Five hundred years ago, the fortuitous combination of agroforestry and aquaculture was unbeatable. This week I donned my tall boots and waded back into our constructed wetland to restore and rebuild the chinampas. Rob Wheeler, for more than 20 years the Global Ecovillage Network representative to the UN Headquarters in…

Covid, climate and war migrants have validated the “ecovillages-as-lifeboats” metaphor. In one little body Thou counterfeit’st a bark, a sea, a wind: For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea, Do ebb and flow with tears; the bark thy body is, Sailing in this salt flood; the winds…

The US per capita carbon footprint is 18 tons. It needs to drop to two. The old saw runs, “When the US gets a cold, Europe gets the flu.” We could also add “…and the rest of the world gets Covid.” Why is that? Well, one reason is that sixty…

Upsets are unmet expectations. Expectations are premeditated upsets. Al Gore has a standard line in his public talks about the daily climate headlines sounding like a walk through the Book of Revelations. Present weather phenomena reinforces that impression with each passing week. Australia’s largest city is flooded up to its…

How fast can the climate of earlier centuries be restored? — In an Hawaiian origin legend, the Polynesian creator god Kāne brought forth light from endless blackness while Lono created sound and Kü created substance. The first man was molded in clay by the three deities in the image of Kāne. Aloha, the traditional greeting, was originally spoken while touching foreheads…

The economics of 2050 will be the reverse image of 1950, if we make it that far. Every year, current and former residents of my ecovillage, The Farm, gather here in Summertown, Tennessee to meet and reminisce. We call the reunion our Ragweed Festival because it began as a celebration…

This is the last of several parts on the long beaded belt of white wampum with two parallel lines of purple beads, the Gä•sweñta’. A Canadian art museum site says the original Gä•sweñta’ exists today only in memory and reproduction. From what they say, one is left to speculate. Perhaps…

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain. — William James This is the second in a series. Last week we looked at the way that cultural heritage was preserved through the distributed ledger of wampum, or kahionni, based upon both proof…