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Arnica, Comfrey and the Healing Power of Plants: How a Sprained Ankle Helped Me Find Resilience in Networking

4/29/2018

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Local plants grow the medicines we need: arnica and comfrey (Photo: Creative Commons)
I lay on the ground after a trip-and-fall last month asking myself in that prolonged moment, what is the meaning of this in my life right now? As a nurse I knew my ankle was, at a minimum, badly sprained. With the assistance of a neighbor I hobbled the half block to my home. I went straight for my homeopathic bruise remedy, Arnica Montana. Arnica is a plant in the sunflower family whose main potential is to reduce bruising. It can be found at Whole Foods Market in the form of sublingual pearls and topical creams.
I excitedly remembered I could call on another plant-friend for the first time. Comfrey, aka Knitbone, has for many generations been known to speed healing of broken bones and sprains. Modern pharmacology has identified allantoin as a chemical component in it which indeed speeds cell reproduction in bones and muscles when applied topically. You may find this ingredient in your facial moisturizer. When Transition Pasadena envisioned Throop Garden, we created places for a food forest, native plants and medicinals. We had planted comfrey!
After an X-ray the next day (no fracture!), we stopped to harvest comfrey leaves. I placed 10 large leaves and a quarter cup of water in my blender. After it was puréed it was a mucilaginous
jam consistency which spread easily on a cheesecloth which I wrapped around my ankle, covered with plastic wrap and a towel for drips, and kept on for two hours. Next morning, day three, I was 75 percent improved! I was stunned! The bruising and swelling were decreasing, the pain had subsided. By day seven, I was 90 percent healed!
This accident was not my first venture into plant medicine. When my daughter had a flu, and the cough lingered three months, she asked for advice. I cut Yerba Santa from Throop Garden, added it to a kettle with boiling water, and had her breathe the steam with a towel over her head three times a day. In three days' time the cough was gone!​
PictureA respiratory cure: Yerba Santa
Yerba Santa grows in large swaths across the San Gabriel Mountains. It was used as a respiratory cure at Barlow Sanatorium in the first half of the 1900s. I first began learning about Yerba Santa and other local plants used for medicine by local native people from James David Adams*, medicine carrier for the local Chumash tribe and professor of pharmacology at USC. James leads walks to teach about local plant medicine. He advocates for growing our own to avoid depleting the natural areas. I am grateful to Throop Garden for nurturing a stand of Yerba Santa, and I now grow Knitbone in my own garden.
Native people consider that we must be in relation with all lifeforms and those who study plant medicine understand that local plants grow the medicines we need for local ailments. Asia Suler**, a wise young woman of One Willow Apothecaries is an Intuitive Plant Medicine Maker. She says that "our human narrative has been distanced from the landscape's", that the plants have always been here seeing us and that we have just forgotten how to see them. Time slows down and I cross into another mindset when I read Asia's beautiful blog laced with introspection, spiritual mullings and joyfully delectable photos. 
As for the meaning of my accident in my life right now — even in asking the question there was some kind of acceptance of the crisis. It has reminded me that as a nurse I enjoy learning about and sharing the healing methods available to us all if we can see the gifts the local plants are offering. And it reassured me that I am integrating a key message of the Transition Movement. The message is that we can build resilience for difficult times by networking; I relied on my growing network of medicinal plants.
​
—Therese Brummel
 
* To learn about plant walks with James Adams, contact: jadams@usc.edu.
** Asia Suler offers classes in verdant North Carolina on connecting to the medicinal benefits plants offer. Her website is onewillowapothecaries.com.

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This Saturday in Glendale: JPL Scientist Robert Haw Will Discuss How We Can Respond to the Climate Crisis

4/28/2018

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PictureRobert Haw is a member of Transition Pasadena
The climate crisis is already too big for individual actions alone to make a difference. So how shall we respond, collectively?

In a talk this Saturday at the Glendale Library, JPL scientist and Transition Pasadena member Robert Haw will discuss how we can afford a clean-energy transition and pay ourselves at the same time. Using common rather than scientific language, he will illustrate some current manifestations of climate change and explain the science behind them. He will also show how a revenue-neutral extraction fee on carbon-based energy sources can make transitioning to a clean-energy economy affordable and help create many new jobs and boost GDP.

A physicist and graduate of Stanford University, Haw is an interplanetary navigation engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is currently working on a project called SMAP that uses an Earth-orbiting spacecraft to map soil moisture levels around the planet. In 2012, he co-founded the Pasadena Foothills chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby, an organization working to create the political will for a livable planet.

* *

Some Like It Hot — A climate talk by Robert Haw
May 5, 2018
2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Glendale Central Library
222 East Harvard Street
Glendale


PARKING: Visitors to the Downtown Central Library receive three hours FREE parking in the MarketPlace parking structure on Harvard Street. They must obtain validation at the library service desk on the main floor.

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Call to Action: Fill out a PWP Survey and Tell the City to Stop Signing Long-Term Fossil Fuel Contracts

4/28/2018

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PicturePasadena 100 wants the City to move to all-renewable energy by 2035 (Photo by SH)
I just filled out a survey for Pasadena Water and Power. There is one question that is so open-ended that I was able to type in “Don’t sign any more long-term fossil fuel contracts!”

To me, this survey feels like a gift from heaven because the Transition Pasadena project called “Pasadena 100” is all about getting the City to stop signing long-term fossil fuel contracts.

Long-term fossil fuel contracts are the norm right now; a 40-year contract is not unusual. But these are unusual times. With fossil fuel consumption damaging the planet and the price of alternative energy falling rapidly, it makes financial sense to keep our options open. Short-term fossil fuel contracts will allow us to switch to alternative energy as it becomes cheaper than fossil fuel. The year 2035 is a conservative estimate for when alternatives will be the cheaper option. That’s only 17 years away.

So let’s get Pasadena on board! No more long-term fossil fuel contracts!

You too can fill out the survey. And you can tell others to as well.

The website for PWP's Customer Satisfaction Survey is http://PWPweb.com/Feedback. The open-ended question is number eight. It says, “Do you have any thoughts on how PWP can improve?”

Well, yes, YES, I do: “Don’t sign any more long-term fossil fuel contracts!” And thank you for asking!

—Sylvia Holmes

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From Outside Dictate to Deep Involvement: What an Authentic Approach to Reinventing Organizations Would Look Like

4/27/2018

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PictureOrganizations should serve those who are involved in them and humanity at large — and for the benefit of earth itself. (Photo: Creative Commons)
In his book “Reinventing Organizations”, Frederic Laloux describes the stages through which society has evolved and how organizations have adapted to these changes. The way he envisions it, reinventing organizations requires the entire notion of organization to be taken into account. To date, notions of organization have been dictated mainly by cost, labor, business skills, capital etc. But with individuals, their aspirations, and individual life journeys evolving, the mix at the work place is shifting to adapt.

What drives the way we run our businesses, our institutions, and our public and private agencies? Is it the needs of the organization or those of the individuals taking part? Realistically, it is both, and that is Laloux’ purpose: bringing people together. This theme takes the writer into areas of humanity beyond simply practical matters.   

Let us see the direction Laloux takes. As cultures matured, hunter-gathering expanded into seed sowing, and tribes grew into communities. Activities multiplied as did the number of people engaged in them. With groups growing, so too did the power of the leader. Organization was initially strict, top down. The leaders commanded like Mafia dons, gang leaders and tribal chiefs.  

When populations grew further, individuals became more vocal in their need for participation. Organizational structures shifted. The chief became a general; the pope a religious head; a school principal the director of policy; the government minister master of his realm. Their staffs carried out orders, made orders of their own and even advised their leaders. Organizations adjusted.

Then, as culture was reshaped by invention, by shifting human rights and social perspectives, innovation became key to staying ahead; machinery, competition, profit and growth now entered into the organizational equation. Multinational companies grew in number. Educators, no longer content with old styles of learning, wanted innovation as reflected in charter schools.

Humanity is constantly maturing. When deeper knowing and awareness increase within, so does knowledge gathered by our senses from without. Each event, person and interaction broadens an individual’s world view. Society, expressing these collected views, influences the weave of organization. And as society incorporates individual refinements, the needs of organizations and their improvement become central to their redesigning. The culmination of these successive stages of civilization and adaptations brings us to reinventions found in companies like Southwest Airlines and Ben & Jerry’s.

Yet, these are mere beginnings. Ultimately, the defining shift in worker attitude should be from the question “Who’s in charge in this organization?” to “How do we wish to be involved in this organization and why?” In other words, organizations should serve not only those who are involved in them but humanity or society at large — and for the benefit of earth itself.

Reinventing organizations requires being involved deeply, personally and not in a manner dictated by organizations. To be authentic, it must happen in the way I am, that is spiritual to me, that is reverential to dear ones and sacred to all of humanity and the earth. As each of us responds in like manner, an innate intelligence arises, and with that balancing we know we are on the right path.

—Greg Marquez

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​Core Values, a Vision Statement, and the Alchemy of the Desert: Reflections on a Recent Transition Pasadena Retreat

4/21/2018

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The more we speak and share the vision, the more we manifest the reality. (All photos T.B.)
Ten Transition Pasadena members recently gathered in the desert. We were glamping, glamorous camping. 

There was excitement and true joy in meeting in a new setting as we laughed and told stories and vied for the single beds in the glassed-in living room that faced the pale pink dawn, the comfortingly rounded rocks, and the view of the soft ochres and greens of the desert valley below. 

We agreed we wanted to create an art project as a group, one that was effortless. It was important to be doing some tangible thing that represented pure joy. After ten ideas, a group-art mandala emerged. Each person took colored pencils to the large paper adding to a concentric design. The magic of each person's input created a beautiful colorful mandala. Who knew it would become the birthday card for one of us the next day? 

We intentionally cooked slow-food meals together. Did the homeowner know we would not want to be tempted with the presence of a microwave? There is wizardry in using a seemingly mundane process like communal cooking as a jumping point for remembering food stories, conjuring forgotten, blissful, childhood tastes, and most of all creating new community memories.

Slowing ourselves down, we spied wildlife without ever having to leave the house. Orange and yellow mallows bobbed in the breeze, lizards and ground squirrels went about their soulful sunning, alternately exploring and relaxing. We were reminded to honor their choices and apply them to ourselves. And so we walked a wilderness trail in the spring desert. An exquisite blue sky was filled with sweeping clouds. The Joshua Trees were almost ready to burst. Tiny purple and yellow sand blooms effortlessly welcomed and beckoned us on the trail, bouncing back resiliently after each step. They know that living sparely and close to the earth can be a beautiful way of life. 

We sat together in several council circles under two large wispy mesquite trees which danced with each gust of wind that puffed up the cliff onto our natural perch. The trees remind us that in harsh desert life the tiny-leafed plants survive best. How did they learn this permaculture principle that wanting less builds resilience? In council circles we speak from the heart, one at a time responding to a particular prompt. The feeling is akin to a group mindfulness practice. It allows Spirit to guide us and bonds us more closely.

We realized after a time that what we have been doing all these years in Transition has been alchemical* in nature and has led to many magical manifestations. We reaffirmed to each other that the more we speak and share the vision, the more we manifest the reality. And that with a connection to the alchemy we are golden. The Mesquite trees called us to dance in the wind with them at our final departure.

Transition Pasadena's Vision Statement is "Community so vibrant with connection to self, others and Earth that living in harmony with all life is second nature." It is based on the Core Values we established in our infancy. Those Core Values are based on our local group's connection to the global Transition Network. The Values are Joy, Visioning, Doing, Community, and Honoring the Web of Life. 

Our core values intentionally create a path. There must be Joy in coming together. As a group we must hold a Vision for a more beautiful, livable world and for the very specifics of a project. Then comes the Doing, together, with joy and fun. On this path we build resilient Community. The reinforcement then comes from the ethers in the form of, as Eco Philosopher Joanna Macy says, "seeing with new eyes" ways to Honor the interconnected Web of all Life.

​And so new ideas and energy emerge for new projects. As Earth Day approaches we feel revitalized to be attentive to our elusive alchemy.

—Therese Brummel

*alchemical: a power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way (Merriam Webster)
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Transition Pasadena's Vision Statement is "Community so vibrant with connection to self, others and Earth that living in harmony with all life is second nature."
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This Saturday: Earth Day Celebration at Memorial Park

4/16/2018

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Earth Day Pasadena is back on Saturday April 21st with art, live music, food trucks & community. The event is free.

Transition Pasadena is cosponsoring the event. Join us to:
  • learn about local grassroots environmental efforts and about sustainable practices including stormwater harvesting, water-wise gardening, bike repair, clean energy options, electric vehicle show, healthy recipe demonstrations, art and more
  • engage in meaningful dialogues, solution storming and advocacy
  • move to Zumba, yoga, drum circle beats and live music
  • participate in workshops, demonstrations and interactive activities 
  • take action on climate change
  • speak up and share your vision for a more environmentally friendly Pasadena

Saturday, April 21
9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Memorial Park
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Mulch 101: Where and How to Get Free Wood Chips

4/15/2018

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Mulch is lovely. You can buy it, but multiple sources offer it for free. (Photo by Sylvia Holmes)
Mulch is lovely.  I add it to my garden often, especially over some cardboard that is shading out some pesky weeds. I love how simple it is. I spread it, I go away and live my life, I come back six months later and the soil is dark and crumbly. That’s magic. 

You can buy mulch, but there are multiple ways to get mulch for free. My favorite is picking up my own through the Pasadena Mulch Giveaway Program, a City offering. Pasadena Public Works drops a temporary pile of mulch almost every two weeks in one of two locations. The mulch is usually aged and of good quality. (If not, contact the Pasadena Citizen Service Center.)

Check the dates and put them on your calendar. On the appointed day, put on a long-sleeved shirt, long pants and boots. Wear a garden hat and garden gloves. Bring water to drink and a face mask to keep dust out of your nose and tissues (you will still get dust in your nose). 

If you don’t have a pickup truck, bring some large containers like empty trash cans or bins which you can cram into the back seat and/or trunk of your car. If you have enough of them, they won’t fall over.

To move mulch you might use a 5 gallon bucket instead of a pitch fork or shovel; this helps save the upper back from injury. Take the bucket to the temporary mulch pile and, using gloved hands, scoop mulch from the top of the pile into the bucket. Carry the full bucket to your car or truck and dump it. Repeat and enjoy the smell. 

Other sources of free mulch:

1. Ask any tree trimmer who visits your street if they are willing to dump some of their wood chips on your property. Sometimes they say yes. You might get too much, and it will be raw not aged, but you won’t have to lift it bucket by bucket.
2. Sign up with an online connection website like ChipDrop for delivery.
3. Some other cities also have mulch give away programs for their residents such as South Pasadena, along the edge of the Arroyo and Glendale, at Brand Park.
4. In a pinch I go to Griffith Park outside the composting facility. It’s hard to find so click here for a map.

Transition Pasadena’s project Mulch for the People wants to get more mulch to more people more easily. Feel free to contact us on our Facebook page. 

—Sylvia Holmes

Upcoming dates for the Pasadena Mulch Giveaway Program:
April 20 and May 18 at Robinson Park
May 4 at Victory Park
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​Listening and Speaking From the Heart: Starting in May, Transition Pasadena Makes Monthly Council Practice Available

4/15/2018

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Transition Pasadena is now offering an ongoing monthly council at no cost to anyone interested in this practice. The next session will be May 1st, 2018, at 7 p.m.

​What is council? The practice of listening and speaking from the heart so as to awaken connection with self, others and the natural world. No experience is necessary, and all are welcome. 

We will keep the number of participants to 10 or less. Please email David for location information and to sign up.

Tuesday, May 1 
7 p.m.
Location will be disclosed to participants
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Conscientious Projector Screening This Thursday to Explore Political Divisions and Seek a Path Forward

4/9/2018

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Are we really a nation of snowflakes and deplorables? What’s so wrong about political correctness? Whose country is this? Are there any “self-evident truths” that we still hold?

Conscientious Projector's Spring 2018 event this Thursday features a collection of short films and video delving beneath the surface of some of the major news stories and issues that have divided Americans and separated us into seemingly intractable opposing political camps. Join us as we consider these questions and seek a path forward.

A community discussion follows the program. Admission is free. The facility is accessible to people with disabilities. 

—Bob Brummel

Thursday, April 12 
7 p.m.
Armory Center for the Arts
145 N Raymond Ave, Pasadena

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Transition Groups, a Family Get-Together and the March for Our Lives: What We Seek and Find in Community

4/2/2018

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Different backgrounds, common purpose: March for Our Lives (Photo by Joanna Nix on Unsplash)
In my extended family, baseball’s Spring Training has offered, for now three generations, a time to get together. Spring’s growth pushes up around us.

This year, the dates set aside to gather in Phoenix coincided with the March for Our Lives. The family group marched alongside the new high school organizers. My own children had been demonstrating since they first learned to walk. Their uncle/cousin, who planned to watch baseball that morning, was moved to attend the march with the rest of the family.  He had not previously been politically active. Especially in this news barrage of catastrophe and cruelty, he had been turned off by politics.

He may have imagined himself surrounded by the worst kind of angry, violent demonstrators. But here he was, with his mind changed about the people’s process. People of different and even same (but previously dismissed) backgrounds can find common purpose. Surrounded by so many people at the march in the purple state of Arizona, uncle/cousin was transformed. He felt the community spirit and may even vote for the first time in his life.  

That’s what happens in community. That’s why I am renewed, revived in Transition groups: the spirit of working with other people, all of us taking up a small part in a big project is infectious.  

We carry that spirit outward when we invite others to join us, when folks recognize the lawn we turned into a food forest, when someone brings a treasured item to be repaired and when someone shovels a swale into a public or private garden.

And what we seek in community is not just our familiar faces and traditions, but the growth that pushes out like little shoots from a plant. New, tender sprouts need water, sun and the gritty soil to move. Sometimes we need to be in places slightly, or not-so-slightly out of the ordinary to change into the the blooms we can be.

—Mimi
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