Jose Zamora

Hey everyone! I want to tell you about an incredible project I'm participating in.

It all started because of an awesome online Permaculture Certificate Course I'm taking. I'm just a few months into it (it's one year long) but it's totally rEvolutionized my way of learning and feeling, and also knowing how much useful stuff I can do in the world.
Online might sound like 'theory-only' but in fact it's all about action, so it's helping everyone be much more effective and improve their environments.
As for me, I've been transforming my roof-top garden as I build a support-group with all the other students (they're awesome people) and plan for my next projects, and recently I even got to be helping to design and manage an incredible project I'm cocreating with one of the teachers and a few other people.

The project is called GaiaSis, and it's basically a rEvolutionary form of action-learning research in Integral Permaculture, along the lines of a permaculture boot-camp with a bit of BigBrother, like a weird (and extremely productive) adventure experience, and you get to help in building an EcoVillage and become share-holders of it as well, if you want. This year it will be based in a Permaculture EcoVillage they're building in the Canary Islands (Spain), next door to me (I'm on another island).
You can take a look at our site here, at www.IntegralPermaCulture.com (you have everything there, but if you need something else, you can write us at hola@nodoespiral.net ).
If you want the basic information, you have our leaflet here, and you can join our mail list (and receive more information, a manual and the application form) here.

I can't wait to finish off my university degree this summer so I can get on to GaiaSis3 (the third session). This is such a great and exciting opportunity! So I wanted to tell you all about it, because I thought you guys would love it too. Oh, by the way, the first challenge, GaiaSis1 starts very soon (enrollment is until the end of January).
Don't miss this opportunity if you want to put into practice everything you've learned about permaculture so far, or wish you had learned, in a deep-dive kind of way. But mind that it's only for the very adventurous

And maybe our overlord likes the idea and can make use of it too, hehe.
Oh, and how about Paul does a podcast with these people? They've done lots of interesting stuff.

How about this one? It's a small EcoVillage in its core establishment phase (though the food production and land fertility issues have already been taken care of), but the people managing it (and the climate) are awesome, and you can buy shares of it and stay permanently, or buy mini-shares to stay for some time every year, if you're looking for something like that.
www.8thlife.org

Oh, and if you want, you can work (not for free) at building the EcoVillage. Take a look at this: IntegralPermaCulture.com

I hope it's been helpful

It's true you have to respect poop, and it's a natural thing for humans, but I doubt it's because of parasites.
I think it's more about hiding your presence from predators (the reason why cats hide their poop with soil and female dogs eat their puppies' poop, and sometimes they even keep eating it themselves when they're older).

Also, it's normal to be scared of parasites, but they're not simply a bad thing (sometimes they're really bad news, of course, but they're not pure evil or anything like that). In fact, many autoimmune diseases can be easily cured by infecting with parasites, because the immune system gets some work to do and stops thrashing around.
It's designed to be too stong so that it can protect you even if there are parasites inside of you (they sedate it to protect themselves, and they also keep it busy, so it has to be strong to be able to multitask), but if you don't eat natural food with many living things inside (your body is prepared for it), it gets bored and becomes dangerous. Parasites and hosts evolve together, always.

As george101 said, all traditional communities (and all other species) deworm themselves with special foods when they feel they need it (or you can do it routinely if you want and you're not able to detect them).

I'm not saying we should eat poop sandwiches or foliar feed leaf crops with night soil, but it's a very important biomass and nutrients source. Making it go near trees' roots will nurture them safely for you, and biodigestors would be a very efficient way of sterilizing it (if you feel the need to do so) while producing energy and very nutrient-rich liquids and solids you could use in aquaculture and in your fields.

Well, at least that's what I think.

aarghj wrote:
Why will it take so long?

Are you not suscribed to Paul's emails?
They're going to be busy redesigning the forums, so there won't be a lot of spare time to edit it, I guess.

Amazing! Thank you very much, both of you.
The wait will be worth it

Does anyone clean their teeth with more traditional/tribal methods?

From my research, I think there are three main categories of natural teeth cleaning tools (though there are probably more):

Leaves: You could brush your teeth with leaves of plants with special antibiotic properties, or maybe saponins. You'd have to try different plants to see what works (or look for some information source). I guess most aromatic plants (mint, sage, etc.), cinnamon and tea would work very well.

Sticks: Brushes made from twigs or roots are very widely used (and I strongly believe they're better for teeth than industrial brushes and pastes). They can be very pleasant to use (for example, if you use licorice root or a cinnamon twig) and naturally antibiotic (if you choose the right plant).

Powders: When I wondered what modern (western) people used before toothpastes were invented, I found out there were teeth powders with with you could brush your teeth, and, well, they can be made with whatever you want, letting you adapt it to whatever you want to achieve.

That's without taking into account the inter-teeth tools (which can be threads, hair, spikes or whatever).

Personally, I use everyday a powder I made myself with powdered egg shells (minerals), mint, cinnamon and clove, aniseed (antibiotic and good taste), tea (natural fluoride) and chamomile (anti-inflammatory) (and maybe more things, I don't remember).
I put a pinch of powder in my mouth and a bit of water, and move that with a lot of pressure to cover all my mouth, passing it in between all the teeth (controlling that might look difficult, but it's easy if you practise a bit moving your mouth muscles). I do that and not brushing it because I don't want to scratch and erode my teeth at all.
I also use a thread when I have something stuck in between and I have a licorice brush too, but I don't really use it, as I don't need it. Oh, and gums massages with my fingers. Those are very important to keep the teeth healthy.

Well, good luck everyone! ^^

Edit: I'v just discovered that powdered dried pomegrenate peels make a great teeth cleaning powder! It's supposed to make them whiter too (I don't care too much about that, but I guess lots of people do care about it). I'm glad I always do some research before throwing/composting things.

Well, I'd like to learn a lot from Alexia, but no question I think of looks good enough.
For me, the best would be asking her what she wants to tell us.

I think she might have some things she wants people to know or think about, but I might be wrong, and maybe asking her to just tell us whatever she wants to will make her uneasy or something.

So, Paul, you could tell us some of the topics you'd like to discuss with her, and we could help you choose from them. What do you think?

Thank you for sharing all this, Paul and, specially, Alexia.

Paul, I know you've already got your survey results, but I'm seriously interested in whatever comes out from this, so I'm going to participate.

My answer is a 10. I want to do those things and I totally trust you. I'm willing to obey any order from you.

The thing is (in case this ends up happening and I qualify), I need some time until I can go (I want to finish my carreer, and after that get a PDC and help people locally, which will take me 1+1 years at most), and also, I can't stay forever (I want to help the sustainable community/ecovillage/transition town global movement, specially in a couple of places, so I'll have to leave after I've got enough experience and I consider I've been of enough use to you). Oh, and there's someone I need to bring with me, but that person would collaborate and behave as I would, so I don't think it'd be a problem.

Well, I'll keep on the lookout for whatever happens.

By the way, thank you for everything ^^