Image courtesy of Ranger Rick (Flickr)

Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard of the slow food movement, but what is “slow money” all about? — Phil Nimkoff, New York, NY

“Slow Money” is the name for a movement started by socially conscious investing pioneer and author, Woody Tasch, who essentially borrowed the conceptual framework of “Slow Food”—whereby participants eschew convenience-oriented “fast” foods, instead filling up their plates with traditional, unprocessed and, ideally, locally produced foods—and applied it to personal finance and investing. As such, Slow Money is dedicated to connecting investors to their local economies by marshaling financial resources to invest in small food enterprises and local food systems.

Image courtesy of Homini (Flickr)

Tasch’s vision for Slow Money, now not just a concept but also a non-profit organization, seeks nothing less than a complete overhaul of the way we think about and spend our money, channeling much more of it into producing healthy local food, strengthening local communities instead of multinational corporations, and restoring our flagging economy in the process. Instead of venture capital bankrolling far flung high tech start-ups, Tasch hopes to see “nurture capital” funding local merchants and producers who, in turn, plug half of their profits back into their communities, ensuring one small local virtuous circle that values soil fertility, carrying capacity, a sense of place, care of the commons, diversity, nonviolence, and cultural, ecological and economic health as much as financial return. Tasch hopes to get there by persuading a million Americans to invest at least one percent of their assets in local food systems by 2020.

Tasch started Slow Money in November 2008 after the publication of his book, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered. Hitting the road to promote the book and the nascent movement in 2009, he was able to attract 450 intrigued investors, farmers and other entrepreneurs to Santa Fe, New Mexico to trade ideas at a three-day gathering. “We just wanted to see who would show up, but four of the small food enterprises that presented raised an aggregate of $260,000,” says Tasch. Tasch then organized another event for some 600 attendees the following June in Shelburne, Vermont. Investors there poured $4.2 million into 12 more producers, and that’s when Tasch knew he was really on to something. More than 1,000 people converged in San Francisco for the third event in October 2011, and Tasch expects untold amounts of “slow capital” to be changing hands for the better as a result.

Image courtesy of nosha (Flickr)

Whether or not you have money to invest in Slow Money’s virtuous circles, you can show your support by visiting the group’s website and electronically signing the organization’s Principles, a list of six core beliefs shared by the Slow Money community. Or if you have just $25, you could park it with the organization’s Soil Trust, which will seed small food enterprises that promote soil fertility in locales from coast to coast. Tasch sees the Soil Trust as key to opening up the Slow Money concept to all of us and achieving the group’s goal of getting a million Americans involved in the movement over the next decade.

Another key to achieving Tasch’s goal is growth of leadership at the local level. To that end, a dozen autonomous local chapters have sprung up nationwide, with more sure to come as word gets out. The local groups have already gifted or lent hundreds of thousands of dollars to entities working to improve their own community “foodsheds.” Now we all have a way to truly put our money where our mouths are.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

Slow Your Money Down is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag

Image courtesy of jcookfisher (Flickr)

The greatest gift I’ve received yet this season was the opportunity to perform The Rucksack Cabaret at the Blue Owl. I wrote the songs while I was travelling to write The Rucksack Letters, but it wasn’t until recently that I finally arranged them into a storyline and fleshed out the stories between. I don’t necessarily consider myself a musician, but more of a storyteller with some chords.

That being the case, The Rucksack Cabaret is not merely a concert where I sing songs while people talk about the daily trivialities at the bar. It is an ever-changing, improvisational storytelling session with musical interludes to help set the tone and harness the passion of the journey we are all on to turn those trivialities into miracles. Needless to say, I get into some deep shit.

Building from my struggle with the fundamentalist religion of my youth and the blossoming of a greater spiritual understanding by breathing essence instead of dogma and faith instead of belief, I talk about my diagnosis with Attention Deficit Disorder and the brilliant synchronicity of so many creative minds converging in a time when their talents are so needed. And I get into how I view the Occupy movement, and what I think of the financial structure that has been guiding this world into depravity and injustice. Just as the only time Jesus got really pissed was with the moneylenders in the temple, when discussing our current economic situation, this is generally when I start to loosen my tongue.

Image courtesy of WarmSleepy (Flickr)

After the first act, before I even touched upon the Occupy movement or the economy, I got into a conversation with a 21 year old art student from Uzbakistan. Though she liked what I had to say throughout my stories and songs, when she asked me about the Occupy movement, she stood firm in her disapproval of it. Considering where she is from, I could completely understand her trepidation of falling into a Communist regime. However, where I see the revolution going is far beyond Communism. Although we disagreed, we became Facebook friends, and I finished my second act without any tirades about the one percent.

Saturday I attended the Occupy Sarasota rally in Five Points Park. After months of simply standing by the road or in the park bitching about the problems, we’re finally at a point where we are sitting down and discussing some solutions. A few of the attendees brought several folding chairs, and I was glad that we were moving from protest to proactivity. Then, we had a visitor.

He sat stood on the periphery for a few moments, leaned in, and said, “This is the stupidest thing I’ve seen people do in my life” and walked away.

“What?” I asked his heels. “Communicating?”

Although I’ve supported the Occupy movement, I haven’t sought out face to face conflicts with those that seek to argue the merits of civil disobedience. However, feeling keenly aware of the field of all opportunities, I followed the man and asked what he meant.

A conservative, Tea Party Christian by his own definition, I think the conversation was much more taxing on him than it was me as he often had to stop to take a breath, became very concerned about the police, and even worried about the presence of a child. I just kept on smiling him and assuring him that the Christ he seeks to understand has much greater riches that can be quantified and diminished by taxes and Federal Reserve Notes. They are a peculiar breed, these people who hold some ideas so sacred that they would sacrifice compassion, joy, and peace in order to be right. Fortunately, I don’t have to be right. I just have to tell my story and listen to others tell theirs. I think I’ve found my second greatest gift of the season.

My Two Greatest Gifts of the Season is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag

As the end of the year rolls towards us, the American government recently narrowly avoided another shutdown. The economy is still shaky, and people are spooked. Prevailing wisdom is that we are too broke to dream big about the future of our nation. But is that the whole story?

Annie Leonard and the team behind 2008′s award-winning The Story of Stuff are back with a new tale: The Story of Broke. In another relatable animated short, they explore the ways in which our money is currently being used, as well as ways in which we can demand greater accountability, take it back, and rebuild a better way forward for our home.

Image courtesy of danielmoyle (Flickr)

The Story of Broke is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag

In the world we have created for ourselves here in America, it is hard to imagine the life of the truly poverty stricken. There are many hardships we perceive during this time of cultural transition as our jobs are being depleted, our homes are being foreclosed upon, and our leaders are consumed with power struggles and self preservation. But there are those who would look upon our lifestyles with covetous abandon compared to their own daily struggles. In the film Marina of the Zabbaleen, we get a rare glimpse of just such a life.

We are introduced to Marina as a seven-year-old girl on swing, going back and forth on her pendulum of fortune. We immediately sense an individual with little control over the motion of the world around her, but with enough heart to enjoy the ride. Marina lives in the Muqattam Recycling Village in Egypt, home to over 30,000 Zabbaleen (garbage collectors). It is a conglomeration of various shacks and structures where the Zabbaleen sift through the refuse of Cairo to earn a living, finding further use for what has been discarded.

Image courtesy of empopempo (Flickr)

Shot in a kodachrome style, the film offers a unique portrayal of a world few of us can imagine, finding beauty where few could. Using Marina as a pivotal figure, the film serves as more of a tapestry of life in the recycling village, vignettes of misery where the Zabbaleen still find ways to participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world, offering beautiful shots of various residents in order to fully create a portrait of them all.

At the end of one of the first montages, we see a statue of Christ behind barbed wire cut to Marina’s big brown eyes revealing a similarity to her own captivity and a call for the viewer to see the Christ in her. As Jesus said, “I tell you the truth: when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!” As Marina is the only child in her family still in school, she stands as the hope for their future.

Considering the incredible difference in her lifestyle, Marina shares with us how similar she is to the rest of us. She plays with dolls, dreams with fervor, and her older brothers pick on her relentlessly. Although her mother describes their life as suffocating, Marina seems to bring a fresh breath into an otherwise dreary world.

Where they once lived in shacks created by collected barrels, the Zabbaleen have created a residential development. It’s amid filth, but the people still find reasons to smile. In Egypt, the recycling rate is over 80 percent, compared to 33 percent in the United States, which has created a consistent (although paltry) industry for those with no other options. In the film, their challenge is that the government is kicking them out of their homes in order to privatize the recycling industry, threatening to outsource their jobs and destroy their meager livelihood.

As the film begins with Marina on a swing, it ends with her on a carousel, caught up in a revolution she has no control over, but yet finds the ability to hang on for the ride. Although the film offers a meager plotline to follow, the images of life in the Muqattam village are extraordinary, and the lessons that Marina has to teach us are many. She is undoubtedly the hero of the story, and the viewers who watch her and are able to see themselves will see a reflection of the true human spirit, and may just get some insight as to how we can recreate our own society by gathering our barrels together and sifting through what we once considered refuse in order to find our true value again.

Marina of the Zabbaleen is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag

Image courtesy of garycycles2 (Flickr)

A few months ago, I was at the Uprise Art Collective’s Art Jam wearing my recently recovered V jacket. When she last wore it, V had attached a button with a pink peace symbol to the lapel, and upon seeing it, my friend Erin Hood asked me if I knew the story behind it. I told him that I’d heard some stories, but was intrigued to hear more.

According to Erin, a self-described conspiracy enthusiast, the symbol was originally designed to represent the Tree of Life, but was inverted as a subversion tactic by those who wanted to see the hippie movement fail. I looked down at my button, saw the possibility for further revolution, and turned it upside down. Now, my peace symbol looks like the Tree of Life, a man with arms stretched upward, a symbol of victory, and a big Y for “Yes.”

Upon further research, I wasn’t able to find anything online that verified Erin’s stories. However, I did discover that the most prevalent origin story for the symbol was as a sign for nuclear disarmament in Great Britain. It was adopted in the United States in 1958, when it was fixed to a boat and sailed into a nuclear testing site to protest the activity.

But the designer, Gerald Holtom, stated that the symbol was created to denote his despair, as well as the combination of the semaphore signals for the letters “N” and “D,” standing for nuclear disarmament. “I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad.” It has been said that the designer regretted the symbol’s hopelessness, and wished it could have been inverted.

Regardless of the actual origin, I personally like the idea of inversion, whether to honor Gerald Holtom’s legacy or to return the Tree of Life to its actual position. This is, after all, a revolution. And I for one want it to continue spinning.

The Revolution is Still Spinning… is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag

Image courtesy of sarniebill1 (Flickr)

One December sixteen years ago, I was watching 60 Minutes with my parents. The subject of the story was American farming. I had recently decided I wanted to be a veterinarian when I grew up, so I put down my book and paid attention. It was the first time I had seen slaughterhouse images; I was nine years old. Becoming a vegetarian was my New Year’s Resolution in 1995 – and I never ate meat again.

But like any story with an overly pat ending, it’s sometimes hard to remember the dramatic origins of a shift (and the large and small ways it shapes our lives. The reason I left my pre-veterinary program at the Rochester Institute of Technology, for example, was because they practiced live dissection in freshman biology in order to weed out students too tender-hearted for the practice of animal medicine). It was with the knowledge of enduringly cavalier attitudes to animal welfare that I watched new documentary Vegucated.

The story follows filmmaker Marisa Miller Wolfson as she sets out to convert three meat-lovers to veganism for six weeks to life. Her approach is not preachy, which made it much more relatable. She simply cites the science behind the health of a plant-based diet for both our bodies and the planet, acknowledges the great joy that can come with eating this way, and then engages with the participants’ struggle on a real level.

Filmmaker Marisa Miller Wolfson

Her merry band of converts are almost stereotypically New York: Tesla (a young college student living with her family in Queens), Brian (a bartender/actor), and Ellen (a divorced therapist who does standup comedy on the side). The film follows them in occasionally campy fashion through six weeks of transformation. They go grocery shopping, visit a doctor and meet with a vegan chef, have a girl’s night out, attend a vegetarian conference, go camping on the property of an animal sanctuary, sneak onto a farm, and even take Fourth of July vacations.

Initially, the DIY quality of the videos and editing is grating; we walk up a lot of stairs and through a great deal of poorly lit supermarkets and kitchens, all the while feeling like escapees from a film student’s final project in Documentary 102. But something funny happens on the way to the meat replacement aisle.

The pedestrian feeling of the film begins to work in a powerful way, emphasizing just how commonplace and almost banal these cruelties are. The cruelty of a clogged artery, of agricultural runoff poisoning rivers and streams; of a chick sorting floor. At no time was this more visceral for me than during the slaughterhouse scenes.

When asked, I say that I consider myself a non-proselytizing vegetarian. It never sat right with me to demonize a person at the dinner table, aggressively questioning if they were aware of the way the animal on that plate lived and died to feed them. I believe that everyone should choose the diet that feels right for them, and have been wearied over the years of getting tarred and feathered (no pun intended) with the brush of crazy-eyed zealotry for my own dietary choices.

Image courtesy of cosmicautumn (Flickr)

But in a world where many people are not consciously choosing anything about what moves from plate to fork to mouth, perhaps a live and let live approach to eating no longer serves us. Wolfson does an excellent job of simply letting the facts speak for themselves. As ever, tears sprang to my eyes when scenes of slaughter were shown (and to her credit, Wolfson bucks the trend and saves them for well into the film, when the rest of her arguments have been given enough time to gather their own weight). And as ever, my first impulse was to apologize to the animals, repeatedly and out loud. To be ashamed that we feel it’s okay to cause pain casually, routinely – and often for fast food meals that will never be remembered.

In some ways, I was on the side of the querulous meat eaters for much of the film – Tesla’s cousin from New Orleans, Brian’s stern German parents. Shouldn’t we all be able to eat whatever we choose? This is America!

But in the end, it wasn’t even the slaughterhouses that did it. It was the calm and peace in the faces of both the animals at the sanctuary and the people who are their protectors. It was seeing the 70s-era abandoned slaughterhouse nearby and feeling how unsustainable the whole endeavor has always been. It was seeing the passion in the eyes of the recent converts – not zealots: just people who care. Just like that, I was nine years old. And just like that, Wolfson had converted me to a plant-based diet all over again. Vegucated is nothing if not realistic, and real. And it is the truth of eating and living with your heart that sets this project free.

Have you experimented with a plant-based diet? What were some of the challenges? Some of the joys? Let us know in the comments. To find out more about Vegucated or organize a screening, check out their website here.

Continuing Vegucation is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag

I have to admit that I was a little hesitant about getting into The Soul Solution by Jonathan Parker. Although he’s developed an immense library of personal growth audio recordings, I wasn’t sure how effective it would be to read a book of guided meditations. While reading through them in a meditative fashion is a bit more user intensive than using a recorded guided meditation, I found that the author’s word choice combined with the more participatory experience proved to be quite a pleasant experience.

As for the book itself, Parker sets his meditations between chapters of user friendly material that explore that nature of the soul and how we can more greatly cultivate our relationship with it. Moving in a smoothly flowing progression, the reader is not only taken on a journey through each of the sixteen meditations, but the book itself reveals a greater journey within each of us.

In the fifth chapter, suitably titled “The Soul Solution,” the author identifies three steps of the soul solution process, a process that seemingly guides the journey of the book. The first step is to identify underlying patterns. The second step is to dis-identify underlying issues. And the third step is to let the soul dissolve the issues.

The book follows this process by first identifying what the soul is and what its qualities are. It then addresses the stumbling blocks that keep us from that connection, namely fear and ego. And once we have transcended these barriers, the soul is free to let true healing begin.

I was pleased with the unique nature that each of the meditations possessed. Whether utilized as a script for guiding others through meditation or simply read for personal fulfillment, The Soul Solution offers a nice blend of practices for a variety of stages in life’s journey.

My biggest criticism, and I hope that it is merely an editing issue that will be corrected in later editions, was the occasional offering of audio recordings throughout the book. At the beginning of a few of the mediations, the reader is offered a free download of the mediation by using a code at the website JonathanParker.com. Unfortunately, the actual website is JonathanParker.ORG, and the code doesn’t work. On the upside, his website does offer a few other meditations and audio recordings – so as long as you’re not overly picky, you may still find a solution that will help you encounter your own soul.

Steve

Steve McAllister, newly appointed “Lifestyle Guru” of Modern Hippie Mag, describes himself as a Renaissance Man. An author, filmmaker, songwriter, and perpetual artistic experimenter, he has recently re-released his second book The Rucksack Letters into paperback to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the journey. His latest book, a comical foray into philosophical science fiction, is How to Survive an Estralarian Mind Meld. His latest artistic project is The Labyrinth of the Unbroken Path. Connect with him on Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Finding The Soul Solution is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag

Image courtesy of holliebark (sxc.hu)

What has happened to us? Despite the most advanced medical technology in the world, we are sicker than ever by nearly every measure.

Two out of every three of us are overweight. Cases of diabetes are exploding, especially amongst our younger population. About half of us are taking at least one prescription drug. Major medical operations have become routine, helping to drive health care costs to astronomical levels. Heart disease, cancer and stroke are the country’s three leading causes of death, even though billions are spent each year to “battle” these very conditions. Millions suffer from a host of other degenerative diseases.

Could it be there’s a single solution to all of these problems? A solution so comprehensive but so straightforward, that it’s mind-boggling that more of us haven’t taken it seriously?

FORKS OVER KNIVES examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods. The major storyline in the film traces the personal journeys of a pair of pioneering researchers, Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn.

The idea of food as medicine is put to the test. Throughout the film, cameras follow “reality patients” who have chronic conditions from heart disease to diabetes. Doctors teach these patients how to adopt a whole foods plant-based diet as the primary approach to treat their ailments – while the challenges and triumphs of their journeys are revealed.

Wendy

Wendy Chambers lives in beautiful British Columbia with her family. She is a photographer, freelance writer and interpretive guide at a grizzly bear refuge. Active in bear aware projects, she follows a vegan lifestyle and is also a senior consultant for OneGroup (providers of organic and natural skincare products and supplements). In her rare spare time, she enjoys reading, hiking, skiing and spending time with her family – furry and feathered members included.

Fork Over Knives is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag

What first greets us in The Pipe is the immediate introduction to both ends of it in preparation for the journey through. Starting with aerial shots of an idyllic life on the Irish coast, the other end of the pipe is contrasted with low shots of violence and shows of force.

From the tranquil kiss of the setting sun to the crouching headlights of a police car behind citizens being forced to the ground and thrown off of the road, we immediately hope for a light at the end of the tunnel for the fishermen who live in the village of Rossport.

After we are introduced to some of the residents and the knack they have for fishing both in water and in sand, the title character is introduced as a plan by the Shell oil company to use Rossport as a gateway for delivering their gas without the consent of Rossport residents. As the plight of the community expands and protests begin, it seems that the police are sympathetic with the other citizens, but are sworn to protect them as the corporate powers of the oil industry wreak their inevitable havoc beyond any protection the local constables can offer.

But eventually, whether for their feelings of ineptitude over not being able to serve and protect or their misunderstanding of who they are supposed to serve and protect, the police begin to resort to violence to make the citizens comply with full corporate freedom. To keep anyone from getting hurt, the residents put an end to their protest and face the difficult task of coming together as a community to find another way to protect their livelihood. Unfortunately, the footage of their meetings does very little to disprove the stereotype of the Irish temper, and progress is slow-going. Nevertheless, the protests resume and locals do what they can to stand together against the corporate interloper.

Because the battle is largely fought with money, there is essentially little the locals can do, as even their neighbors are bought off and turn their backs on the fight. The battle really comes down to one fisherman using his tiny boat to stop a mammoth tanker from laying the pipe in a classic David and Goliath scenario. The shepherd boy takes quite a thrashing in this story, but it appears as if he pulls it off in the end.

For those who find themselves in similar fights in the battle for human rights and dignity over corporate force, The Pipe offers an empathetic look at how long, arduous, and hopeless the fight sometimes feels. Yet it also reminds us that in the end, the fight is always worth it.

The Pipe is now available in the US through TheFilmBuffonDemand.com

Laying The Pipe is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag

Take a gander at this adorable video from Greennovate on the journey of sustainable business over time. They take it all the way back to the Industrial Revolution in order to prove that when it comes to greening your business – as in so many aspects of life – the most profitable way forward is to go big or go home.

Image courtesy Via FLOR.com.

The Journey of Sustainable Business is a post from: Modern Hippie Mag