This week @ Plukrijp

We did:

We planted more pumpkins & corn, potatoes, courgettes, peppers, & cabbages at the Hei.

We keep watering the plants in this dry period.

We placed wool around some courgettes & peppers to see if we can add value to this yearly ‘waste’ product of people with sheep.

We saved the seeds of winter purslane & corn salad for seeding later in the year.

We shuffled between the potatoes, beetroot, courgettes, radicchio, and carrots in the open tunnels

We thinned out the carrots.

We removed the plastic from over the seeded carrot bed & keep observing how covering the carrots will give them an advantage. Thanks Ole for the tip!

We harvest (&taste) the first juicy strawberries!

We harvested & cooked the kohlrabi spring harvest from the closed tunnels & note that planting cabbages too early in a wet period will attract too many slugs – how far back will we push the growing season with our changing climate?

We planted melons in the closed tunnels were there were gaps.

We guided & pruned the melons, tomatoes, & cucumbers.

We weeded the center beds of the closed tunnels.

We continue working on the little shop to be placed on the street.

We seeded more different types of Basil. Thanks Myrthe!

We mixed old pots of compost with fresh compost for when we want to seed again in pots.

We planted physalis in the open tunnels near the beams so that they can climb on the existing structures & create a root barrier between the weeds & the beds.

Agenda

Beyond yoga: Wúo Taï

On Saturday June 10th Bram & Maud will give a Wúo Taï workshop at Plukrijp from 10.30 till 17h @ free donation. No prior medical knowledge or experience is required

Wúo Taï is a bodywork technique that works on the fascias. You are invited to let yourself be guided by the dance of the two body-rhythms. This is a mixture of osteopathy and yoga.

What do we know about the totality and why do certain things happen or not happen? Maybe it was not the right moment? Maybe on a larger scale it was not advantageous for the other one? Who will know?

Do without doing with a detached attitude towards the result.

Don’t take yourself too seriously.

In Wúo Taï it is the same.

WuoTai Osteo Danse – teaser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph7vE-Rkhms

Inspiring Video

Why Americans Feel So Poor?

2023, Economics – 52 min

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/why-americans-feel-so-poor/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=rss

The American middle class has been facing financial challenges and instability, despite being considered a symbol of the American dream in the past. A study by the Pew Research Center showed that the middle class has been steadily shrinking since the 1970s. Although the percentage of the middle class has remained the same at 59% in the US from 1985 to 2016, the middle class is now described as “squeezed” due to the pressures to maintain their lifestyle. The cost of living a middle-class life has grown more expensive and uncertain, moving farther beyond the reach of younger generations. Many middle-class families live with precarity, uncertainty, and debt, and the definition of the middle class is debated.

Wage stagnation in the United States has been a problem since the early 1970s, but became more pronounced in 1979. Although wages have increased, they have not kept up with productivity gains, and real wages have barely risen after inflation is taken into account. This has had a significant impact on the middle class, leading to inequality, poverty, and division. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to wage gains across industries, but it is uncertain whether this is a new reality. Automation has been a major factor in wage stagnation, especially in manufacturing jobs.

Despite high living standards and real wages, many Americans do not feel that they are sharing in the prosperity of the country. Legislative changes, such as limiting non-compete agreements and passing the PRO Act to make it easier for workers to unionize, could help address wage stagnation. The rise of remote work and the gig economy could also provide opportunities for higher-paying jobs.

The documentary highlights the growing debt burden faced by many Americans, with debt levels increasing significantly in recent years. While government support during the pandemic helped alleviate some of the debt burden, rising interest rates and the end of these support measures are causing concerns over household debt to rise again.

Also, lower-income households and households of color are disproportionately affected by high debt burdens due to structural and historical discrimination. Policies need to be updated to reduce wage garnishment and support households struggling with debt. Additionally, programs such as child tax credits and expanding Medicaid could help alleviate the burden of debt. The film also discusses how stress related to money affects mental health and overall well-being.

Inspiring Book

At the root of human conflict is our fundamental misunderstanding of who we are. The illusion that we are isolated beings, unconnected to the rest of the universe, has led us to view the “outside” world with hostility, and has fueled our misuse of technology and our violent and hostile subjugation of the natural world. To help us understand that the self is in fact the root and ground of the universe, Watts has crafted a revelatory primer on what it means to be human—and a mind-opening manual of initiation into the central mystery of existence.

In The Book, Alan Watts provides us with a much-needed answer to the problem of personal identity, distilling and adapting the Hindu philosophy of Vedanta.

Extract:

“We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that “I myself” is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body — a center which “confronts” an “external” world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange. Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion. “I came into this world.” “You must face reality.” “The conquest of nature.”

This feeling of being lonely and very temporary visitors in the universe is in flat contradiction to everything known about man (and all other living organisms) in the sciences. We do not “come into” this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin.”

Wisdom