Blog — The Change I Want To See

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6 ways Permaculture can help to create truly sustainable business

We are all seeds

A story about feet

Hierarchy of Sustainability

31 Nights Out

Don't be a dick

9 reasons why living sustainably is better for you

The importance of movement

Vancouver Mountain Film Festival Partnership 2017

5 steps to trying meditation for the first time

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It's back! From the start I wanted The Change Chats to be a community and would love your help making the next one a reality... 3 areas I'm looking for support: 1. Tag/tell me about anyone you think would make a good speaker. The only requirement is they should be making positive change in some way. 2. Looking for sponsorship to help it grow. To date this has been created on zero budget. If you are involved with an organisation who'd like to support a community event get in touch. 3. Tell your friends and watch this space for more info about dates and location... 🤙 #thechangechats #vancouver

6 WAYS PERMACULTURE CAN HELP CREATE TRULY SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS Picture a sustainable business and we often picture renewable energy, recycling, reusing materials, and compostable packaging. Look up ‘sustainable’, however, in the dictionary and the meaning is ‘to be able to continue over time’. For a lot of companies, whether motivated by ethics or profits, there is a strong desire to become more ‘sustainable’. However, the barrier to preventing a lot of organisations making this change, comes not from a lack of motivation, but that becoming sustainable, isn’t sustainable for them. How can we overcome the barriers of change to make switching to being sustainable a more realistic goal for every business? We copy the most sustainable system we have. Nature. In the areas that we have started to mimic nature we have found unrivalled success. Biomimicry and Permaculture are both based on designing solutions to human problems using natures patterns and strategies. Between them they have lead to leaps in technological advancement and the way we grow food and design landscapes. Why stop there? How can we use these same ideas of learning from the natural world to guide our decision making around true sustainability? LINK IN BIO TO READ THE FULL POST 🤙

A STORY ABOUT FEET ”Ouch. Shit. Grrr...” DEEP BREATH... “Screw this I’m putting my shoes back on” This was my intro to barefoot walking. It was painful. “Come on feet. This is what you were designed for. Do your thing!” I had recently read Born To Run, a book about the Tarahumara Tribe in Mexico who run long distances in the mountains barefoot or with simple sandals on. I was a text book reaction to that... book. It lit a spark. It made a lot of sense. Why do we wear shoes? What did people do before some clever clogs (wait, is that where that saying comes from?!) invented shoes? I figured I would simply cast aside my shoes and be at one with nature. And obviously. It didn’t go well. Years of buttering up my feet into soft, moisturised, wrapped up and protected little wimps, meant my feet were ill prepared for the job. They were naive to the harsh realities of terra very firma. My feet had devolved. I had become reliant on shoes. In my interest in learning from the natural world and permaculture this stood out. Every time I looked at my shoes I felt like I was cheating. No other animal on the planet wears shoes. I started to get paranoid around animals. I could swear they were sniggering at me and my shoes when I wasn’t looking. Those smug barefooted bastards! Take a look at a shoe. You’re most probably wearing one now. Really look at it. Whats with the pointed front? My feet are not pointed. Why does it have a heel? My heel isn’t raised. Why does it have lots of cushioning? My feet aren’t cushioned. Our shoes are devolving our feet, and bodies. We are letting the shoes do the work for us. Which sounds great. Except it makes our bodies lazy. I love to trail run. Going for runs in the mountains or forests is one of my favourite ways to move. I had always worn fairly conventional running shoes. Everything was going great. Until it wasn’t. I started to get injured. Feet and knee ligament issues. I went to see podiatrists and physios. They told me "you need orthotics." Which seemed to be going even further in the wrong direction, away from the natural world. I decided to look to nature for a solution. Which brings me to “Ouch. Shit. Grr...”

WE ARE ALL SEEDS The world is divided. Left v Right. Up v Down. The good news is that all this can be resolved. All we have to do is convince the other people to think like we do. And here in lies the problem. We see our differences as individual choices. “Those people are racist/hippies/communists/(insert group you disagree with here)” We blame individuals rather than society. I’ve been very fascinated by the work of Gabor Maté for the last few years. Apart from winning the lottery on having one of the coolest names, he is a leading expert on addictions and childhood development and trauma. Gabor’s work specifically looks at the effect our childhoods and trauma has on our later development. His theory is that the trauma a person is exposed to as a child causes them to seek ways to process and deal with that in later life. In the bigger picture this manifests in the form of addictions and crime, but can also be much more subtle in the way we interact with others, our self esteem, and decisions we make in life. Having worked with at-risk youth for a number of years, who often had high levels of trauma, I have found his theories to be extremely accurate. Looking at the world through Gabor’s eyes changed my interpretation of addicts and criminals dramatically. The general view in society is that these are bad people who make bad decisions. His approach allows us not to ask “what’s wrong with this person?” but instead ask “what happened to this person?” It is an empathetic way of looking at the world that is wholly refreshing. I would encourage you to check out his website here, read any of his books or for a quick fix listen to this podcast with him and Russel Brand. I also plan to write more about Gabor at a later date. I’ve been looking at his work recently through the permaculture and natural living lens. If our past can affect our likelihood to become a criminal, can it not also affect other aspects of our lives? Can it not in fact affect all aspects of our lives?....

#Repost @permaculturemagazine • • • • • APPLYING PERMACULTURE TO YOUR LIFE Over on Facebook this month, we've been sharing our 12 episode series exploring how we can use permaculture principles in our daily lives. Here in this photo we have (clockwise): *Design from Patterns to Details *Use and Value Diversity *Produce no Waste *Creatively Use and Respond to Change You can find the full series on our website, via Facebook, or the link in our bio . . . #applypermaculturetoyourlife #applyingpermaculture #permaculturelife #permaculture #usingpermaculturedaily #patterns #valuediversity #producenowaste #respondtochange #permacultureprinciples

A weekend of nature therapy with the wife. Amazing what a mini escape can do for your mood. Was feeling pretty wiped after a week of installing fence posts and DIY. Decided to have a break and go exploring. Went camping, walked in an old growth forest, slept for 12 hours, now feeling great. Moral or the story. Get outside more.

I've been very fortunate to be invited to the Philippines to talk to the students @internationalschoolmanila about sustainability and plastic waste. Having spent a week exploring I have realised how much of a bubble I live in on Vancouver Island. The real problems with plastic are not on full show like they are here. The Philippines is very much on the front lines for both creating and being affected by plastic waste but also in taking action to solve the problem. I've seen both more plastic here than I have in any other country but also more initiatives at a grass roots level to fix it. From water refill stations, to no plastic straws, to student led recycling and sustainability systems at ISM. Its great to see that change has started to happen here. Which is more than a lot of places I've visited. If the Philippines can take action then there's no excuse for anyone else. Lets do this!

Gratitude to Conlan at @feral_strength for showing an old dog new tricks. Conlan won the Change Chats grant last year and has recently put the money to good use securing a space to run his alternative gym. He is a good example that a business doesn't need to be all about profits and can offer a lot to the community too. He offers mentorship and programming for disadvantaged youth who benefit greatly from having a physical outlet. Go check him out if you wanna give back while getting jacked 💪

For those who came along to the @thevimff night this year to watch the @directlyaffected film about the Trans Mountain Pipeline there is some good news... BREAKING NEWS: Federal court overturns approval of Trans Mountain pipeline on basis that Canada did not fulfil its duty to consult with and, if necessary, accommodate the Indigenous applicants! It's not over, but is another set back for this unwanted project. 🤙

And just like that the sky cleared and Vancouver has us wondering why we ever thought about leaving. Ah well...We're off to slow things down over on the Vancouver Island. Thanks to everyone whose made leaving such a tough decsion. We've not gone far though so come visit yeah?! @rachiepbd 🤙