Plants in Human Affairs, some musings

The second week of the course was also an intense week. We were learning heaps of stuff and had to start writing papers and plant profiles and plant encounters. In addition, everyone was more open in discussing plant metaphysics. Concepts like the plant spirit, intuitive healing, symbolic magic were discussed and investigated from a cross cultural perspective. In many regions of the world today people still get healing from traditional medicines. 80% of the worlds population still relies on local plants and local healers for medicine. Why? 1. They always have 2. The global south has no access to most medicines because they can't afford them. When local practitioner are asked about how they knew about using a particular plant for a particular illness they explain that the plants told them. This has always been written off by the rationalist, materialist anthropologists looking 50yrs ago into indigenous plant uses.

However, the math seems to support the universal people's theory rather than the anthropologists. Take an area like madagascar. Being separated from africa for a long time before being reached by people ~1500yrs ago, Madagascar has developed a very unique flora of plants. In the time from when people arrived to now they have developed a total floristic healing system. The number of plants they have discovered for different illnesses is too large to have been arrived at by a population of this size in this number of generations. It seems like something else is happening beyond trial and error.

Now plants are often viewed as somehow lesser than us animals and particularly of us humans due to a paternalistic god consciousness on the part of naturalists. People were "of course" Divine and the pinnacle of evolution and god's children and so naturally animals were more like us and therefore higher evolved and plants unable to move and therefore unable to think or be conscious or have feeling or emotions or any of the other attributes we revel in when thinking about how great we are. Interestingly, post-"enlightenment" (god I hate that term) men didn't think that animals were conscious or had feeling or emotions but that notion began to change in the later 1870 (although most people on the earth could have told you then and now that they do).

Plants are not like us. They are "alien". They have developed different mechanisms and systems for existing in the environment. They are also Primary. Plants have created the environment that we have today from the climate to the soils to the fossil fuels. Firstly they "eat" light. Utilising vibrational energy from the sun to split water into hydrogen and oxygen and fix the hydrogen with CO2 from the atmosphere as sugar. This is an amazing feat that has allowed the sun's energy to be stored on earth over time and provides the basis for all ecological systems on the planet. Secondly, they are fixed to the earth. Grounded to the soil a plant stays in the same place for its existance rather than moving far and wide like most animals. However, they are not grounded in the z axis. Plants display supercomplicated and intricate growth both into the earth and into the air. They provide a nexus between heaven and earth. They "move" hugley and elaboratly just in ways we don't see and in time-scales that evade our eyes. Further, some plants "walk" to areas of better light using runners to cross to the sunny spot and dying off in the shade. Thirdly, plants use chemicals as language to talk with other beings in their environments. Chemicals for pigments to signal when a fruit is ripe, chemicals to tell a catapiller not to eat it. Flavinoid chemicals to attract beneficially bacteria to the roots and volitile organic carbon compounds to signal to other plants. Many of the chemicals that plants produce mimic (by being nearly) identical to the compounds that modulate consiousness in humans, binding to the 5HT-2 seretonin receptor. Interestingly, one of the technologies developed by the shaman of the amazon is the ayuascha brew which combines two distinct plants that are both inactive on their own but produce a powerful visionary brew when combined and boiled. When asked how they discovered this combination of two plants that grow in different areas out of the thousands upon thousands to choose from in the most biodiverse region in the world? the answer is the plant told them.

Now as I said before plants were always looked down on by biologists. They were always thought of as simpler and less evolved. But that view is now changing too. While plants do not possess a nervous system they have an as complex system of cellular transport and comparmentalisation but one that allows systemic plant response and localised plant response depending on the situation. Regardless of mechanism, this provides identical function to that provided by the human one except it allows the plants to function better as a whole. When one leaf is eatten by a catipiler there is specific cellular response at the bite site but the whole plant gets the signal that it has been bitten and starts to make chemicals that will prevent other catipillers eatting the other leaves. Same with the breathing system. Rather than a centralised lung area, all leaves breath and feed the gas and chemicals they make into the vein system to transport around the plants. Rather than lesser, these are just unique.

Now interestingly this change is now coming to plant spirit. Evidence is mounting that plants can perform the equivelent of complex thought. Further, rather than a centralised brain structure, small structures for specific thoughts are located through out the plant. Meaning that the plant is modular and has more plasticity (it can lose some of its tissue and keep growing, rather than dieing if our head is cut off). For example, plant roots possess tiny areas called the "Statolith" which is a starchy "brain" which senses the earth and then decides where to grow the new root tissue. New evidence suggests that plants may plan this growth up to a year in advance. These areas can sense gravity, nutrients, acidity and soil density and develop growth patterns with the informtion. What I'm trying to get at is that plants are intellegent beings. There is a school of thought that attempts to relegate all of these plant processes to mechanistics and passive addaptions to the environment but much like mechanistic explainations of consiousness or love or growth it kind of misses the point.

Anyway, even if you wont let go of the notion of plants not being sentient just yet we can atleast agree that plants are lots more than most thought. Through this I think it is highly likely that plants and people developed ways of determining how to use different plants for medicines. whether plants are active players in this chemical communication or not is a moot point. It seems that using some intuitive thinking and listening to the plant when taking it for medicine can help healers determine what ailments a plant can be used for. One may snicker but this is how the most common cure for childhook lukemia was discovered. However, given how the system works the traditional healers were never compensated for their knowledge or expertease and the pharmacuticle companies made billions.

Plants are complex communicators with every organism that they form symbiosis with and humans are no exception. People have an inate intuitive thinking they can develop and use to work with plants for healing and I think plants have an active role too.

Plants produce everything we use and consume and deserve more respect than they get. Before our eyes this knowledge about how to heal in ones environment is rapidly being lost along with the rainforest and its plants.

Plants in Human Affairs, weeks one

I was in an odd space following Christmas and the new year. It was cold and wet and lonely. Spending time with my mate and helping him build his shack was nice but also intense. This made dropping into a Uni course even more of an event.

The big island is huge and I had yet to make it to the Kona side of the island. This is where old fishing villages were, it is in the rain shadow of Mauna Loa and so is the dry side of the island. The region grows heaps of coffee and mac nuts now as well as being a retirement colony for faded hippies and the new age.

I was dropped at the airport by friends and met up with Momi, a hawaiian women who was teaching us somewhat in the course and helping out with driving and that sort of stuff. We smoked cigarettes and played ukulele while we waited for other students to arrive. Arriving were Patrick and Therese, like most of the class participants, from Minnisota where the center running the course was based. We drove to the B&B where the course was being held at Kealakekua, the bay where Cpt. Cook was killed. I talked with the other students and we ate Pizza that Dennis had bought. I was beat and so went to bed fairly early.

On sunday we had a day to adjust to arriving, but I was ok. I did some course reading and we went to the open market where I got some great drawings from a botanical illustrator. Other than that I tried to get to know the other students, being so starved of good company my age for some time. The class was an interesting mix of heads (myself included) and muggles who were taking the course as part of a horticulture degree, to "Expand the scope" of their pre-med studies or to go to hawaii. Psychedelic enthusiasts talked at length about inner realms and plant metaphysics while the muggles seemed taken aback. I met a really nice girl called Rebecca who was a pre-med student studying chinese and the chinease medicine system. We talked at length over the two weeks about limits to rational conceptions of health and healing and the notion and effects of intuition and intent when practicing and receiving healing.

In the first week we looked at the botanical dimensions of the world. We had two key lecturers, Kat Harrison and Dennis McKenna. They covered various different topics concerning plants in human affairs. Dennis looked at the complexity of plant chemistry and how plants use chemicals rather than motion or movement in order to communicate with and interact in the environment. Using molecules for scent, sight and direct communication with other plants and organisms they have substituted behavior for chemistry. We then looked at these classes of compounds and also at issues surrounding the patenting of nature and bioprospecting, how to remediate traditional healers if they choose to share this knowledge. With Kat we looked at plants in human affairs with things like the spice trade, domestication of plants and the birth of agriculture and the use of plants in healing practice. The food was amazing, prepared by a caterer and i felt really good doing the course and reinforcing alot of knowledge about humans and plant uses. On Friday we went to the Awa bar in town to talk story and Saturday we cruised the island going to the volcano and such. Sunday was a day of rest but I had a great time cruising down to the canoe club and talking with the guys. In the old days they would bring 50m tall acaica koa trees down and carve canoes out for battle in that spot.

It was time for week 2

29th till the 3rd- Punatics

So I was at my friends house in Puna, well it wasn't his house, he lived in the chicken coop behind the house. He was a Vietnam veteran who pursued armed revolution in Hawaii following what he saw and the conclusions he reached. He then eventually sold out and worked the Honolulu fish market, he was the king of the market. He could play the game and as such they built a $7m dollar empire from the ground up. However, my friend realised that they were fishing the world's breed stock, and that rich americans could go by fish from a place like Fiji, destroy the island's fishstock and turn a few million in the process. When the first gulf war began he droped out, it was too much. He left the buisness to his brother and headed to Pahoa, hippy haven of the big island, where he was a tomato grower for a number of years. I met him through a friend who stayed at a farm I was on who knew him from activist work during the build up to iraq this time round. He was also a renowned hemp activist and was integral in changing peoples perceptions around the world through information campaigns about

I arrived, it had been torentially raining for the past week and I was cold wet and smelly. I'd only had a few hours sleep cause I'd been out at the lava and was relieved to get to my friends place. We had some whiskey and joints and talked story about the state of the world and reflection on a radical life. I helped him build a cinder floor in the hot house that he was moving into and we rolled out carpet and a tarp and moved his books and clothes across from the leaking chicken coop. Over the next few days I helped cut trails and tried to dig a outhouse hole in the lava but to no avail.

My friend was depressed and crazy and cynical but I guess fighting in war and seeing no change will do that to someone. He has enough military pension to get by but no way to build anything or get off the ground. It was an interesting few days, great to have company but so sad that people are so lost about how to act or what to do in the world today.

I left on Saturday the 3rd when my course was begining. I rode into town and showered at Sharrons and then they gave me a lift round to the Kona side where I met my pickup for the course, Plants in Human Affairs.

Christmas to 29th

Arrived at Sharrons smelly and wet. It was christmas eve. I washed all my clothes and myself an did some cyber errands. Was Christmas in Australia so talked to both my families between the air. It rained all day so we listened to music and talked story. Dennise came over later on and we had dinner and watched a movie in what they termed a slumber party. They were old new age women but were not totally on it. Dennise said she wa abducted by aliens, she was from Ohio. Sharron was not aducted by aliens but a character none the less.

Christmas breakfast I went and got some bagles from the only open Cafe in Hilo, Hilo is fairly rundown since sugar died and all the shops and in stripmalls by the highway not the town center. Sheltered from the rain which was getting torrential. At 6pm I set off again with my bike and stuff for the Dements for Christmas dinner. They were a nice enought family. I had a shower and shared their food, we didn't have much in common. Their son in law told me how to hike to the lava flow and I was beat so went to bed early.

Boxingday it rained and rained and rained. Bill gave me a ride to Pahoa where the farmstay guy was gonna pick me up. He did, he was a loose unit. Ed Frazer. His place was overgrown, he farmed nothing and the digs were abysmall. I had no options due to the rain and stayed on a tent platform. There was an old retired aircraft mechanic who had been in jail and had moved to Hawaii to be homeless and try and eat fruit. He ended up at this guys place sleeping in a bus. And a loose guy from South Carolina, with a net of dreads and beard. His name was Ryan. Fred Razer said he let him stay around so that someone was watching the place. Nothing could be grown, the place was like a junkyard. I rode around for 2 days with occational rain and read my book. I missed home and my friends and family. I was eatting out in Pahoa town just to be doing something. It was a weird period. I called my family for conversation and good vibes. I tried to reach some friends but phones were not answered. I cheered up though and then rode back to the hostel. The next day I rode out to the lava flow and set up camp.

At 4am I headed across the lava flow out to the molten rock hitting the ocean. It was small kind from far off but clamboring past the baricades to the shelf I headed over the rocks. I can not explain in words seeing hot lava pour into the sea, there were fountins, I was warm, one near molten rock landed near some french guys, when the rocks hit the sea they floated for a while because they were so hot. I stayed out and watched it spew steam and rocks into the sea until 7am when I headed back to camp for an hours nap and then packed up on the bike to ride to Pahoa. I warmed up with strong coffees and a muffin at the coffee shop and booked things on the internet. I turned my phone on and a hawaiian friend wanted me to help him move house for a couple of days so I headed over to his place.

Pre-Christmas

Well, I think when I left off I was headed out on the bike to adventure the island a bit.

Step one was riding up Mauna Loa, the largest land mass in the world. A massive mountain sitting on the continental plate. This volcano is dormant but they say overdue for eruption. Was 20 miles up, took 6hrs and my 0 season tent ensured I felt the wind all night up at 10,000ft above sea level (The bulk of the mountain is below da sea)

The next day I hiked from the observatory I was outside to the summit, a huge snow covered culdera. Was great seeing snow in the tropics but I guess everest is the same latitude as Florida so it don't mean much. Hiked back down to camp and got another great night sleep on the lava rock.

Third day and I started around the 4x4 ring road that cuts around Mauna Kea. Manuna kea is an older volcano than Manua loa and so is more biologially developed. The road cut through disused and still used ranch land with some gum trees, native acacias and gourse bush. A state ranger listed off the the things that could kill me: wild dogs, pigs, poachers, etc but I was not to be discouraged. I rode 25 miles of the 44 miles road and camped at state cabins on the mountain. Was beautiful, looked like Australia (Overgrazed disused ranch land) and in the areas they had excluded cows the native hawaiian acacia was growing and I even found a blue gum forest which i plundered to have an aussie campfire. At the cabins was a mountain bike family who I basically left alone.

The next day I rode down off the hawaiian mauka lands (mountain lands) and along the coast. The rest of the mauna road was rough and I accidentally disembarked the bicycle twice and also buggered one of my paniers and had to stitch it back up whilst being watched by some very observant cows. Reaching down into Waimea I saw the bike family and they invited me to Christmas dinner, ah the gift of the gab. Rode down the Hammoukua coast, stopping for portuguese fried food to make up for 3 days of cans of beans and crackers since the TSA nabed by stove. The coast was stunning and the old highway followed the old cane train trusses which cut and zagged along the coast.

I pulled into kolekole state park as the sunset and was invited to drink beers with 3 vagabond locals in the tent shelter, they were living in the park. Charlie, Jimmy and Akon. We listened to the radio and talked story, among constant jokes about kangaroos and "Down under". I camped next to Akon and we ate avocados, drank cheap beer and smoked shake. He was a recovered meth head who had once been at school on the mainland on scholarship for football with his girlfriend who was also Hawaiian but she got pregnant and they moved back here and then he started doing meth and was an adict and now she has an AVO (restraining order) on him plus he has a bunch of other kids with his old lady (as opposed to his old old lady) whose parents dislike him. It was the night before christas eve. We listened to the rain and the radio in the park shelter.

Woke with the wild roosters and went with Akon to call his old lady to arrange to see them for christmas. We had avocados for breakfast and set some chicken snares in the hopes that he would catch one to sell to phillipino hawaiian cock fighters for $300 he could make the down payment on a public housing rental to get custody of his kids. I bid him fairwell and rode the old cane train rode to Hilo and arrived at Sharon's place ready for a shower.

Further inna it, big island end of third week.

Hey all, well I finish up at the farm tomorrow. Time went fast, it wasn't the farm I had hoped it would be but I at least got some time to readjust following the end of the internship.

Work at the farm and infact the analogous situation to the larger picture is that fact that while the farm can "Produce" it is a false production.

The land where the farm is was previously is ex cane lands. In Hawaii foreign advisers to king Kamahama the third convinced him to give up the traditional system of land ownership and adopt a "European" (Capitalist/Millitarist/Expansionist/Colonial) Model of land ownership. Previously, entire water catchments were lived in an cares for by the community. The system was known as Ahuapua'a and is named for the markers that hawaiian used to demarcate the edges of these catchments. Within the catchment the upper forest was left undisturbed to perform its function in the cycle, catch and recycle rain and nutrients and wash this into the river. Then in the upper and lower levels Taro, the staple crop, was grown using intricate aquaduct systems known as lo'i. This had the advantage over the roman aquaduct system that it didn't cause brain degeneration due to lead poisining. This caught a huge amount of silt and nutrients in the lo'i and used this to grow edible food. Water then flowed down to the river mouth where Hawaiians built loko.

Loko were hawaiian fish ponds that were constructed at the place where the river met the sea. By building rock walls out in the sea they created ponds that would fill at high tide. A gate could be opperated to let fish fill the pond and then closed. The carniverious fish were removed and the herbivores lived in the pond eatting Limu (seaweed). This grew fish and prevented silt from flowing onto the reef and killing the reef ecosystem which was another resource which fishermen would work and bring food in to the lower village that could then be traded with people living upstream. Hawaiian society had a complex social system with various roles for different individuals. Each Ahuapua'a had a Konohiki who was a individual that was the "Guardian of the 'Aina" the protector of the land, water, island.

The Konohiki was an individual who was uniquely tied to the land and understood the cycles of the island ecosystem and who knew when different fish and sea mammals were Kapu (forbidden) and could not be hunted and when they could. They would also resolve things between different parties in the watershed and ensure people were doing their bit. Not shiting in the river upstream and letting enough water through for the lower farmers/fishpond.

This complex land/social managment system has how land was managed. It was not owned, the people belonged to the land not the other way around. So this was an issue for expansionist colonial empires who wanted islands to fuel their empires with sugar, coffee, etc which earned a premium because of their luxury status and were termed cash crops. So the advisers convinced the king to abandon this system like the monarcy had previously done with the old religion and social protocals as european monarcy structure took hold. This event was termed "The Great Mehele". Mehele is Hawaiian for "to divide". This term was for social division of a shared resource that many people helped capture. So when one person provided the net and another the canoes and others went and put the nets out, the captured fish would be "Mehele" Between the participants. Within 50yrs of the "Great Mehele" 90% of hawaii was owner by foreigners.

In 1893 an overthrow of the Hawaiian monarcy was then orchestrated by the sugar barons and missionary decendants who were american and they convinced the american army and navy forces that were stationed in Hawaii to threaten to attack unless the queen ceded her kingdom. The US has subsequently appologised for their role in this on the 100yr aniversary of the event with a non-binding resolution appologising for the wrongdoing and theft). Thus was born the Hawaiian Republic run by the sugar barons and missionary decendants. In its inititial establishment the US President Grover Cleaveland ordered the monarcy to be restored but this fell on the deaf ears of millitary men and millionares thousands of miles away in the pacific and when a new president was elected he expediated the process of annexxing the islands as an American territory. This helped the sugar barons avoid trade tarrifs and gain an advantage in the sugar import markets over other collonial sugar production enterprises in South America, the Carribian, Asia.

Sugar barons and missionary decendants gained massive tracts of land and spun massive profits using slave labour from various parts of Asia. Fillapino Workers were brought in from the land that the American empire had just gained from the Spanish Empire where they had been similar style collonial barons for 500yrs. The workers were brought to hawaii as the native hawaiian were seen as being not interested in this model of work and would rather keep living in the ahuapua'a. Then followed Japanese, chinese, korean workers. Racial tensions were encouraged between the different groups as it prevented them forming a union. Portoguese workers were brought in from the Azores, island colonies of Portugal, to be "European" suporvisors over the workers, cause at least they were catholic.

So then as Hawaii was capulted into the modern era with Statehood in 1959. At this time the Americans had begun using Hawaii as a military base to stage agression in the pacific. Hence the shipyards in Pearl Harbour that we've heard so much about. Anyway, today Hawaii as a state is extreamly militarised and the other industry is tourism. The logic of the global economy has resulted in a complete collapse of Hawaiian Agriculture due to cheaper imports where slave farm labour can still be practiced and standards less rigourous. Further, Hawaii appeared a great place for speculative property development in the 1980's and a huge influx of mainlander haole (litterally, Death Breather or without breath) looking to buy land and a second wave of new age haole and ex-flowerchildren, no longer fighting but escaping. Babalonyian Refugees. Meanwhile the people cleaning rooms, customer service, stack shelves are all locals who now have a hard time paying rates and cannot afford land for their growing families and the community is broken up.

This situation seems particularlly more obvious here on the Big Island due to the large tracts of land. Local people are really poor and have been given shitty land on lava flows or old cane land while the missionary decendants are billionaries through selling land off to hotel developers, condo complexes and other "Development". Naturally the people are pissed off as more and more people move here looking for their piece of paridise and retreate. Lots of free Tibet stickers but few that say free Hawaii. This has been intensifying in the last 6 months as the global economy slows up and all the imagined wealth evaporates and so development projects stop. This is coupled with the increasing cost of living. as 90% of hawaii's food is imported, all goods, fuel, etc. The Farm I've been work exchanging on grows food to feed the poor in the area and has gone from feeding 50 families one year ago to 150 families today. The farm grows Taro, Bananas, Oranges, Sweet Potato, Avocados and is on catchment water and minimal solar and propane.

The guy who runs the place which is listed as a not for profit enterprise and so every week he puts together boxes of food made up of some fresh produce and stuff from the food bank. Supermarket leftovers, damaged goods etc. Now this is a great service, but...

Firstly the land is fairly fucked. It was poisioned continually and the soil is fairly broken and there are weeds everywhere. The manager doesn't really know how to farm, he is an old peace activist but he is also a hard headed catholic and while talking about meaningful change, he misses the bigger picture in many respects. He has become more symbolic rather than implementing on a personal level the change he speaks about. I've tried to discuss with him what might be good to do or grow but "We can't do that, not a priority, weed the taro patch" To truely heal the land, and he has had 20ys, he needs secectional crops and wind breaks and multi-croping and invasive control but he just ploughs the land and buys "Organic" off farm inputs like chicken manure and crumb and puts petrol in the weed wacker or tractor, and lets the orchard get overgrown. But it will take more man power and a less heirarchical control network in order to put in enought work and managment to develop a self-regulating system. The work I have done in 3 weeks, reclaiming a banana grove from weedy vines and clearing the oldest orchard so the trees can be accessed, will regrow with weeds with time becuase it wont be tended.

In addition to learning about the limitations of land rehabilitation (and Jim's big issue is an unwillingness to learn from others, or accept his rightious self as failable, and so he fails to see the big picture or affective routes to positive action over waving signs on the side of the road to uncaring motorists. The charity system he has is totally dependant on the functioning of a failed economic system as so if the imports stop, his land and system is not sustainable and it doesn't empower the community as a community garden would. However, its been great to meet the community and help out on the island and talk story.

The other interesting experiance for me has been eatting like the poor of the industrial world eat. Processed crap that kills the planet and people. "Enriched" flour, high fructose corn syrup, colour agent red 4, sodium EDTA, nitrosamines etc. I avoid it as much as I can but that is what people in the pacific has access to as a food source, canned, processed. No one should be hungry on a tropical island like hawaii, there is enough land and a year round growing season to provide food for everyone and healthy fresh stuff too. Instead prime farm land is turned into condos and those with money and power continue to manipulate and oppress the people and overturn environmental legeslation if it gets in way of buisness. Further depleting peoples ability to survive on the islands, fish, hunt etc. However, people seem to recognising the need for community autonomy and sustainability at least on a Retorical level, so I hope that pulls them through. An interesting farm experiance, learned a bunch about hawaiian history and militirism (a nother ranty blog post in the making) and current contaminations and threats. Also, through the peace farm I've been talking to a bunch of vietnam veterans and subsequent drop outs/revolutionaries and its been really mind opening to talk with them about the war, time after the war and the world now (Third ranty blog post). Anyway, its interesting to experaince other colonial legacies to help me contextualise things in Australia and the world at large. (4th ranty blog post)

I leave Hilo tomorrow for a bike ride up the dormant volcano that is also the largest land mass in the world. Taller than everest if you count what is below the sea. It is overdue for an eruption. Manua Loa. I'm goning up there and might ride past the military base afterwards but thinking not as it is contaminated with Depleted Uranium. Then probably down to the lava sea flow to watch boiling hot lava meet the ocean and find some vagabonds for new years. Then off to the Kona coast for my plant medicine course. Stay well, happy solstice, enjoy the summer, dance as much as possible, change from within is change without but direct action is required on all levels. Also, i'd recomend heading to Boarders in Civic and getting the Adbusters big ideas of 2009 issue and having a read. It has articles about the need to move to a steady state economy and the unlimitted growth model pushes up against the bio-physical realities of the world and stops working.

Mahalo, the life of the land is purpetuated in Righteousness. (Hawaii Kingdom Motto). Stay well, miss you all.

H

Today concludes the first week of my time on the Big Island of Hawaii.

The big island, Hawai'i was the first island encountered by cook and also the subsequent seat of power when the unified Hawaiian kingdom was formed by an inspired ali'i or chief who had to british advisors from a ship encounter and who armed Khamehamea with british style war ships which allowed him to conquer the other islands.

I left Kauai last Saturday. I spent Thanksgiving on the beach and in the Dojo while everyone either left or went to a dinner. I was so thankful to get some time to myself. Skyped with the family and extended family and cleaned up, scraping myself into movealbe shape.

Megan the midwest princess dropped me at the airport with my packs, computer, ukulele and bike and I checked in. I checked through, wandered around the airport and just before boarding was paged on the loudspeaker. I was then escorted by the airport police (who are not real police but rather rent-a-cops) to a room and given a lecture by the TSA on why camp stoves can not fly, even if you have cleaned them, blah blah blah. Following my scolding by big brother I was rebooked and slept on the plane the whole way, arriving at 4 in the arvo.

Jim picked me up in his car and we drove the 10 miles or so from Hilo to Kurtistown, an outter suburb that used to be its own cane district back when. I got settled that night in a bamboo cabin built from on site materials plus nails and screws. Sunday I woke up to honeycreapers and was informed that the other wwoofers were driving round to the south west side of the island and did I want to go. I headed of with a girl from Nova Scotia, a women from Seattle and an older lady from Ohio as well as a local Japanese man and an old hippy women and the dogs.

We drove to the south point of the island where an old lava flow enteres the sea and then up to a farm on the side of a flow. There are two massive volcano mountains here, Mauna loa and Mauna kea. They get snow on each on and Mauna kea is the largest land mass in height including undersea, in the world.

All week I have been working on the farm. The whole place is off grid. Jim built a composting toilet on site and 3 cabins. The kitchen and common area and the cabins all have decentralised solar photovoltaic systems which can power lights and a computer. Water is all catchment. There are fish ponds and chickens and taro patches. I have been setting pig traps to try to stop the loss of sweet potatos to the buggers but no luck yet. I got some chainsaw training too. I can clean, fix and sharpen a saw and I felled abunch of weed trees on the land on Saturday. We wanna try to us the wood to make pig fences to help the sweet potatos. I sowed some fields of bean and corn too as well as harvesting heaps of fruit. The farm surplus is put into food boxes and distributed to about 150 local poor families and offers an organic alternative to hte synthetic food like substances provided by the food bank.
I work 4 hours in the morning to midday and then have time to myself, it seems pretty rad. A nice place to relax and vibe down before the Ethnobotany course.

Jim Albertini is an old war resister/vietnam protester. Jim's grandad was killed by the coal mining company in pensylvania where jims family lived when his mother was one. He was raised in a small mountain comunity durring the pograms of the 50s. By the late 60s he was activly protesting the US military industrial complex by burning draft records etc. He then came to Hawaii as it was the staging ground/jump of point for US ships and planes into indochina. Here he exposed nuclear weapons storage on the islands and led comunity resistance against nuclear subs and other such in the pacific. He has activly worked for a nuclear free and independant pacific here ever since. I've learned heaps about the US enpire in Hawaii, 20% of the island that Honolulu is on belongs to the military and I think 1/5 people in the state work for the military in some capacity. Here on the big island there is depleated uranium waste on the live firing range between the two big volcanos.

I've been cruising around after work on my bike. Playing music and reading a bunch which is nice. On friday arvo we went and did a vigil against the military on the island. Jim does a vigil every friday afternoon and has for the past 8 years calling for more sensible spending of money than war.It was interesting going along and helping out. I think its gonna take more than sign waving on a street corner to change the empire but I admired Jim's perserverance. He has served fedral time a number of times for protest related activites and civil liberties cases so I preseme he needs to picket. Is in his blood.

Today was fucking incredible. After breakfast the women from Ohio dropped me at the volcano national park. It was so beautiful. From the active steeming crater to the sulphur vents to the desert to the moon scapes of past eruptions. I could feel and see the earth living. The place where land is born. The hawaiians had a female Gaian figure named Pele who was the firery volcano godess and giver of life and energy. Interesting the island has been noted to look like a female figure and the volcano produces output glass and beads shaped like hair and tears. I rode around the park on my bike, walked through old lava tubes and then saw the sun set on the culdera, the boiling steaming magman crater. I didn't see big lava flows because you need to go out of the park to where it is flowing into the sea from a fissure in the earth that has drained the magma lake that existed for a hundred years. Thats my missions on Tuesday I think.

Hope all are well, stay good.

Love to everyone.
H

PAU

We Pau.

The internship finished up yesterday, the two weeks since we got back from Limahuli were good. Fairly cruisey. Did mainly project work and also skiving project work to pick and husk coconuts. I also improved my rock slinging ability such that I can knock brown coconuts down from the tree. Now I just need to get the force up so I can get the green ones.

We gave presentations yesterday. Mine was good. I think I rambled a bit from lack of preparation but the coconuts were worth it. This internship has had its ups and downs but I have learned so much about people, plants and culture, I'm so glad I had this opportunity.

Now I have some alone time, which is a change. 4 of the interns have left, and all the rest are off at Thanksgiving dinners/lunch so I have used the opportunity to cruise about and prepare to up root and head over to the big island. No real news or stories to tell yet, just wanted to touch base.

Stay well, Mahalo
Harris

This last week at Limahuli Ray and I have been talking story about belauan culture after ethnobotany week. We talked amazing story about belauan culture. So cool. We stayed in this old valley that used to house an ancient hawaiian civilisation. With the gardeners there we built earth ovens with hot rocks and banana stems and ti leafs and cooked breadfruit, wild pig, taro, and we mashed poi and planted sweet potato and taro - which we also learned to clean and process. The food was amazing.

Raining more as we head into winter and the land looks amazing. We just spent 2 weeks after ethnobotany week at limahluli gardens, an ancient hawaiian settlement for eons ago. It was lived in by the community living traditionally until statehood in the 60's where the land was appropriated and was made a national park and the people were removed and the lo'i aquaducts bulldozed. The shit I saw in that valley was more advanced than any roman or greek fucking city. It was a sustainably built irrigation system that fed the earth and the people and didn't give anyone lead poisining. The hawaiian also had a land management sysytem known as ahuupuaa which recognised the area of one stream or river (the catchment) as a single and unique ecosystem and people cared for it the whole length of the valley. Ensuring it was healthy. We spent 4 days in the lower valley removing invasive forest and planting natives. I learned some rad techniques for Australia if I wanna go try do some ecosystem reconstuction there. The other days we were in the garden. We tended the lo'i and made mulch and planted out. Ray and I caught 8 chickens (me 2) in wild chicken traps we made from guava tree and also caught shrimp from the stream with coconut midrib lassoes and coconut as bait. That tree is truely magical. Over 70 uses in belauan culture for all different parts for all different things. I caught and cleaned a bunch of fish too with a throw net. You go out and spot the school swimming and launch the net and bring it in. We got 6 menuenue and cleaned and fryed them up. We also had another imu and built an earth oven and I watched the wild pig (feed up in a pen entirely on food scraps) get butchered and bled and then helped clean and shave the pig and prepared it and the wild chickens for the earth oven. Van ray said that sea meat like turtle and dugong is the best meat there is becuase it feeds on sea grass and sea weeds. There was an old uncle that worked at the garden preserved called uncle tommy and he had lived on country back in the 1930's. He was 76. His 73yr old sister taught us pandanus weaving. He talked lots of story about growing up in what was now a national park. He didn't know how to clean a pig, but he knew how to catch and clean a turtle. Time changes fast i guess.

Got back to the south shore last evening. We saw albatross on the drive back when we stopped at the old lighthouse reserve. so huge. Then Van ray and me went to a garden function with gormet food and dancing and deserts. I got put on security and ate heaps of food and loads of red. Today was spent lax in the hammock with some good meals to intersperse and a movie and dinner with ray.

Hope all are well. Speak soon.

Harris

End of First Limahuli week - reflections

Well another week of the internship up, less than 3 weeks to go. An interesting week to say the least.

Cruised on Saturday with Ray Ray and Keya up to the North Shore and met Keyas friend Kenally who took us to some beaches. Spent Sat and Sun getting settled at the new house and laying low.

Monday to Thursday we worked in the lower Limahuli Preserve, a huge native forest preserve on the North Shore. We weeded and planted and tarped undergrowth and cleared an infested river. I got a small spider bite and then after swimming in the river developed a boil. It got big and I treated it with Hawaiian Medicine and Belauan medicine and me and Ray Ray drained in last night. Under severe pressure from one of my bosses she took me to the clinic today and the doctor said it looked good, because we had done such a good job of draining it, it did not need to be lanced. I asked if it would heal on its own, with out server antibiotics and she said it could, but I should get on them anyway to be sure. Even better, its a whoppingly huge dose because it is an antibiotic resistant strain because of our society already overusing anti-biotics. The boss paid for the script and the visit. $140 for nothing I didn't already know. The boss then said I should start taking the antibiotics, which I reluctantly did and now feel drained and weird about putting clindamycin into my body. The web says it can causes nausea, vomiting, metallic tastes, the runs, jaundice. I should have waited till Monday to start the course, because my body was dealing with the infection by itself. I feel really pressured into not being able to make autonomous discussions about my body and health. What I needed was not a clinic and a script but more rest, fresh fruits and vegetables, a swim in the ocean and lots of rest. No healling like that in the modern world I guess.

In other news there was the American Election. The mainlanders went to a weird shitty sports bar and ate nachos and drank beers. The bar tender was a republican, I ate beer battered artichokes and had a beer (not so good for the leg). We should have gone to the Tiki bar, I'm sure the bartender there would have been happier. I am pleased with the result, mainly becuase McCain was so pro nuclear. I think obama offers hope and inspiriation to millions but am cynical enough to believe that the powers that be, the bankers and the lobby groups and the energy companies et al will not cede the reigns of power so easily. The bailout was a total neocon pillage of the US treasury, being given money for fucking up. If that had happened in a country in Africa or South East Asia there would be furor about corruption and acountability but no, we in the west are doing it and its normal practice to keep things running smoothly. Good thing we paid those taxes. Obama is inheriting a pretty fucked up country and I don't think that the peopel will rise to the challenge. I might be wrong and I hope I am but I don't think people will make or accept the changes required of them to survive.

I got accepted to an organic farm on the big island. we start on the 29th and it does aquaculture and organics and is a peace center too. more on that to come.

I've been cooking bitching soups and eatting coconuts. Nothing better.
Stay well, I have a relaxed weekend of waterfalls and coconuts and healling my leg. stay well, enjoy the springtime.