Check out Jas and Kaz's garden!

Check out
Peak Food blog. What an inspiration! I look forward to hearing more of their gardening pursuits.

Pigface Point (where we live) tour coming up...

(Photos courtesy of Alex)


**** A VISIT TO PIGFACE POINT – AN ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE EDUCATIONAL SITE ****

Run by Ted Trainer (Visiting Fellow, School of Social Work, UNSW)

When: Saturday, October 28 – tour starts at 9:30am (2-3 hrs in length)Where: Pigface Point (see directions below)

Description: Affluent, industrial consumer society is grossly unjust and unsustainable. It is only possible for one fifth of the world’s people to have that way of life because they are taking and rapidly using up most of the world’s resources. We must move to far less affluent lifestyles, highly self sufficient communities and local economies, more cooperative ways and an economy that is not driven by market forces or profit, and has no growth at all. Pigface point is being developed as an educational site that will introduce people to these themes, especially the existence of workable and attractive alternatives, ie: “the Simpler Way’.

Pigface Point is not a community. Council zonings only permit 2 houses on the property. The main purpose of the site is not to provide an example of how we should all live, but to have displays, models etc, which point towards the sorts of change that will have to be made in our settlements, economy and technologies in order for our society top become sustainable.

We do not charge for our tours. Please bring lunch if you wish. Morning Tea is provided.

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If you want to come along or need directions drop me your email in the comments and I'll send them to you. Rachelxxx

margaritas on mondays

I had a fantastic birthday that involved French toast (thanks Alex), Lindt waffles (with Ange), Margaritas (yay for Alex), a great and fun surprise of Bess and Nicole arriving for dinner and an amazing chocolate creme brule birthday cake (thanks Bess and Nicole!)

27 aint so bad! yay for birthdays that revolve around food!

oh yeah and I can cross off 'drink Margaritas' on my 27 things list now... Though there will be more margaritas in the future especially when limes aren't 3 bucks each!

Revolutionary healthcare model!

When a dream takes hold of you...
We cannot separate the health of the individual from the health of the family, the community, and the world.
Much more than simply a medical center, the Gesundheit! Facility will be a microcosm of life, integrating medical care with farming, arts and crafts, performing arts, education, nature, recreation, friendship and fun.
Gesundheit! has grown out of a deep concern for the quality of peoples' lives. We want to subvert greed and selfishness and replace them with compassion and care.
We don't want to be a Band-Aid for ailing health care; we want to change the system, to bring about a peaceful revolution.

-Patch Adams

Ted came over last night really excited about his discovery of
Patch Adams and I have to agree his vision for healthcare is Good! Disregard the Hollywood movie and check it out!

There is life out there

we don't have a television. But we do have a radio and CD player. We love radio. Even crappy radio can be entertaining (hey have a listen to 'love song dedications' one night after a glass of wine or two...)

I think that little O has benefited from not having a television - he's a really good dancer and his current favorite pastime is to play baaaaRRR-boooOOOm!!! off the couches (throw himself onto the couches with 'loud' sound affects). My hope is that he will be a very imaginative curious inventive kid.

2ser (107.3 FM) kicks butt! Where else can you listen to an ad free radio with both awesome things like radio lectures (where I have heard the likes or Roy and Tariq Ali) and great music...? Community based and run radio stations are damn hot.

Anyway all Kudos to 2ser who have through their member on air comps practically doubled our CD collection. Just this year we have won Gulag Orchestra, Jolie Holland, Dirty Three, Bonnie Prince Billy, Mward and more!

Also I hear the presenter of 2ser Thursday Breakfast is the hottest radio journo in town...

27 things to do in my 27th year...

So I turn 27 in a week or so...

1. Finally get to Galiwinku

2. Facilitate dialogue in Christian communities Re climate change and Peak Oil.

3. Ride a Red Bike in Paris (not likely)

4. Get published (really not likely)

5. Shop predominately at Alfalfa House

6. Get my Steiner Craft toy-making group for mamas off the ground...

7. Facilitate discussion about THIS BOOK at my church and ways to incorporate some of the ideas...

8. Do a felting course

9. Learn to swim

10. Drink margaritas (nikki, jane and anne this one includes you!)

11. create my own zine.

12. get a new job...

13. Do every activity in my book "360 free activities for your toddler".

14. give up caffeine. for good.

15. become one of those kind of people that know where everything in their house is kept or is at any given time.

16. Attempt to not buy one more trashy magazine. ever again. or at least for one year. oh dear.

17. Go on a retreat.

18. Get fit and flexible.

19. create some imperfect crappy messy art. and not care that is crappy messy imperfect.

20. Go somewhere and stay the night... on my own (for the first time since the birth of O).

21. Finally go to Melboune and visit AZ .

22. Read the entire Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe series

23. Pull out the sewing machine and do something with it...

24. learn how to design and maintain a website so I don't have to use blogger...

25. s l o w d o w n

26. get a puppy (hey Alex there is always my birthday....???!!!)

27. Go a whole week (or two) without eating sugar ( i wonder if I would die from withdrawal?).

Love your enemies... (part 1)

I'm trying to think hard toady who my enemies are and though that part may be easy, how to then love them becomes a little problematic.

The people that I am thinking of are perhaps not MY enemies but enemies of others that I care about...

So Philip Ruddock, Vanstone, and the main man- JH, come to mind... Do they qualify in a biblical sense? How do I go about loving them (sending them a bunch of flowers and an 'I think your great' card does not seem very sincere...)

Could it mean to write them a letter and tell them about how some of their policies have deeply affect people that I know and care about... Feels rather futile...?

I could perhaps also say enemies are people that have a differing ethos to mine- how do I love them? How do I love racists and sexists? How do I love the people who live in the McMansion Estate that I have to drive through to get to our property? How do I love those that live for financial gain? How do I love those who are willfully destroying the environment? Ho do I love those that vote for people that think placing individuals/families in detention centres is a great idea?

Now that I have broadened my 'target' enemies it seems that my enemies are closer to me than I realised? It includes now some friends and family....

Birthdays...

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

-George Bernard Shaw

piss-weak prayers

I just wrote a little comment (maybe a rave- oops) on The Blogging Parson
about praying Big Bold Prayers in regard to world issues (eg David Hicks, current wars etc)

I seem to get frustrated at church when prayers do not seem to accommodate that we believe in a God that can do anything. A God that can cease AIDS, stop wars, bring fulfillment. Rather prayers seem to become piss-weak with the new fandangled concept of "justice".

Justice is not new and maybe one of you who are more educated than me may be able to fill me in on the origin of the word and the true meaning. But I suppose what I am perceiving is a learned helplessness when it comes to praying. We are confused because on the one hand we are told that faithful prayer consists of 'your will be done Lord' but on the other hand we are also explained that "we do not receive because we do not ask..."

I fear that we pray "bring about your justice Lord..." When we really mean "May every man place their weapons down in places of war, please Lord let not one more person contract AIDS, let not one more child die of hunger, let countries compassionately accept those fleeing their nations....."

Yet we do not pray these prayers but we long for these outcomes.

I wonder if we fear disappointment? I wonder if we fear appearing loopy or too optimistic or too naive? I wonder if we think God is not big enough to deal with something as big as AIDS or war?

Praying for justice is good. But I wonder if praying for specifics is gooder (sic). I wonder if those that hear such specific prayers are shown Christ's justice more clearly?

I know there are times when it is impossible to know what to pray. I remember praying for a client when I worked in child protection and I just didn't know what specific I could pray for them. Every night I was praying and crying that God would just do something anything for this child. I prayed for justice. I wasn't sure if this child should be with their parent or not and I know that at times like these that our sheer 'groaning' and 'sighing' reaches God like incense to Heaven.

In many ways all of our prayers are piss-weak and we are entrusting them with a powerful loving God and that is where their 'power' lies.

What are your thoughts?