Healing Myself, Healing the Earth

Ah, the Fall is almost here and if you call it Autumn or Indian Summer it doesn’t matter, it is one of the best beautiful times of the year in New England. Starting at the end of September to the end of October the leaf colors will be in full bloom and my family and I will travel up through the mountains and down through the north shore as the foliage migrates south.

This year is so different than in perhaps 15 previous Autumns since I feel so clean, lighter, leaner (with several more inches to go) and feeling a lot more in tune with myself and the earth.

For those who have been tracking me and my quest to heal my body of diabetes and obesity, I have a couple of inches of room and growing in those size 42 shorts I bought at the beginning of summer. I have not needed any prescription medicine, and I have been able to cut back on supplements because I receive so many vitamins from the vegetables, grains, and fruit I eat as a vegan and raw food eater.

I want to clarify that statement so you know what I am doing. My wife is a vegan and I love raw foods. But in any marriage that lasts there must be compromise. We split out the week’s dinners so we do a raw meal and then a vegan meal every other day.

I nearly always have a raw meal for breakfast and 80% raw meal for lunch. I do eat Ezekiel breads which are sprouted and then baked. I love vegan cookies but only if they are low in agave content and high in fiber.

Snacks are fruit, raw crackers, nuts, and rice chips. This kind of eating is not for everyone, but it is working for me. I love the affects of this kind of eating and from my Pa Kua, Qigong, and Yoga exercises.

This is a very simple but intense practice and I have only 7-9 more years of walking the circle until I can move to the next level. There is nothing magical or mystical here. It is a practice to see if I can be patient, breath properly, and meditate as my Qi begins to flow freely from the ground, through me, into the sky, and then reverse.  I do this barefoot but the morning dew is cold and wet. What about snow?

Anyway my Bagua partner, Paul, and I, have been following the “Bagua Linked Palms” manual written by Wang Shujin and translated by Kent Howard and Chen Hsiao-Yen.

I have been feeling the effects of better eating, better Qi movement, and just a better way of thinking of myself and my place in this world.

Lately, I have been thinking about what my impact on the world is and I have decided to really ramp up my composting efforts. I started two years ago when I bought my house in Manchester, NH, but didn’t realize what I was doing. I piled all my grass clippings behind some large bushes I have and ended up with a pile about 6 feet high. I put grass and leaves and whatever else would die off like the stems of my tiger lilies. Now that pile is 2 feet high and the richest free soil.

My impact:

1. No extra bags to the landfill.

2. Free soil for my garden next year.

3. Reduction of fuel needed to destroy or store that garbage.

I know it isn’t much, but it’s a start.

I really get crazy about recycling. So much that I bought a couple of 60 gallon rotating composters made from recycled materials.

I also own a t-shirt company with 3 other people so I want to figure out how to wrap these with cool vinyl graphics.  To the right is my brown matter pile.

Once I have the correct formula for creating compost within 30 days then I want to ramp this operation up a bit. Oily Duck is the name I picked out because I hate seeing those oil covered ducks floating in a pool of oil after some supertanker spills a few million gallons of crude into the ocean.

Eventually, I believe I can build an operation to handle thousands of tons of food, newspaper, and yard waste annually and then onto recycling forestry and farm waste into fuel pellets.  The difference will be that I want  materials that are dead or dying. There is no need to wipe out acres of good living trees in clear cutting. There is enough raw materials from farms, communities, and the forest itself. The forest gives up tons of dead branches, dead trees, and in the properly managed wood there must be well maintained fire lanes. The earth is willing to work with us so I might as well try.

Just like the story, “Stone Soup”, where three soldiers convince a town of something so unbelievable that the towns folks go out of their way to help them,  I  am telling you right now, I know the secret to reducing our trash output by 2/3. Does anyone have an industrial zoned land and building nearby?

If this seems like a crossover it really isn’t. Self healing is something we all can do if you try and take responsibility for your health instead of holding out your hand, waiting for it to be filled. Self healing for the Earth is something She does, but if we are not in tuned with Her thinking, She may finally see us as the problem and kick us off.

Thank you for reading.

Comments

[Anonymous]

Hi Bill,

Wanted to drop a note the other day but got interrupted half way :). Glad you are recycling. Looks like you may even have a profitable business going on in the future. I stay in a flat in land scarce Singapore but we recycle plastic bottles as much as we can.

Keep well

:) Kim