We are an off grid, eco-sustainable organic farmstead, that incorporates organic
sustainable agroecology,
permaculture, agroforestry, and regenerative agriculture in order to live within the means/carrying capacity of the
land and within the earth fair share ecofootprint, so that we can responsibly co- create/steward a more fair, peaceful, sustainable, and healthy planet. We have to live a fair, sustainable and healthy lifestyle if we want to see the changes we wish to see in the world. We can't use destructive means to create construction ends; such ends can't be some distant goal that we rhetorically strive for, but the means by which we arrive. We live more simply so others (human and non human species) can simply live. Unless we fairly share the Earth (25 billion productive acres/7 billion people=3.5 acres, to provide all of our needs (food, fiber, fertilizer, fodder, fuel, fencing, fineries, farm house, pharmacy, fun . . .) , there can never be, like our holiday
cards say, "Peace on Earth and Good Will to All Men/People" and our world will
experience more social, medical and environmental ills that we have to mitigate at spiraling costs to our pocketbook, health, society, and ecosystems. Americans are requiring upwards of 31 acres per person/ecofootprint, and if everyone in the Earth lived at the American standard of living, we would require 7 planets to live sustainably. 3½ acres provides just food, modest
shelter and a small amount of
energy to cook food, but not for heating, air conditioning, transportation for moving goods and people around via trucks, cars, boats, and planes; nor for cash crops/luxury foods (
coffee, tea, chocolate, tobacco, sugar, meat [although there is room for a modicum of animal products, half of all grain grown on the planet is used/diverted to
feed livestock grain and pulses like soy and corn while 35,000 people starve daily and it isn't even healthy for ruminants, e.g. rumen acidification], oil crops [such as palm, soy and canola], corn/sugar cane, soy, palm oil to produce biofuels to feed our gas tanks, flowers, monocropped forests [such as eucalyptus which is used for syngas,
biochar, biomass burning electrical generation, one time use paper items). There is plenty for our needs but not for our greeds, and our
greed is requiring us to take more from mother nature than she can replenish. Father greed is colliding with mother nature, which is a predictable recipe for war, biodiversity loss, starvation, and ecosystem and human civilization collapse. Never in the history of man has greed created such grand scale impacts on the earth, which is a result of too many people consuming to many resources. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth and are in a new era called the "anthrocene" period, which is a new geological period to denote the global impact that human activities have on the Earth's ecosystems. We have already peaked in obtaining many natural resources (fossil fuels, soil,
water, fish, food, phosphorus, helium) and are threatening our own survival as well as other species. We have overwhelmed the ability of nature to absorb wastes and pollutants such as
CO2, nitrogen, and toxins and have stepped beyond the laws of nature by producing chemicals that are toxic and non-biodegradable for eons. 150 species go extinct every day, or about one specie every 10 minutes, directly as a result of our human activities, which are occurring at 1000-10,000 times the normal evolutionary rate and has created the sixth wave of extinction to face our planet in our 3 billion year history of life on Earth, but the first as a result of our specie. Globally, we are living off of nature's principal six months out of the year (see "overshoot day"), instead of living off of her interest (i.e. if a tree grows 5 feet or a foot of water is added to an aquifer per year, that is all that is harvested). We started living off of mother nature's principal in the 1980's and have been accelerating the "ecodebt since. Globally, humans are collectively requiring 1.5 planets to live and we only have 1 planet.
We are committed to a lifestyle of "one planet living". Popai has evolved into a sustainable living and educational
project. We need help from like minded, strong willed, high energy and strong bodied people, so we can help educate other humans, restore the ecosystems that we inherited , "caregive' the creator's creation, rather than from people who are just "living green" but still five or six planet living by taking more than their fair share of the Earth's resources with green products, ecotourism trips on biofuel fueled airplanes, and electric cars fueled by coal and nuclear We want support from people who have more altruistic/giving personalities, whose higher and wiser selves are the captain of the ship, and who have the will/drive/motivation/spine/guts/teeth/arms and legs to be part of the solution, instead of the problem and to become a model for those in the "trance"/"collective psychosis"/the "American Green dream". We want to avoid more self indulgent/ "takers" who are looking for a new adventure/vacation/cheap hangout and whose ego/ids are the captain of their ship. When the ego/id is the captain of the ship (instead of being a crew member), it seeks fun/pleasure/ short term, more instant gratification and focuses on themselves, their own survival at the expense of others and escape through power, money, sex, drugs, romance, travel, consumerism/materialism, religious fervor, sports, and other addictions, to deal with their existential boredom, pain, uncertainties, emptyness and despair, and the result is the grand scale "trashing" of the Earth. So many people care about our future and mother earth/the environment in their head, heart and guts but few in their arms and legs, teeth, and spine. There are too many hands removed in our stratified society to feel the pain directly; we use the glue without having to kill the horse, so we keep ravaging/depreciating our ecosystems and we look to the mean/norm of our peers to find our "balance" rather than looking to define "balance" according to what the ecosystems can bear. If we truly want to thrive, be the change we wish to see in the world, to restore the abundance, resiliency, and biodiversity that we inherited, then we have to lead with our higher, wiser, "golden rule practicing" self and not our clever/ego/id/personality. We are an educational living project that aligns with peer reviewed scientific evidence that inspires us to come up with solutions to co-create-caregive the mother of us all in a fair, healthy, sustainable and responsible way. Rick is a physician and needs help so that he can finish writing a book and educate rather than medicate about creating a fair, responsible, healthy and sustainable Earth. Do you feel the pulse of the planet? Have you heard the voice of Ishmael the Gorilla?
We prefer long term (occasional short term) couples or single people who are committed to deep ecology,
permaculture, and are: health conscious, drug/addiction/materialism free, responsible, energetic, disciplined, fit, stable, age 20-40, who want to "one planet live" and "care give" and "give back" to the mother of us all. Available Sept 20, 2013 We are asking that the couple/single "homestead dance"or work trade in exchange for housing: 21 hours per week for single (e.g. 3 hours, 7 days per week) or 36 hours a week per couple. Hours are flexible. The dance entails: chopping coconuts, milking goats, coppicing
nitrogen fixing trees (mostly calliandra calothyrsus, gliricidia sepium, leucaena leucocephala, albizia falcataria, casuarina equisetifolia or short-leaf ironwood) for green manure and fodder, garden/structure maintenance, making dog food and supplements for the cats, making cheese and yogurt. We use only hand tools such as loppers, bow saws, pruning saws, axes and transport fodder, green/animal manures in wheelbarrows. Bulk organic food available for extra hours (about 2 hours per week for most of your calories). Six months minimum stay, but occasionally open to short term. Four structures are available. One is a 20 foot ferro cement yurt shape (The Yurt Cottage). Another is is 20 x 40 foot single sided cedar house ( Beverly's Barn)both with panoramic ocean views, rain water catchment stored in ferro-cement tanks, hot
shower, stove, refrigerator, wireless internet, surfing four miles away, snorkeling 1½ miles. There is also a living structure, partially subterranean made from living Ironwood
trees, that is in progress and is 20 x20 feet. There is another 10x20 single sided cedar structure that we call the "Reservoir Resort or R Resort). We share excess organic eggs, goat
milk (kefir, mozzarella cheese, feta, and yogurt) vegetables, and tropical fruits. Desire pet, child, and auto free. County bus transportation is one dollar.
We are living in interesting times when mother nature is colliding with father greed, which is creating grand scale havoc on all beings lives, however this could be a great opportunity to create grand scale positive shifts. The world we live in collectively depends on the responsible contributions that each of us makes; it is only as good as each one of us makes it.
As Carl Sagan said, "Anything else you are interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolute critical moment in the history of our planet."
As a Zen proverb says, "Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening"
As Margaret Mead, acclaimed anthropologist, said. "Never doubt that a small group of dedicated individuals can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has."
Gandhi said, "Anything you do will seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world" " Live simple so others can simply live"
"The world provides
enough to satisfy everyman's need, but not everyman's greed."
Dalai Lama said, "'If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito."
Rachel Carson, early in 1963 in one of her last lectures before her death from cancer. "....I suppose it is rather a new, and almost a humbling thought, and certainly one born of this atomic age, that man could be working against himself. In spite of our rather boastful talk about progress, and our pride in the gadgets of civilization, there is, I think, a growing suspicion-indeed, perhaps an uneasy certainty-that we have been sometimes a little too ingenious for our own good. In spite of the truly marvelous inventiveness of the human brain, we are beginning to wonder whether our power to change the face of nature
should not have been tempered with wisdom for our own good, and with a greater sense of responsibility for the welfare of generations to come"
."Those who contemplate the beauty of the Earth find reserve of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. Rachel Carson.
In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy (John C. Sawhill 1936-2000 The nature conservancy president from 1990-2000).
Simple living, hard working and high thinking - Henry David Thoreau
"Only after the last tree has been cut down" Only after the last fish has been caught Only after the last river has been poisoned Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten-- Cree
Native American saying--
Chief Seattle said, "This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. Man does not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."
So don't allow despair, denial, depression, addictions and distractions from making the changes in yourself that you wish to see in the world, or you become part of the problem by default. Become part of the solution instead of part of the problem. We can become part of the solution and take full responsibility for our actions by first remind ourselves each day we have an impact, a
footprint and that we can take action in every aspect of our lives. That collectively and immediately, we can change the world. When you feel overwhelmed by the problems we face . . . "God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it's me." Start with the man/women in the mirror. Popai is a sanctuary to live and practice becoming the change that is needed to help heal this world. We aspire to live a life that focuses on the solutions that enables responsible stewardship and a peaceful, fair, healthy, sustainable planet for all beings.
