Making Friends with Vishnu

The concept of sustainability has always been there—right from the beginning. Every Wisdom Tradition has its own ways of reminding us to honor the Earth, to Love each other and to value the lives that we are given. Nonetheless, we, too often, have a “better idea” and rush headlong into unconscious, entrenched, egoistic patterns. Let’s take time out for a minute and see what one of the oldest Wisdom Traditions in the World has to say about sustainability. More specifically, let’s see what Vishnu brings to the discussion.

Brahma is the first member of the Hindu Trinity, Vishnu being the second and Shiva, the third. Brahma is the god of creation. Shiva is the god of destruction. Destruction and creation go hand in hand. They are like two sides of a coin. For example, the destruction of morning is the creation of noon and the destruction of noon is the creation of night. This chain of continuous destruction and construction maintains the day. Similarly, the destruction of childhood is the creation of youth and the destruction of youth, the creation of old age. In this process of birth and death the individual is maintained. Vishnu is the god of maintenance.

The gods representing creation, maintenance and destruction, are essentially one and the same. They, however, appear quite differently. We love to dance with Shiva. We are seduced by creation. We are excited by starting projects--feeling the surge of juicy creativity. We’ll work for a week to plant a garden and, later, fail to weed it.

We feel just as powerful when we are destructive. Destroying something gives us a sense of closure—of power. We’ll till that same garden, weeds and all, under in late Fall. We might even mumble something about “taking better care of it next year”.

So, we begin. And, we end. And, we begin. And, we end. It’s a cycle that is highly unsustainable. But, it’s also a pattern that is indigenous to our species. Our egos thrive on the excitement of beginning and ending. Maintenance is a whole different matter. It’s boring. No adrenaline. No bells and whistles. So, poor Vishnu—the god who holds everything together--gets forgotten.

All of our creation and destruction is wreaking havoc with the Earth. We are filling landfills with our destruction, depleting resources with our creation. We buy too much and we throw too much away. We are too industrial and too wasteful. It’s time for us to make friends with Vishnu, god of maintenance, to create a cycle of sustainability.

How sustainable is it to spend a lot of money on expensive seeds and bedding plants to build a garden and then let it be taken over by weeds—only to be tilled under in the Fall? Vishnu wants us out there weeding, mulching, watering, and tending. He wants the plants to be cared for so that they can grow into food.

Vishnu wants us to maintain everything. He wants us to maintain our lives: everything from our gardens to our interpersonal relationships. It’s time to make friends with Vishnu. He is the god at the very heart of a sustainable lifestyle! There are so many places, daily, that Vishnu’s presence would abet deeper sustainability. Let’s look at just a few:

· Mending: Nobody mends anymore. When we hear the word, it conjures up ideas of our grandmother, sitting in her rocking chair, darning socks. Grandma would be pretty shocked at today’s response to a worn sock—that is, to just throw it away and go buy new ones. Sewing on buttons, fixing small tears, and reinforcing frayed seams all extend the life of clothing exponentially. I know, I know. The argument against mending is that you don’t have time. A family of four spends an average of $2,850 a year on apparel and apparel services, according to the federal government's Consumer Expenditure Survey. Too many times people chuck a piece of clothing because of minor damage that can easily be corrected with a needle and thread. It behooves one to learn how to sew, as this simple skill can save you lots of money, even without owning a sewing machine. If learning isn't an option, even paying a seamstress to mend your clothes will save you money, as repairing clothes is cheaper than buying new. And, there is the issue of not supporting sweatshops—where so much clothing is currently manufactured.

· Garden Care: Here is some really basic gardening advice: don’t plant more than you can reasonably weed, water, harvest and tend. Garden plants are not knick-knacks. They are living entities that depend upon their caregivers for continued life. Well done, a garden is a work of art—a thing that is beautiful to behold. Badly done, it is tragic. Weed-infested beds, pest-destroyed leaves, dry and withered stems break Vishnu’s heart. There is a lot of hype out there right now about “growing your own food”. I do it. And, it means that I spend a lot of time with Vishnu. I weed. I water, I harvest. I tend. A garden is a great lesson in, literally, reaping what you sow!

· Menu Planning: This is an area that can save a family big money. And, a lot of time, as well. The simple act of sitting down and figuring out a week’s worth of cook-at-home dinners, where ingredients can be shared over the course of several menus is really economical. And, not running to the store daily to “pick up” needed ingredients for meals is a time, money and gas saver. Most people find that by planning, and shopping for, menus on a weekly basis reduces their grocery bill exponentially. Sure, it’s a little more time spent with Vishnu, but it reaps rewards on many levels. Grocery shopping with a plan limits pricey impulse purchases and return trips to the store for forgotten items. Planning ahead also helps avoid the 5 o’clock “what’s for dinner?” question that too easily leads to the answer, “let’s go out to eat.” You can also plan for inexpensive foods that take a little longer but save money, like dry beans that need to be soaked overnight.

· Consolidating Errands: Speaking of trying to eliminate those return trips to the store for forgotten items…! Vishnu wants us to consolidate our errands. He is a whole lot happier when we are not running back and forth to town to “pick up” this and that. Even if you bicycle to town and back like I do, it’s still not time efficient to run back and forth constantly. I try to advance plan my trips to town so that appointments, errands, shopping needs and so forth are all consolidated. A trip to the dentist gets combined with Farmer’s Market, mailing out my package at the Post Office, returning a Library book and picking up some green tea at the spice shop. This takes some forethought and some list building: the stuff that Vishnu thrives on! I’ve learned to rely on a little notebook that I keep shoved in my pocket to jot down “to dos” that can be consolidated later in the week. This also slows the pace of life. Not everything is an emergency! Things happen more organically and naturally—and, I often find that they happen exactly at the “right time” in the bigger picture.

· Day Planning: I have found that by sitting down in the morning with a piece of paper and pencil can save me a lot of time throughout the rest of the day. First, I make a master list of what I would like to accomplish that day (no attachment to the outcome, though!). Then, I move the items around into clusters that naturally go together. Can I combine a couple of “to dos” into a melded activity whereby both are getting done at roughly the same time through careful planning? Am I, for example, able to tele-conference with my editor at the same time I water some new transplants in the garden? Or, how about listening to an important podcast while filling the food dehydrator? The other day I experimented with seeing how many yoga asanas I could incorporate into my posture while weeding the garden. It was really neat! I cross things off my day list as they get done. Sometimes everything gets crossed off. Not that often, though. But, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I stay focused throughout the day, allowing more to get done with less hustle. With some practice and Vishnu’s guidance, anyone can become a master of time!

· Home Repairs: This point speaks for itself. Doing home repairs saves money, time and eventual deterioration. This is the easiest place to see Vishnu in action. Plugged drains, loose shingles, sagging porch rails, peeling paint are all calling out to Vishnu. Without his intervention, they will soon be in rot and ruin. There is so much information these days, too, about “how to” do the various repairs. There is a Wiki on everything—many complete with video instruction! There is something incredibly liberating about fixing your own faucet. And, many times, it’s not that hard! Sure, it takes a little time. But, if you do the math, it actually saves you time. A plumber, for example, would easily cost you $150. to fix a leaky faucet. If you earn $15./hour, that means that you have to work ten hours to pay him/her. Did fixing it yourself take ten hours?

These are some simple, elementary ways to start making friends with Vishnu. You will find that the better friends the two of you become, the more Flow you access in your life. Things get easier. Time opens up. Money is saved. Resources are not wasted. Energy needs are reduced. Living well is spirituality in action. It is an integration of the spiritual principles of simplicity, integrity and mindfulness with day-to-day lifestyle practices. The bridging of Heaven and Earth!

Sherry L. Ackerman, Ph.D. is the author of The Good Life: How to Create a Sustainable and Fulfilling Lifestyle. The book springs off from her 22 years of living on a back-to-the-earth commune in Central Vermont and offers practical ideas for not only surviving--but flourishing--in today's challenging conditions.

Philosophical Musings on the Juxtaposition of the Words "Commercial" and "Food"

So, how did it happen? How did we all get complacent enough to accept the phrase "commercially produced food" without even blinking an eye? How did Uncle Sam go from advising the US public "to garden" to later telling the US public "to shop". And, not just to shop, but to shop for food.

Food is the hub of the wheel. It's the one thing that we all have in common: we all have to eat. And, we are what we eat. Recent statistics regarding the number of people with early onset cancer, degenerative disease, diabetes and dementia all point to a decline in the quality of our food. "Commercial" anything is about profit, not quality. So, when food becomes a profit motive, a lot goes out the door.

Some of the things that fly out the door are health, money (yours, not theirs), environment and energy. Big Agriculture is unconcerned about the environmental carnage left behind by pesticides, GMO crops, soil depletion or erosion.Big Agriculture is unconcerned about how much fuel it takes to run those mega-machines to produce, harvest and transport crops. And, Big Agriculture doesn't care how much food costs you and your family. They care about directing profits to already rich corporate interests.

Most of the food in your supermarket travels thousands of miles in trucks or planes to get from the farm to the shelves. Think about how much fuel us used to transport those items. What kind of impact does that have on the environment? When you purchase food at the store, you’re also paying for the cost of shipping, packaging and storing that food. What kind of impact does that have on your wallet?

While organic foods have grown in popularity, many commercially available foods are still sprayed with pesticides, herbicides and preservative formulas to prevent disease and spoilage. The USDA currently allows "57 trace pesticides" in foods labeled organic. Are you scared (or angry) yet? Not only can these chemicals pose health risks to you, they also impact the environment through air and water pollution.

The concept of "commercial food" really gets at the heart of the differential identified by Scott Nearing. Nearing made a clear distinction between "use production" and "market production". Use production is when you produce something (in this case, food) for your own household's use. Market production, obviously, is producing for sale on the open market. Nearing argued, and I agree, the "use production" was, in the Big Picture, the most efficient and effective economic model.

By growing and preserving your own food, for example, you’ll save money. Food grown from seed costs a lot less than store-bought. By preserving your harvest you can reduce the amount of food you throw away due to spoilage. There is no packaging. There are no middle managers. In addition, you can save the seeds from the fruits of your plants and replant them next year. By following these practices you could feed yourself indefinitely.

Food that you grow yourself just tastes better. Food in markets, even health food stores, is often in cold storage for up to a month before being sold. Fresh food is more nutritious and has better flavor than the stuff that comes from the store.

I grow my own food. I "get my groceries off the ground". When I walk through my garden and cut fresh greens for salad--and eat them no more than an hour later--the benefits of Nearing's "use economy" are evident. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that I can buy at a market (even a Farmer's Market) comes close to the level of quality that I can produce right outside my window.

It's my vision that more and more people will wave goodbye to "commercial food" and replace it with a "use economy" model. If Uncle Sam won't tell us to GARDEN anymore, we'll just do it ourselves!

Unplugging from The Man, Part 5

As we get deeper into Unplugging from the Man, we invariably come face-to-face with our addiction to petroleum. Sure, we like to sit around and do the "ain't it awful" with our peers, but we keep using gasoline. Classic addiction: I'll stop tomorrow. And, tomorrow never comes.

So, what's the solution? Stop pumping!! It's that simple.

The average American household spends $385./month on gasoline. That is almost $100./week. Even with the recent surge in gas prices, consumption has only reduced by 0.7%. We all know that we are past peak oil. We all know that our three wars are contingent upon our lust for oil. Yet, our societal behavioral changes seem to lag behind our knowledge. We are suffering from cultural cognitive dissonance.

Let's look at some practical things that we could do, easily, to stop pumping and start Unplugging:

(1) Bicycle: Get a bicycle, equip it with a basket for carrying groceries. You'll be getting heart-healthy at the same time you stop stressing about escalating gas prices. You'll slow down. You'll notice more things along your route. And, you will no longer be held captive by the oil barons. Bicycling is good for the Planet, good for your health and good for saving money.

We all think that we don't have time to bicycle places. It's just a head trip. Recently, my partner needed a large bunch of mint to put in his recipe for the evening meal. So, I hopped on my bicycle and went a couple of miles down the road to a large pond, where both peppermint and spearmint grow abundantly along the south shores. Within a few minutes, I had filled my bike basket and was peddling back home, enjoying the fragrance of fresh cut mints. My more conventional neighbors asked me, “How do you find the time to do these things?” Let’s take a look at this, though, for a minute. I can bicycle eight miles per hour even on a bad day. That puts my transportation time at roughly fifteen minutes. The actual wildcrafting takes about ten minutes, including the time spent watching some ducklings learning to bob for fish, bringing my total time investment to about twenty-five minutes. This is roughly ten minutes less than it would be to drive into town and go to the market. There are no hidden time costs such as parking, waiting in a checkout line, or having to go to a second store because the first one didn’t have it. My mints were super fresh, didn’t require any packaging or gasoline use, and didn’t create any auto emissions. So, we do have time to bicycle places!

(2) Ride Share: How hard would it be to share rides with others? Sure, it involves some planning, but that's about it. Planning means that you will be talking with your neighbors and colleagues. And, what's so bad about that? Wouldn't that be community? Have you ever gone to your son or dauther's sporting event and noticed that all of your neighbors are there, too--and that you all fired up your own, individual gas guzzling machines to drive down there?

Commuting just 15 miles each way to work can cost as much as $ 2,264 per year at current gas prices. Sharing the ride with just one other person can cut your commuting costs in half. Think of all of the more interesting things that you could do with that extra thousand dollars!

(3) Consolidate Errands: Again, a little planning can go a long ways. Instead of firing up your rig to run into town and back every day of the week, designate one day as "errand day". Train yourself to get sufficiently organized to do everything that you need to do in a single trip to town: groceries, errands, meetings and appointments. Make lists. Work around already existing commitments. If, for example, you have a weekly Wednesday afternoon appointment or meeting, go into town a little earlier on Wednesdays and also do your shopping and errands.

We are so incredibly used to instant gratification that this will make us uneasy for awhile. We are used to running into town to pick up a single lag bolt, right? Or, a bottle of olive oil? Once, though, the savings start to show up in the household budget, we'll be really excited about the whole list-making and planning process! There is real money (and time) to be saved here.

(4) Walk, Ski, Snowshoe: You will be surprised how fit you will get in a very short time by making this lifestyle change. When you feel like a trip to town just to "get a java" at the local coffee shop, ski in. Walk. Snowshoe. Or, bike. It makes the outing even more fun than it would have originally have been. Maybe you could invite a friend to share the foot-transport with you.

Of course, we keep pumping because we think, erroneously, that we "don't have time" for alternative forms of transportation. But, why are people in the most technologically advanced civilization in the world starved for time? One of the hooks that keep people locked into the consumer culture is the lure of convenience. We are told that convenience frees up time. This looks good on paper, but when inspected more closely, it doesn’t quite ring true.

Convenience does, superficially, create more time. But those conveniences are expensive and, in the long run, require people to work more hours to make more income to pay for them. In other words, people end up working more hours—thereby having less available time—to make enough money to pay for convenience. The final product of convenience is time famine. There’s something wrong with this picture.

Harvard economist Juliet Schor, in The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, argues from statistics what I have figured out from experience. According to Schor, American’s work increases by one day each year. Averaging only sixteen hours of leisure a week after jobs and associated travel and communication responsibilities, working hours are longer than they were forty years ago. This, in large part, traces back to our addiction to gasoline. It strikes me that by dealing with our gasoline addiction--which is really a "convenience addiction"--we will be freed up to enjoy more leisure. And, that's a pretty nice perk for Unplugging from the Man.

Author’s Note: This blogpost was the fifth in a series of articles about Unplugging from the Man. Stay tuned for more suggestions and ideas about achieving personal freedom.

The Good Life: Part 1

The Good Life: Part 2