This post is for everyone that ever crossed my path.

You can step so far back from the world that surrounds you, and limit what you put inside your mind to such a degree that it becomes you. I could have become a plant perhaps, I am quite sure I have come close to such a transmutation.

This year I decided to step back into the world of cash and electronic transfers, people, cars, roads that are tarred and shops. It is a world I know very little about. A world I lived past, much the same way Ive observed people living past each other. I got a job with temporary accommodation. This year also started with a lot of pain – on most known levels, and though I have much healing left to do, I am by God’s grace gifted with some labor, cash, tea sales, accommodation, water and electricity (missing a gas stove, and being barefoot though One week into my transformation or job I feel like the past few years are falling like dominos laying out some path, to which I surrender with awe, humor and confusion. I walk the land on the properties, and play my guitar. Inside I am learning self love, being guided again by my passions for plants, gardens, teas, arts and crafts. I say fare well to a generous woman and community forming on Cedar Falls, and to the land use agreement with hope that my job will allow me the tools to succeed at naturally growing herbs in bulk, and bringing back food forests of heritage and heirloom foods in communities like these, with very high unemployment and very low self sustainability. My boss is quite an awesome extraordinary chef Click on this link to learn more about Millys on the N4 route. It has become a landmark for many tourists and locals. They have been the bulk of my financial support for approximately the past year, in purchasing and selling the teas i grew, dried, cut up and mixed. I was introduced as a gardener to staff, and I hope I am about to change the mindset of what that means. A gardeners purpose, in my opinion, is to assist the earth in healing so that the abundance that existed thousands of years ago may return. OBVIOUSLY this is like any normal job, a probation period of 3 months, nothing is permanent anyway. I find that Im confined by a job description, and within 2 weeks I am already learning the lessons of the importance of FOCUS.

When someone with low and often no income for months jumps in to do the gardens in a different way, gets creative with natural resources and starts recycling crafts, some people perceive it as a shame, some are very negative toward change and new ideas, especially ones that seem to threaten their job security and functionality in business. I can understand that perception, because the concept of alternative currency, love for the earth, connection to the earth energy and the obvious depression that comes with the transference of all these judgments based upon perceptions created by cultural barriers, is easily misinterpreted.

I am in South Africa, outside a small town called Machadodorp, which is mostly looted and has a handful of shops that stock either close to expired items or very limited resources of food, medicine and building materials. It is very difficult to be healthy here without growing your own food and learning about the natural resources that surround us for any culture. And we have quite a diversity of culture here in South Africa. I have felt a great sadness in places where the natural resources are abundant and ignored. I have also felt this sadness in this place, where using the little that exists is seen as a shame or too much of a mission. I am also sure that much of this shame mentality judged upon me, from you and from within myself, is based on my lack of friends in the area, family, clothing, furniture, transport and ability to socialize. Ive lost many of you because of lack of signal or data to communicate. It is a constant redefining of my self, and letting go of my past, a constant learning of other ways. Surely life is not only like this for me. Why are people so set in their ways? Why are we so afraid to really CONNECT?

It has never been a shame for me to throw myself so deeply into the wasted earth spaces and create amazing gardens. It has been a shame that the judgments made people cut me off, set me aside, expect miracles from the earth without showing it some love, and put me in a box. That box I jumped in and out of, too many times. It has been a shame to me that people would rather walk kilometers with headaches and other health issues, smile and take my tea and not use it as instructed, but judged me to be either a sangoma or inyanga or hippy or permaculture expert or literally just quite crazy. I find it quite funny nowadays. If you stop skitting through the text in this blog and actually read it, then I am sure you will see the journey I am loving and appreciating myself for taking.

I know I cut people off and shamed them in much the same way, from my own judgements and perception. I remember living in my tent in the Western Cape, how the rasta community lifted me up and taught me much about plants and gardening. I remember being in Johannesburg, walking past society before traffic, creating the garden at the Pirates Sports Club. I remember stopping by the riverside, and in the parks where the vagrants sleep and becoming the friend they saluted, but never really assisted. I Remember giving away so much fresh heritage and heirloom food to them and seeing it tossed aside into the citys debris. That was a shame. I remember the holy anger in me that caused me to go out of my way, on foot, to show some people at the traffic lights what to do with the rubbish lying around them to make some money, how they threw it at me, especially with the concept of recycling crafts. I remember how many people didnt think volunteering in exchange for a share in the profit or harvest was worth the effort, and all the taboo of tea. It was also a shame that most people that came to connect with me either started their own business with herbs or gardens from our conversations, but never supported my dream of just having a normal life with a home and business that adds value to community and the earth. Yet i have a lot of love and pride for your existence too, because your work is needed and adds value to our societies and earth. Its a shame that I was on a few farms, where I was invited in as part of a community that assisted me with free land use and water, and my goal of farming something that created an income stream for the people owning and struggling on the land. It is a shame that I watched how assisting me with learning how to make a business plan, a proposal, an invoice, how to get funding for more plants and a tunnel never happened based on perceptions of white privileged in this country. It is a shame that I was forced to carry loads of responsibilities that put me in very dangerous and often debilitating situations.

It hurt so deeply that I withdrew more and more to that place where I felt completely helpless, without hope and without support on any level many times, especially when I got injured or sick. I spent nearly 20 years in mostly silence, not looking in the mirror and avoiding society as much as possible. But there is always hope. God always shows you another opportunity, no matter how alone and fucked you are. Its also a shame that expressing everything is a great loss both to me and you, because of boundaries that only separate humanity. It is this journey that caused me to have an undeniable knowing who and what I am that made me step out into this job and accept being introduced as a gardener. It is the letting go of that shame judgmentality that makes me isolate and love myself to the same degree that many living the go to work go home go on holiday mentality do. However i am blessed to have a job that allows me to be me, despite my limitations, despite the many red flags from both sides. I often tell people nowadays that it is good to do something you love, even if just for a minute, after years you will find it becomes you. I have a love for art, gardening and awesome tea and healthy food. It is also a lesson that it is not lucrative to just do what you love, then do it as a job – that thing you love ends up becoming quite a consuming hate. We need balance. We are human. We are always growing and changing, the things we do can either energize us or destroy us. We should be fueled by our passions, not consumed by them. There is a time to do things we love for ourselves, a time to do it for others and a time to do it for the lifestyle rewards that come with it.

This journey has taken me to the point of completely giving up my dreams and my self, made me so sick that the depression gripped me into a vortex of wanting and even praying for death to come. To the point of what seems like no return to any relationships that I so deeply cherished and stepped away from because of love for the earth and the people supposedly owning it. It led me to discover my pride, my prejudice, my purpose, my passions, my faith and my desires. To thrive in anger, to surrender in despair and hope that comes from so many situations where it seemed it was the end of my life. I will forever remember all the times I was left alone and strangers came and assisted me with food, clothing, transport, a roof over my head and all the stuff that kept me alive and safe from harm. It is because of you that I will always believe that God has a purpose for me on this earth, and that I will always continue to try and live from my core.

I have always been grateful, and hope that we may meet again.

Thankyou for all the likes, shares, comments, random buys, gossip and stuff that kept me alive. I hope that you learn the value of your exchanges and gifting, and that it returns to you tenfold.

LOVE AND LIGHT TO YOU ALL

In a previous post I wrote about some notes I had written in a notebook, about my homeless assistant working on his own volition at times, to finish my garden perimeter without being paid… how for that reason, among others, like people offering me money and entertaining my ideas in farming teas, like Solid Green Consulting and this awesome ebike on loan that I ride on, like the lady from 6 degrees East who gifted me with an apron to garden in, and these printing guys from Art in Martin that insisted on printing some labels and my disclaimer, and others bringing plants and seeds or whatever I needed along my gypsying path, I got up to continue day after day, making the garden at Pirates.  I did this quite regularly over a year, and the previous 6 months on the other side of Pirates.  I have done a lot of work alone in this garden, while my heart broke and while my heart awoke, because of how people responded to my reality in different ways (their own perceptions often left me awakened) leaving me in some weird way refreshed, drained or changed, at times.  Creating this garden has been an incredible journey for me and I am certain that it offers, in itself, a space of love and healing for anyone that spends a bit of time in it.  I see how it brings together people from various groups and lifestyles, its quite a beautiful community event once a month next to this garden… the Garden Harvest Swap.  Please follow the pages and the interactive gardening @ Pirates page as well for regular inspiration.

When I came to Johannesburg I was recovering from a traumatic experience.  I was supposed to be taking medication for very bad depression, which unfortunately made me feel like bugs were crawling under my skin, all over my body for a few hours, I couldn’t sleep for days and felt like pulling off my own skin, it was an itchy irritation I will never forget… I decided not to take more of it and spoke to God alot – inner voice, intuition, whatever you call it – through my panic attacks instead.  This was the beginning of my journey with natural medicine, intuition being the first, the second being celery

One might laugh at the thought of intuition being part of or a form of natural medicine.  In a dictionary, I have in my possession, Intuition or that which is known intuitively is defined as truth obtained by internal apprehension without the aid of perception or the reasoning powers.  I like to believe that intuitively we all know that living foods straight from our backyards are more beneficial to our bodies, and that the same goes for medicine too.  Medicinal tea is one of the oldest medicines known to us, and herbologists were labeled witches and burnt at the stake some time ago for a reason.  I believe that in that time our perception of value or capacity changes as well, and our intuition literally went out the window as far as medicine from our backyards goes, when we stopped listening to our bodies out of fear and went to doctors instead.

I used teas to deal with my anxiety and depression, with my memory brain functions, with my immune system, with my muscular system, with my sleep patterns too… I encourage people to buy seeds, to make cuttings, to plant their own medicinal teas, AND I have a range of my own from the Art of Craft garden at Pirates Sports Club in Greenside.  My range is limited, because I am not farming, as in farming the way most think of farming.  The garden is about 100 square meters, if that much already.  I kept expanding it and now I am just maintaining it, I have had two of the most persistent volunteers I’ve ever met assist me in the garden with experimenting with making kale treats, transplanting and moving things like some bottles etc, Joanna and Bianca (Bianca is the tall one) are seen in the picture below in the garden.  Please feel free to say hello and give them a personal welcome to the garden if you see them.  Bianca has made fantastic basil pesto, and something with rocket I think, and Joanna likes to make clay and semi precious stone jewellery and wind-chimes, and has just disappeared with some fresh kale today….

We are aiming at generating an income from it by selling artwork and garden treats like the basil pesto, potted plants from thinning out areas in the garden, the following is a list, an ever-growing list of what is growing in the garden (please contact me directly for an updated version or a list of available tea remedies).  Things are for sale this Sunday at the Pirates Sports Club at the Vegetarian market, it’s a new market so bring ten or so friends   I will be in the garden, should anyone want some plants and not find their way my number is 072 146 9017.

Thank you for growing with us, and helping us keep growing in advance

This past 5 month experience of trips from Johannesburg to the Fountain Farm in Mpumalanga, and back every two weeks, have taught me many things about farming, people, myself and of course plants   I have even developed a code of conduct in business – fair trade, honesty and good communication are key elements for sure.

I have a lot to write about, at some point, especially all the people and experiences out there. For now I feel it necessary to explain a small part of the decision I have made to resign from working as I have been with these employers and employees of the farm.  The way we work and do not work must change or end completely.  They have been teachers in many ways, for which I am eternally grateful.  I came along and got a lot going and done, and restored some things in them, at least I think so and I am hopeful that this farm will continue to grow and sustain itself.  How it grows and how it continues to grow is not my decision to make.  My decision to leave the way we work and the work we do, has not been an easy one.  I have really had to look within deeply and clear away a lot of my own anger and judgment in order to find and ground myself.

I have learnt that some people, in some kind of effort to be independent or self less or whatever it is, see people as objects or pawns in a game of chess.  It is all about networking, putting people into positions where things are more beneficial for the person paying for all the networking.  I can understand the logic in numbers, but people seem to forget that people are human.  People feel, some people actually look within and find their core, outer influences like the system we all feel we are lifted up by because of numbers in accounts instead of the system we all feel is really going to shit… our earth, our integrity…damaged.  I believe we have so much crime and hate and hurt because people do this, they suppress themselves in the process too because they look in the mirrors and judge all the time instead of looking within.  If people were working in jobs they could just live from their core in, then, perhaps, we would have less crime and more good judgment

It seems rather manipulative.  I have felt this way about many who have come to my garden at Pirates and paid me to go give advice and do the same for them in various places.   My journey got way more interesting and exciting when opportunities like this arose; it grounded me in many ways.

I am always made to believe that there is some kind of business opportunity to do with my teas, once I have done what I am paid for.  I am always questioned on permaculture methods I keep saying I have not got time to look into.  I always make it clear I want to sell and grow tea I always end up showing people how to do what I do for more people, and in the end I am more drawn to the ideas I have cultivated for over 2 years around the garden at the Pirates Sports Club in Johannesburg.  I know that at the end of the day I will still be selling, making and growing medicinal tea and infusions   I know that I will come and go for a while still – where to is yet to be determined.  I know that I have to work for money and whatever other system of trading exists, and create a balanced, kind of balanced income – I guess we all need that.  I have learnt money buys anything that exists whereas all these other alternatives still need to catch up and change the value systems they function in… and this is why money is most widely accepted in trades.

I am at most fortunate in the garden to have the best assistance ever from Nature, and can be taken away to consult, teach, learn with anyone and advice can be given from afar if communication is utilized with pictures, videos and words.  If I ever meet people serious about farming my teas I may very well be able to become the next Tea Merchant, for now I must sit down and listen again… I must be where I am grounded.  I feel this is in my garden, and that working toward farming around it for local restaurants and home owners, while I make my teas is 100% healing and restorative.

I find that the stress and bullshit surrounding joining the way people function in the so called system or city life in general that is just considered the way success looks???  Anyway, I find the stress and pseudoscience of it all really just takes me away from my core, who I am.  I do not want to monoculture anything or turn away my neighbor, while I send what they need away for money, imagine if the neighbors did the same.  I remember starting to cry on one of these trips, in a heated discussion on how to do the garden there … and I said, “It’s a bit insane to me I have always asked the earth and seed for its blessings and thanked it when they come, and in farming or planning a business of farming to sustain families, done must tell the earth and seed what to give, it is sad that we do not trust it.”

I am learning to be humble, to accept that I need to work with people alot – despite my virtually life-long introverted, hermit lifestyle.  I am learning that it is not worth it to give up sustaining and maintaining my own efforts in my own garden.  I am learning that everyone is reasonable, except they have their own reasons and that, in fact, gardening is an art form.  This garden, just like artwork, done in public, results in people thanking me, questioning me, taking me to go do it there because mine is fine, and I can teach and do it there and then and then and then…. (those who have done me wrong, misplaced me or whatever that was about will know some of the true impact that all of this has had on all of us)

My dream was to eat healthy food with energy still in it, to get up off my feet, stronger and purify myself on all levels before I die.  My dream included a community of people learning, trading and sharing with me… and man alive, it does become a nightmare when I drift too far from where it is all grounded in my garden.  It really is a different experience doing it for money for and with someone else, somewhere else.  For all of these reasons, and more, I am only willing to consult and manage anyone else’s garden anywhere in this world and not willing to become their middleman or breadwinner.  Here are, in fact, hundreds of people without jobs too.  I started doing this in public mainly because I wanted a community here.  Some, like Joseph, worked with me to learn without being paid money, but food instead.  Mandla came to me today again to work for food alone.

I feel like I really have had to do this and to speak up, and I walk away with a great sadness and hope that you all find your way.

I will see you in the garden, I look forward to whatever journey it leads me on.

A pseudoscience is a belief or process which masquerades as science in an attempt to claim a legitimacy which it would not otherwise be able to achieve on its own terms; it is often known as fringe- or alternative  science. The most important of its defects is usually the lack of the carefully controlled and thoughtfully interpreted experiments which provide the foundation of the natural sciences and which contribute to their advancement.  A very good example of this Pseudoscience in farming is found in a variety of compost recipes, in my opinion.

Of course, the pursuit of scientific knowledge usually involves elements of intuition and guesswork; experiments do not always test a theory adequately, and experimental results can be incorrectly interpreted or even wrong.  It is for this reason, that I did an experiment in a bucket, based on a compost recipe and also 6 large piles of similar layering in the compost and have taught staff on the farm to record the process.  Critical thinking is an essential element of science.  It is quite a challenge to convert these pseudo-scientific ways of farming into legitimate science.

Firstly, going out to as far as we can reach, up the mountain, off grid and away from most so called western ways of civilization, and creating an awesome edible and medicinal garden is not like planning and doing a garden in a urban or more common kind of rural setting.   This post is about a two week period at the beginning of October 2016 on the farm.  A good example of more pseudoscience in farming is really simply just looking at the bigger picture of what I am sharing at some point, in my opinion.

I arrived on a Monday, from the hot, sunny Johannesburg to a cold, freezing mountaintop on the farm, due to snow in the KZN region.  I made a comfortable place to sleep on my deck in my tent.  This cold weather persisted for the first few days.   I looked at the progress, and it seemed lacking, and quickly learnt that a cow was jumping our fence in two areas (I was told this is unusual, unless its a Brahman cow).  I also learnt that human capacity, energy, time management and ability  always outweigh each other – making it seem even less useful to me to stress and freak out when things are not up to my standard or where I need them to be.  At some point every farmer must acknowledge the fact that either we need more patience or more staff.  Yet, it is also a matter of knowing everything on the farm, in order to manage the time and capacity of the workers more efficiently.  It is also a matter of getting my staff to understand this concept at times.

In my own learning, I take long walks around the farm, I make notes and drawings.  I discuss priorities and time management with my workers, and we come up with solutions we agree we can manage.  In most of these rural off grid settings, the people have lived without running water and electricity in their homes all their lives, education and language is also lacking.  In my opinion, these are our true earth children, because they are very happy despite the poverty, and I also have not exactly sat in a classroom or university studying… making the need for education another pseudoscience in my opinion.  A world of information does really exist outside a classroom and also within us all

Here are some pics of my first few walk – abouts on this trip.  The pics tell a story too, in their own sequence… the story of the fire after the cold weather, and the rains, a trip to Elukwatini, and more…

That is Aunty Hilda, likes to be called Hildee instead who drives me to the farm and all over, and allows me to practice my driving.  One fantastic woman of note.

I usually climb up the waterfall to see the farm from above, and check on one of our water sources.  Everything here is gravity fed.

Smoke started to grow … and I picked up a heart shaped rock, headed down from the lookout and found staff preparing to fight fire.

This random man came by with his horse through the fiery path…  the dog is Captain, the dog of the mountain he belongs to no one and spends time all over – over hundreds of acres of land.  Needless to say, Captain spent the night after the fire.

Note that in farming, if one does not reckon in such things happening and time management goes completely out the window.

We had a storm the next evening, which was quite surreal for me because I had a migraine type headache throughout it all…  and then a trip to Elukwatini followed.

So much actually happens on these trips that it is not possible to sum up in a blog post, which is why I have not recorded this as much as my other projects.

We also built a shade tunnel for some plants, had to repair a pipe, and the side of the reservoir, finish off the chicken fence and gates…. I could probably write another hour, in fact.

At some point I will get a better laptop and be more diligent in sharing this journey into the pseudoscience of farming