I saw this amazing, tender and candid video by Chris Jordan on Upworthy.com a few days ago, very beautifully done, but, yes, it brings the reality of ocean plastic to bear ("to clearly see" and develop wise action is a feature of meditative practice) and so I started to look at all my plastic and consider what that obviously not too much is not making it to the recycling plants for some longer usage.

So Daniel has this recipe for sunscreen (CCC, Nikolai, you could use this now...) http://integrateddaniel.info/a-z-blog/2012/12/11/homemade-ultra-deluxe-sunscreen

And I'm testing this Matt and Betsy Jabs' basic shampoo ("no-poo", not sure why they call it that, but it got my attention) and conditioner recipes today. http://www.diynatural.com/homemade-shampoo/

I'll let you know how it goes. Meantime, anyone tested anything simple/raw ingredients that I can buy in bulk w/o more garbage?

(This thread is not going to get tooooo personal, or best-pathchouli-brand pitching... but the plastic bottle thing/bottled water is way beyond ridiculous, so stoppable in purchase power and natural water protection (springs, etc). Speaking of bottled water, there's an awesome, insightful article sent to me from DhOer Georges on another Dasani, written by Andrea Elliott with photos by Ruth Fremson, printed by the NY Times on Dec. 9, 2013 and is readable here)

Would hate to look back and think meditation was just about sitting on my bum.*


*Mind is the forerunner of all action.
~Dhammapada, raising ye olde high bar
(gah, so to me, so it is also skillful to just sit on my bum and study this thing I am)

Howdy;

Sure would like any tips on "no poo", best ah could do was build that tower of power in the outhouse. It helped to make it a pleasant meditation that ma sheeter had no door and looked out on the garden.

Anywhoo, goin' fer the grokeries wuz the werst of countrifried livin' an busted up any long time no talkin' times with too much bug smashin' high speed mayhem.

Butt, ya pick up a few thangs, such as how to pack up and leave the minimum footprints. So, I'd accept the plastic baggages at the grokery market and put 'em all in the same lil' bag. Stuff stuffs.

So, placksticks all went ina plakstik baggie, after proper washup of course. After 'bout three months, maybe four, I might have a halfa lil' plactic bag for recyclomints.

As for ma papers, well, started the fire box nicely. Then the metals likewise off to re:cylclops. The poo, and that, into the woods, someday to tower above me, bringin' shade and comfort in the rain.

yerz, in triplikate, nate

Hi Nathan,

I haven't thought about what you call "the tower of power" since my subarctic living days and, yes, that stuff has to get chopped down in the hole with an axe when it gets too tall in the stall... (unless one built the two-hole wide wonder and sit on yonder other side till spring. )

I know my post here is possibly borderline from the annals of the dork-police, but I'm reminded of a fresh spring where my mom would take me to collect spring water to bring home as a treat (we lived in the burbs, had tap water...) right in the city park. We just filled up jugs of sweet spring water. So sweet.

And now, how insane: living beings (including humans) having to feed their young synthetics and dying from this.

Just like how meditation is incremental practice, so too its foundation in ethical, sensible conduct in incremental steps. So simple

Let me be the first to say I've had countless bottled beverages and that video by Chris Jordan is the first time I really see what my mind and actions amount to and that the simplest best action for me would be just to only fill up a glass bottle for myself of tap/spring water (maybe some lemon and maple); this is not an edict for anyone else.

I just am looking at what I do, why I do it, am I addicted or composed with my senses, and what results from my own mind and my own actions.


_____
All mental phenomena have mind as their forerunner...speak or act with an impure mind is to be hounded by its seed-to-fruit consequences

hi Katy;

Yup, progress is slow in the sub polar regions. Talk about a long dark night...

Old ice makes for some fine refreshment, when suitably thawed. Best to either tunnel deep in those snows and set a wick alight in some fat or just keep moving steady until the next encounter. No chance of sitting outdoors until the endless day comes.

In the coastal temperate rainforest it was 'not too hot' and 'not too cold', 'just right' for this ghost of a bear. Many, many so very wise teachers in that forest. You can't wash an egg shell enough or bury it deep enough. A wolf will dig down through three feet of earth to eat it up. Best to just set it on a leaf, maybe with a side dish of what have you.

Elk will come in the fall for your apples. A month later for the leaves, two months later for the branches and in the ice and snow for the bark on the trunk. Beautiful.

The birds... the birds are the most prolific of farmers. What they can't swallow and plant they will plant together for later. If they don't get back to it, up it comes to flower for another time. No waste. Humming birds mark the seasons arisings, persistings, changings and passings and the intervals of the same from one altitude to the next.

The bears are smart, picky, like the deer, they know what they need in particular at just the right time and you can follow their fields up and down the mountains. The cougar paths twist and turn about from one vantage point to the next, following the other trails and tying those together across vast distances. A fisherman friend filmed a cougar paddling across open water a couple of miles out in the straight, heading for another range.

Best to move quickly through that water, a man will become numb and drown in about four minutes. They have found an entire moose rack inside a killer whale among other things.

The fungi leave nothing to chance. The life of this earth wastes nothing. If any of our masterful teachers survive us, any who follow after will find everything they need to fully know and understand, everywhere and all about.

yours, still, in awe,
nathan

Until then, Gigaom...
techmology...