I'm just going to start writing here, and see where it takes me.. 

Today I:

Woke up with my four month old daughter snuggled up to me for warmth,

went to the farmer's market,

discussed making mead (see former blogs) with the most prolific beekeeper in the area,

discussed going into business with two friends growing and selling gourmet edible mushrooms,

got asked to be a model for a gorgeous female artist (and accepted),

came one step closer to moving into my first actual house,

thought about my new job growing plants in a landscaping nursery,

tended my garden,

rode my new motorcycle,

nearly crashed on my new motorcycle,

ate dinner with my family,

am thankful for all the things which bring me to this point, right now.

There are so many things in a day, if you look for them, and if you appreciate them.  Even mundane events in your daily life can have utmost importance if they take you closer to your dreams and desires for bettering your life.

Think carefully about how the little things matter.

Do you lose patience with your loved ones for not relating to you, or do you simply allow them their opinions and let love flow from your center?

Even the most hopeless situation involves a choice.

If I had chosen to ride my bike faster today, I wouldn't have squealed tires for five seconds and stopped short of the car, I would have squealed tires for three seconds and gone through his back windshield.  But how could I have known that ahead of time?  Choices are made without thinking, and that is why sometimes we think we didn't make the choice.  Now, i have crashed before, and I KNOW how it feels.  So when I ride I am mindful of my experience while still enjoying the ride.

Don't take this as advice to dwell on the past.

Now is the only place to be.

Namaste

Steve.

I'm writing this in connection to my previous entry, so if you read this and don't "Get it" then go back one and start there.

When considering the actual process of creating one thing from another, one has to realize that we are not actually doing the creating.  We are simply allowing forms of life essentially beyond our control to help us achieve our ends.

I spoke previously about "critical mass."  This term is used in various different ways to describe a state which is achieved by a group.  In physics, this may refer to a population of atoms in relation to a reaction (fission, for example).  In fermentation, or winemaking, critical mass describes the state of the yeasts when they are acting in harmony to produce the most ethanol at once during the process. 

In other words, the crowd at the concert is all cheering at once.

In order to reliably achieve critical mass and, therefore, make wine, mead, beer, etc, there needs to be enough volume for a diverse and sustained population of yeasts to survive.  If you try to brew a beer in a pint glass, the yeast will starve and the contents will be overtaken by other decomposers such as fungi or moulds.

Purity.

In this context, "purity" will refer not to the level of filtration, but the degree to which your medium is natural. 

Ingredients with unnatural origins will hamper the efficiency of your ferment. 

Many store-bought products contain preservatives - added specifically to discourage the growth of yeasts and other life.  Preservatives are only useful if the food is not to be sold fresh. 

Your ferment does not need preservatives to survive. 

When it comes to storage, conscientious practices will assure clean canning/jarring/bottling. 

Gear.

The useful tools you may need to produce a fermented product can be many or few.

The first thing I would recommend is a "crock" - a  food-grade ceramic/clay jar with straight sides (and no cracks or chips).  Typically, crocks have their volume notated on the sides or on the bottom.  The smallest crock I have is a one gallon, the largest is a three.  You will probably not need a larger crock until you have been brewing/pickling/etc for a while.  A two-thirds full three gallon crock is probably about all you want to try and lift, anyway.  Not much could be worse than spilling your whole batch of mead (potentially breaking your crock, ruining a carpet, etc) in addition to wasting a month or more of energy.

Some other useful bits and bobs are:

A wooden or plastic slotted spoon (and a solid one, for tasting).

A 3 to 5 foot length of surgical tubing (unused) for siphoning.

A glass or plastic measuring cup.

A few yards of cheesecloth/muslin for covering your work against wee beasties.

A few gallon jars for decanting and aging (you can buy organic apple juice or cider in gallon jars in the US)

    (Try opening the gallon jug of cider and covering the top with a little cheesecloth or a clean kitchen towel.

     Wait three weeks or so and taste for a simple hard cider.)

Airlocks - these can be bought at a brewery supplies store, and usually cost about a dollar.  VERY useful for aging mead or other wines and ciders.  Make sure you get the right size for your bottle.

I was just replying to a friend's page, and I was inspired to write about a visit I made to a beautiful place in southern Tennessee.  This peaceful, intentional community is called The Sequatchie Valley Institute at Moonshadow.  We were there for a gathering called Food For Life; a coming together of people for the purpose of teaching others (and each other) about ways to produce food locally, healthily and with local resources.   Workshops included participatory fermentation of many kinds - beer, wine, mead (honey wine), champagne, miso, pickling, sauerkraut, sourdough, tempeh, chocolate (xocolatl) and others; medicinal herbs and herbalism - including a demonstration talk on tinctures and other preparations; wild foraging; Biodynamics; edible landscaping and principles of Permaculture; canning, preservation and storage.

The rates for the workshops are very reasonable, provided you can get there (it took a little over six hours by car from Cincinnati, Ohio - but there was some bad traffic).  People came from as far away as southern Argentina.

One concept which I must pass on before I go to bed is Wild Fermentation. 

This concept is approximately as old as human culture itself. 

Sometime after people (I'll leave the evolution or creation arguement to you) came to be, a person came across a beehive in the hollow of an old tree.  They had likely seen beehives before, being observant;  however, this hive was different.  A storm had come the week before, and rain had washed the bees out (they had subsequently swarmed and started a hive somewhere new).  Left behind, soaked with clean rainwater, was the product of long hours of labor by the (all-female) workforce.  Now, a week or so later, it had begun to emit a pleasing and distinctly floral aroma - in fact this may have been what attracted the human in the beginning.  Investigating further, the person found that the flavor also was agreeable and produced a hide bag tied at the mouth with sinew.  Scooping as much of the liquid into the sack as possible, they hurried off home to show their (wife, husband, neighbour, tribal leader, etc).  Or maybe they didn't.  Maybe it was SO good they tried a bit more, and discovered that there was another issue at hand.  The delicious, lightly fizzy brew made them feel like they had never felt before, and a long period of contemplation ensued. 

Whatever happened next, fermentation had been discovered, and it affected every culture to some degree from then until now.

Wild fermentation is called so because yeasts (the life forms responsible for transforming starchy or sugary foods into alcohol) exist all around us every single moment of our lives.  All that needs to be done is to attract them with a food source.

Just for starters (and because I'm tired), here's a simple mead recipe for you to try.

It's actually from a t'ej (Ethiopian Honey Wine) recipe, but who's arguing?

Dilute one part of your favourite honey in four parts warm, clean (chlorine-free please) water.  Water may be simmered for ten to fifteen minutes to remove the chlorine. 

It helps to have a CROCK (straight-sided cylindrical ceramic jar for food or liquids) which is half again the capacity of your liquid measure (to allow for frothing).  YOU can use a clean five-gallon bucket for all I care, but I'll stick to ceramic.

A quick chat here about critical mass- if you have too little liquid, you won't reach critical mass (fizziness, to cut a long story very, very short).  Aim for a total of at least a gallon.  Two gallons works well.  Remember you'll need a three-gallon container for two gallons of liquid.

DO NOT USE METAL: EITHER FOR THE CONTAINER OR YOUR UTENSILS

Acids can dissolve metals, creating a health hazard.  Use a plastic or a wooden spoon to stir with.

An option here is to pour in a pint or so of organic fruit (I like blackberries and blueberries).  This acts as a "kicker" and provides your honey/water with some natural yeast right away.

This step is not necessary, however, as the wild yeasts in the air all around you will be drawn to the sugars.

Cover the crock with a layer of muslin, cheesecloth, clean dishtowel, etc against flies and other beasties.

Stir the mixture as often as you can remember - literally - I doubt there's such a thing as too much, but there might be such a thing as too little.  Every half an hour to an hour is a good goal, at first, but you don't have to be obsessive about it. 

Now comes critical mass.

After a relatively short period of time (one to three days in warmer climates;  probably no more than a week in cooler areas), you will observe bubbles beginning to break the surface, especially when you stir.  After that point the activity will increase until a certain limit is reached.  This limit signals the peak production of alcohol by your friends, the yeast.  From here, the bubbles will gradually subside and the mead will appear more or less flat, although you will still see action when you stir.  From here, you can either drink your T'ej / mead immediately for a young, fresh and quite fizzy aperitif, or you can decant it (pour the clear liquid into a container, leaving behind the dregs) into a small necked bottle -check the size - and buy an airlock from a brewery supply store for a dollar or so.  Decanting goes more smoothly if you have a funnel or a sterile rubber hose (also at the brew store).  The airlock is a little rubber stopper with a plastic tube poked through it.  The tube has a cup at the top, and you pour water in the cup and drop a cap over the tube.. oh, for goodness sake, the guy in the brew store will show you.

So much for a simple recipe, see how much I care about you??

No matter what, taste must be your guide.  That doesn't mean you'll always love what you taste, but maybe you'll expand your horizons.

Namaste,

Steve

My journey so far has taught me that there is a common ground where everything can co-exist at once.  Our perceptions sometimes tell us that we are separated by time or space from other aspects of life (or death), but our perceptions are mostly subjective, and living should be about transcending subjectivity. 

I have seen evidence of this harmony with my own eyes (and interacted with it energetically), and it is my motivation to move forward in life - even when events cause me to despair. 

Sometimes this level of activity is called "critical mass" - and it is during this moment that change can occur most readily.  In the case of fermentation, this is where things really start to heat up.  Humans have their own version of critical mass, and this is seen in powerful moments such as concerts, demonstrations and circles of prayer or magickal ceremonies.  

What I am speaking of is the feeling people are looking for when they seek love, use "drugs" or act recklessly - it is a sense of change, of unpredictability, of belonging to the fates. 

Indeed, the only constant is change, and when people realise this, they may feel more able to engage this feeling of bliss or contentment in their daily lives, rather than seeking a drastic upheaval. 

We don't have to travel physically in order to evolve or escape our worries - too often this is exactly what people choose to do.  Awareness is what we seek, and it is likely the strongest motivational force on earth (besides, perhaps, reproduction).

I'll leave it there..  This is not teaching unless you would take meaning from it.  I don't tell people how to feel.

Peace and love,

Steve.

Guess what?

Smoking marijuana doesn't cause cancer.

Not even among heavy users - and when I say heavy, I mean upwards of 22,000 joints in a person's life.  That's more than two joints EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR 30 YEARS.

This contrasts sharply with the well-known effects of tobacco use.

Eminent, highly regarded Doctor Donald Tashkin, a UCLA pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years, says smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.  In fact, in Tashkin's published findings, he states,

"What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some
protective effect."  

Apparently, it may even be the compound THC (tetrahyrocannabinol - one of the mind affecting ingredients in marijuana) which prevents aging cells from becoming cancerous.

Yes, MARIJUANA may in fact PROTECT you from CANCER.

Of course, I'm not trying to tell you that smoking ANYTHING can't hurt you - oxygen deprivation alone is a good reason to seek alternative methods of ingestion - but the government and all the ultra-conservative people trying to paint good ol' ganja as satan's little helper just ran into a big wall of reality.  Extra sweet to all protectors of cultural sanity is the fact that Dr. Donald Tashkin's research has, in the past, been used by drug agencies and the government to indicate how harmful marijuana use can be.  If you have any idea of the lengths to which federal prosecutors will go to squash opposition and tout their own sources, you will know that this is a huge blow to the credibility of those who carried Tashkin on their shoulders as a weapon in the (failed) "War on Drugs."

So, I'll climb down off my soapbox now..   You don't need a podium when everyone knows the truth already.

Namaste,

Steve.