Feed the WHOLE World

Feed the World.  Originally Bob Geldof's concert, now the catchphrase introduced into our consciousness by Monsanto, you'll hear it everywhere.  If you are not conscious that you have been brainwashed you may be using it yourself.

EXCITING AND UPLIFTING STUFF - a film has just come out which will allow us to answer the question, how do we feed the world without resorting to intensive farming with petrochemically produced pesticides and herbicides.  It's called The Harvests of the Future by Marie Monique Robin, it hasn't arrived yet at Amazon UK, but it exists in English and I've ordered 2 copies, one to keep and one to lend.

The myth goes like this:

• Only intensive agriculture using petrochemically produced pesticides and herbicides can feed the world, will be able to feed the world when the world population reaches 9 billion, we've got to be realistic.

• Organic, sustainable agriculture is all very well, but it can't feed the world.

But the truth is so much more uplifting, please readjust your feed the world view:
YES AGROECOLOGY CAN FEED THE WORLD
www.agroecology.org/
AND NOT ONLY THAT!

• ONLY agroecology can feed the world

  Leading scientist says agroecology is the only way to feed the world 

  www.non-gmoreport.com/.../scientistsaysagroecologyfeedsworld.php
• Industrial agriculture is not only less productive,less efficient and more expensive in real terms, it is killing the world
• The economics of mass production by developed countries tends to mean in practice Feed the Rich, while the rest of the world goes without.  T

Mm, that's better, we get the slogan back and we get things back in order.

BEST DOCUMENTARY I'VE EVER SEEN please watch this, for humanity's sake.  I've asked Amazon.uk why they don't have it yet, please ask them too, because we can't wait for this film!

What the Holly Tree Said

My readers have mobbed me, demanding to know how the conversation with the holly tree continued*.  Oh alright then...

Stop to think and think without stopping
First of all we need a big fat dollop of Po.  Po is the thinking tool of our age developed by Mr Edward De Bono, the Father of Lateral Thinking.  It encourages a break from binary black and white yes or no thinking which can sometimes block our curiosity, research, creativity and problem solving.  Po is the third way.   If I say po to something, I do not say the something (perhaps an idea) is wrong, I do not say it is right, I do not say anything at all but I do accept to take the idea and run with it;  see where it takes me, see what it tells me, see what I think and  investigate further.


Po Tree Possibilities...
Anne-Laure suggested that trees have an inner nature, that this is an objective fact, and that we can develop our innate ability to recieve information about this inner nature...we and trees have something to do with one another.

The Experiment
We present ourselves before one of 5 trees (pine, maple, holly, beech or lime), stay silent and humble, and see what happens.  And then we investigate further as we feel right:  perhaps approach the tree, use senses of sight, touch, smell taste and sound,  and write down our observations.

This method gives credence to the whole human being as tool of investigation, and values artistic expression as a way of accessing and describing objective 'inner' truth.

Then said Anne-Laure, we will re-group to share our impressions, to see if any of us perceived the same thing, and to be filled in by Anne-Laure on what she knows about the tree.

Holly and me
I was sulking when I stood before the Holly because I wanted to do a pine with a shaggy trunk but everyone said oh no that's not a pine it's a something or other that I didn't understand in French;  so why did Anne-Laure point it out then, and why didn't JC tell me to bring a pen and paper he doesn't think of me and I made his picnic and of course he has a pen for himself, and why is it raining quite so hard and why am I here?

I stood in front of the Holly for quite some time and nothing happened other than ever increasing wetness.

Then I felt a strip of warmth from the top to the centre of my chest.  It was an intense, inner heat.  I wondered if this was my personal sensation and nothing to do with the holly so once I had finished with the holly I tried the same thing with the Maple  and got an unmistakable and quite different sensation, a sort of whoosh going outwards and floating on the airs with its almost horizontal branches,  a specific form of movement which I could imitate with my arms.  The heat came again when I returned to the Holly.

With the comfortable heat glowing in my chest, I looked at the tree's scraggy shape, a tangle of tough defensive leaves.  I looked at its way of growing:  no harmonious and high symmetrical growth and shape;  I sensed a reluctance to shoot upwards, but rather an impulse to shoot up a little and then out, and then in this direction and then in that,  and then to pull back, and then to shoot out again, and to keep the growth for itself, close to it's centre.

Mmm.  After a while I plucked up the courage to go closer to the tree.   It's leaf crown was parted in one place and I entered and approached the trunk.  The tripartate and intertwining trunk was small and had a delicate pale skin.  When I touched it I was surprised, it felt warm and supple like a child's limb, and very sensitive and vulnerable in contrast to the leaves.  It felt marvellously good close inside the crown of prickly leaves and I felt moved almost to tears...of joy.

I began to really notice the leaves, the edges pale, the tips of the points pale brown and dry, the spaces between the points perfectly rounded, the skin glossy and leathery.  Then I noticed that the leaves were not, as I supposed from afar, tangled up in a disordered fashion.  Each leaf, rather than overlapping like the maple leaves, interlocked, so each leaf had its own space as it danced in between the other.  And each individual leaf twisted in every direction, as if expecting to be attacked or to capture joy from every direction.  This appeared to me a marvellous and exuberant thing.  This tree was exploring all directions, all possibilities, in constant reformation and eternal dance of life. It was plucky and difficult, defensive and joyous.  I couldn't help but admire it's all-angles reaching out and connecting, and its endurance, remaining richly green leafed in all seasons, growing steadily, able to become very old and very tall in time, but somehow still youthful.

The berries were nut hard a satin finish, grew in the angle between the branchings on the tiniest of stalkettes, close to the stem.

An unshaped box tree grew next to it.  The box veered in one direction, the holly in the other, so they both had space.  The branches rose from the trunk, dipped, but did not droop as if defeated, formed an arc and then seemed to chose again to rise towards the sky at the tip.

I went to find a bigger older holly because I wanted to know what the trunk was like, whether it would thicken and crack with age.  The aged skin was criss crossed with fine lines, but not in any way thickened or wrinkled.

If I had to say a medicinal virtue, from it's inner heat and central strength, I would say:  Heart.

I felt quite full after all that.  I presented myself to the Maple for contrast and comparison, but I didn't stay long, it was quite enough.


















* this is a porky pie

R's School: the impersonal touch

JC goes to Parents 'Meeting'
Mrs Scruton, showing her sadistic credentials, arranged the parents 'meeting' for 8.30am on a Saturday.  JC had to go because of my entirely justifiable fear that I would not be able to keep my mouth shut.  He was Not Happy at having to get up early on a Saturday.

JC set off, and sat down at a meeting for quite some time before someone said 'Who's dad are you?'
and when he said our son's name they said 'no, we don't know him' (how very true) and he eventually realised he was in class 5C rhymes with 5E where he should have been.  He was forced to telephone R from the concrete courtyard and ask him what room the meeting was in (something he had already been told), and luckily R has a keen interest in figures and had retained the number of the room;  242.

JC was handed a printout of R's personal profile consisting of a column of numbers out of 20, available on Pronote, the mark-consulting website.   The assembled parents waited until a teacher came in to make a short presentation.   There was sometimes time for JC to read a book between the departure of one and the arrival of another, which pleased him.

"Did the assembled parents interract with one another in any way?"  I asked.  "No".
"Did anyone appear to know our son or say anything about him?"  "No".
"Did the teachers interract with the parents in any way?'  "No.  But some of the younger teachers said if we had any questions or difficulties we should not hesitate to contact them, and some gave their email address".

(Clearly a trap;  I certainly won't be contacting any of them, anything I say could be used in evidence against me.)

JC said it was a good meeting because he saw the face of every teacher and it was all over in under an hour. I said I didn't see why they couldn't set up a site called Proprof where the teachers posted a photo of themselves and a short presentation of their work which could be accessed at a time to suit the parent.

R goes Missing
Yesterday the school phoned JC at work to say R had not turned up to his English class and was officially Missing.  JC phoned me in a whisper from his Very Important Meeting to delegate the problem.  After careful consideration of the options (run away from home, thought lesson was cancelled, lying ill in bedroom without my knowledge) I phoned the school to ask if there couldn't be some mistake.  There was, another boy bearing the same surname was not in class.  R told me later this boy was ill, and presumably without parental leave of absence.  The secretary was most apologetic, rare in a Frenchwoman, but she wasn't looking for reassurance from me, she was inconsolable because an ADMINISTRATIVE ERROR HAD BEEN MADE.

Sapristi Knuckoes.

Hallo Holly, You're looking swell, Holly

I talk to the trees
That's why they put me away  (Spike Milligan)

The Holly and the Ivy, when they are both full grown
Of all the trees that are in the wood, the Holly bears the crown (English traditional carol)


Yesterday it poured with rain, then it poured harder, and without letting up it poured harder still for 8 hours, and I spent this day at the park, in the aforementioned rain, talking to trees.

I was encouraged to do this by a remarkable woman called Anne-Laure  Rigouzzo-Weiller, a botanist Dr of Science turned tree- talker with a remarkable understanding of medicinal plants     http://www.prometerre.com/.

It became obvious to me some time after communing with a holly tree, that Anne-Laure is not only one of those people who can speak to plants, and not only do the plants listen and speak back, but she can persuade them to speak to other people, and persuade other people to listen.  That's quite something.

R Sings of Ulysses

R gives us a demonstration of his 9 out of 10 point winning performance in the It's a Knockout music test.

           I can only presume he did not burp during the original performance, or points would have been lost.

Autumn

Our cat Lemon, Leaves Fall Upon Her...

BROCANTE!

Decluttering
It's that time of year, when we empty all our rubbish out of the basement and take it to the marketplace at Houilles the Unpronouncable,  set up a table and flog it to passers by.  Up at 6am, first customers 7am, pack up 7pm.  It's hard work for a few Euros but good for decluttering, the morale, recycling and pleasant exchanges.

Next door stall, wickedly successful mother and daughter team...

Street transformed into street sale...

General crowds

JC demonstrates his hard sell technique, The Dozing Broconteur

Recluttering
The risk is of course that you are tempted to buy replacement rubbish at a very reasonable price.  A theme runs through my purchases, could it be that I am a multi-colour magpie?  But a delicious pleasure...

Multicoloured magpie selection

Table cloth and 12 napkins   3 Euros
2 attractive scarves, 50 cents each
Hand made pottery teapot pours beautifully 1 Euro 50 cents
Set of coloured glass dessert bowls 1 Euro
Attractive pearl button necklace 50 Cents
Napkin bowl, accidentally matches tablecloth, hand crafted 50 Cents
Two kitchen hooks 50 Cents