Salamongundi, Feasts and Big Lunches

The Big Lunch I really wanted to set this up in my street, like the Jubilee street parties of my childhood, where we played catch the egg and had slowest bicycle races. I am not really sure where my priorities lie at the moment so maybe I shouldn't start this new thing. LOADS of good ideas on this site, which inspires Big Lunches up and down the country on July 18th this year. http://www.thebiglunch.com/ideas-and-inspiration/ I also want to make a mental note to myself to research feasts and feasting from an anthropological point of view....many have done this, see below. I just want to put some time aside to go back to more academic studies of the world and food and how we relate to it. RADIO BBC radio 4's Food Programme http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qnx3 (episode on Feasts:Last broadcast on Mon, 12 Oct 2009, 16:00 on BBC Radio 4 (see all broadcasts). Synopsis: Feasts have been a feature of human life since humans first mastered fire and climbed out of the trees, but what function do feasts have in today's largely urban society? Sheila Dillon visits the Thames Festival Feast, a modern urban harvest festival, bringing food back into the heart of the city and recreating a sense of community. Grape treading, sacred mayonnaise making and mobile food gardens make a vivid modern feast. Central to it a table spanning Southwark Bridge, its tablecloth printed with collections of Londoners' food stories. The traditional feast has been disappearing from rural areas, but the Welcombe community in Devon some years ago introduced a Christmas Salamongundi to bring the community together to celebrate. Poet and author John Moat explains how it came about. Sir Roy Strong, author of Feast outlines the social, political and religious subtext of historical feasting and, with Rev Richard Coles, comments on the dining TV reality show, Come Dine With Me. BOOKS Feast: A History of Grand Eating by Roy Strong, published by Jonathan Cape Ltd; ISBN-10: 0224061380,ISBN-13: 978-0224061384 Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, by Richard Wrangham, published by Profile Books,ISBN-10: 1846682851, ISBN-13: 978-1846682858 Food: The History of Taste, edited by Paul Freedman

Teaching children about sustainability

http://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/learning-resources/teaching-children-abou... all out of date but just putting this here as part of my collection on educating children about sustainability
Media_httpwwwschumach_bhphl
Media_httpwwwschumach_woede

Teaching Children About Sustainability

SCHUMACHER COLLEGE An International Centre for Ecological Studies TEACHING CHILDREN ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY Caroline Walker, who taught (and cooked) for years at the Small School, Hartland and facilitated the first Roots of Learning course and wrote of her experiences. Listening to participants at the introductory session, I became aware of the range of experiences, ages and backgrounds being brought together – teachers from private schools, from referral units, from urban primaries and rural secondaries, and artists working in the community; experienced educators alongside teachers in training and the newly-qualified. I felt keenly the responsibility of helping each person get what they wanted from the course and ensuring coherence and continuity between the learning experiences offered by the various tutors. Little did I know that my most difficult challenge would be getting participants to tear themselves away from their animated conversations at coffee breaks! Our first day saw us outside most of the time, with Jon Cree from Bishopswood. An experienced practitioner of Earth Education, Jon took us through a series of activities in the grounds and woodland around Schumacher College. We walked with our eyes in the sky, made up a poem about a tree, we showed each other pictures in a stunning natural ‘gallery’. Later that day we walked up to Park School, where we saw how they use their grounds to enhance the children’s learning. Sue Clifford on day 2 talked of the work of Common Ground, an organisation which celebrates local distinctiveness. In a beautiful series of images she convinced us of how precious are the, in a sense, ordinary things people value about the place they live. Common Ground invented Apple Day, when communities can raise awareness of local varieties of apple – and other fruit – and help to keep traditional skills and knowledge alive. Schools can play a vital role in this and Common Ground has encouraged many schools and local communities to plant apple trees and care for them. Fired by Sue’s enthusiasm we went off after lunch to plan Apple Days at our various places of work. Participants had the chance to talk about their work each evening and also to do a short presentation at the morning meeting. Perhaps the most effective of these was Ganesh’s demonstration of how to make a flower holder/bird feeder out of willow. He had thoughtfully brought a bundle of willow and some jigs, and we watched spellbound as he transformed five willow wands into a thing of beauty; immediately everyone wanted to try. From then on at almost any time during the course someone was sitting in the hall weaving willow. A perfect example of teaching and learning at its best. Prue Leith arrived preceded by her reputation as a great cook and campaigner for good food in schools. She told us about the RSA’s Focus on Food campaign, informed us about an innovative scheme to get children to eat more fruit and vegetables (check out the Food Dudes) – and then made us cook. Twenty-five teachers all trying to make fresh pasta and foccaccia dough in the Schumacher dining room was a sight to see, and some of us were too faint hearted to venture into the kitchen itself where sharp knives flashed and soup, sauce and salads materialised as if by magic. Mary Tasker (chair of the Human Scale Education Movement) came on Day 4 to underpin our learning with a very necessary academic framework. Unless we know where our modern worldview comes from, how can we understand the power of the modern (and post modern) paradigms that shape (or will shape) our lives? Mary also explained to us the Reggio Emilia system of nursery teaching that has impressed so many educators around the world. Another fine afternoon drew us to work outside in groups on putting principles into practice. On the final morning, Wendy gave us a proverb which neatly mirrored the themes of our days to take away – “if you want to invest for a year, plant rice; if you want to invest for ten years, plant an orchard; if you want to invest for a hundred years, invest in education”. Caroline Walker April 2002 Courses in 2002/3 : THE ROOTS OF LEARNING: EDUCATION, ECOLOGY AND IMAGINATION Lindsay Clarke & John Moat October 27-November 1, 2002 Although we live in a time when education seems to be all about imparting information, it is actually through the imagination that children and adults perceive and interpret our world. This course examines the vital role of the imagination in educating both the self and others for a whole sense of life. Through writing and other creative forms of expression, participants will develop their own capacity to work with the imagination in ways which open up on wider educational and ecological concerns. This course follows a TANDEM model (the Teachers and Artists Alliance), providing an opportunity for teachers to work with experienced artists within the context of Schumacher College’s ecological perspective. Lindsay Clarke is author of The Chymical Wedding and most recently Parzival and the Stone from Heaven. He was a teacher for 18 years, is Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Cardiff, and runs writing workshops in Bath and London. John Moat is a poet and novelist, and was one of the co-founders of the Arvon Foundation. He also helped set up, and teaches for, TANDEM (the Teachers and Artists Alliance). THE ROOTS OF LEARNING: DESIGNING A SUSTAINABLE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT Eileen Adams, Matt Dunwell, Peter Harper & Mark Letcher April 12-17, 2003 A bewildering array of technologies and techniques are now available to make buildings and grounds function more ecologically – from windmills to living machines, permaculture gardens to solar panels. This course brings together experts in the areas of alternative technologies, sustainable energy systems, and landscape design to discuss ways that schools can apply these methodologies in ways that are affordable, practical and educationally valuable. Eileen Adams is an educational consultant who works with Learning through Landscapes www.ltl.org.uk and specialises in helping involve all school members in the design process. Matt Dunwell is one of the leading permaculture designers in the UK. He founded Ragmans Lane Farm www.ragmans.co.uk, an established permaculture farm which has been used as a teaching venue for nine years, and has been developed to demonstrate a wide range of permaculture systems. Peter Harper was originator of the term “alternative technology” and is Head of Research and Innovation at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales www.cat.org.uk Mark Letcher is Manager of Research and Implementations at the Centre for Sustainable Energy in Bristol www.cse.org.uk, a nationally recognised centre of excellence for sustainable energy policy and practice. For more information about Schumacher College and its courses, please contact : The Administrator, Schumacher College, The Old Postern, Dartington, Totnes, Devon, TQ9 6EA. Tel : +44 (0)1803 865934 Fax : +44 (0)1803 866899 Email : admin@schumachercollege.org.uk Website : www.schumachercollege.org.uk

Films that will change your life... hopefully

I've been compiling a list of films that are life-changing in some way. In style, they may not be cutting edge or even deserve to be thought of as a real 'film', however it's the content I'm interested in for the purposes of this list. How many have you seen? You may have seen many of them already. And I'm aware the list is not comprehensive ! Feel free to add any you feel should be on the list. In time these will have synopsises. Documentaries and links will also be included eventually FOOD ISSUES:
  • Fast Food Nation
  • Supersize me
  • Food Inc
  • The Future of Food
  • McLibel
  • Supersize Me
  • Supermarket Secrets
  • A Farm for the Future
BODY AND EATING:
  • The PH Miracle
to continued SPIRITUAL GROWTH:
  • What the Bleep do we know?
  • Celestine Prophesy
  • The Secret
  • Peaceful Warrior
  • Bruce Lipton: The Biology of Belief
  • Doing Time Doing Vipassana
  • tbc
ENVIRONMENT /THE PLANET/SOCIETY
  • Who Killed the Electric Car
  • The End of Suburbia
  • An Inconvenient Truth
  • The 11th Hour
  • Outfoxed
  • The Corporation
  • The Age of Stupid
  • Adam Curtis' films
  • Flow
  • A World Without Water
  • The End of the Line
  • Crude Awakening
  • Baraka
to be continued...

How the blood of the human and the blood of the plant are THE SAME!

and arguments for eating raw food... [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_ZCLbHDXWg&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

My fave landscape architecture sites and blogs

http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/ We believe there is a great need for debate – about how garden and landscape design can make our planet more beautiful, more habitable and more sustainable. To explore these possibilities, we discuss things seen and points about how they were made. (PW: this is an extremely useful site - run by Tom Turner at Greenwich Uni, who teaches Landscape Architecture there) http://www.bricoleurbanism.org/
Media_httpwwwbricoleu_gimag
An ongoing series of reflections on the city, the landscape and the fields that manipulate them from the perspective of urban design, landscape architecture, Toronto and Canada. http://pruned.blogspot.com/ On landscape architecture and related fields. By Alexander Trevi. http://www.iwanttobealandscapearchitect.com/ ‘I want to be a landscape architect’, the careers website for the profession that combines art and science, design and the environment.

People in Order: Age

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUHLa1qSy24&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Tagged Film & TV

Green party announces local candidates..

I've been talked into this... keeping it vv quiet...

Greens pick a gardener, a mum and a teacher as their council candidates

Mar 25 2010 Harrow Observer A WORKING mother, a keen gardener and a former nursery school teacher have been picked to represent the Green Party in Brent's council elections this year. Brent Green Party announced its three candidates for Queens Park ward last Friday. Some of the issues the candidates will campaign for include more support for local businesses and independent traders, better return and distribution of residential compost and waste to residents to use in gardens and allotments and the creation of kitchen gardens in schools where children can grow their own fruit and vegetables. Alexandra Freed is a working mum and owner of a small ethical organic business. She is also chairwoman of the parent and staff association at Malorees Infant School. She said: "Greens will give you politicians who are no-nonsense and down to earth. I would love to serve the local community and do everything to make life in Queens Park even more fabulous. Our commitment is local business, not big business." Petica Watson helped set up campaign group Transition Kensal to Kilburn, which encourages the community to make the area a more environmentally friendly place to live. She loves cooking and gardening and finding ways to connect urban life with nature. She said: "I want to find better ways to have our residential compost-waste brought back to the residents for use in their own gardens and allotments. "At the moment it is really difficult for anybody who doesn't have a car to collect and make use of this composted waste." Isobel Hurt is currently working as a private nanny looking after children having previously been a nursery school teacher. She said: "My knowledge of the local area and its residents is extensive due to many hours spent in Queens Park and its neighbouring green spaces trying to keep little ones happy come rain or shine. "I want to promote kitchen gardens in local schools by involving children in small class projects and building up to future sustainability." Shahrar Ali, Green Party parliamentary candidate for Brent Central, said: "Our vote in Queens Park ward has always been formidable and has grown year on year. "In Alexandra, Petica and Isobel we have a dedicated and dynamic team of Green campaigners who would like nothing more than to serve the people of Queens Park on Brent Council."
Tagged Green Stuff

the origins of serendipity

I've just found (courtesy of wiki) that the word serendipity comes from Serendip, the old Persian name for Sri Lanka. I looked it up because I'm never quite sure how to use it. I like talking about synchronicity too, which seems just another word for what I like to think of as the Universe conspiring with you when you start focusing on something... creating a momentum, that possibly means you are on the right track. Anyway: Serendip derives from an old Sanskrit name Swarnadweep (Swarna meaning golden and Dweep meaning island) How did we get it? Well, Horace Walpole in 1754 wrote a letter to his friend, saying: "It was once when I read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a camel blind of the right eye had traveled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand serendipity? One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental sagacity (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for, comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table." Other words to take note of: zemblanity , coined by wonderful author William Boyd (Read "Any Human Heart") to mean somewhat the opposite of serendipity: "making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries occurring by design". It derives from Novaya Zemlya (or Nova Zembla), a cold, barren land with many features opposite to the lush Sri Lanka (Serendip). On this island Willem Barents and his crew were stranded while searching for a new route to the east. Bahramdipity is derived directly from Bahram Gur as characterized in the "Three Princes of Serendip". It describes the suppression of serendipitous discoveries or research results by powerful individuals.

Where can you educate and stimulate yourself easily and for free?

Open University videos on iTunes U

I've been working for the Open University for a long time now, re-organising their audio-visual archives so that they can be accessed free online through ITunes software, on ITunesU. It's a fantastic resource that hardly anyone seems to know about. Universities all over the world are uploading their visual content in the hope that potential students will be impressed and want to study a given course at that institution. Open University's material is the best of course. There are skillfully put together documentaries on all sorts of subjects (called albums), divided into short chunks or "tracks" . Open iTunesU on your computer and go to the Store. Click on the tab iTunesU and surf from there. Here's an example.

http://itunes.open.ac.uk/r/1vTBeR

The universities have the content, the videos and web provide the platform, and hey presto, a very useful service.

And here we have a San Francisco based company doing something similar - except, these are only filmed lectures, rather than professionally edited documentaries. Also, they're streamed, so you have to sit through their annoying initial student blurbs about when they've got to hand in their essays etc. Here's their blurb:

Academic Earth is an organization founded with the goal of giving everyone on earth access to a world-class education.

As more and more high quality educational content becomes available online for free, we ask ourselves, what are the real barriers to achieving a world class education?  At Academic Earth, we are working to identify these barriers and find innovative ways to use technology to increase the ease of learning. We are building a user-friendly educational ecosystem that will give internet users around the world the ability to easily find, interact with, and learn from full video courses and lectures from the world’s leading scholars.  Our goal is to bring the best content together in one place and create an environment in which that content is remarkably easy to use and where user contributions make existing content increasingly valuable. We invite those who share our passion to explore our website, participate in our online community, and help us continue to find new ways to make learning easier for everyone. http://www.academicearth.org/about and here's an example of a lecture: http://www.academicearth.org/lectures/sustainable-systems-in-sustainable-living (Gosh American uni students are pretty rowdy and excitable don't you think!)