this coming weekend: festival then potluck

just finished batch of tempeh

Evening everyone,

This Saturday morning we're pedaling over to the cooperative extension learning farm to give a tempeh making workshop.  It is part of the Sustainability festival.  Our thing is at 10a. I'm looking forward to hearing Shannon Hayes speak at 11a.  Her newest book is called, 'Radical Homemakers.' It's very sharp.  There are a couple copies at the SLU library or through ILL at the public library.

-excerpt

In chapter one I mentioned that the Radical Homemakers seemed to be on a three-stage path.  In the first stage, Renouncing, most of them were still leading conventional lives, but were becoming increasingly aware of the illusory happiness of a consumer society.  As a result of deep introspection, they would ultimately make the choice to step off their current path and become a homemaker.  In the second stage, Reclaiming, the homemakers entered a period where they worked to recover many of the lost domestic skills that would enable their family to live without outside income.  I observed that, depending on the individual, this phase could take years (especially if small children were at home) or a lifetime.  As we saw in chapter six, it is an exciting an deeply fulfilling period.  However, if homemakers dwell in this phase for too long, a few of them admitted to manifesting symptoms of Freidan's "Housewife Syndrome," including a sense of aimlessness, despair about the rest of the world, cynicism, or sporadic bouts with depression.  Those homemakers who were truly fulfilled had moved into a third phase, what I've dubbed Rebuilding, in which they work to expand their creative energies outward.  Their homes had become more sustainable and meaningful places, and now they were applying their talents and skills to bring their communities and society along with them.                                                                                                                   

She's explains how folks around the country have begun to shift from an extractive economy to a life-serving economy.  It addresses the scope of destruction in our corporate-based culture.  (In 2008, Wal-Mart recorded $45 million/hour in sales.  How many people along the line are truly profiting from that?)  

Here's her link as well as the one for the fair:

www.radicalhomemakers.com

www.sustainablelivingproject.net/local-living-festival 

*****
POTLUCK AT LAURIE'S

-reckon you saw her e-mail.  looking forward to doing some good eating. 3p. i'm hoping for warm temps as her back porch is excellent.

see you all soon,

flip