Natur – Sida 2

Life, Permaculture & Love

For years I’ve used permaculture as a tool. For years I’ve been wanting to share this way of thinking with my partner Tim. Finally, five years into our relationship, I got the chance to bring him to a permaculture course in Australia. Two full-on weeks with an international group of students and a myriad of teachers. It’s been intense on so many levels!

In all honesty, this course allowed me to reinstate my belief in our relationship. I’m sure there are others like me out there, people who are struggling to fit their permaculture life with their love life. The following thoughts are for you. I wish you all good luck!

PDC reflections 1 – day 2

Passion can make you angry. Passion can make you righteous. Passion can bring you close to people but also push them away.

As I sit here and listen to all the people attending the course, and the teachers presenting it, I feel both at home and far, far away. I see myself there, a few years back, teaching with that flame burning through my words, my face, my posture, out onto the participants. The recognition makes me itch on the inside. I didn’t want to be that teacher anymore. I wished not to be perceived as righteous, since that meant scaring people away with my fire, but I could tell that sometimes I did. Were those few a worthy sacrifice for the larger group that went away empowered by the idea of permaculture? I’m not sure. And so I stepped down, outwards, to give time for reflection and to calm my mind.

I feel that there’s a huge potential in bridging worlds, left and right, academia and hands-on, but I can’t do that if I position myself to far into either of those spheres. Like an acrobat dancing the line, I wish to fall in and out of balance, in and out of those contradictions. To continue to be an agent of change and reflection, I need to be humble enough to listen to what others have to say, and strong enough to present my own view in a thought-through way.

Being here at this PDC, with persons who have been teaching a lot, allows me to zoom out during the lessons and observe the layout and the way the other participants react to it. It’s a rewarding process.

PDC reflections 2 – day 4

Much like with the freediving community, it feels good to be back with the permaculture community. I guess I need to take time outs in many different areas at different times.

Being here, observing what I have learned since the PDC back in 2010, I feel very empowered and glad about my own development. So many of the areas we touched back then, which were related to gardening, food, buildings, heat sources etc, are areas in which I have had the chance to hone my skills. The hardest nut for me to crack is still the people part of any system. So many ideas about community are circling around, being implemented in different places, and I just haven’t found a model that I thing might work for me, and for Tim, quite yet. Today we went to Patrick – Artist as a family – plus a small community garden and then to David and Sue’s Melliodora. Patricks places was around 1000 m2, established 8 years ago, and filled with diversity. Melliodora is about 8000 m2, established over 30 years ago, and filled with even more diversity. It gives hope to see these semi-urban places, knowing that I don’t feel like I would fit well with communal living, but that I want to live in a good neighbourhood. It might be in the countryside, or it might be just outside the city in a spot with good communications for coming and going, for inputs and outputs.

PDC reflections 3 – day 7

Through bringing us to all these different places, I am amazed at how well the course has been planned. The benefit of seeing an implemented design in all different stages and of all different kinds and qualities gives such a added depth to what we are learning during the more theoretical sessions. This is what I missed while partaking in my first PDC back in 2010 in Jordan with Geoff Lawton. Being a good storyteller and an empowering lecturer, he still got his points through, but the sublime, emotional part of being submerged in a permaculture landscape gives you a deeper understanding.

I also very much enjoy having a string of teachers passing through the course. Compared to an ecosystem, David is the philosophical, wise old tree who brings balance and depth. Sue is a mature, clever animal, social and cheeky, moving through our group spreading nuggets of laughter and wisdom. Angela with her soft voice but mental steel is the shepherd steering us through the course, adding missing links of info when needed and maintaining the group structure. Beck with all her in depth knowledge of ecosystems and cycles keeps a cool surface but underneath we can see her rebell nature bubble and thrive. She is also our shepherd, sharing the work with Angela, making sure that we all get access to the information a PDC contains, so that even though there are ten or more co-teachers, there is a clear learning outcome at the end.

Staring each morning with a yoga session, we clear our minds and loosen up our bodies after a much needed night of sleep. A simple breakfast in silence, then karma yoga in service of the ashrams daily needs before we enter the classroom again. We use the largest yoga hall for our indoor sessions, everyone seated on the floor using low foldable tables and cushions and blankets. The teachers use a whiteboard and a projector, then swap over to using different materials and resources to convey the knowledge and experience, such as using an A-frame, drawing to scale with a scaled ruler, or taking soil samples for testing. During site visits, we get to hear other designers speak about their way of permaculture, how they have set up their systems, what sizes and budgets they have, and what has worked well compared to what has been challenging through their process of establishment. We get the full scale, from projects in their 5th, 8th, 11th, 14th and 30th year, which allows a for a richer understanding of how things might or might not develop. Back at the ashram, its forested surroundings lends themselves perfectly to exercises of reading the landscape. As we wander about with David, we learn more and more about what to look for and how to use our intuitive reading abilities handed down from our ancestors. From geology to trees, from topography to waterways, from soil structure to weeds, from wind patterns to human interaction, we see the landscape with new clarity. Layers over layers of information surround us, and using our eyes, fingers, noses, tastebuds, feet and skin we react to what we meet. Drawing conclusions from all these layers, an internal picture emerges of what has passed in the years gone by, what is happening right now, and what might come.

I let all this information fall into my already established mental framework. Back in 2010, it felt as if a made a huge reconstruction of synapses to allow for everything that I am and everything that I know to reiterate its place inside me and to form new pathways in between all these areas. I felt empowered from being allowed to use all that I am, not only the specialised knowledge that I had gathered from continuous studies within the educational system. It matters that I was planting carrots and onions and tomatoes with mum and dad when I was a kid. I matters that I was a leftist activist roaming the streets as a young adult. It matters that I have a huge chunk of technical knowledge. It matters that I have traveled and marvelled at the landscapes I’m in since my earliest memories. In a way, permaculture allows me to be me, and that is a very empowering gift.

Having a day of in the middle of the PDC allows for reflection. I feel that I couldn’t have made a better decision on which PDC to come to. This time, its not mainly about what I can learn from the full on experience, it is so much more important what Tim can get out of it and even more so what we as a couple can gain. In a shady corner of my heart, there is a little scared voice whispering: “Klara, are you really yourself truly and fully when you share your life so intimately with this Tim-person? He is not passionate about the big picture in the same way you are. He will not push you to find an alternative way, to build that new regenerative branch from our old society which you have been dreaming of your whole life. If you want to be that agent of change, can you really be with someone who is less keen on challenging himself and taking steps to reach that far flung goal?”

Silence. The voice is shrinking, transforming itself into a nurturing soup of philosophical love. The topics we are covering and the conversations they enable between the two of us are creating a new balance. Tim is entering further into my world view, my view of the world that I’ve been carrying, always. Permaculture isn’t changing me, but it has brought me a conceptual framework which allows me to express who I am through the words and ideas put forth by others who came before me. Now I get to intentionally and intimately share this view with Tim in a much more profound way, and our conversations are yielding a more solutions based mutual future. I have dreamt of this shared experience since the two of us first became a one, but knowing that I have no business trying to push anyone else into the sphere of thinking where I feel at home and where my future is blooming, I have moved slowly. It’s a delicate thing, love. After spending five years together, the opportunity and will to join in for a PDC arose through the mutual desire of a long journey. We have now set out on a 16-months long nomadic voyage, and permaculture is a part of it. The scared voice inside me was whispering: “This is it. This is the point where you either make it or brake it. Submerge Tim in your world of holistic thinking and see how he responds. If ge gets it, your safe. If he doesn’t, there is an alternative truth about your relationship.”

No. I never dared speaking about this fear with Tim. It felt as if it would do more damage than good. I’ve been thinking, “he must also have his fears about being us”, and then looking at the strong base we have built with our love for each other through nature, simple living, climbing, camping, traveling, cooking, and being active in so many ways, it seemed much wiser to let the whisper be left alone in that corner. I would have been concerned if it had grown stronger over the years, but it hasn’t. It just another balancing constant, I guess. By nature, I have an intensely questioning mind. This voice is simply another part of it, making sure that I stay on track through life, giving me a little scare but also providing a reality check. Are we compatible or not?

I’m so ridiculously glad that he gets it. We are safe. The base has grown even stronger, and now the next level awaits us.

PDC reflections 4 – day 9

This was important. This was worth all the money, time and energy spent on the planning leading up to these two weeks and the immersion into permaculture during these two weeks. This was a key factor, maybe t h e key factor, in letting me know that Tim and I are a good match. Looking ahead, I can now rest my mind knowing that Tim has had a full on experience with permaculture design, and that he now knows what its all about, and that we can now share this way of systems thinking to plan our entwined future.

It’s a harsh thing to say, “do this or I will leave you”, but in essence, that’s what I did on a personal-mental level. I knew I needed Tim to understand at least the basics of permaculture for me to be able to plan for a long life together. Some things are just more important than others. I will never need to turn him into an avid freediver, because I can meet him on the rocks instead of in the ocean. We don’t have to work together side by side every day or have the same opinion on all subjects. But with permaculture being so strongly linked in with my core ethics, there was just no way that I could keep on leading a joint life, with Tim not knowing about those ethics and how they impact my life. Since 2010 I’ve been using permaculture as a framework through which I observe and analyse the world. It helps me to stay in line with my ethics and to view every decision from multiple angles, so that I know I can stand up for whatever I decide to do.

When analysing my relationship with Tim, I saw that we were aligned in most domains, but that I had a stronger emphasis on systems thinking in relation to my place in this world. I live with the mental framework of a compulsive analytical do-gooder. I can’t change that, but I can harness and use it as a strong beneficial quality of my personality. I need my life to fit with my personality, thus, I need Tim’s idea of our mutual life to fit with my personality.

I have a very strong need to understand my own patterns, so that I can tweak my way of living to provide a positive outcome through those patterns. Any pattern can lead to regeneration as well as degradation. I will not stand for degradation, will never accept that I can’t change whatever is going on into a regenerative force. That is also true when it comes to my relationship with Tim. Of course I have no intention of trying to force him to be different or to change, but I can strongly encourage him to take part of a piece of my world so that he can then make a facts based decision regarding wether or not he likes that part, and wether or not he would like to include it in his own life. Luckily enough, he chose to say yes when I said that I needed to take a Permaculture Design Course together with him. Luckily enough, he enjoyed it and learned new things. Luckily enough, I can now share myself more fully with him. Luckily enough, I can now say with renewed confidence that I believe in our mutual future. It’s not that I didn’t love Tim when he didn’t know what permaculture was all about, I just love him so much more now that he does know.

PDC reflections 5 – the aftermath

Two weeks, that’s often a short period of time. But boy, these two weeks have felt like two months. I’m such a course junkie… I love the intensity of just flooding your head and heart with information of all kinds and then see what comes out on the other end.

In a few words:

I want to keep living with Tim
I want to keep being a semi-nomad
I want to keep teaching permaculture
I want to keep working with creating regenerative landscapes
I want to work both in Sweden and in other countries

Thank you for sharing my thoughts.

Thank you Tim, David, Sue, Angela, Beck, Kelvin, Kim, Dave, Alessio, Jermy, Shahar, Ben, Kate, Katie, Clare, Kat, Liane, Stanley, Osti, Laura, Oana, Sylvain, Atma, Karly, Patrick, Joel, Ian, Mike, Lisa, Rod and all you others who took part in the course. You changed me.

Klara

Tio månader efter kollaps

Förstår ni vilken resa det här är?

Av en smärtsam anledning så har den 18e i varje månad blivit en dag att minnas.

Den 18e november 2015 var jag och bouldrade på Fabben. Det var ett roligt träningspass. Jag var stark och glad. Klockan närmade sig nio och det var dags att avrunda, men så skulle jag bara visa några andra ladies en beta på ett svart problem som jag nästan, nästan hade fått till. Upp med vänster tå här, korsa över där, skicka hit… Woosch! Där föll Klara. Där föll Klara och hon landade så fel att hon vek sitt knä bakåt. Fitt i helvete vad det var obehagligt! Jag vrålade till och rullade runt på mattan, djupandades på ren rutin för att hantera smärtan, klöste av mig skorna och rullade bort från väggen. Försökte känna efter, testade att böja, testade att stå, det gick asdåligt. Linkade in i duschen och spolade hela vänster ben med iskallt vatten.

Satte mig i trärummet och lät tårarna rinna medan Tim kramade om mig och snälla klättrare försökte hitta kylspray och lindor. Peter som just hade åkt hemåt fick rycka ut och komma och hämta oss med surfbussen och så rullade vi till akuten i Mölndal. Kring midnatt hade jag fått min första dom: Inget brutet men skador på ligamenten i vänster knä. Sjukskrivning i 2 veckor. Hem och vila, sedan återbesök hos sjukgymnast. Vi som skulle åka iväg i 15 månader om bara några veckor! Noooo..!

—–
Den 18e februari var jag tillbaka på Ortopeden i Mölndal för att bli opererad. Det var inte bara en liten stukning jag hade åsamkat mig själv. Efter att ha fått göra en MR-scanning innan nyår hade läkarna konstaterat att främre korsbandet var av och att det fanns skador på meniskerna. Jag läste på allt vad jag kunde hitta om korsband, pratade med mina vänner som var sjukgymnaster och ortopeder och konstaterade att jag ville göra en operation. Så där låg jag nu i en varm sjukhussäng, fick nålar i armvecken och droger i blodet. Räknade baklänges från 10 och fnittrade ”Det här är som att svimma när man fridyker!” Sedan stängdes medvetandet ner.

På uppvaket grinar jag igen. Jag har aldrig varit skadad på riktigt innan och nu väntar en lång rehabperiod. Jag är säker på att jag kommer bli bra, det här är ingen konstig skada, men det är tungt att vara en sprallapa och veta att de närmsta 8-9 månaderna kommer att gå i ett dämpat tecken. Jag vill ju klättra och springa och dyka och leka som vanligt. Jag vill ju alltid allt. Skit också.

—–
Den 18e april har jag avklarat min första vecka tillbaka på jobbet som trädgårdsmästare på Botaniska. Två månader efter operation är jag där och rensar, sågar, krattar, skyfflar. Jag är alldeles lycklig över att det går så bra, att jag trots en ghetto limp kan utföra mitt jobb och får vara tillbaka i trädgården igen. Ortosen har åkt av bara några dagar tidigare och vänster ben är illans spinkigt, men vad gör det? Jag får vara mig själv, ute i det fria.

—–

Fem månader senare, den 18e september, ligger jag och guppar i Medelhavet och asgarvar tillsammans med mina fellow vattendjur, Linda och Sofia. Vi har just avslutat våra sista, goa träningsdyk ner i det djupblå. Vi har gjort vårt bästa för att vara redo inför VM, och nu känner vi oss starka som satan. Jag har haft hela 7 träningsdagar här i Kalamata och har nått en platå på djupet kring 57 meter. Det känns helt absurt roligt. Hur kan en kropp fixa att gå från kvaddad till 80-90% funktionell på sju månader? Jag blir blank i ögonen när jag tänker på tiden som gått.

Jag har redan vunnit mitt VM.

Allt som händer från och med nu är bara bonus oavsett hur det går. Jag är så jävla stolt över mitt psyke, att jag i samtal med sjukgymnast, fridykarvänner, Tim och chefer någon gång i maj kom fram till att jo, om jag bara tränar som jag ska så är det helt ok att åka på VM och tävla, även om mitt knä inte är helt återställt. Planen är satt, och jag verkställer den med iver.

Det är tio månader sedan jag skadade mig. Inte i min vildaste fantasi hade jag kunnat tro att det där klätterpasset skulle leda mig tillbaka ner i havs famn, men det var precis vad det gjorde.

Livet är bra fantastiskt.

Jag älskar att leva! Jag älskar att jag låter mig själv FÅ leva. Jag älskar att vara här, just nu, 200 meter från havet och med världens bästa landslag runtomkring mig. Imorgon ska jag ha en riktigt rolig första tävlingsdag!

A fulfilling, non-judgemental lifestyle

How hard can it be to find a fulfilling, non-judgemental lifestyle?

—-

An everlasting question, I suppose. It’s very hard.

Part of my answer is this, that every time I have devoted my time to a physically and mentally challenging objective, situated in nature, I have felt that I am doing e x a c t l y what I am meant to be doing. The question marks regarding the meaning of life still arise during the quest, but also fade swiftly and leave me content with what is.

I long for that feeling, cherish its simplicity.

In daily life, setting myself up with work related challenges where the scene is a man affected landscape such as a city, I seldom feel that I am fully at ease with what I’m doing. There are so many moral aspects of life in the presence of other human beings. I find it hard to step away from the fact that I am a privileged person with potential power, thus morally obliged to search for A Better Way Of Living and to share the multiple answers with others. I am doing my best to be here and now and at the same time allow myself to continuously zoom out further and further, to be able to se more clearly what values have been instilled in me and which of these values I can choose to reject. This seems important to me; a hobby philosopher, deeply entrenched by a moral and ethical code which I can sense is out of date and probably of target.

I do not wish to be part of a destructive society today at the age of 32 anymore then when I first started to formulate my own ideas and thoughts on the subject at the age of 14, but thankfully the time passed has given me a more humble attitude in relation to the definition of a Destructive Society. The world really isn’t nearly as fucked up as I thought it was in my late teens. The world has probably never been fucked up and will never be fucked up. Who could objectively judge in that matter? Yes, we have gazillions of problems in our human society, but we are most likely not moving backwards even if the conservative right wing movement is strong these days.

Understanding at an ever deeper level the effect of being an organism which lives in an unfolding, evolving cultural flow, my mind keeps reaching for simplicity. For the greater picture. For the underlying patterns. For liberation.

Liberation. Ha!

Yes. I’ve never thought of that before. I wish to find answers to all my questions, to become liberated, free at last.

Liberated from the human context? Hmm. No. More likely liberated from the cultural, historical context which pushes down on my mental sphere like a warm wool blanket, a muffling gray, made of thousands and thousands of separate strands of thoughts passed down by generations. A felted mess that I’m trying to untangle and rid myself of, because I can not stand n o t trying to do it. I aim for the stars, wish to have their far away perspective on this global society of ours.

The blissful here-and-now kind of mentality that I appreciate and can glide into when in nature, alone or with likeminded persons, can at other times make me furious when I’m interacting with random people. If they too are applying this mentality but in a way that displeases my moral self, my grand moral monster gets angry. If I have an underlying feeling that these persons are acting disrespectful towards the Earth and its ecosystems simply by not putting an effort into thinking new thoughts which allows them to widen their perception of life, of this magically interesting universe, I want to shake them and m a k e them think.

Come ON, think harder! Stop limiting yourself!

But I don’t do that. I can’t do that. I know the moral monster is not very good at judging others in an objective way. It’s so pumped up with fiery morally induced feelings that it itself is acting exactly like the persons in front of it, the persons it wants to shake. The moral monster is a rather stupid part of me. It does give me fire and strength to keep on looking for possible answers, but it also dumbs me down.

For now, one of my largest personal mental quests is to harness that part of myself, the moral monster, so that I peacefully can take another good look at society and the people creating it.

At the same time I’ll be enjoying the simplicity of freediving at an elite level for an extended period of time, attending the World Championships in a few weeks time. That’ll get me right into the flow of emptying the mind, so that afterwards I have made room for new philosophical endeavors.

As always, to be continued…

Trädgårdspod

Jag gillar ju att snacka högt om mina tankar kring världens väl och ve, as you might have noticed.

Fick nyss möjligheten att vara med i den podcast som Nina Frogneborn producerar åt Botaniska. I avsnitt 6 pratar Anders Stålhand, chefsträdgårdsmästare, och jag, Klura filura, om trädgårdsmästarens roll i dåtid, nutid och framtid. Rätt vettiga är vi i vårt resonemang, tycker jag allt.

Här hittar ni avsnittet.

//k

Rethinking ethics

Flying. Not totally comfortable with getting on a plane, to go somewhere just for fun, just for meeting another person. There is a heavy ethical and moral debate taking place deep within whenever I make decisions which seem not to comply with my own ethics.
Interestingly, the last two years something inside me has shifted. I am no longer as certain about my old ideals. My core is the same, but I have furthered my understanding of the world both on a anthropological and scientific scale. I believe I might be on my way to the next level of ethical thinking, which for me is an enormous gift in relation to personal development and mental relaxation.

This old idea of mine (and others) of living an ethically correct life seems to mean very different things depending on at what scale I as a person would like to operate. If I decide to act locally as a change maker to be able to move few resources and keep my carbon footprint down, then flying is out of the equation. Whatever I do to live and act out this local life will then probably also have a mostly local effect from a socially interactive perspective, and therefore a limited effect on a planetary scale.

That’s ok.

I could chose that way of life. It would make perfect sense to work with what I have at an arms length and make the best of it. I’m very glad that there are millions of people who have decided that this is their way of life, because that means there are millions of people acting as change making hubs on a local scale, with tools such as permaculture, the transition movement, circular economy, agroecology, chaos pilots etc. They bring others along and provide the social glue needed for a persisting, viable change.

I am at times one of these millions of local human hubs, guiding and teaching, but I am also at times one of the global bumblebees, who during their nomadic flights cross pollinate ideas and cultures and values, and thereby draft new iterations of who we are and what we are supposed to do with our lives, from a Homo sapiens perspective.
If I decide that I want to be this change making bumblebee and act on an intra- or intercontinental scale, then I will need to circle more resources through the system. I will most likely need to fly every now and then, not with my own wings but in an airplane. To reach a higher level of influence I need to not limit my own energy usage in the same way as I do when I act on a local scale. If I can’t funnel energy, I can’t have a great outreach. (Remember, we can’t really ”use up” energy, we can only transform it. The concept of exergy comes to mind, but let’s not go there now). Not even with this World Wide Web at my fingertips can I accomplish as much online as I can in flesh. This is also ok, but the scope of it is so much larger that it took me many more years to understand.

However, even though I can find a logic in why it is ok not to go Toyota on my own life, when acting on this continental bumblebee level there is an automated, instant feed back loop hardwired into my brain that tells me I’m a BAD PERSON!!! I’m a naughty ecosystem destroyer. I’m a cancer. I’m an abuser and overuser. Why should I be allowed to use more than my share, more than others? Doing ”good” is not a reason strong enough to override a taxing usage.

It is very, very hard to put that emotional reaction under scrutiny of my own logical brain, but at the times when I manage to do so I find a cluster of semi emotional- semi science based assumptions that seem to steer my actions. These assumptions seem to stem from a mixture of childhood memories, facts learnt in grade school, truths from my young adulthood… An internal, old school mirror of the society and the people I grew up with. I might have been a tabula rasa at my conception, but the blankness swiftly got scribbled over by me and others. I am of course me; I am also a logical iteration of this universe, of this planetary biosphere. I am unique but not very different. My ethics and truths are not mine but ours. In this societal age, climate change is the driving factor behind many personal sets of ethics, and I got I inoculated with these at an early age. (Unfortunately, the persons who gave me this strong sense of right or wrong couldn’t also provide me with the tools I needed for a life of regenerative work. I’m glad I’ve found a way forward on this arena myself, after three decades of searching).

When I get hit by the BAD PERSON emotions, I try to confront them, try to get inside them, try to see if they are worth being felt as ”truths” anymore. It’s my way of hitting back, of using a more scientific approach to unveil a potential falsity within myself. There is no point anymore in acting as an ethical slave in relation to ethics which in some cases have already gone out of date. Things do change. I’m a fan of dynamics, of acknowledging the fact that nothing is ever static, that the universe move from chaos to order over and over again, and so do I. History tells me that what someone thought was right and wise to do years ago often turned out to be a destructive choice. I can never ever know what impact I will have on life on this planet in the long rung, but I sure do my best at guessing, and then second guessing myself, striving for simplicity and a caring lifestyle.

What I dream of now is to use energy to gain momentum, to shift over to the next gear and ride the change effortlessly, like cruising with a bike through a warm summers eve. I will still be an ethical activist, will probably have a new set of assumptions to scrutinize, will always be annoyingly full of questioning thoughts, ready for the next level of thinking whenever I can reach it. I dream of an underwater garden, of a food hub, of a piece of land by the sea with a regenerative food producing system in place.

There’s a picture in my mind, I’ve seen it painted by many artists, of a foot leaving the ground and under it is a green, lush, growing space full of life. It’s a good metaphor of the Positive Footprint. I like it. I zoom out and I see that the other foot has stepped on something else, has had a potential negative footprint, but the total sum of these footprints is still positive. Positive. More than before.

I’ve given myself permission to live more grandly again, to do things which make me happy but has no thought of purpose for the rest of the ecosystem, after understanding that if I put a lot of energy into healing the planet, the biosphere will respond. So I get to be both egocentric and ecocentric. If it doesn’t respond, then in a billion years no organism of today will know or care anyway. Planet Earth will most likely still be here, but we humans won’t. The squirrels will be gone, the whales and oak trees to. The continents will have moved into a new pattern, climate changing with the movement. Life is dynamic. I embrace that fact and things fall into place.

Växten, skörden, maten

Det är vår – igen – och det växer – igen – och jag vill äta upp allt – igen.

Att äta mat som kommer från marken nära där jag lever, det är fint det. Det är PK, inte bara politiskt korrekt, utan framför allt PermaKultur. Att se möjligheter, flöden, potential, outnyttjade resurser, läckor, system och subsystem… det är permakulturens början. Att se och sedan interagera med dessa observationer, då börjar vi närma oss aktiv permakultur. Där i svängarna är jag under vårens skira månader. Jag gnuggar snö och vinter ur ögonen, rättar till ogräsglasögonen på näsan och börjar plocka.

Växter från barndomen – harsyra, nässlor, ängssyra, almfrön, granskott, berberisblad, groblad, rölleka, maskrosblommor – har fått nya vänner i kökets alla salladsskålar, pestoröror, pajer, lasagner, woker och smoothies.

Under mina tidiga plockrundor genom stadens gröna bakfickor letar jag också reda på ramslök, parkslide, olika sorters rams, unga skräppor, lönnblommor, lindlöv, strutbräken, ängsbräsma, löktrav… I trädgårdens perennrabatter skördar jag funkia i mängder, den är åh så god!

Säkert är det tjugo arter till jag skördar av, men det är liksom svårt att komma på vilka de är när jag sitter här framför en datorskärm och försöker erinra mig hur det ser ut bland buskagen. På en hel växtsäsong, då är det nog uppåt femtio olika växter som slinker ner i maten, och det är högst troligt en underdrift. Är inte det fantastiskt, så säg, att det finns så mycket mer att lära sig om och äta av i det där gröna, det som är en levande, behaglig fondvägg bestående av träd, buskar, örter, ogräs, svampar och rötter, det som vi vandrar runt i men inte ser i detalj.

Jo, det är helt klart magiskt. Därför, tillbaka till permakulturen. Varför har jag gått in så hårt för att förstå naturen? Varför håller jag egentligen på med att plocka sådant som potentiellt har avgaser och hundkiss på sig, för att sedan stoppa det i min mun? Vad drömmer jag om när jag sover i vår lilla kolonistuga?

Jo serru, låt mig för sakens skull lista ett gäng aspekter kring vad jag anser är förträffligt med udda och vild mat:

Lust, glädje och avslappning.
Det är numera solklart bevisat genom forskning (1) att det visa djuret Homo sapiens (homo = man, sapiens = vis), mår bra av att vara i och/eller se på naturen. Jag upplever det själv varje dag då jag är ute och fridyker, klättrar, vandrar eller gör något annat skoj bland hav, skog och berg, eller när jag arbetar som trädgårdsmästare. Min erfarenhet säger mig att jag bör tillbringa tid i naturen för att bli lugn, balanserad, avslappnad och avstressad. Jag blir ofelbart på bättre humör av att gå ut ur människobyn och in i djungeln. Det är en lättillgänglig medicin för en människa i nöd, och numer går det även bra att få tid i det gröna utskrivet på recept från doktorn eller fysioterapeuten tack vare FaR, Fysik akivitet på Recept. Mycket praktiskt för den som behöver en liten hint och en knuff att ta sig ut. Att passa på att plocka sig lite mat medan en går en promenad eller röjer i trädgården är en mycket tillfredsställande bonus.
Det är GOTT!!!
Jag är glad att jag har fått återupptäcka en smakpalett som är så mycket bredare än vad mataffärernas grönsaksdiskar kan erbjuda. Inte ens mitt eget trädgårdsland smakar lika spännande som alla de udda och vilda växterna. Här kommer syra och beska fram på ett helt annat sätt än i våra vanliga grönsaker, och peppriga, senapsstarka toner ger fina kickar. Dessutom är de flesta smakerna mer koncentrerade, dvs varje litet blad av ramslök är en ekvivalent till fem fjompiga salladslökar. Att blanda till en sallad med 50% vilda växter är en riktig smakhöjare.
Aldrig i livet att jag tänker sluta äta så här god mat.
Ekonomiskt, privat och globalt.
Att plocka sådant som växt till sig utan att jag har lagt någon tid på att hjälpa till, det är god privatekonomi det. Istället för att gå in på affären och köpa en påse långväga bladgrönt för 250 kr/kg försöker jag så ofta som möjligt gå ut i naturen och plocka en purfärsk, varierad dito, för då behöver jag inte först lägga tid på att arbeta ihop pengarna.
Ordet ekonomi stammar från grekiskans oikos, ”hus” och nomos, ”lag”, och betyder sammansatt ”läran om hushållande med resurser i ett tillstånd av knapphet eller brist” (3). Det där att hushålla med resurser, det är jag starkt intresserad av, och jag är därför irriterad på att denna betydelse har gått förlorad i en märklig nutida begreppsförvirring på globalt plan. Ofta hushåller vi inte alls, ofta slösar vi som f-n med resurserna även om vi förstått att de är knappa.
Vad jag (och många andra) förespråkar är att vi långsamt går över till att förstå, nyttja och regenerera de lokala matresurser vi har tillgång till, och att detta nyttjande är baserat på lokala förutsättningar vad gäller klimat, jordmån, nederbörd etc. Vilda växter och fleråriga grönsaker/perenner är en del av lösningen vad gäller en stabil, lokal-global matförsörjning. På detta tema passar det ypperligt att lära sig mer om regenerativt jordbruk och matsäkerhet (4), men det får inte mer utrymme just här.
Kunskap är makt.
Jag är trygg i min vetskap att jag kan trolla fram mat vart än jag går. Jag kan inte alltid bli mätt på det jag hittar, men jag överlever. För varje år som går lär jag mig något nytt om en särskild växt eller snappar upp fler växter att äta. Är jag t ex i havet finns en stor tångbuffé och på stranden växer både bladgrönt och kryddor. Varje sorts landskap har sin egen ätliga flora att bli bekant med, och att ständigt smaka på och skörda av växterna är ett snillrikt sätt att hålla sin kunskap vid liv. Att ge den vidare till fler människor är mig också kärt (5), det var så mitt företag Stadssallad uppstod, genom guidade salladsvandringar i Göteborg. Det ledde vidare till fler engagemang, t ex att lära skolbarn om maten i och vid havet. Ni kan ju tänka er vilken rolig dag på jobbet jag hade!
Det är nyttigt.
Växter som klarar sig själva och har en lång växtsäsong har ofta ett högre innehåll av både vitaminer och mineraler. Detta gäller framför allt de fleråriga växterna, ex funkia, nässla och lind, som med sina etablerade rotsystem har en mycket större tillgång till olika näringsämnen, både via egna finrötter och tack vare ett symbiotiskt förhållande med mykorrhiza (6). Just i dagarna har det utkommit en ny svensk bok om fleråriga grönsaker, skriven av tre permakulturnördar. Där står myyyycket mer om nytto- och odlingsaspekter.
1. Det är roligt att vara annorlunda
  Jag gillar att göra sånt som andra inte gör, att vara icke-normativ och ifrågasättande. Med den enkla handlingen att plocka och äta udda och vilda växter så bojkottar jag hela jordbruks- och matetablissemanget. Då känns det bra inuti, då sjunger min hjärna ”/Sälj er sunkmat/ till någon som är lat/ Ha Ha Ha!”

Nog med aspekter för idag. Summa summarum är det roligt, gratis, hälsomfrämjande, smart och kreativt att äta i naturens skafferi. Jag tänker fortsätta med detta.

PS. Om ni önskar lyssna till min ljuva stämma så finns här ett klipp från ”Förmiddag i P4 Göteborg” om vad man kan äta i staden.

(1). Se bl a forskning från Patrik Grahn, professor vid SLU. https://scholar.google.se/citations?user=MppkpvgAAAAJ&hl=en

(2) Fysisk aktivitet på recept, FaR.
http://www.1177.se/Vastra-Gotaland/Tema/Halsa/Motion-och-rorelse/Motion-och-traning/FaR—fysisk-aktivitet-pa-recept/

(3) Ekonomi, Wikipedia.
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ekonomi

(4) ”Wake Up Before It Is Too Late: Make Agriculture Truly Sustainable Now For Food Security in a Changing Climate”, UNCTAD, 2013.
http://unctad.org/en/publicationslibrary/ditcted2012d3_en.pdf

(5) Det Vilda Göteborg, hemsida och bok.
http://detvildagoteborg.se/tag/stadssallad/
http://www.tukanforlag.se/bok/det-vilda-goteborg/

(6) Skosträdgårdsbloggen, ”Goda skäl till att odla fleråriga växter”.
http://skogsträdgården.stjärnsund.nu/skogstradgard/goda-skal-till-att-odla-flerariga-vaxter-del-1/

Gardening the Planet

We all want and need things in life. The ”wants” can differ in all directions, wanting a job or a phone, wanting a girlfriend or a new life. Emotional needs like feeling special and wanted intermingle with physical needs such as food and shelter.

Having had the opportunity throughout life to figure out some of my own wants and needs, I tend to also go meta level to try to see the patterns of these wishes so that I can make them happen more easily and often.

Just below Cerro Rincon, Silver Mountains, Argentina.

A huge need for me is to live my life in an adventurous way. Pushing my own limits is a constant source of energy, and the opposite – not pushing – is draining. That’s why I freedive. That’s why I climb. That’s why I surf, go long distance cycling, go paragliding, hike for weeks and do all kinds of personal athletic challenges. It’s also why I study, study and study some more – my brain is always in need of new facts, new input. That’s why I started a company and put myself in front of hundreds of students and listeners as an educator.

But, that last bit of starting a company is – in retrospect – also the point when things started getting a bit complicated a few years back. It turned out to be less of an adventure and more of an eroding experience. I turned out more stressed and less free. Sure, it gave me a huge chunk of experiences and new wisdom plus a weird, organically composed human network to tap into, but it also dragged me towards the center of the mass where I really don’t feel that I belong.

This, on the other hand, this is where I belong. In places in nature where most people would think they are about to die, because they’re out of air or just to tired to hold on.

I’m an edge person. I hate being stuck in the middle of something, be that a group of people or an area of science. The way I kindled my little company to life was very much in an edgy way, but in the end the entrepreneurial gravity started tugging at me, spinning me inwards. I was choking and leaking, unable to reset my navigation.

Here’s two important clues as to what happened:

I was working solo ==> Not feeding my brain enough, that is: To few deep work relations, to many shallow ones.
I was working odd hours ==> Not feeding my personal social adventurous life enough, but instead draining myself of energy.

So what do you do in that position? Keep on going, hoping that you’re soon over the hill and that on the other side you’ll be able to hire colleagues, get a work space and set a routine for your working hours so that you can also have some ”free” time again?

Nah. I did one of my meta level zoomed out analyses and figured it was better to go low key with the entrepreneurial stuff, get a job at an established workplace and start honing my skills and up my experience in the field where I have finally realized that I want to be (even though I have yet to discover on what step in the hierarchy I shall place myself).

That field could be called something like Gardening the Planet, in the most regenerative way possible. I am sure I will get there, and it will be together with others. Meanwhile, I will also hold a large space for adventure.

So here I am, about to start my second season at the Botanical Garden in Gothenburg. I actually feel like I own all my titles now, that I AM a gardener, an engineer, a permaculturist, and that even though I don’t have a paper stating that I’m an adventurer, that doesn’t matter because I’ve always been that. I’m still ranked as the best female freediver in Sweden of all times. I still biked all the way to Gibraltar to look over the strait at Africa while chatting with monkeys. I still moved to Argentina and became una andinista. Those experiences will never go away, and I will be forever grateful to myself for being so annoyingly stubborn that I keep on setting myself new, odd goals.

This summer, we will be swimming for 10 days in a fjord somewhere in Norway, our equipment stuffed on SUP-boards. I am so looking forward to this little adventure and the gardening season, before the larger 15-months adventure goes boom in 2017.

Oskar, Klara and Eric swimming with a longboard in Gullmarsfjorden, 2009.

Forza! Norway, 2012. I had gotten stung by a wasp, my left foot supersized, unable to squeeze into a pair of climbing shoes. Hiking in flip flops was the alternative option.

This summer, MounTim will come with me, the sealion, on an ocean adventure… yay!

Balance

Sometimes I think that climbing and freediving are just two sides of the same coin, and that that’s why I’m so drawn to them. Both activities include close interaction with the elements (e.g. rock or water), a strong mental focus, physical strength, the need to perform and relax at the same time, mostly small scale equipment, an individual performance coupled with the need for a team, and the feeling of being free and one with nature.

But then, when I start to compare how these two activities makes me feel, in my mind and in my body, the differences are abundant.

Rock climbing, to me, is about the flow and repetition of a differentiated set of small details and small moves. Your hip turning ever so slightly towards the rock face, allowing you to reach that next crimper, then your momentum can be shifted over to your left foot by adjusting your balance on that tiniest of holds, just a small rocking movement and you’re there… You tie into the rope and narrow your world down to what is of the essence of right now – the features of the rock face measured against your bodily and mental capacity. The most beautiful climbs are set in a mental state of flow. You know that you do not know what awaits you up there, and you relish that feeling and succumb to it. Freedom is being fearless.

Freediving is an entirely different set of repetitive movements. They’re larger, more simplified. You are a wave. Punto y final. The pattern of freediving is less complex when it comes to what muscles you use and how you move your body, and so it calls for less mental activity. While practicing freediving, you get to know your own breath before and after a dive, and you familiarize yourself with its impact on your state of being. You get to know your own inner landscape, because during a breath-hold, that’s all there is to see. The only way to escape from meeting yourself is to surface again, and why would you want to do that? A freediver longs for the depth, for the intimacy it provides. Freediving is meditation and thoughtless contemplation. With this self awareness, you walk through everyday life a stronger person. It’s a simple and beautiful gift.

Freediving calms your mind, rock climbing activates it. They both lead to a state of flow, but for different reasons. I cherish them both.

The trick is to understand how to do both without constantly loosing your essential climbing calluses from swimming in the ocean for too long 😉