Confessions of a Pizza Cook

or

My Garden is Bolting

or

lady kaos & her disciples come home to roost.

ok interwebs, here it is:

                      what happens when you are over a transitive verb?

                                       a whelm (hwelm, welm), v.t. 1. to submerge; engulf. 2. to overcome utterly; overwhelm:                 

                                                            whelmed by misfortune., if you were.

are you like me? 

       do you shut down entirely?.

                    how do each of us deal with the confluence of our individual realities?

                                      how do we adapt&grow within confining stictures?

there's a story that i wish to tell & it has to do with lessons learned...

                 with mysteries of the present.....

                and the future of the Shua & all his Industries,ICC*

              Consciousness is a whiffletree, & we're all at bat.

BEGIN: if April Showers bring May Flowers, do March Showers bring February Flowers? OR The Presence of the Present. OR The "M" is for Motivation:

Experimental Propagation requires 3 Ingredients:

1. mushrooms with mycelial "stems"
2. cardboard
3. pasteurizing water (about 170degrees F for 1hr)

After Cardboard Pasteurizes:

1. separate layers
2. slice mycelial mass from the part yer gonna eat
3. place thin slices between cardboard layers

1. roll into a burrito
2. place in an airy ziploc bag, like this old green bean freezer bag.
3. wait. watch, aerate every once in awhile.

sometimes life appears as a cyclical, vacillating series of funks.... of ups & downs, strikes & gutters, Dude. & i'm sure it is.
it is.
but how can we wake up every moment?

maybe from the love of family....

       maybe from the love of plants.....

         maybe from the love animals......

         maybe from the love of fungi...

maybe from the love of All that wasisbeing. right now. all the time.

but sometimes it feels like everything i've done is the hardest thing i've ever done.

even though i know the truth is that life gets easier & easier

the more i know, the more i grow...

etc.,etc., et cetera.

& sometimes i feel that motivation is impossible without community.

CONTINUE: A Boy's Gotta Eat, OR Lessons in Sustainable Economics:

1. If you're like us you have some old carrots, celery & onion in the fridge. 
2. Maybe add some garlic when you call it mire poix (meer pwah)  & sautee it

     There's a general delusion that independence & self-sufficiency are hallmarks of our particular brand of freedom, but if you learn from the vast majority of human experience inevitably you see that the most just egalitarian societies considered community inter-dependence vital to each individuals relation to the natural world & each other.

     So  here we are  somewhere between Babylon & the Promised Land, struggling to wiggle our way to freedom in a sea of seemingly oblivious consumption & rampant ego-politik.  The prospects are daunting, but that's just because opportunity abounds. 

1. drop some OG ground beef, love, Joe Mama.
2. Pour some tomato paste in there, if you've got it.
3. Boom: Bolognese Sauce; Beef&Veggies

   A permaculturalist sees problems as solutions, yeah?

   And said permaculturalist is part & parcel of the economic system that's evolved in the wake of the cold cold war.

  

At this point on the thought train, an angel of some sort should whisper that Bucky Fuller quote in your ear:

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.

To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

We exist in a reality that requires money, real or imaginary, proper or improper.  I'd pee my pants in public for the opportunity, sometime in the future, to be an integral component in a communtiy so coordinated that no cash was ever required, but here and now thisguy has rent, utilities, student loans, vehicular woes... you know: the whole torrential burden of 'earning a living' on a planet capable of supporting life. . . for free.

My brother has engrained the concept of Congruence into my psyche (thanks, Esau :) ).  And I think my brain-soil conditions are finally conducive the germination of such a meta-seed. Which leads here:

When I grow up, I want to be good & do good things.
  Then I grew up & wondered what 'good' was.

After some significant mental fermentation I concluded that the most undeniable good stems from the dis-/re-appearing knack of optimizing ecosystems to sustain human life:  gardening for biodiversity.... Realizing that the Garden is spaceship Earth & we were never driven out, just blinded by self-deception & self-interest.....

But the Glory of the gossamer web of life's interactions still pulses
through microbes&mycelia
ladybugs' lil aphid lions
teeny little wasps&caterpillar carcasses
migrating birds
voles&snakes
pollinators & pollutants
a wobbly axis
starlight
&
water
all flowing into our food.
All life depends on varying states of decay & that is good.    

Sautee/carmelize/burn:

1. garlics
2. onions
3. sliced oyster mushrooms.

How can you monetize that? Seems almost blasphemous, right?  

 That mysterious angel's appeared again, just out of eyeshot, whispering stuff that Bucky pointed out 43 years ago:

We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.

Here's the crux: how does a body earn a living by simply living inside our current capitalist framework?  

put it all on a pizza & bake it. yum.

How can we align our requirement for capital with ideals of mutualism & free association?

“It's a sticky wicket,” so the lady says, and it's understandable to be overwhelmed. I forgive me.

But like Will Allen, that giant scion of urban agriculture said,

“When you start a project everything's not gonna be perfect,

but get something started.”

The time has come for a better brand of business; for local entrepreneurs working to humanize the economy; for micro-enterprises banding together to subvert big boxes; for growth, adaption & evolution.

     It's been a year since I started trying to earn income in the field of suburban micro-farming.  I installed a few gardens, talked to lots of folks at market, raised & sold heirloom plants & produce, dug swales, hauled tons of mulch & compost, sweat & bled, lashed together bamboo structures, battled cutworms & cabbage butterflies, prayed for rain, wallowed in the dirt & just barely scraped by. 

     I felt guilty charging money for doing what I want to do anyways, which resulted in me working much more: slinging pizzas at night to ensure all the bills got paid and picking up remodeling work where&when I could to cover operating expenses.  I must have a case of ridiculitis; I'm still doing that.          

Maybe there is in fact some buried imprint coded into my personality that causes me to cringe at the thought of capitalism founded on usury, and to fear what i'd become with wealth & power.

And that's probably healthy, what with Mammon masquerading as “free trade” and all, but it's certainly unhealthy to allow that fear to paralyze you.

I'm hypothesizing that it's possible to make money without guilt by focusing on:

Transparency, Education & Coordination.  

I have one more revolution around the daystar in this place, and as long as i have these feet i want to leave fertile footprints in my wake.  So I have one year to improve the land where i stand, to optimize growing conditions in my garden, to pass on this practical knowledge to neighbors, and to connect with others who share similar goals. 

I'd better get crackin.

* an Imaginary Company Corporation