The Weblog

This page contains news, event information, and other items added by Ian and Adam, the resident farmers at Old 99. We send out a message every week, but most are set with a delete date about two weeks later. I archive some of the posts if they have content other than weekly availability of produce and meat.

You can send me questions too, which if they are of a general nature, I can post to this Old99 blog.



 
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In step or Out of Step?


When have you ever felt your values or worldview or ethics were out of step with the world (room, neighbourhood, dining table, etc.) around you? I post these thoughts from Albert Bates, posted today at http://www.peaksurfer.blogspot.ca/2014/09/stranded-ethics.html

…Robert Jay Lifton, author of Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima, wrote an op-ed for The Sunday New York Times (Aug 23, 2014) called The Climate Swerve, pointing out the sudden shift in awareness towards the existential threat we face from our careless destruction of the atmospheric commons.

…To truly inhabit the 21st century we will all share a common epiphany: that we have reached the Age of Limits and the Era of Consequences. We are at or soon approaching that inflection point. Here, now. From that shift it will follow as inexorably as night follows day that the ethics of the past are not just passé, but counterproductive. Anyone clinging to them will be regarded as a fool, a fossil and a social pariah. ([ig: out of step]

…The late Zenmaster, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, in Zen Mind Beginners Mind said it is important to understand that Zen is nothing special. Any roshi will say the same. There is no attainment. Just sit. Nothing special.

…As the ethics of the 20th century become stranded, the ethics of permaculture will become invisible. Permaculture will become the new normal. It will simply be taken for granted.

… So too, Permaculture is nothing special. Acting ethically towards future generations is nothing special. Living today as if there really is going to be a tomorrow is not a fringe activity. Just do it. Already, everyone else is starting to, too.

Say I, on the matter of climate, it is beginning to be impossible, just barely, to ignore it, or deny it.

I hope you will go to www.WatchDisruption.com. This documentary from www.350.org with make you check your bearings, your ‘out-of-stepness’. Even the trailer is compelling.