Many Moons Hath it been...
You know what? I have no time for blogs, but I sent an epic and journal-like e-mail today. I don't even know where to start, sweet livejournal. Life is good. I am back in halifax and I want to make her look like she's my home. I LOVE this place. I want to make it the exemplar and then make it contagious... first to NFLD and PEI and then god knows. If it can work in this place that is traditionally hard to manage and make a living off of, then why the funk isn't everyone doing itin the "civilized world"?
Here are e-mails and conversations of the recent past:
To Jeff, founder and director of Community Forests International and treeplanter extrodinaire from New Brunswick.
Pembatrees.com
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Dear Jeff;
I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to e-mail you (it is the end of fiscal times, and grant reports have been taking up some serious e-time) but I've been riding the wave o' goodness you brought with yee since our lovely, and serendipitous meeting.
We're still a-comin' 16th-19th to Montreal. Now that I have some meagre funds, and reports are in... I can start looking to get my life's work a little better sponsored.
Though busy, I have been blissed out. Playing lots of cello and collecting obscene amounts of business cards, and moving into action.
So what can I say? I want to be partnered and a helper of CFI in any capacity possible.
I want to reform schools in NS and start solution-based learning, and get us fixing our provincial crimes against knowledge. I pretty much want to be one of many momma's of Halifax, to keep our Maritime home not only a great place to come home to but... an exemplary home, where we take care of each other enough to be able to help others.
Hookups you should be aware I have:
City Hall- one of my best buds and my network director is The Assistant to The Mayor. Kelly is my homeboy. Though a werido, I call him "The Mays" now.
UNESCO- my other best friend is their maritime consultant. aka "Where should we spend money? What is legit?"
HRSB- Halifax Regional School Board
BALLE- Business Alliance for Local Living Economies. I call them the new (and righteous!) bourgeois revolution! Their slogan is: Planet. People. Profits. Anti-greenwashing, pro-sustainable local encomiums-- these beauties must be economically independent and NS centred to be members, but it is an international organization. 80% of vermont is employed by BALLE vermont. They are amazing. They are ethically sound, but action-based and practical. Some epic lefties here and there, but a refreshing breath of practicality and glory in one. I don't often believe in labels, but I would shop at a BALLE member any day.
www.balle-novascotia.ca
NEW EARTH INSTITUTE- you might know these beauties from windhorse (which is where we run our retreats too, by the way) but they are starting up an integrated learning college in Mahone bay.
www.newearthinstitute.ca
FOCO- Federation of Community Organizations. Margaret Fraser, their executive director, is one of my inspirations, and retiring but wants to work for my causes now. fuck yeah. www.foco.ca
UNIVERSITIES- The president at DAL wants 1/3 of dal students to be able to volunteer with us for university credit, and wants to double the availability of experiential learning to his students by next year. Wanna? Acadia is on it too (they want to be the first all local organic food univeristy in Canada) and SMU is being pretty swell too.
All I can say is, hit me!
Really. I love what you do methinks, and I feel like I really ideologically identify with you thus far so... lets ride that train and make functional our delightful overlaps.
Right: speaking of helping yee, I have given all of your cards to businesses. though, I am missing about 200 envelopes! Suggestions?
I look forward to sharing a brew or hot beverage with you sometime soon.
I would love to hear the rest of that iceberg you tipped... about different umbrellas and names and grants with the functioning of non-profits. Ah, grants. Soon to be mastered I hope. Golly.
Here are some obscene packages we have on the go, though they are not 100% complete, they'll let you know what we are into right now.
Win-Win website, my child, is not on the go yet. But I shall re-iterate my speel I gave you, now that I am not half in a swine coma, as when I first tried to explain to youthe glory.
Win-Win is a web & video-based social engagement hub. It is centred on youth, but is also meant to be an intergenerational interface. So Acadamia, workforce, schools & adults in general can get enthused and involved in the future. We shall also slowly become the Youth Advisory Council component of HRSB, meaning: Nova Scotia will be the first SB responsible as a feedback-based education system in Canada. (dream of dreams) Students via ednet are automatically members, and Dal student logins and community allies are welcome, but by nomination or application-- via their profile, kind of like their resume for kids.
The home page of win-win feature is going to be easy access point-and-click kids practicing video journalism by reporting on what other kids are doing in community with easy links to "how to get involved" and "similar initiatives",
The "Lighthouse Project" --kids interviewing nominated role models, which will be known in advance via calendar so specific questions can be posed.
Practice: Whats going on of local relevance that is good to know, also video-based journalism, ( I hope to be posting a lot of CFI stories here)
and A Searchable Database of how to get involved in NS and abroad. (volunteer facilitation is one of my passions)
We want to be entirely responsible to a youth advisory Council/board of directors (one and the same, nearly.)
We want to eventually offer job or payment opportunities to those kids over 16 who want to really get involved as part of their high school credit too. heck yes.
Youth or 'kids' here, for most grant purposes means anyone from 10-27. Heck yes.
Okay, speel done. I just wanted to give you the scaffold so if you can see any obvious overlap or ways you could assist.
Man I am excited.
I promised myself I would write 50 e-mails today. I must stop writing you this novel if I am to reach this post-noon goal!
But know I am excited. And you give me a boner for social justice.
Chubby of lub dubby. Of the heart?
I am excited to further pick your brain too. Excitement is just my word for knowing you.
Feel the love, my wayward sun!
Dontcha cry?
eek. never close with pro-rock.
http://images.quickblogcast.com/98482-91083/nova_scotia_077.jpg
Love,
Julia
You may notice my thought process is transparent and circular. I hope it was still coherent! In true rantings, I do not believe in backspace.
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To Andrew, lovely fellow and a half in contemporary studies at Kings, co-founder of the Schoolarts project, organizer of Dal Leadership conference, helper of Dal Green Guide and... kind of a solid dude, shall we say.
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Dear Andrew;
So I have never done this to you yet, but it is an official invitation and initiation into the Julia mind, and friendships therein.
It is known as a Julia Rant. It is a somewhat rare honor, for those that I respect above all and consider a member o' my spiritual brethren or some sort of member of my Pantheon of Prophets (this is not as creepy and ominious as it sounds, when considering I think that everyone is in everyway a facet of god. its just, some people have a better voice for talking Godese to you... plus, the idea of living gurus creeps me out. You are just a lil' cyphon, a conduit o' goodness or a place for my brain to cultivate or accumulate thoughts even.) .
perhaps the form of said rants are already obvious, but the basic principal is that you get to see the mechanics of my mind, because I need to spew somewhere and I have chosen you! The kicker is, I do not use backspace. nah-uh.
Moments of incoherence are to be expected, though prompts for clarification are celebrated and welcomed!
Also, the other kicker? Is that you really are under no obligation to respond or read Julia Rants, because I am essentially using you as a journal... except I am planning and hoping to be an open book. And occasionally get called on my shit, or spurr other thoughts in yee.
I had such a reaffirming day.
Meta, eh?
'is a prefix used in English to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to complete or add to the latter.'
Do you ever feel like you are... metahuman?
You cannot deny that you make sense in the world, and yet what is you?
Isn't that kind of how everyone feels?
Humans are kind of metanimals, in some way-- we are not quite like other animals, but we make sense of it?
I met the Federal Department head of Culture and heritage youth programs in passing today, and he basically said he wanted to do what I was doing in NS and was waiting to throw money at someone. Hello end of fiscal year! Spend those dollars so you can write 'em in the budjet again next year! Plus, he was a beautiful chipper singsongy sweet fellow who I loved the dimples and salt n' pepper of immediately. Serendipity!
Why is it so hard to explain how beautiful the world is?
You know when you are having a conversation with someone and they say something which makes you realize on some extremely basic level they are not seeing something that you see as most obvious, and therefore cannot and will not understand you unless you remedy/rebuild the whole machine of their mind? It is rare, since I tend to deal and reveal through the lens of divinity and solidarity, that I meet people I cannot perceive easy overlap with but.... sometimes!
My sister said a few days ago that the world was inherently evil.
What the hell is that?
same womb. And ... that?
Later, she took that sentiment back, but said she was frustrated with good people being given the short end and bad people being rewarded immediately for their bad deeds... she also took back some wishes of ill will on those who had done her wrong. Thank goodness.She is just so tired and angry. And she has horrible luck, which exasterbates some sourness in her dispotion and also seems to perpetuate future bad luck.
I think taht makes me a bit of an asshole to believe that though... she called me on it. "Yeah Julia, its all my fault!" But I don't think it IS her fault... but I don't think it is out of her scope of ability to respond better and more effectively. Response- Ability?
How do I explain the simple premise on which I function? The world is inherently good, and perfect in its inertia and balanace... but what? In household debates we often turn the phrase "Evidence is repeatable observation" How can I explain something that is so evident to me? I tired to explain how things work for me to Matthew and i ended up saying that I feel like Neo sometimes... seeing the Matrix code. It works, it makes sense... How do you explain though?
When overhearing my conundrum, my friend Jeff Torbert told me "well, that is easy to answer: Look?"
What the hell is that? We have debates here often too, about the relevance of belief, and that you are always going to gravitate to proving what you believe inherently. But what does that mean about belief or faith? What is that?
When you look, isn't it human to try to see proof of what you already believe? To what avail? Is secular practical? Doesn't belief also somehow become practical?Is placebo's magic? stupid? but... practical?
Also, what is the evolutionary benefit of belief? believing in one thing to unite, sure... or as a tool to utlize the masses and amalgamate morality? Okay...
But really? they say there is a gene for faith, and that if your parents have faith you are 90X more likely to believe. Fair. But of what consequence is that?
I find that morbidly cold. This coming from a lady looking to oversee an autopsy in the next few months (you know, just to see)
back to Placebo effect... devin and I discussed for many hours how our idelogies function. And that, though we both seek evidence and are rational about our beliefs I end up getting the upper hand socially, because I can identify more with bible thumpers and other folks whereas he would immediately write them off... but once we had gone down that road, I decided to counter that argument by saying belieiving in the valididty of belief or traditions of reverence and faith goes beyond that... because believing somehow ends up being seeing.
Okay, cheezy as that sounds...
I mean to say, that God or not, Placebos work if you believe in them, but do not if you don't.
if whether or not God exists is irrelevent in this argument, then God is an evolutionarily advantageous --helpful even.
And if part of the point of the faith placebo (as many cultures allude to) is that you can never fully figure it out or make it tangible to others but it can be perpetually observed and evidenced by the observer...
So questioning doesn't kill the effects in actual Placebo tests, but proving it wrong or false? Kills the effect of Placebo.
Placebo effects are quanitfyable in benefit, scientific even. But?
So what?
If you are atheist you can prove yourself right but it'll suck more. Because if you are wrong? You'll never get the benefits.
If you are of faithful you can prove yourself right but it could make them a self-affirmed douche.
So isn't it actually more rational to believe? I mean, if you are on the fence or otherwise?
hmmmm.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme."
Ever read about quantum Physics? I should probably just give you that lil' drawing I did long ago about Physics and the soul for Andrew Bateman.
I hate that cheeziness often surrounds fairly sound science.
or:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc
Maybe this makes sense to you, as a demonstration of how I think about Placebo and observation... perhaps?
Also....
Everything is an allegory. To Julia, anyway. My life just seems to play out in a very story-book fashion... Aesop style. Moral and reasonable.
Do you know Carl Sagan? I kind of love that fellow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0
"An incedental benefit, a sort of x-ray vision"
Not saying I am interdimensional, but ....
I can see sometimes that things which may seem uneven I know are balanced and symetrical. Like the shadow of a cube.
I'd like to think you are one of those sorts too.
I tend to get along well with scientists. I can identify with their reasoning.
I have been battling identifying less with uber-lefters. It breifly worried me about my poltical identitity, but mostly made me feel like I was being a bit of a jerk to the people I should be getting along with the most. But, i realized today that ... its okay. Just because I don't identify with them most... doesn't mean I am compromising myself. I don't believe in that dual pole BS when it comes down to it, just like Pam from Car Share was saying on Saturday.... there is a practical overlap somewhere, and polarizing isn't the point-- though it illistrates the middle ground much better to see the 'opposites' (... shadow of a cube, anyone?)
While hanging out with BALLE today, I realized I felt incredibly at home and uncensored amongst those sorts. Ethically and socially minded business people-- practical by nature but conscientious too. Action-oriented, problem solving and solution centred. Not polarized to right or left, and always putting their beleifs into practice no matter the risk -to be good in business you must test efficacy after observing the market or community needs & wants.
Some crazy lefties, but... tolerably so.
I am okay with seeing myself reflected in them, and in scientists more than in other more flimsy polished surfaces of attempted subversion. I am already quite flakey are seemingly impractical, but I only do what I do because it has worked in practice or different models have worked in practice. It is not a fault that the outcomes I receive and expect are not necessarily those others would. Is it funny that I think myself practical?
You know what I love?
Puking!
No really, I do! Who inhales full cigars anyhoo?
Do you know the word Paranjapita? I am sure I have already told you.
I am obviously not spelling it correctly because it is not showing up in google search. So, the word I am thinking of, though perhaps not phonetically viable is defined as a "Crime Against Knowledge". You know how I was talking about Maragert Atwoods "Age of Lead" in the car?
Same deal.
Today I started writing a lil zine book called "Nova Scotia: Pride & Practice"
Its first half is quick facts and breif quantificaiton of Nova Scotian Exceptional facts, and also not-so-known facts--what makes us awesome, what makes us weird and where we are kind of below par.
And the second half is about practice-- how we compare in where we are below par and how we can fix it using other models and things already started. Its like a giant excel chart with columns: WTF problem? WHY? WHEN did it start?HOW TO FIX?
I'd love it if you would like to look 'er over.
the whole point is that it isn't philosophical or academic masterbation... its a personal research project and engagement tool.
I talked to Rachel from blockhouse marketing today, about how we both kind of mock those who go to do do-gooding around the globe, and leave the place of their origin, most relevence, most know-how to go better some group of less-fortunates. Isn't that shit ... kind of an imperialist echo? I cannot be a tourist anymore. I have to do things for a reason. I have a hard time reading non-history or non-instructive books. What is the point ? I am not here to masterbate. Although, it is nice sometimes.
Did you know I am obsessed with feedback? I want to be transparent so I can get more valid feedback. If you are always faking it, or feel like you are faking it, you can never really feel validated as an actor. I think I latch on to folks like you, because I trust you to call me on...shinnanigans. And I give you automatic merit. Though, this does not exempt you from critical feedback. Otherwise what kind of buddy would I be??
But how could I make my ziney book an active process, veering from tourism and bias, with full feedback potential?? website? win-win component? re-release with amendments? footnote the shit out of it? Man, I already have too much to do, but I have been incidentally writing this book for years. I jsut have been looking for more consultants and a growing body of knowledge.
I feel like I am on .... productive crack.
Every day I get prouder or more ready to die. Not even joking! Isn't that kind of the point of aging? To be properly prepared, through satiating action and taking of responsibility?
My mind is filled, but a little less insomnia-inducing since I have unloaded some of my mind on you, fair fellow. "Why me?" you may ask, but it is quite simple: I am delighted that it is you I can unload upon. And perhaps you don't know who the heck I am, so I am just checking... you know?.
.
I supposed I am done for now. I gotsta get up at 8am, so I should try for sleep, methinks.
But!
Thanks for... lending me your inbox for my brain.
And I hope you at least got some vague entertainment from my oddities Was it even coherent? I refuse to read it over..
Have a beautiful day, beautiful fellow!
Julia
thats funkin epic.
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To Laura Neals, International Development student turned into law student, Beautiful Beautiful Beautiful woman who is clearly going to do what is right.
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I have written 30 + e-mails today, reviewed 2 papers, collected 15 business cards and future contacts, eaten local and ethical delights, slipped and slid in snow, solidified old bonds and remembered new ones that were waiting to happen.... Ahhhhh, l'amour!
Do you still love this city? Though you might be in a home full o' rodents, electrical issues and the like? And though law can be full of tribulations?
Is food your passion? I love food. If you got into food law, I would probably loose control of my bowels. I mean, in delgiht of course.
I have this habit of writing rants on occasion, when I am inspired and filled with that Julia brand of practical bliss... I am never blissed out for no reason, it is all very much in practice. I also never press backspace in these rants, and a rule. so be forwarned.... there shall be mistakes!
How obsessed with food are you though? Reaaaaallly???
Today I went to a BALLE meeting. Do you know what BALLE is?
www.balle-novascotia.com
their slogan is People.Planet.Profits.
They are the new bourgeois revolution!
I went to meet my old pal Lil Macphearson (owner & operator of The Wooden Monkey and gem of the world) and lo-and-behold she was chairing a meeting of BALLE as her send off to copenhagan. I met so many of the heads and lighthouses of the Nova Scotian food securitiy, sustainability movement, who are firmly rooted in business and community. So, not flighty but delighty! So she fed me complimentary organic wines and delightful meats and we talked about the future of halifax with other ethically-minded entreprenuers.
If you are so stoked on food because it is academically pertinent, lady do I have some research for your paper. Lovely linda (who I shall e-introduce to you as soon as she e-mails me back with the go ahead) is a mover and shaker who is helping to make Acadia the first local organic university in Canada, and Wolfille the first town in Canada. She is the woman to start research on the state of food in the Maritimes.
We have made some major headway in recent years-- the revamping of the market (the oldest continuous market in the Americas), more access in grocery stores to options (Although... I DISLIKE that they have the elite section sometimes... 'organic' ...eghads. put it next to OTHER products to be able to compare as well, because otherwise it is elite and you cannot properly gauge what you are really investing in. Local Apple juice for 1.29 or organic from Chile for $7? Damn it! Access! Education!) and Sysco (provider of food for 40% of food businesses, and all universities in NS) is now 14% local at least---- which is a huge jump.
at least not everything is corn here, like in America.
Did you know that Guatemala's coup post land-distributuion (and payoff to external companies for seized land for citizens!) was....
because United Fruit owned more than 90% of the land there. United fruit meaning what is now Chiquita bannana.
Why the fuck did I have to pay money in university to find that out?
Why didn't my mom know that in the 70s and 80s?
What are we forced to invest in on the daily and unbeknownst to us because we don't make companies operate in transparent or responisbile manners?
Did you know PEI is the only place in Canada where Monstanto lost a court case? (or formerly) because a farmer sued anouther for contaminating his feilds in the closed and sensitive island envirment with GMOs. They decided it was counter the human rights act that the farmer did not get the choice, and would not have the choice if GMOs were even on the island.
Actually, I have no academic source for that one, it is news hearsay, and I am not sure if it was further appealed.... but go team!
Humans always do the right thing if they are given no other choice.
But why do we have to go through epic legal battles to make governments and policy makers follow through on their logic?
Food is essence.
Kids need to know how to garden, otherwise they hate vegetables because they don't get to grow them and then excavate them like precious pirate treasures. that they nourished, to get nourished!
One of my grade five students i tutored i had to tell that bacon and pork came from pigs. GRADE FIVE. wtf. the only thing in curiculum when I was a kid abotu it, was that we had to grow a bean or two out of egg cartons. NS curriculum, baby. What about weather? What about soil? what about how to operate a farm??
Why aren't we more practical or instructive in education? Own your life. You are enrolled in school for social literacy and to be minimum educated for the workforce. Thats why the british institutionalized Schools in the late 19th century, because A) There was a paternal sense enstilled in the educated "Oh shit. We are smart enough to be worried about how illiterate and downtrodden most people are" B) there was a work shortage, brought forth by industrial efficiency and C) So literacy could be the norm. So everyone was practically able to operate and read manuals of machines.
....I always bring it back to education. Kind of.
Education meaning, not the institution, but knowing how you are as an agent in society and being able to reflect upon yourself and work with others towards solutions.
We are so good at seeing and inflating problems, and never propositioning solutions.
So, what is my tale here?
Sean Gallagher of Local Source is a beautiful man who believes in food culture. The Corner of Agricola and Charles.
Lil Macphearson is blogging for Haligonia.ca and TheCoast.ca about her trip to copanhagen and is sad that she was given the disclaimer for the first time in her life not to be willy-nilly in disclosing her Canadian nationality.. .Damn you harper!
I am not going to start on Harper, don't worry.
Though... he hurts me on the inside.
often.
and shames my canadian identity
and yet his popularity supposedly grows???? FUCK THAT!
reptile..
Linda will e-mail me soon about all things good and glorious... including rocking food soon enough.
I am sitting in on a BALLE meeting with the minister of agriculture after lil debriefs ihim on the events of copenhagen.
(The director of NS power is going too, and they were formerly dirty dirty jerks, but now are operating out of the 15th LEED (susstainable, water-less construction) certified work site in Canada, and trying to change the bilaws on power monopoly {as it is right now, if you own a wind turbine or solar panel, you have to get it metered by NS power and pay them.. sort of. Its funked})
And my friend, louise Hanavan's case is getting repealed on the 14th... about keeping 3 chickens in a portable coop in urban or suburban NS regions (i.e. the pennisula). Food security? Sensibile?
They lost it before, even though similar cases in New York City and vancouver won. You might want to keep that on the radar.
NOVA SCOTIA. Why don't we let ourselves know why we are proud?
get 'er done.
Now go study!
And I love you!
Thanks for listening to the rant, and I shall send you Linda's contact soon. Hows Jana? Hows life?!?!?!
LOVE!
Julia
balle-novascotia.com
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Thats all I've got.
I just wanted to record my brain process.
Done.