Where I'm going - Short term

So here's the deal.

I've held off adding new posts to the Village of Ordinary while I answered questions that were increasingly critical. Here is a sampling of issues weighing on me:

• Should the people of Ordinary grow only native plants, or can they have exotic shrubs, trees and forbes?
• How much do they rely on vehicles, what kind of vehicles do they use, and how do they power them?
• We know they husband animals and crops, but how large do these operations get and how do they handle the offal?
• What about cities? Do they exist? Did they exist in the past?
• How do they respond to the threat of forest or range fires?
• We know individuals observe different types of spirituality. How much religious diversity is likely to occur in a single village? And what brought it there?
• What brought other diversity observed so far in the village, such as background and skin color?
  
• Where do villagers obtain things like window glass, cooking utensils, and other tools? Do they make their own? Are there regional factories? Do villages specialize in certain goods or services?
  
• We know the villages each have a name. What about regional names? What political boundaries, if any, exist in Ordinary?
  

I mentioned a deal. I commit to writing a post every day for the next two weeks, to discuss questions like these. In return, I'd feel much supported and gladdened if you were to share your thoughts as well. I invite you to join the discussion and pose your own questions. Your opinions matter. Together we can build a stronger vision.

It's a grand one, however Ordinary.

Where I've been

While I've been away from this blog and the Village of Ordinary, I've been busy researching background and posting the results on Squidoo. Here's some of what you'll find there to help you build an Ordinary in your life.

• You'll find exciting information on existing sustainable communities similar to Ordinary.


• You'll find practical information and guides to the Global Warming crisis and ways each of us can start right now to deter it.


• You'll delve into ways we can make every dollar we spend count in the struggle to preserve our beautiful planet for our children and theirs.

These include choosing products made of sustainable crops like bamboo and organic cotton--products that don't hurt the people manufacturing them, are safe for the environment and safe for you and your family.

They include choosing more sustainable (and time-saving) ways to mow and care for our lawns. (Do you grasscycle?)

They include keeping our spirits clear and centered through a simple ten-minute meditation you can do anywhere, any time.

Take a look at some of these pages and tell me what you think of them. You can leave a comment right there on the page, if you like, or you can come back here and tell me. Of course, you're welcome to do both!

Up next: Where I'm going (tag along!)
 
 

That's Bamboo? Wow! named Squidoo Lens of the Day

Almost a year ago, I wrote a post about the amazing versatility and sustainability of bamboo--the Eco-Wonder of the World. A simple blog post just wasn't enough for such a big topic, however. Right about then, I discovered Squidoo and built a more comprehensive--and fun--web page called That's Bamboo? Wow!. Today, Squidoo surprised me by naming the lens Squidoo Lens of the Day!

Squidoo is sometimes touted as the new blog-meets-social-networking platform. It has also been referred to as a grown-up version of MySpace. Squidoo offers free hosting, and a teensy, tiny share in Adsense profits to people who build web pages there. If you can type, you can build a Squidoo web page using their simple text boxes, called modules.

Squidoo calls its web pages lenses, as in a camera lens, or eyeball lens focused on a single topic. People who do Squidoo are called Squids, Squidooers, or Squidizens, and we have a lot of fun building new lenses about everything under the sun. Hmmm. There probably is a lens about the sun. If not, I should grab that URL and make one.

That's the thing about Squidoo. It's addictive. Before you know it, your hair is turning gray, your fingers are worn to nubs from typing, your eyes are red orbs peering at the screen, and all you can think is, "I can build a lens about that."

People who build lenses are also called lensmasters. If you're really lucky, one day one of your lenses might be picked for Lens of the Day, like mine was today. I'm so happy I could cry. Slowly, slowly the word is getting out about ways to live sustainably, ways to make conscious choices--like choosing bamboo products--and ways to build the Village of Ordinary.

Here's a screen shot of the announcement on the Lens of the Day group page.


And here's a screen shot of the announcement on the Squidoo Lens of the Day blog. You can learn a lot about Squidoo and the amazing variety of topics, opinions, and creative talent just by visiting these two pages and linking from there to other Lens of the Day honorees.

Bamboo--the versatile, sustainable, eco-wonder

In Dance Rose and other villagers roll out a bamboo dance floor for a night of dancing under the stars.

Used worldwide for food, medicine, clothing, furniture, housing, bicycles, weapons, boats, packaging, kitchen and household utensils, bamboo is the eco-wonder of the world.

Stronger than hardwood, and touted as the fastest growing plant on the planet (some species grow 1-3 feet a day), bamboo is a highly renewable resource. Resilient and persistent, bamboo is reported to have survived the bombing of Hirsohima, according to the Florida Caribbean Chapter of the American Bamboo Society.

But that's not all. Bamboo consumes carbon dioxide and soil toxins and returns 30 percent more oxygen to the atmosphere than trees. Because of its rapid growth and root structure, it can stabilize soil destroyed by overgrazing and over-building.

And if all that weren't enough, bamboo is just plain beautiful.

Native to all continents except Europe and Antarctica, bamboo grows in climates both tropical and frigid. There are estimated to be more than 1200 species worldwide, with about 450 of them in the Americas, according to Gilberto Cortes, Regional Director of Bamboo in the Americas. Only one species, Arundinaria gigantea, commonly known as Cane Brake or Cane Reed, is native to the United States.

Using bamboo does not mean we are off the hook environmentally. Bamboo is the major food for endangered pandas, bamboo lemurs, and mountain gorillas, whose habitat shrinks daily.

Civilization increasingly encroaches on bamboo forests and plantations. Make sure the bamboo products you purchase are from sustainable plantations that do not destroy habitat or endanger other species.

For more information on bamboo, its uses, and the people and creatures who depend on it, visit these sites:

• International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, for bamboo as housing construction material and as a way out of poverty, especially for women


• Bamboo Web


• World Bamboo Organization


• American Bamboo Society, lots of info on non-native plants, where to find them, and how to grow them
  
• 1000 Things Made of Bamboo, a sometimes repetitive list, has lots of images
• Wayne's Word, comprehensive scientific data presented in a lively format including good images and fun bamboo trivia
  
• WSU Extension Bamboo Research, studies bamboo as food crop (bamboo shoots) and as construction material crop (bamboo poles)


• Wikipedia on Bamboo, for general info, good images, and more links


• Environmental Bamboo Foundation, for environmental data as well as some cool graphics showing how to build a bamboo house and a bamboo shelter (it appears they have them backwards, however, with the house on the shelter link and the shelter on the house link); site includes a pharmacopoeia of ways some cultures use bamboo as medicine

Music and Books

Sometimes a villager in Ordinary mentions a book or song title that exists in our world. In those cases, I link to a commercial web site, such as Amazon.com, where you can learn more about the book or song.

I prefer Amazon because I'm a tad lazy, and they make it easy to find book excerpts and audible song samples.

Below is a list of titles that have appeared in Ordinary posts, as well as on this blog.

The list is divided in two sections: Books and Music. It includes the original post in which the title appeared, and a link to the commercial web site where you can find information and, frequently, excerpts and samples.

Enjoy!

Books

• Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, by Helena Norberg-Hodge; appeared in Learning from Ladakh, 6/17/05, Ordinary Peace, 1/23/06, Chi choen?--What's the point?, 2/5/05



• Sent by Earth: A message from the Grandmother Spirit after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, by Alice Walker; appeared in Welcome the Children, 8/6/06



• Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, by Alan Weisman; appeared in Gaviotas--A Real Village, 9/11/05



• Start Where You Are, by Pema Chadron; appeared in Why Do We Kill People?, 1/18/06, Ordinary Peace, 1/23/06, The Slave Trade--alive and flourishing, 2/9/06



• The Mistress of Spices, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni; appeared in Nest on 7/26/05



• Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson; referenced in Bonnie on 8/18/05



• Silk Roads and Shadows by Susan Schwartz; appeared in Amends on 1/21/06



• The Mind of the Dolphin: A Non-Human Intelligence, by John C. Lilly; appeared in Something Wrong with this Picture on 9/9/05



• Communication Between Man andDolphin: The Possibilities of Talking With Other Species, by John C. Lilly; appeared in Something Wrong with this Picture on 9/9/05



• Toward a Psychology of Being by Abraham Maslow; appeared in Chi choen?--What's the point?, 2/25/05



• Freakonomics: A rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Welcome the Children, 8/6/06

Music

Note: To find the audible song samples, scroll down the page. It may be necessary to expand the track selections as the web site does not display them all at first.

• The Garden Song, (audio sample on Disc 2, Track 8); appeared in Weed
  on 6/21/05


• The Erie Canal, (audio sample available); appeared in Rain on 7/17/05


• You Never Can Tell, (audio sample on Track 9); appeared in Dance 9/15/06


• Do Ya, by K.T. Oslin (audio sample on Track 5); appeared in Dance 9/15/06

This post will be updated as new books and song titles are added.