Ultralight Living Guide

"I am learning to grow a garden. I may become someone who follows Food Not Lawns kinds of ideas and grows an urban garden"

I hope you stay with this one for a while, Diane. In addition to vegetables and fruit that taste nothing like anything you ever purchased at a market, you will find yourself connected to the timeless rythms of the natural world and the myriad lifeforms living in concert as Nature intended. I have found my garden to be an island of tranquility in a chaotic urban setting which provides me with a lot of what I find in the mountains. Between the two I never lose touch entirely. Best of luck and, please, let us know how it turns out.

We already grow fruit. We have a huge passion fruit vine that is taking over the yard. We have about 8 avocado trees. We have a tiny tangerine shrub that has more tangerines than leaves. I think there's a lime tree, but I don't eat any limes. There's an orange tree, but the passion fruit is choking it. There's a blackberry bush but I only ever eat a few berries per year. We don't have much sun in our yard. I'm growing the vegetables on the roof in an old bookcase we found on the street!

" I'm growing the vegetables on the roof in an old bookcase we found on the street!"

Too cool!

the man who lives in a hobbit hole…

I believe most people live in a house thats just too big, think Mchouses, but as someone who is a little claustrophobic that is like the nightmare house!:)

I really like the old cob houses and the A frames with grass roofs.

I was listening to my local NPR station (KUOW) and there was an interview with Dr. Gabor Mate, who treats addicts in Vancouver, Canada.

He spoke of the Buddhist concept of the Hungry Ghost as a paradigm to illustrate our constant striving to fulfill our desires. He made some interesting medical links to being addicted to consuming– that we get addicted to endorphins, dopamine, and other brain chemistry as a result of our habits. He did make the distinction that addiction is any repetitive behavior that has negative outcomes– could be extreme sports, workaholic, or in his case, collecting classical music CD's. See http://www.drgabormate.com/ghosts.php

I've often thought that shopping panders to our origins as hunter-gatherers, that finding just the right piece of gear tickles the same parts of our brains that looked for just the right piece of flint, ripe berries, or game. To stretch this hypothesis a bit more, I guess that those of us who succeeded on the evolutionary scale were good at finding the good stuff and storing it away for the lean times. The problem comes when those skills run up against the efficiency of modern technology– limitless food, gadgets, and amusements. Much too easy to end up fat and with advanced TMS— Too Much Stuff!

It's not all about addictive behavior– we do have social conventions and are taught by others with erroneous assumptions, etc. It takes a brave soul ignore what a Scout leader has said, or blow off advertising that convinces us that more is better. Simple fear can get us to hoard or pack more gear than we really need. It's all about seeing in new ways.