the rain forest !  "   - I did some study on that , in Tasmania ;  various  analysis  from high altitude photography can track these burnings, over  thousands of years they 'moved across' the landscape; that is , yes they where burning forest at the front of their 'expansion'  and yes they where  changing ,  utilizing and managing the land after burning, but at the 'back' of their expansion , the forest was regrowing .  You can see, in the pictures how these areas made a 'path' though the landscape ;  a few decades ) and a a few kilometers )  behind, new regrowth , behind that  its new and stable forest and behind that old growth has returned  .  It possible that after a thousand years or so , they could have 'come back the other way ' or started a new strip 'below' or above the last .

 

Indeed " we need a complete reappraisal of what it is to be a human on earth "  ... we have a LOT of righteous , entitled, ego- based,  stuff to get over ....

 

-  Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,^[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

 

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground "

 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Nungali

[Barnaby]

26 minutes ago, Nungali said:

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground "

 

There's monotheism for you

[Nungali]

23 minutes ago, Barnaby said:

 

There's monotheism for you

 

Yes, its a projection ; supreme God rules everything , how he likes and no one to answer to .... 'supreme Man ' rules all animals and nature however he likes  with no one to answer to  (except for  the next guy up in the hierarchy ; God )  .... till the shit hits the fan .

[-ꦥꦏ꧀ ꦱꦠꦿꦶꦪꦺꦴ-]

On 05/01/2023 at 8:44 PM, Nungali said:

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground "

Based