Declaration of Indigenous Rights

It's in the news - NZ is signing up to it at last. It will be interesting to see what the ramifications are. You can read it online here.

Sandra has encouraged me to give my thoughts on the big picture relationship between industrialisation/capitalism and colonisation, and I feel a bit daunted, but the starting point is: Everything the majority of people who live here today take for granted is built on the colonisation and dispossession of the first people here.

As Pakeha we only live here today, and live the lifestyles we do, because our forebears flooded into the country and took it over, using military might and, above all, sheer force of numbers to push the existing people here off their land.

Then lots of our forbears got richer than they ever could have done back in their own countries. They got rich because they now had plenty of cheap land to use that they had pushed other people off.

And if we feel that was all in the past (all of 150 years ago or so), we could remind ourselves that lots of us are still prospering, relatively speaking, living on that land that was taken.

At the same time, many of those who were alienated from their land have not been prospering - partly because without land they didn't have the means. Their community economies as well as their self-reliance were taken.

I suggested to someone at Puke Ariki that for some Maori it has been like a 150-year recession/depression. He agreed.

That's my first point. I'll add to it over the next few weeks, point by point, and maybe with a bit of luck it will hang together semi-coherently by the end of it!

Surfacing ...

Months since I have blogged here, and at last life seems to be re-settling into some sort of happy pattern. We moved house twice over spring/summer - the 2nd time unexpectedly ... long story!

People said it would take a while to recover and get back to routines, but I didn't believe them. (Kind of like when you have your first baby and you think you will be back at work again straight away!)

All sorts of things didn't go as planned last year. I didn't even do any solar cooking. Not sure if that was the unpredictable weather, the moving, or both.

As for my grand plan to go fridgeless last winter ... The youngest member of the family experienced her first big hail storm and fell in love. She gathered 3 big bowlfuls of hail to keep forever. How was I supposed to turn the fridge/freezer off after that? :)

Some good things that happened last year, and that I somehow managed to crowbar in around moving ...

For the second half of 2009 I worked on the writing of a pretty disturbing exhibition at Taranaki's Puke Ariki - about the Taranaki Wars. Maybe I'll write a separate blog post on my thoughts about that.

I'm so grateful for the experiences and insights I gained on this job. I felt as if I had been gathering pieces to a jigsaw puzzle for years, not realising they were all part of the same picture. Then working on this exhibition suddenly I saw that they were.

Colonisation, along with industrialisation, capitalism, and the different facets of human nature ... that's the picture I mean. I know the total interconnectedness of these things has been obvious to lots of other people for a long time, but not so for me.

Less unsettlingly, in spring I helped on the organising committee of Spinning Gold - the first children's writers and illustrators conference held in NZ for many years.

The culmination of the committee's work was an intense, amazing, unforgettable weekend. I came home on Sunday evening in a euphoric daze. People involved in children's literature are, as a group, just so darn supportive and lovely. And a live-in conference venue full of over 100 of them is almost too much support and loveliness to be true.

(Sorry, it's nearly midnight; I tend to gush when I'm tired.)

Oh - and I also learned to spin for real - not just metaphorically.

For about 5 months now, under the expert tutelage of my mother, I've been working at trying to acquire and improve various spinning skills - at times feverishly and to the detriment of my sleep patterns.

Whew. Still a long way to go. I wrote about the embryonic beginnings of my spinning obsession in the final issue of the late, lamented World Sweet World.

I have another new hobby too, but that's whole other story.

Next, I'm hoping to find a way to bring all my scattered passions together into one overarching project, before my head explodes. Preferably in a way that might add the odd extra dollar to the family coffers. I think I have hit upon it, but there's a load of prep to do.

Right now I'm looking forward to getting back into reading some of my favourite blogs again.

Met a nettle expert

Was fascinating - and fun.

Sometimes you have to read the scary stuff

This BBC article on methane already seeping from the Arctic is more than a little alarming. Especially given the way that the general pattern with climate research updates seems to be - every few months - 'actually it's worse/happening faster than we thought'.

There's more commentary on the new methane escape findings here.

I hate thinking about this stuff. It makes my heart start pounding painfully if I linger on it, or think too deeply about it. So I kind of half-think about it; let it sink in just enough to remind myself that this is important, but not enough that I start having a panic attack in front of the computer.

But lately I've been thinking I'm not thinking about it enough. And I'm not taking enough action. And I've been feeling frustrated that other people aren't thinking about it - the people who reckon that it's okay for NZ to have a conditional 10-20% emissions target because we're just a small nation in the global scheme of things.

(By that logic - every town across every LARGE nation in the world could also say, it doesn't matter if OUR town acts, because we are just one small place and our actions won't make a difference. It's an artificial, illogical, and dangerous way to break it down - to think just in terms of big and small nations.)

I'm trying to spend a bit of time when I can on Transition Towns. (The personal is political.) I've joined Sign On, and I've taken very small actions.

But none of it feels enough. (Although I think joining Sign On, although a small thing, is really important - it's the most co-ordinated and effective public climate action campaign in NZ - and 'signing on' to that campaign is a particularly effective use of your name.)

What else? What else can be done?

Eyes wide open!

Yay for local mother Jo Campbell! She couldn't get along to the big Eyes Wide Open emissions target protest in town (because she was on Playcentre duty) ... so she organised a small protest for parents and children just outside her Playcentre instead.

I was away, but the rest of my family went along, and apparently it was great.

You can see the video here. (If you want to spot my loved ones, just look for the pink bomber jacket!)

Herbal health

After saying I wouldn't blog much, I don't seem to be able to stay away from it!

Yesterday at the Museum of City and Sea, I caught a good half an hour of Donna Lee's presentation on herbal cosmetic and hygiene products - and was very inspired. She even sent everyone away with a sample of her tooth powder, made from baking soda, spearmint essential oil, and stevia powder. I have yet to try it, but it smells lovely.

I've been looking over Donna's beautiful website, and coveting -
a) some of her courses and workshops
b) some of her products
c) some of the resources to make your own products, which she also sells.
(And by the sounds of it, she sells more than what you actually see on the website.)

So far, my own forays into herbal medicine have involved regular lurking and link-following round the Herbwifery Forum, as well as beginning a distance course at the International College of Herbal Medicine, run by the marvellous Isla Burgess. (You can see her in the movie Earth Whisperers.)

By the way, I love the concept of herbwifery and herbwives - 'grassroots community herbalism'. More about it here.

One quick thing!

Tomorrow (Sunday 2 Aug) I'm giving a low key, informal presentation at the Museum of City and Sea on 'Harvesting Without a Garden.' I'll be at a table from 2.30 to 5pm to chat about foraging and fermentation, and blending the two. I think it'll be fun!

Before that, Donna Lee will be presenting on home-made cosmetics (from 11am-12.30) and on natural household cleaners (from 1.30-2.30). I'm really looking forward to seeing her.

My posting will become even more sporadic ...

Infrequent posting is supposed to be the kiss of death for a blog, but I've got so much going on at the moment that I'm going to have to pretty much stop posting for a month or so.

I do hope to be back to it with a vengeance in September sometime! In the meantime I'll still be reading all my favourite blogs ... (nearly all linked to in the sidebars).

Pedal power

Wellington sustainable food fan David Stuart has started a blog about his and his family's adventures ... Take a look at their new pedal powered blender!

As an aside, David's wife Charity runs the very wonderful Honeychild cloth nappy business.

Wood Sorrel on National Radio

Today on This Way Up I'm wandering down our street talking to Simon Morton about wood sorrel. It should be on at 1.30pm.

There is nothing so excellent as a plant that's great in savoury AND sweet dishes!