"I DON'T SEPARATE HOPE FROM MY ACTIONS" VANDANA SHIVA AND SATISH KHUMAR

BRUNCH WITH VANDANA SHIVA AND SATISH KUMAR!

It's Saturday, I am in London, better than that, I am in some posh organic restaurant in Notting Hill  and I am having brunch with two of the greatest activists in the world of permaculture/sustainability etc etc.

The theme is Seeds. Vandana and her team have just published their latest book called "Seeds Freedom" and its available to read on line at navdadia.org.  Here is the link: http://www.navdanya.org/attachments/Seed%20Freedom_Revised_8-10-2012.pdf.

It has a very illuminating chapter on Europe and its policies on seeds and it's rather scary and complicated.

If you want to know more about what these two think, please go and get their books from the library! I recommend Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace from Vandana and my favourite book by Satish is You are Therefore I am: A Declaration of Dependence.
 

So I am not here to scare you because the News can do that quite easily.

I am here to give you some ideas of what you can do!

Hope has got to be at the base of all our actions - see title of today's effort.  How do we do this?

Here is how:

Only use seeds that either you have saved or you have bought from an independent seeds company. In the UK The Real Seeds Company is deemed to be sound. I have no information about the others but there was talk at the brunch that most seed companies in the world are now owned by the seeds and GM Food cartels...

O dear, I did say I was not going to scare you! Back to hope.

Learn how to collect seeds at the end of the growing season! I will be posting a tutorial on this in August with illustrations etc. Its much simpler than it sounds and there is no need to do a course on it. You will need loads of paper bags so start collecting now!

For now, if you want to have a go, look into your potato bags and see whether you have any that have start germinating. If you do, plonk them upright in the bottom of an egg box and leave them on a window sill in an unheated room (preferably but it works in the spare room too!). When the sprouting bit is about 2.5cm tall, plant them! I know that we get told that we have to buy new potato seeds every year because otherwise they will become "diseased". I am assured by Vandana (who knows what she is talking about) that is is not true.

Next year's potatoes chitting on the window sill!

Close up... not ready yet but give it another month....

Get together with your friends and start collecting and swapping seeds! Meet up for brunch (copycats!) or whatever and start doing it. It is not complicated, costs nothing and by saving your seeds and sharing them you will save yourself some money, get a bit of fun and also help break the monopoly of the big manufacturers of GM Food and seeds.

If you collect your seeds and use them year upon year, selecting the strongest plants (as I said, tutorial to follow), Vandana says that they will produce better vegetables, adapted to your soil and your garden. Amazing but rather logical, don't you think?

And finally, instead of believing that you need the prayer "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...", start saying "God grant me the ability to change the things I cannot accept" (This is the current slogan of native canadian tribes who have had enough) and get a move on!

Don't feel powerless, it disempower you!

There is plenty that we can do to make a difference and I suggest you start right now!

In hope and with love,

Baya

SEVEN NIGHTS WITH SEVEN MEN...

That got your attention, didn't it!

Let me explain.

Two months ago a male friend invited me to go to the north of Scotland and share a house. Cheap as chips, love Scotland. I signed up!

Then it transpired that I'd have to share the house with 7 men. Was I phased, distressed? Not really. I wanted to go to Scotland! However my female friends and beloved frowned and predicted disaster. What would I do with seven men?

I'll tell you what I did! It was absolute bliss. Nobody asked me for an entire week HOW I WAS or indeed WHY I was doing anything. If I said no to anything the answer would generally be OK!

I went in and out, long walks on my own, lovely meals together in the evenings. I felt free and so incredibly relaxed.

I got to thinking about men and women (as you do) and their difficulties. This is what I came up with. Simplistic for sure (but then I'd think that....I am a woman and I like to complicate and analyse things) but interesting (I hope).


When I said that I did not understand the verbal instructions about the central heating, John instead of settling down for a long mull on what the instructions might or might not have been, got up and went to ask again! What a disappointment. I was really looking forward to spending a couple of hours speculating...and freezing in the process. Then I could have complained bitterly about the cold!

Lesson one : Men generally do not like to complicate things. If they do not understand something they tend to say so. Women love to complicate things just for the fun of it and will discuss endlessly what it was that somebody meant without even thinking of asking for clarification.

When I said to Rob, no I don't want to go for a walk with you. He said O OK. I was speechless, I had prepared this long rambling explanation about the why and he had just walked away from me. I felt cheated and abandoned, hurt and upset...actually I did not, what I felt was relieved because I did not have to go for a walk with anyone!

Lesson two : Men do not need to ask why and accept your answer as face value. Which drives women mad because they love the word WHY and its many ramifications. Also very often Women's answers are not straightforward and do require a why because what they really want is a bit of a chat or a way to complicate things which is what makes life so interesting!

When Alan said Lets sort this mess out looking at the sitting room, six men got up from wherever they were and stated sorting it all out. It had been a tip and in a few minutes all was spick and span. There had been no complaining about the mess, no sighing, no feeling put upon, no discussion about how and who would do what (and of course the why of everything).

Lesson three: Men are strangely organised in a completely disorganised way. Women are obsessed about order and need things to be done at a certain time in a particular order. Men tend to get on with things when they need doing. Women do things because they should or they think they should.

When Peter said could he have a lift to the station because he had to go back to Edinburgh, there was family trouble, David said I'll take you mate. Peter suggested 6.30am and David laughted. No, mate, make it more like 7.30. Peter said OK. Nobody asked how and why. I was itching to get the back story to this. I wanted to know how Peter felt and offer a lovely hug. David took Peter to the station. A while later Peter texted to say he'd arrived safely. Period. Aarrrrgglll.

Lesson four: Men talk about feelings in a completely different way to women. They don't chat about feelings, they tend to deal with them quietly. They do however know how to ask for help but the help required is often of a practical nature and they do not want to "talk about it". Women  need to share their feelings so that they can work out what those are and like to deal with them in company. They expect men to be part of the company. Men find the whole thing boring and irritating. Women then feel unloved and ignored.

and finally Lesson Five: spend a week with blokes and you might become one of them! But not quite. You'll be relieved to know that as soon as I got home the first question my lovely partner asked was "How are you feeling?"....man or woman?

Tis all for now.

With love

Baya