Decroissance

So. On monday I will endure psychological testing as  prerequisite for applying to Carpentry school. My French is coming along. It is a challenge to discipline myself to speak in French with Stephanie instead of English, and to not rely on her for translations, and it hurts sometimes, but I am still here. Started to meditate every morning with Steph, and exercise (have you heard of burpees?): today we went for our first jog. According to studies done ten years ago, this region of Poitue-Charentes is home to some of the longest living Frenchpeople! We eat good fish and other seafood, and lots of great vegetable soups. To get an edge on my application to the school, I will volunteer for a carpenter who lives 25km away for two weeks in the last half of March. We will see how well the osteopath realigned my body (or how well I re-disalign it unconsciously). In France, bathrooms are split into two rooms--wait, I already wrote this, didn't I? Stephanie wants to continue schooling in a new 1 year program for advising people on how to transition to organic agriculture, and how to get licensed. She has a few schools to choose from, and so do I, however they are not in the same cities. If I go to Bayonne (Basque Country. In the south. On the Atlantic coast. Close to the Pyrenees mountains.), Stephanie will go to somewhere around Toulouse, a few hours away. This is unfortunate in one sense, yet it is also good to have some distance sometimes.  Next sunday we start Vipassana. Last week I started detoxificating foot baths. Very cool. Electric charges stimulate the excretion of toxins from my liver and other places through the soles of my feet. For my liver, I am also beginning to drink a mug of hot water before I eat breakfast.

What do you get when you gobble down sweets? (A snapshot of random music that entered my head from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory)



Saw the movie Zorba the Greek last night. It was recommended to me over a Greek lunch with my Greek philosopher friend on the Danforth a few summers ago in response to my description of some eastern philosophical thinking I was exploring at the time. The movie was great. Zorba had some great, deep lines in that movie which resonated with me: The British author was asking Zorba if he fought the Turks for his country, and started to make assumptions of Zorba's lack of nationalistic fervor when Zorba flared up and said something like "What do you know about war? All that you know is in your head! From books! What about your arms, your legs, your heart? They are blind! Stupid!" And he went on to describe briefly the horrors he endured. I resonated with Zorba's love of dance. He told the Englishman that when his infant son died, while everyone else cried and mourned, Zorba started to dance, and everyone thought he had gone mad, but it was his catharsis, his way of coping with his pain. He broke into dance at the most spontaneous times. This is what I loved about Zorba: his spontaneousness. To strip and run into the sea. To make up stories to win a lady. To scare the devil out of some poor forest dwelling orthodox monks. To pick up a young prostitute and lounge with her for a few days at the luxurious expense of the Englishman. And then to write the Englishman telling him all the luxuries he was buying to facilitate his indulgence with this woman, saying how every day his mind is clearer and better able to think about the work he originally intended to figure out during that 'business' trip to the major town. Fantastic! Thank you Stefanos!

'Decroissance' translates literally as 'decay'. It is, in France, a movement of people back to simpler, naturalistic non-capitalistic lifestyles. If you look at the country of France, and draw a diagonal line from the SW extreme to the NW extreme, and you consider the land along this line, imagine the line was a few hundred kilometers thick, and you have a rough idea of the part of France considered in 'decroissance'. Lots of these regions were once on the up and up economically speaking, but are now experiencing economic decay, and emmigration. These are the regions where perhaps there can be a revitalization of permaculture principles, creating the conditions conducive for a regrowth of ecosystems. France is very centralized politically and economically. The region including Paris and its hinterlands is called 'Ile-de-France', literally 'Island of France', and some famous Frenchman once commented on the rest of France as savage or wild or something like that (compared to the Paris metropolis).

We went to a seasonal agricultural job fair today in a nearby town called Pons. Gave out a bunch of resumes to Tobacco farmers, apple farmers, viticulturalists, an asparagus farmer, and a mixed organic educational family farm especially for mentally handicapped people to visit. It is a nice idea to work in agriculture until I start carpentry. There is an organisation for volunteers to help on ecoconstruction projects in France, no experience required, might check that out (It is like wwoofing, with room and board in exchange for work, with the difference being it is with professionals and the work is focused, not just whatever the farmer is too lazy to do [dishes, shovel shit, dusting, washing floors, cooking]).

I am seriously considering running a duathlon in the end of March, a 6k run, then 25k bike, then 4k run.

Cheers,
Maurizio