In the Spirit of Fasting: Karwa Chauth

My husband's family is Hindu. I don't consider myself a very religious person, but today is a special Hindu holiday, Karwa Chauth.

It is one of those holidays, which it's hard for me to tell whether it is a very cute holiday, or a little bit degrading towards women?

However, in the big scheme of things, many holidays have both an endearing side and a somewhat degrading/shadow side – especially American ones, on one hand being a very pleasant experience- surrounded with friends and family, and the other- the shadow of it all, is that mostly they have become huge commercial operations.. Only furthering the pollution and oppression in our world. Unless the family celebrating is one of a kind and spends these days volunteering or donating money to worthy causes instead of buying into the whole consumerism package. I remember Christmas as a kid, being the most joyful day of the year.. apart from my birthday. And now, the one thing I look forward to, is being with family.. yet I dread presents! I dread getting presents and I dread buying presents. I just feel it goes against all of my values. In the past I have chosen not to purchase things.. and that doesn't feel nice, because I ended up getting all of these gifts, and had nothing to give in return. Other times, I have donated large sums of money to different charities, and told my family and friends about it. But I guess that doesn't always feel the best either, because for some reason we have it in our minds that giving gifts, is the way we show our love.

Which is a little strange that our love should depend on what materials we buy for each other.  And I also hate the feeling of forcing my values onto others- not celebrating, not buying other's gifts for the sake of not supporting consumerism.  And how to tell a child that you gave a gift to someone else for his sake?

Maybe it's okay, it could just be my ego that I'm working with, and my upbringing in the states.

I guess a third alternative is to make gifts. Unfortunately I am no knitter, or crafts maker.. but maybe that's just a story. I am good at baking! Another option could be to buy gifts from local craftsmen, who harvest their material sustainably, and no unnecessary packaging is involved. One could easily spend a fortune on something like christmas, buying all of their gifts like that. But the overall world's benefit I guess would outweigh the cost.

Today in India, is the holiday for the women to keep fasts for their husbands. The idea is that the fast will help them have a strong relationship together.

My family here, keeps asking me, are you going to do it? I keep replying, I don't know. I've never really made an intention before to completely fast for a whole day before.. for someone else!

I've tried fasting in the past, but usually what happens, is things are fine, until later in the day, and I get really headachy or cranky, then I find myself eating fruit or what not.

My husband is sweet though, he says if I fast, he will also fast.

But I feel the weight scale is a little uneven in this festival. Either, lol in my opinion of it all, there should be a holiday where the man should also fast for the woman. Or today should actually be about both parties fasting for each other. I don't understand that the weight is entirely on the woman. Seems strange to me, but again, I grew up in a feminist household. :)

None the less, I am in India and it seems all the women in my family are doing this, so I might as well try too! Currently it's only 10:00am, I am feeling hungry. The strictest followers of this holiday won't even drink water. That's where I'm drawing the line. I will drink water, and I'll see how far in the day I make it. I should be fine.

We'll see how it goes!   

Think Greener: Think Local

Last night I watched a film called, "The Economics of Happiness."

I figured since my husband was keen on watching it, that it was an inspirational film about being happy.  I mean it was, but  it was focused on sustainability and some of the effects of globalization on our world.  They addressed many key issues and boiled them down to a few causes, okay okay fine.. maybe one cause.

Globalization.

They addressed globalization as the biggest threat to our happiness, well-being, community and economy!

The film started off with a lady from England who spent about 30 years in Ladakh, Nepal.  The people there lived in a very remote place, and they lived off of the land sustainably.  When she asked one of the Ladakhi's which home was the poorest, the boy replied that there was no such thing, everyone helped everyone.  No one went hungry.  Everyone had a place in society, giving each person confidence and self worth since they all recognized that every one had different skills to contribute.

Basically this is before they were struck with globalization.  I'm not sure how long ago it was, but a road was built to Ladakh, and soon things were coming in from outside, including tourists.  Suddenly this exposure to the western culture, made the Ladakhi's feel primitive.

Overtime, their way of doing things had completely changed, suddenly they were being faced with problems they had never experienced before, pollution - of water, soil and air (from the introduction of motor vehicles and throw-awayables).  Among people even, the same boy who had told this lady that there were no poor people in town, was overheard saying to a tourist, "Please help us, we are so poor here."

Obviously this is just a little snapshot, I recommend seeing the movie actually, it's very well made.

They address many problems with globalization as well as ideas that people have about globalization.

For example,  the question:

If we stop importing grains and other goods from poor nations, won't the people and the economy suffer?

They answered this question in a very clear cut way, they were saying that as it is, these countries have little access to clean water and other resources needed to grow food, if you make them grow for others to have food - at world market prices (very cheap!), it is only furthering the damage to their own livelihoods.

But the interesting thing about this situation is that due to subsidizing on certain big industry products, as well as the industries need to cut costs at every corner (environmental and socially), these big brand names are able to produce cheaper products than locally produced!  For example, in Ladakh today, butter which is shipped in, is half the price of butter made by local residents!

Supporting local isn't always more expensive, but it is always more ecological as well as socially responsible.  Small and local farms typically can grow much more food per acre, because it serves them to have a variety of vegetables and fruits to offer.  Big industrial farmers, really must specialize their business in having one crop.  Because there are acres and acres of land, and in order to process it at the speeds and the quantity needed, they use machinery as well heavy use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.  Not to mention that in regarding the economy in all of this, small locally farmed- especially organic operations support people much more, their wages are higher and more people can get jobs!  I feel we have a tendency to blame foreigners for taking 'our' jobs.  But actually, in my opinion technology is the main culprit for taking our jobs away, as well as MASS MARKETING and FACTORY JOBS.  Think of  world where people spent their time doing things they loved to do, where they used skill sets which took years to develop and created beautifully crafted products for us to enjoy and relish for generations.  These days everything comes in plastic.  Where is the ingenuity?

I went to a museum here in India and they had all of these intricate beautiful copper or other metal made containers for all sorts of household items - eyeliner, cooking oil, combs.. etc.  They were beautiful! And maybe these days we could even try for something a little more eco friendly.. lets say, bamboo?

 Many products are shipped out from one country, packaged in another country then perhaps shipped back to the original country it started from!  The world has promoted exports and imports so much that our consumer miles are a little bit outrageous.

And to what avail?  Smoggy air?  Supporting big industries?  Not to say that I'm perfect, I guess I have  tried to do as much local as possible, but it's true, sometimes convenience or 'needs/wants'  can play a 'bigger' role in what you purchase.  Also for the most part, I go out of my way to buy organic, even if that means I am buying it from a different country.  But I think definitely after watching this movie, I am going to be a much more conscious consumer, lol not like I haven't been, but I could definitely work on finding local options.

The awesome thing about India is that over half the country is farmland.  So no matter where you go, most likely you will be eating local.  For the most part, as long as you aren't blatantly buying apples which say 'fiji' or some other country on them.  Organic is a little tougher to come by here, but atleast we have Local going for us!  And when I go back to the states, it may not be the easiest to find locally
produced products, but I will do my best!!

At the end of the film, they took a couple of the elders of Ladakh to the western world and showed them some of the problems with our lifestyle - depression rates, landfills, old women and men in nursing homes with no families, waiting to die.  None of these things did any Ladakhi's ever have any experience with before.  They also showed the Ladakhi's some modern conveniences for example, a washing machine.

It ended on a nice note, showing how they are now working with the Ladakhi's and restoring their faith in themselves and how their lifestyles aren't backwards, they are forwards!  They also were installing new technologies which made their lives easier yet didn't compromise their landscape - solar panels, windmills etc.

Anyway, check out the movie, it's a good one :)

Choosing between more Education and more Experience

So I have been in this sort of toss up for a while.  Especially after getting married.  My husband is an inspirational teacher, so he is often on the road, and I'm often on the road with him.  He teaches in the States, Europe, Australia, different parts of Asia and of course across India.  It's fun travelling with him, but I do feel I've become a bit idle when it comes to the work that I feel really passionate about.  Which is green communities and creating green communities.  I love every aspect of it, from the idea of reinvigorating old buildings to become new thriving works of art, to reinvigorating areas of town to become the new cool centers.  Through a variety of means but mainly creating green spaces, community gardens and not to be without strips and patches of native plant communities to support wildlife-wildlife coordidoors :).

This is would include patio gardens, rooftop gardens, native and food plants filling the streets and windows.  Fruiting vining plants up sides of buildings.  Buildings built in perhaps more pyramid-like shapes in order to support more plants!  Banning vehicles in certain parts of town, more walking centers, more bicycle friendly roads.

Reinvigorating our soils, I would love to learn remediation techniques where toxins can be broken down to harmless particles.  The book, Mycelium Running, by Paul Stamets is excellent!  He talks about how mushrooms can break down different sorts of petroleum compounds into safe substances!  Even some of the mushrooms once grown in petroleum filled soil, have been tested safe for consumption!  (please don't try this at home, because I can't remember the exact details of the exact experiment, but it shows the potential possibility of how bioremediation could really benefit our lands!)

Not only remediating our soils, but taking care of it in such a way that it can thrive!

Of course, in places which are colder, building structures - green greenhouses.  Meaning no fossil fuels are used, but perhaps natural building techniques combined with efficient water recycling systems and perhaps solar panels.- just some ideas.

Creating a culture where nothing is thrown away, everything can be either washed and reused or composted.  Containers which are composted, are only made from sustainably harvested materials, and nothing is really produced on a large scale.

Because of the healthy soils and plants which would inundate the cities, the air would be fresh and clear.  There would also be many greywater gardens, and either natural or man-made wetlands in order to naturally filter our water.  Clean water and foods (from plants!)  would be available to all.

Buildings would be made of natural materials, and everyone would learn in school about taking care of soils, plants and natural buildings.

Everyone would then have full access to food, clean water, and shelter.

This would free up ALOT of time.  We could dedicate our lives to creativity, connection and not taking life too seriously.

We could share in each others gifts, hand made bamboo clothes, beautiful music, dancing, poems  sharing of stories and the playing of many games, as well as playing in natures abundance (haha am I a total hippie or what?) swimming in clean water, climbing trees, etc.

Welcome to my dream world!! I hope you enjoyed it :).

Anyway back to reality.

I went off on a slight tangent, but my point in this, is that my interests are focused yet.. I mean come on for me to learn all the details of how to create everything I just listed above.. well it may or may not be realistic but haha I guess that's what dreams are for, right??

And of course there is another slight addition to everything above, of course this is from my perception.  But I do believe all of our health problems today are because we've really lost touch with joy in our lives. We've lost touch of that connection to ourselves, to our community, to our lands and animals.  We have lost touch with wholesome food - both physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

I believe that if we can start taking steps towards more wholesome environments, we too can become healthy.  Atleast a little more than what we are today, with all of the flying figures of terminal diseases and what not we have today.

So, see how many tangents I have a tendency to go off on?

My point is, after many circles of where I should focus my energies, what should I learn first.  I feel that what I have boiled it down to is soil science -agroecology.

Before I have a chance to live in my perfect little world (the descriptions found above)  I live in this one.  And I would love the opportunity to learn a little more in depth about why soils function the way they do, and what are the best ways we can make them healthy?  Once soil becomes healthy, then everything that comes out of the soil must also be healthy?  Right?

It may or may not be true, but I would love to learn more about it.  I would love to be able to visit these organic farms and understand more indepth why they have the certain pest problems they do, how they can adjust their farming practices to enable their plants more resiliency for the challenge of climate change.  Right now, we have a lack of people really skillfull in this area, in developing and planning landscapes to be healthier and more productive- in a sustainable way!

- And of course, I always have ideas and thoughts about why certain plants are not growing well, etc, and ideas for change, but whether or not that is the BEST solution, I can't know for sure.

I have thought so much about whether or not college is the best option, or if just experimenting on my own is better or picking up jobs with people who are really doing awesome work.  But what happens is, I see that I end up not really pushing myself to learn as much as I could.  I buy a lot of books, I am always reading, but the retention of knowledge is sometimes there and sometimes isn't.  And of course, I end up travelling a lot, which doesn't really help in my will to really sit down and study one thing for a long time.

So I feel pretty strongly at this point to go back to school.

However, I'm thinking of going back to school in the states, and currently I am in India.

Which does create a bit of turmoil inside of me.  Because there are a lot of really amazing things happening in India at the moment.  For example, I've recently met someone who is an amazing vegan chef and together we make an awesome team!  And she is really into this idea of working together and creating a vegan business, hehe I even shared our menu on this blog.  We do have amazing food if you all are interested in us delivering :), our prices are negotiable as well.

We are also really into sustainability, so if we start something, I want to make sure all of the containers we use are reusable.  If we open a restaurant, I want to invest as soon as possible in alternative energy, grow our own food... etc etc.  It would absolutely be an amazing place.

As of now, I feel this kinda pull.  Is it possible to do both?  (go back to school in utah plus have this business in India .. lol)

The edge of a decision!! The funny thing is I'm about knee deep in both options at the moment.  I've already been corresponding with the school back in Utah, they are expecting my application, and I have already started my application, everything.  And I have been working with my friend on vegan healthy foods and selling stuff- which has been a lot of fun.

hehe. What to do.

But I realized one thing, I learned something really nice from my dear husband, whatever advice you try to give others, is actually only meant for yourself.  So haha of course, like usual my mind was playing over a conversation from another time, and I felt like I had just found the solution to one of my friends problems.. LOL i know right, pretty pathetic... but I turned it around.. and decided to apply it to my situation.

I've been feeling a bit stuck in my current situation.  I think because I am not fully involved/dedicated really in anything, and it's difficult for me to become fully involved in anything because I have a tendency to want to be involved in EVERYTHING.

I keep expecting an external environment to grant me freedom, to be soooo appealing to me that I do dive in head first.  I want to be free of this stagnation I have been feeling.

but only WE can grant OURSELVES the freedom.  It has nothing to do with our external situations.

Ugh, tough lesson to learn.  India is good at teaching those ones!

Anyway the thought that I am the only one actually in control of my freedom was relieving.
I guess the point is, I can be happy no matter what I do.  I can be happy no matter what the outcome is.

I can appreciate and love the world just the way it is.  I can appreciate and love myself just the way I am.

Nothing needs to change in order for me to be happy.

and in this, my freedom is granted.

I can still apply for the school.  I can be honest with the people around me about how I feel.  I can still put my all into vegan cooking as long as I am still in India.  And I can leave the rest to fate.

And I can still be free.

And I can still be happy.

SO thanks guys for listening to my internal discussions on whether I should go back to school or not!!

Hehe come again. :)

My Opinion on the Elections and the 'Economy'

I was browsing facebook when I noticed a conversation between a few friends from back in my town.   One was mentioning how unfair it is that gay's and lesbians don't have equal rights and how it's difficult for her to watch them being treated so differently.  She attached a note written by someone about Romney's views to continue to withhold gay rights.

Another friend started commenting that even though it is true that the gay and lesbian communities should have equal rights, overall she felt that Romney's policies were better for the economy.  Economy was her number one concern.

I couldn't help but posting on this one, because to me, I can't see Romney's policies helping the economy at all.  Maybe in the short term he might boost jobs here and there, but in the long term, I only see destruction.

He supports oil and gas all the way, atleast Obama has been taking more of a middle ground when it comes to oil and gas, and has also been supporting alternative energy on a much larger scale.  Honestly if I had it my way, I would vote for some vegan permaculturist (please don't take me too seriously :) ). But as the choices are currently, I will happily support Obama over Romney any day.

Here was my little blurb posted on Facebook:

I voted obama and I am happy I did, even if my count goes unheard in the state of Utah, I believe the economy is going down the tube  because we are only focusing on the economy, while ignoring everything else. We are ignoring the main reasons for our health crisis's, ignoring pollution, ignoring our inclination for a quick recovery while not looking at all of the facts. America drives a lot of the prices abroad, and most of those prices are unfair. Politicians have little to do with our economy. We actually bring it on ourselves. If we look around we are surrounded with resources. For some reason we've only been looking at pristine environments and precious rocks as resources. But can we look at how much waste we are generating? In india, their economy is booming, why? Because the people here are absolutely ingenious. I see people making a living off of collecting trash and making beautiful lamps out of them. Right now supporting the 'economy' means tearing down our natural beautiful areas in the world, our forests, our jungles our mountains, for oil and other resources in order to' lower costs' and drive people to buy more. But how long can we live like this? It's not realistic for us to continue at this pace. Especially the way we devalue workers in other countries every day just so we can live like this? What really matters in life.. a roof over our heads? Healthy food to eat? Who's responsibility is that? Our forests and our oceans keep us alive, we breathe their clean air they provide us with. Their is no arguing that once they are gone so are we. The economy is only an illusion.

My first real drive in India

Since I've recently pretty much moved to India, at least for the time being, there's been a lot of things to kinda adjust to.

I live with my husband's family, which is good, because I don't really know the language, it's a little difficult for me to get around without the help of others, and well it's just totally different from the states here!

 I watched a really nice movie the other day, Finding Joe.  It talked about doing something at least once a week which is outside of your comfort zone.  I thought it was a nice idea.  Why not everyday?

So today I drove for a good amount of time through and around the middle of Pune.  I think if you would have told me a year ago to jump in the drivers seat of the car and drive to the places I did today I probably would have shat my pants.  But actually, it was really no big deal.  I couldn't believe how not scary it actually was.  Cars in India, are very observant drivers and they watch out for everything around them!  It's amazing.  It kinda reminds me of magnets or something in orbit.  Cars maintain their distances, and also move with a pattern or a rhythm around each other.  It's kinda like when you are walking down a busy sidewalk, you watch out for people cutting through or walking faster or running.  Anyway, it was a great experience to try something that used to be so outrageously out of my comfort zone, but actually be okay with it.

Quick update on my makeshift edible balcony garden: It's really hard to tell if all of the plants I've planted on my balcony are surviving or not?  I'm doing my best to keep them moist, as Indian heat can be brutal.  But maybe I will see for sure what has made it and what hasn't in a few weeks?

Also, my father in law braved out my passion fruit drink!!! I couldn't believe it, I asked him if he would like to try some and he loved it! He actually drank the whole glass!  So, I will definitely have to try and make some more and try it myself.

Other than that, I'm super excited that I'm somewhat mobile now, I need to make it a point to face my fears more often :)

Passion Fruit Ferment

So yesterday I was a little unsure of whether or not I should harvest my little fermented bowl of passion fruit seeds (I recently came home with a few passionfruits, and I wanted to try and save the seeds of one of them so I could plant them on my patio garden).  Today it was clear that they were ready.  The molds had spread across the top and I decided to take them out and separate them from their flesh.

The interesting thing about this little concoction, was that it smelt amazing.  Maybe it's just the smell of passion fruit that remained.  But even as it had fermented, it still had this amazing smell.  I threw away the top part, but I decided to keep the juice.  Currently the juice is sitting in my refrigerator.  I didn't really have the guts to try it, I spent a while online researching about fermented fruit drinks.  Basically I found really no evidence that it was harmful, unless you are sourcing your products from farms which aren't organic, you may have more of a risk that a fruit has had some exposure to contaminated manure.  But for my case, I was the one who picked up the fruits, and they had been planted in the forest, so I see little reason for them to have been contaminated.

I also googled about fermenting cultures.  Most fermented foods either use, salt, whey, kefir grains or other freeze dried cultures (that is the ones you make at home, 'fermented' foods from the supermarket, typically don't really have the health benefits of ones made at home, since the ones from the store will most likely be pasteurized and full of preservatives).  From what I found, and please correct me if I researched this wrong, it's not so much about the danger of not using any of these cultures while fermenting (for example- getting some crowd of organisms growing on your vegetable or fruit which is harmful to your health) as it is, just not having a pleasant taste or a pleasant texture when consuming it!

I found this to be fascinating!  Which means, my fermented little passion fruit drink is totally safe.. to an extent.  I did use tap water, which I may be immune to it by now??  But I caught myself mid way through and started using filtered water, incase I work up the guts to try this drink!  I'm sure I would be okay, I could also spit it out and wash my mouth afterwards?

Anyway, it is sitting in my fridge, so if any of you Pune residents are feeling brave, I'd be happy to let you try it out!

The next step, is sprouting the little seeds.  I have no idea if it will work, but I'm gonna give it a shot.  I'll sprout them, just as I would regular sprouts.  I'll make sure they stay damp in their little bowl, and I'll water them 2x a day.  I also planted a couple of papaya seeds, we'll see how they do!

I also set aside some cantaloupe seeds to ferment. Which now that I think about it, probably won't work, because I know when it comes to pumpkins and other squashes, you have to wait for the fruit itself to basically go bad, and not until then will the seed be viable.

So cantaloupe may very well be in the same category.. and if any of you have any insights on this stuff, please leave a comment :)  I'm always happy to learn more.  

Composting in an apartment

We are not here to persuade others, we are here to live our truths.

Just live the way you want to.  Others can think, do or say what they want, but in the end, you had your freedom.  You chose your path.  Nothing else really matters.

I'm learning this lesson, even if I haven't fully embraced it as of yet.

I live in an apartment in Pune, a nice community.  I have started experimenting with growing greens and other vegetables purchased from the supermarket.  I bought some soil and pots the other day and started planting different plants - beet root, cilantro, amaranth, curry leaves and sweet potato.

The amaranth and the curry leaves had no roots attached, I was hoping that if I put them into a bowl of water, that maybe they would grow some??  I was hoping.  They have been sitting in this bowl of water for a few days now, but mostly they are just shriveling or getting a bit soggy .. on some of the lower leaves.  I know it was a bit of a stretch! But I wanted to see if it would work.

Also yesterday I was cutting up a pomegranate  it was looking a little past its date, it still tasted fine, but I decided that maybe I could try to feed it to the birds.

Right after I set it outside on my balcony, I saw this really cool black bird, I haven't seen before, it had a bit of crest on it's head, sooo cute!  I have no idea what it was.  I got really excited that maybe my pomegranate had brought him around.  I know that typically people put out grains and seeds or nectar for birds, but when I'm at the farm, I always see birds pecking away at all sorts of fruits on the trees.

Anyway, I was disappointed to see today that my whole plate of pomegranate seeds were still lying on the balcony, it didn't look so much like any thing had really touched it.  I guess in the future I will need to be more diligent about watching it, to see if anything would come!

I've also started doing my best to not throw plastic away or plastic bags, this includes no using plastic as linings in my trash cans.  The main challenge is how dirty the compost bucket gets, and a little fruit fly dilemma, but its not really enough for me to want to change my habits, even as I have my brother and sister in laws living at home :). Even though, they seem pretty cool with all of my crazy experiments.

My solution for fruit flies, is keeping my compost bucket on the porch, and open to the air.  Let the flies have at it! As long as they aren't inundating my kitchen, I'm totally cool.  Plus, the Indian sun, is great at drying stuff out, so it really helps dry out any kind of fruits or anything wet in the compost bucket, which normally might pick up a bit of a smell.

We are pretty lucky in my building, they do pick up trash and they pick up compost separately.

Actually our building is doing a lot to be a little more 'sustainable' I guess you could say.  They recycle all of their water.  They use solar heating for the showers, we are always have hot water ps.  The engineering on that one was really well thought out!  Especially since we have 10 floors and 3 families per floor.  That's a lot of hot water for showers available!

We also have a decent amount of green space which is nice- gardens between the buildings along with trees and grass, which is impressive because underneath the terraces is the garage for the whole complex.

There is no central heat or AC, not really different from the rest of India, but I find it a good thing because then people can save electricity by either having individual units for whatever room they are in, or they can have more energy efficient systems, such as 'breeze air'.  A technology from Australia which my mother in law uses.  I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it's much more efficient and it easily cools the whole house.

The need for any kind of heat in this place, is pretty much zero.

So I've also been experimenting with placing all of my green leafy (dry compost) compost just directly in my potted plants.  I have a few potted plants, which came from my mother in law.  A few of them I recognize, but my recognizing plant abilities is pretty limited to one region of the world, unincluding house varieties.  That region is the middle of the Uinta Basin in Utah.  Lol, which those plants, I would be very surprised to see them anywhere else.  Mostly it consists of desert shrubs.

The one thing that looks promising, in my little experimental plantings is actually the cilantro.  In the beginning it was looking pretty sad, and the biggest stalk was all the way leaned over on the side of the pot.

Yesterday I noticed that it had actually perked up a bit!  That it was no longer leaning on the side but actually had lifted itself up!  It was pretty incredible.  Even if I have one success story from my little experiments. I could be happy with that!

I have also let my passion fruit seeds aside in a little bowl of water to ferment a bit.  I am just guessing that that is what needed to be done with them.  Because I know with tomato seeds, that's what you have to do.  The passion fruit seeds now have a little layer of mold on top, so now I'm wondering if that means they should be ready or if I should mix them up a bit and see if the seeds have dis-attached to the fruit? :) I will check it out later, and let you know how it all worked out!