Susanne Fischer-Rizzi

Anna Gartner is interpreting for me and my friend Nicole Young who is also attending from the US. We have alot of fun together as well.

Anna Gartner in the Village of Lindau on Lake Konstanz in Germany

We also visited a reconstructed village using techniques in the Bavarian region from 6000 years ago. I noticed how similar they are to what we as Natural Builders are still doing.

Anna, Nicole, Geli and me

From there I traveled from Stuttgart to Axladitsa in Greece the beautiful home of Maria Scordialos and Sarah Whiteley.  They are part of the Living Wholeness Institute and also practice the Art of Hosting. For more information on their work you can check out their website.  http://www.axladitsa.org  We co-facilitated a 1 week long Apprenticing to the Earth retreat. It was  an experience of deep listening, learning, exploring together to expand our ways of knowing and of connection by sharing our respective disciplines and perspectives with each other. It was a small group of people from Africa, Dubai, Brussels, Canada, US, Holland and various parts of Europe.

I’m interested in learning more about the Art of Hosting and the Living Wholeness process. We are in dialogue about potentially sharing more with each other in the future. I would love it if they could come to Commonweal Garden and lead an Art of Hosting training for people in our community and beyond.

Here is the hosting team for this event.

Maria Scordialos and Sarah Whitelely

Janell Kappor and me

It was a sweet group, where we engaged in deep conversations, sharing, learning and listeninig together. Not to mention eating fabulous food.

Filiz Telek with Janelle

Vanessa Reid

Making Dolmas

Washing Dishes

Janelle and Claire making clay paint

Vanessa and the land

Deliciousness!

Now on to a Natural Building Training in Turkey!

Janelle Kapoor and I co taught a week long Natural Building training on a beautiful organic farm on the north west part of Turkey near a town called Bayramic. This event was called forward and organized by Filiz Telek, artist and poet who saw that there may be an interest in Turkey to learn various techniques in ecologically sound building construction. The permaculture movement is growing rapidly in Turkey. There is going to be a National Permaculture Convergence at this same farm toward the end of June.

70 people completed the walls for 2 small buildings including sculptural details and finish plasters and paints.

We were greeted warmly upon our arrival by Mustafa, one of the owners and farmers of this land.

Mustafa

Janell immediatly got down to business. We were both so amazed by the quality and colors of the clays here. Some of the best we’ve every seen in the world. This place has a Natural Building future indeed!

Janell Kapoor aka "Nature Woman"

It's contagious!

Our interpreters who helped translate from Turkish to English and vis-versa.

Amazing talent!

Andrew Zionts

Mustafa Bakir

Such diversity of clays on this land!

Julien leading the straw bale wall project

Village women curious and intrigued by our presence and this budding permaculture farm

It was an inspiring experience. In less than a week we completed the walls for 2 small buildings, a composting toilet and what was a tool shed now Mustafa wants to turn it into his bedroom. We also completed a garden straw bale wall with a roof over it.

We were able to demonstrate may natural building techniques. Janelle and I worked well together as we are both good at improvising when unexpected things arise…

Here are some of the techniques we demonstrated…

Pahareke a woven straw wattle technique

Light Straw Clay or Slip Straw Wall

Mud Bricks

Chorizo

Cob of Course!

Clay plasters and Paints

Finishing details and sculpting

The theme... Wheat: These buildings are surrounded by wheat fields

There has been talk among the participants that a seed of a new movement of Natural Building will be arising in Turkey, and maybe spreading to Eastern Europe from this event. Even though there are still building technologies here to build structures of mud, stone and wood, Janelle and I brought more diversity of techniques and methods that are different than what they have been practicing traditionally in the region. The people responded with alot of enthusiasm, great questions and felt inspired to build more structures using these methods. It was an honor to be part of such an event with people who are committed to learning how to live more lightly and regeneratively on the Earth.

Janelles website: http://www.kleiwerks.org/

Penny’s website: www.regenerativedesign.org

The place where I’m staying is called Huehuecoyotl. It is just outside the village of Tepozltan, an old Aztec village. There is an Aztec temple on the mountain above the village. Mexican tourists and locals alike hike up the 1500 feet or so mountain to make a pilgrimage to this noble ruin. As Tepozlan is at about 6000 feet in elevation, I was asked if the elevation was affecting me. Nah! I didn’t notice. At the entrance of the path to the pyramid it said that it was recommended to bring water. (yes, I could read and understand the Spanish!) I didn’t have any water with me. Well I didn’t think it was such a big deal, I hike without water a lot. As I was ascending the multitude of endless stone steps I started to feel woozy. I actually thought I was going to pass out. I realized I had only had an orange that morning so my blood sugar was also really low and yes the elevation was getting to me. I had a headache from dehydration and I had to stop frequently, I wasn’t alone as others were stopping frequently as well. Yet, there were little kids bounding up the mountain. I think I just should have brought some water.

As I approach the final ascent, there are even more steeper steps to get to the actual pyramid. I climb to the top thinking about the meal and lemonade I was going to have when I got back down to the village. Low and behold they are selling lemonade at the top of the mountain! Whew! 15 pesos and well worth it. What a great idea. They were raking it in from all the thirsty climbers. As I was up there, I’m trying to feel the energy of the ancients. It was challenging amidst the portable radios, people text messaging and these coatamundis

(known here as Tecunes) running around trying to commandeer any food they could find. They tried to ambush me for some boxes of tea they saw in my back. They can strike with lightening speed. They grabbed my tea box so quickly, right from bag in my lap, My I’m faster and I got it back.  Makes raccoons seem elusive and tame.

There was a fabulous expansive view of Tepoztlan and Cuernevaca in the hazy distance. I brought my binos and sussed out the lay of the village and the surrounding area so I would be able to know my way when I got back down there. It was better than looking at a map.

The house where I’m staying is one of the most beautiful natural buildings I’ve been in. I think they cheated and used some cement to make it more durable. It is crescent shaped adobe facing toward the south. The windows are strategically placed to frame in the views of the surrounding steeply carved mountains.

The mountains look like they were sliced vertically with a knife.

There are deep cut verticle furrows and canyons with lush vegetation peeking out exposing the fact that water flows through there during the rainy season. I’m here in April at the end of the dry season. Very different from the seasons in California.

I have been mostly writing, reading and reflecting while I’m here. I have gotten to meet most of the residents of Huehuecoytle.

My hostess at the house I’m renting is a lovely woman named Beatrice Briggs. She is a professional facilitator and teaches this as well as group process and decision making. She gets called all over the world to do this. When she is here we work in our rooms on the upper floor separated by a mezzanine. We come up for air once in a while and enjoy each other’s company. She is gone now for a week which has enabled me to enjoy the much needed solitude that I have been craving for so long. There are workers that come here every day. I’m adjusting to their schedule. Today I was blissfully alone the whole day! It is like drinking fresh clear water. I can sink into myself and not be distracted by others coming and going.

I’m not sure every day will be like this, but I will take advantage of the solitude as much as possible.

Sunset is happening. It is vibrante and beautiful.

It’s starting to rain the first rain of the season. The smell of damp earth is intoxicating. These are the aromas of life.  These are the rich scents are ones we can never replicate. These earthly scents help us rememer why we are here. We are here to rejoice and be alive. Right now the plants are rejoicing for the life giving waters. They remember why we are here.

So much has happened since my last posting I’m not sure where to start. Here are the highlights….

Open Space process for visioning future sutainability for Istanbul

I factilitated a 4 day Permaculture and Community Reliency workshop in Istatnbul. This workshop exceeded my expectations in so many ways. There was a great group of people of all ages. Most were Turkish living in Istanbul. There was one villager that was a farmer who delivered produce to the city. He expressed how life changing this event was for him.

The first 2 days were focused on permaculture principles and ethics, urban permaculture strategies for Istanbul, second 2 days were about community process, facilitation skills, how to run a meeting, open space, world café, peacemaking and more. During this process the people of Istanbul were invited to visualize a future that they wanted to live into. Then we focused on what needed to happen for that future to come into being. They LOVED it. We then did a community mapping process that mapped the skills and resources available within that group.  It was all pretty new to them. A lot of them expressed this was a major life changing experience for them. Commitments to developing a permaculture garden site in Istanbul was made and a lot of networking happened.

This trip inspired alot of media coverage. I interviewed for 3 radio shows and Filiz did an additional one in Turkish, the national news came and did some footage for a piece as well as a documentary on agro-tourism. We were also in the newspaper. I saw 2 articles written, I’m not sure if there were any others.

On my way to Istanbul, I was invited to speak in Ankara at the Middle Eastern Institute for Technology.

Inci and Ali 2 professors from the Middle Eastern Institute of Technology hosted us. They are   amazing visionaries for the potential of sustainability in Turkey. They arranged for me to speak to university faculty, students and the general public. They also arrange a meeting with the director of the University, a very busy man. We spoke about the idea of developing a sustainable campus (which was something we knew he had an interest in. He seemed enthusiastic about the ideas. We’ll see what comes of that.

After that Filiz and I traveled to Istanbul where I stayed with my friends and past permaculture course participants from our June residential course in 2008 at Commonweal Garden: Andrew and David.

Andrew is a big reason why I came to Turkey and helped factilitate both workshops. Filiz had contacted me in 2007 to come to Turkey and Greece. Andrew talked to me coming to Turkey when we met at the PDC in 2008. I mentioned I had been speaking with Filiz about this. Later I put the 2 in contact with each other and voila! Courses in Turkey! Filiz has been the main organizer and has done a tremendous job in bringing interested people together and arranging many venues here, contacting key people and including a lot of media.

Acknowledgements.

At this point I would like to acknowledge the team who really supported and maid these events happen.

Filiz Telek, Andrew Zionts, Yuri Radomisli, Mustafa Bakir and Erol Turan

Ahmet Kizen the owner of Pastoral Vadi was also very supportive in one training and the Green Party of Turkey donated their space at the last minute for our Istanbul Workshop. Also Inci and Ali Gokman for their vision, focus, commitment and curiosity. All the good people of Turkey who volunteered and supported this course in so many ways, including the media, the cooks, the farmers and course participants.

I had many learning adventures on this trip. I hope I have time to write them down and share these experiences through my eyes, ears, heart and soul.

Stay tuned…

Cappadocia was amazing. After wandering through cave churches and cave houses, (some still inhabited) we came across an old food forest… Amazing. HUGE apricots with trunks almost 3 feet in diameter, wild asparagus coming up like a weed, Eleagnus (autumn olive a nitrogen fixer mentioned frequently in permaculture agroforestry systems) obviously planted as a hedgerow. Of course lots of grapes, mint, mallow, dock, purlane, and a few mystery plants.

There also appears to be native bunch grasses very similar to ours in California. I haven’t met anyone who knows much about the ecology here. Here is a land that has been manipulated, cultivated and plowed for hundreds (thousands?) of years. Most of the wild animals are gone. There is still wild pig which is apparently native here. There are bears and wolves in the eastern part of Turkey in the mountains near the Black Sea. There are no more mountain lions, raccoons or any macro-predators.

The climate here is about as ideal as you can imagine. It is Mediterranean on the cusp of temperate and sub-tropical. Very much like Santa Barbara or Los Angeles in some areas, but not sprawled all over with development. There is still water potential but the management here is curious. For example: There are water issues in Cappadocia. Wells and springs are drying up, but it is not uncommon to let water run while waiting no less than 20 minutes for hot water to take a shower. With the growing tourism this is a major source of waste.

My trip here has clearly been worth the carbon credits used for me to get here. My message and I have been received here with open and enthusiastic arms.

While in Cappadocia, we met up with some participants from the Fethiye course. Ali and Inci, who are chemistry professors at the Middle Eastern Technical University in Ankara. The plan was to meet them in Cappadocia and travel with them to Ankara to give a talk at their university which is considered to the most influential engineering university of Turkey and perhaps parts of the middle east.

We met them at an organic  farm. They were with a group of people from Ankara who are interested in organic food and farming. These people travelled almost 5 hours by bus to get an experience at an organic farm in Cappadocia.

Osman, the farmer was fabulous. He talked eloquently about integrated pest management, composting and the stresses facing small farmers in Turkey. We made molasses from grapes, ate Testi Kebabi (meat, spices and veggies roasted in a clay pot in a sunken wood fired oven. The ceramic pot gets broken to open up the goodies inside. Usually the cap is a bread dough.

As I write this, my assessment is that there is a very sophisticated movement about to arise here in Turkey.

The workshop in Istanbul was composed of the following topics:

Day 1: What is Permaculture

Permaculture Principles and ethics

Day 2: Practical Ecological Strategies for Istanbul

Composting:detail

Rainwater Harvesting:detail

Worm bins:detail/demo

Compost Tea:detail/demo

Solar Design

Re using vs. recycling

Transportation/Economy/Energy/Food/

Day 3: Community building/Group Process/Decision Making

Open Space Technology, World Café, Charette Process

Day 4: Visionfest for Communty: Hands on.. The Real Deal.

At long last I can write a bit about my adventures in Turkey.

I arrived in Istanbul to a warm welcome by my host Filiz Telek. She organized my trip here. We had an easy trip back to her house which is in the older part of Istanbul. Had a nice meal in an outdoor cafe that evening. Ramadan was happening and so many people were fasting until after the sun went down.

Istanbul is the gateway between Europe and Asia. In many ways it looks like many cities with high rise apartments. This city reveals its culture through the architecture of large Mosques and Sultan Palaces.

The follow day we went to the spice market and I saw many things I hadn’t seen before. People were really friendly.

This boy was on his way to being circumcised…

I was on Acik Radio in Istanbul. It is similar to KPFA. We mainly spoke about the philosophy of permculture. Filiz interpreted and also let people know about the training in Istanbul.

This land is so similar to California, it’s amazing. Most of it is closer to Santa Barbara/LA area. The Black Sea region (which I haven’t been to) sounds closer to Northern California. I’m in Central Turkey now in Cappadocia. Central Turkey is surprisingly flat and hot like the Sacramento or San Joaquin Valley. Nights can be cool. There is alot of limestone everywhere and that means marble in the mountains…

Turkey is the cradle of civilization in many ways and has been host to people of all different ethnic backgrounds for hundreds of years. Because of this, surprisingly there is no “typical” Turkish look. There are blond Turks, Redheaded Turks, people who look like they are from Germany and Poland as well as dark mediterranean, middle eastern origins. It is very similar to the United States in this way. One would think that because the history goes back so far that there would be a sense of place and rootedness. Not so…Many people feel very disconnected from their ancestry and many don’t really know where they came from.

Culturally, the Turkish people are very kind and generous. There is a very high level of hospitality and personal attention that I have experienced here. Just today, for example, on the bus a man (a fellow passenger) was walking down the aisle to his seat with a bunch of grapes in his hand. I was admiring (at a glance as he walked by) how beautiful they were. He immediately offered me some.

We stayed in an ancient village outside of Konya called Sille. It was originally inhabited by the Greeks. We had a renovated stone house that originated about 800 years ago. The view was overlooking some caves made by Greek people over 2000 years ago. These caves are similiar to the ones in Cappadocia.

This is where we stayed…

Yesterday, Filiz, my magnificent host and I went to Konya, the home of Rumi. When we walked into Rumi’s tomb a wave of emotion and gratitude washed over us. Tears started to flow from my eyes and I looked over at Filiz and tears were streaming from hers as well. It’s hard to explain other than the energy was very strong there.

Konya is a center for the Kilim rugs. I bought a beautiful kilim rug yesterday. We were wandering around the town and I “randomly” walked down a side street and walked into a rug shop. It turns out the owner of the shop I chose as was an expert in natural dyes, wool and spinning. He commissions the weavers who are mostly nomadic women that live in hills of Turkey. They raise sheep and travel around nomadically like they have for hundreds of years. Some are Kurdish, some are Syrian, Iranian and other are random Turkish tribes that have been around for hundreds of years. The rug I bought was spun by a drop spindle and all dyes with natural dyes. It was tested for light fastedness by sitting it in the sun for 3 months.  ”Coincidentally” while I was in the shop a man from New Zealand came to visit the owner. Turns out this guy is an international expert on Kilims, has written several books on the subject. I saw a beautiful coffee table color picture book on Kilims written by him. He assured me I was in the best shop in Turkey for purchasing a Kilim. After drinking tea, looking at rugs, I chose one I absolutely love, then we all went out to a great barbique place and had melt in your mouth lamb and a foccaccia type bread, with a yogurt drink. Yum!

The course at Pastoral Vadi was a huge success. 50 people attended. Most were professionals and farmers from all over Turkey. Pastoral Vadi is a beautiful organic farm located near the Aegean Sea, close to where it turns into the Mediterranean. Some call this area the Turkish Riviera. There was a beautiful stream running through the farm that was blessed with lots of fresh clean water. We did many projects including building a cob bench, making compost piles, sheet mulching, swales and water works playing with all of the water flows around the farm, an herb spiral and alot of design work for the farm. We skyped with Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawtons course in Australia. It was wonderful seeing Bill again, even if it was over Skype. Lisa his wife was there as was his youngest daughter Eloise, who is gorgeous.

On the last day of the course, the people all responded with great enthusiasm to furthering the permaculture vision in Turkey. There was alot of organizing and networking going on to form a permaculture institute in Turkey. One of the people there named Mustafa is also working with Geoff Lawton and plans to set up a Permaculture Research Institute in Turkey.  I have been invited back to do a course just to the south on a beautful valley famous for it’s butterflies called Butterfly Valley. It is right on the sea. We visited there for a couple of days after the course, swam in 70 degree turqoise water and ate traditional Turkish food. It was lovely. They want to explore developing permaculture on this site.  Filiz and I will see if this works out. We need to have more conversations with the directors of this beautiful Valley.

After having some time off in Cappadocia,

we go to Ankara where I will give a presentation at the Middle Eastern Institute of Technology. Then off to Istanbul for a 4 day Permaculture and Community Resiliency workshop. We have about 30 people signed up for that. We got word this morning that the ceiling collapsed in the class room in one of the Universities we were going to use for the workshop in Istanbul. I think Filiz has already found a few options for an alternative site.

I’ll keep you posted how things are going.

The Journey continues….