Fall Updates

Hello from the depths of adventure land where time has been lost in the depths of experience!

 The last couple months have been a dream and I have realized that I have not blogged since last in New York for part 2 of Visionary Permaculture.  I didn’t even do a true review of September.

 So, now that things are slowing as we enter the darkness of winter, here is a quick synopsis:

 In September I:

- Finished up a Permaculture Design project and implememntation in Riverbend which included a rain garden, mini forest garden and an annual mandala bed.
-Spent a good portion if time working on a deisgn for a local Calgary homebuilder.
-Attended Evolver and Permaculture Guild meetings.
-Continued the volunteer program at the AREA.
- Coordinated the new Inglewood and Ramsay Farmers market
- Helped to plan the awesome Abundance Festival.

Here is a great photo from the Farmers Market

 I did all of this before a special trip to New York for the Equinox and the Visionary Permaculture course. September was a whirlwind for sure. I had just returned from doing festivals all summer and was learning how to get in the flow of creating my own schedule since leaving my job. It took a few weeks to get into a good flow. It is very interesting getting into this new way of living and I have been excited to get deeper and deeper into the Permaculture consciousness.

 September ended with a bang with the celebration of the Abundance Festival and led into a very interesting October.

 In the first 2 weeks of the month we did our final harvests of the AREA garden and put it to bed. We also did a huge compost revamping and started to create the hoop houses out of willow branches and they look so beautiful!

Wintery Willow Hoop houses 

 I am looking forward to seeing the completion of the beds over the winter and early spring.

 I spent a good portion of October preparing curriculum to teach my very first introduction to Permaculture Course, I was so happy with the way it turned out! I had 5 amazing students in my class and learned so much from our guild. I am very excited to teach it again with some small upgrades and modifications.

 There were a few endings, the Farmer’s Market came to conclusion, as well as the garden volunteer program (just for the season) and my internship with Verge Permaculture.

 The last week of October was spent in Fort McMurray starting my first ever session of Learning Through The Arts teaching. This is a unique program that pairs artists with teachers to teach the traditional school curriculum more creatively. This contract lasted for 3 full weeks and involved me flying to and from Fort McMurray every week. It was nice to be able to come home on the weekends but it made for a lot of travel!  So far this is one of the most challenging things I have done, the school system is severely broken and classrooms are so large that it makes it almost impossible to reach the kids.  It is so worth being there, even if it reaches one student, I am able to learn about the way the system works in preparation for a full permaculture redesign!

November brought with it a ton of adventure, starting with an epic teacher training on the Sunshine coast in BC with Larry Santoyo and Scott Pittman.  Over 5 days we were able to glean some pretty special stuff from them as well as have a great opportunity to teach.

Here I am doing my teaching segment Larry and Scott are on either side of me :)

For my segment I used a brand new template of a game that i am developing that teaches the Permaculture principles. It worked out really great and i got alot of fantastic feedback that will help me improve it and make it super awesome for its release in the new year.

At the teacher training i had a special Diploma meeting with Scott, Larry and Delvin and then made a special promise to Larry that i would teach Permaculture Design Courses.  i very rarely make promises so this was very meaningfull. There are very few female teachers out there, so I will hopefully be the next!

Another extremely potent meeting that happened during the adventure was meeting 2 very special members of Gaiacraft, a Permaculture education initiative i was recently invited to join. Gaiacraft is changing the way we share education, keep an eye out for my teaching tools to be on the site in the new year!  You can also get some great tools on the site now that Delvin, Lunaya and few others created together. I am so grateful to be apart of this inspiring project and look forward to the many collaborations it will bring. Our website is: www.gaiacraft.com

Here we are gaian visionaries and core Gaiacraft crew: Shane, Kym, Lunaya and Delvin!

After the teacher training i spent a few days in Roberts Creek and helped Delvin in his gardens to create a special guild in a new bed in the heart gardens called Alabaster Terrace.

Me and Del in the garden :)

After the coast I stayed in Vancouver with close family friends for a few days and got to catch up with some special people.  I also got to collaborate with a great friend Heather on some new teaching tools she graciously offered to help create!

Then it was off for a short trip to Portland where I stayed with another core Gaiacraft member Keala.  What a great host.  We made the most of our time checking out city repair sites, meeting Michael Becker (one of my biggest heroes of all time),  doing a kundalini chakra dance class, walking up Mount  Taber, attending a Thanksgiving ceremony, touring the planet repair institute and pulling an all nighter to do some visioning on the CoSM site.  It was such a dense and inspiring time!

Me and Keala at a City Repair site

Planet Repair Institute

Me, Michael Becker and Keala

After leaving Portland I flew to New York where I am now, staying at the beautiful CoSM retreat.  I have been here for over a week and there is much to share, but alas that will come in its own special post!

If you are interested in any details regarding any events in this post, I will be creating individual posts about my internship, teacher training, teaching tools, Planet repair , Michael Becker and the Visionary Permaculture course on my Giggling Chi Tree blog.

As a last remark, I would like each of you reading to know that I am grateful for your presence in my life, we are living in such a special time and every interaction we have is so meaningful.

Love and blessing to all beings, 

kym chi

Visionary Permaculture Part 2 Day 3 and the return home :)

Day 3 of our adventure was very special and helped to anchor our work in the deepest of ways.

We began our morning completing the lesson on trees while standing around the only willow on the property (that we know of). We talked about the importance of trees and their ecological functions, specifically and most pertinently with water.  Trees produce up to 80% of the precipitation in our atmosphere! Not only are they helping produce the water they are also helping to distribute it and regulate it.  WOW!  Trees also help to break up the soil, reflect light to understory species and house many creatures in our eco system.  After Weds experience connecting with the trees and spending this time talking about them, it really brings it home and allows me to understand why on an inherent level i have always loved trees and respected them so deeply. If you are considering removing or adding trees on your property, it might be a good idea to do some research on the species of tree you are working with and what effect it may have on the environment :)

We moved up to the pool garden and continued our discussion moving into water.  Of course we all know that water is important.  We didnt have tons of time to get through it all, but we briefly spoke about grey water, black water, water conservation and storage.  A couple of our class members spoke a bit about water systems.  I am still learning alot about some of the more technical systems like Aquaculture and treatment systems, but this gets me excited to move deeper into this topic and do some studying.  Our class also thinks that it would be a good idea to build an aquaculture system in the pool as it isnt being used and is right next to the garden.  I think it is an awesome idea, and would also be sweet to add some art and other aspects as the Grey's are thinking it would be good as place to contemplate the shadow.

After lunch we did a super fun design session where we put our main focus on considering trees and water. It is always so fun to engage with the class this way and see things come to form, even if it is just for a visioning session.  Once we completed our design session, we did a ritual class closing.  It warms my heart so much to be spending time with all of these awesome visionaries, sharing ideas, teaching each other and inspiring each other to the next level.  It is something special to be able to share space with such a dynamic and epic crew of people.  I love each and every one of my class mates so much!

Our Brainstorming session

Once we closed our circle we met up with the Greys to walk the land and hear more about their vision, priorities and thoughts on the mapping process.  It was a very full chat and walk about and we were given a ton of great information that will help us out with our project so much.  The best thing was to see how much the Grey's love the project and really want us there.  They fully understand the importance of our work.  At the end of our walk, we had a group meditation around the Grey's new prayer wheel and closed the session with a group hug.

The Cistern (Sun Temple)

Alex giving us the download on their visions for the sun temple (cistern)

We were inspecting a sad fruit tree. It appeared as though some deer were eating them!

The Shitake harvest! YAY!

After dinner many of our classmates left, and i spent a little time with Delvin and then one of my classmates Peter, starting to integrate the whirlwind of the week.

Friday, I met up with my good friend Matt in NYC and we walked and talked, pondering the importance of reaching our potentials, but in our own time, holding compassion for ourselves on our own journeys.  We also discussed the importance of Permaculture and how we can continue to integrate it in our lives during these crazy times.  It was great to see him and talk about some of these important things with a close friend!

me and Matt

I boarded the plane and flew home with full love in my heart ready for the next part of my journey.

Who knows what the future holds, but i move forward, one step at a time, loving this existence and with full faith in my path.

Infinite love and gratitude for the many gifts in my life (including you)!

kym chi

Visionary Permaculture Part Two, Day Two

Wow, when i think things can't get better here, I'm always proven wrong. Today was an epic day that was completely filled with awesome information and experiences.

We continued on with soil this morning by the compost bins and did some work to give the existing compost some love.  Then we talked about the biodynamic plants which was sooo awesome.  These plants are seriously amazing and they work completely and holistically with ALL being supplying food and medicine.  The main biodynamic plants are:

Chamomile (Matricaria Chamomila)
Dandelion (Leontodon Taraxacum)
Valerian (Valeriana Officinalis)
Yarrow (Achillea Millifollium)
Stinging Nettle (Urtica Dioica)
Comfrey (Symphytum Offininale)

According to the biodynamic planting practices, you must use these specific species of plants to ensure you are getting nutrients and medicines promised. I haven't listed the benefits of the plants here, but they are hyper dynamic and do work in building some of the most nutrient rich soil you can find and truly are able to provide us with some of the best all around healing.  It's ironic that we consider most of these plants invasives or weeds when i think they should be revered as natures gift and sacred medicine.

After learning about the biodynamic plants we came inside and chatted more about soil and watched a few videos from Geoff Lawton.  Soil is an extrememly important element in our eco system. Healthy soil contains more micro organisms than beings on the entire planet! lust like many other important natural elements, without healthy soil we cannot exist.

After lunch we got to hang out with Dina again.  She is a great teacher of plants, herbs and medicine. We did a walk of the land and identified a few more plants using the awesome sensory and intuitive method that we learnt last time and discovered:
Dandelion
Spice Bush
Lady's Thumb
Indian Tobacco
Field Garlic

Dina and the class

Spice bush

I was super loving the roots of this tree (Beech tree)

Then we got super deep with trees and identified them blindfolded while hugging them, feeling their bark, touching and smelling their leaves and also licking the bark and tasting the leaf.  We must have looked so funny, but it was so cool!  Ive never tongued a tree before and it took me to a whole new level of "hippy", but the connections made with the trees were deep and beautiful. On our journey we discovered:

Gingko
Hemlock  I enjoyed this tree, although it was a bit stiff and rigid and rough.  The leaves tasted strong and bitter.
White Ash
Black Walnut
Black Locust- I really loved this one and it made my heart feel warm.  The bark was soft and fluffy feeling and had deep crevices for me to put my hands into
Beech
Linden - This tree was my favorite. I had a deep connection with it and received that message that it had cosmic energy flowing through it and that it was galactically influenced.  Funnily enough, afterward we were told that this was one of ALex and Allyson's favorite trees that they think is really special... Awesome!

After trees we went back to the compost for a quick download and some worm revamping.
In the evening we watched Transition 2.0 and City repair videos.  Really inspiring and motivational to see that we can really change our systems in major ways through building resilient community. YAY!

Then Del and i talked about the rest of my diploma stuff.  He has given me some amazing advice and support and I feel crazy awesome about where I am at and where I am headed.  There is so much to learn, but I am doing a great job so far and it will only keep getting better as I get more practice and knowledge!

Ending off the evening feelling more and more gratitude for the epic journey i am on.  Tomorrow is our last full day, and it is definitely going to be jam packed. Finishing Trees, water and design visioning and a few hours with the Greys! Awesome!!

love allways,
kym

Visionary Permaculture Part 2 - Day One

Well needless to say it has already been quite the adventure here at COSM for the second part of the Visionary Permaculture Design Course!

Today was the first official day of the class, but I chose to arrive early (on Friday) to connect with the land a bit more and attend the Equinox event happening on Saturday.

I arrived late friday evening and was able to spend a bit of time upgrading the Galactik trading card display and then settle in.  It was great to ground in here and get ready for what so far has been a super epic journey!

Some newer art that has been added since last time (more to come!)

Saturday I spent the morning doing some volunteer duties and it was a great way to connect with the staff and volunteers of COSM.  It is awesome to see the love that everyone puts in to create beautiful events. There are a small number of staff here that work super hard to allow this place to exist and a number of dedicated volunteers who are super passionate about the work being done here.

In the afternoon I was able to have a few hours with Delvin and his good friend Keala from Portland. Delvin and Keala are both key members of Gaiacraft (www.gaiacraft.com). I have recently been invited to join  which was a big honour so being able to spend some key time with the two of them and was a great way of starting to understand some goals of Gaiacraft and how I could contribute.  The best part though, was walking the land again, grounding into the beauty of COSM and the importance of the work we are doing here.   On the walk we were able to identify the Turkey Tail mushroom and almost got a squirrel, but couldn't quite tell for sure as we didn't see the markings on the face which are the distinguishable characteristic on the squirrels.

The Equinox party was in the evening and we were all graced with the presence of the world famous mycologist,  Paul Stamets.  His talk was inspiring and it was such a pleasure to hear of his stories and experiences with the sacred mushrooms. If you want to know more about Paul and his work please visit his website: www.fungi.com.  After Pauls amazing session, it turned into music and art mode. There were some rad artists here doing live painting including Alex and Allyson Grey, Amanda Sage, Mars 1,
Damon Soule and Randall Roberts.  There is a beautiful community here and I felt so blessed to be a part of it all!  The highlight of the event was seeing great friends James and Christy who happened to be in NY at the same time as me and were able to come to event!  I have been stoked about COSM and it was super special to be able to spend time with chosen family here.

I didn't have a camera during the party, but thankfully Christy sent me a few pics. Thanks Christy!

 I should have some Paul Stamets ones soon!

Yay James!!!

Sunday was mellow here on site as everyone was tired from the night before and it was pretty much all tear down.  I did my volunteer duties, did some research and spent a little time with Delvin talking about the class prep etc...

Monday was set aside for mapping etc, but in the morning Delvin and I got to touch base on my diploma.  We didnt make it all the way through, but it feels good so far. I was feeling a bit nervous, but it seems I am on track with a few great pieces of advice from Del so I am super excited! The diploma process so far (although I am just getting started) has been super rewarding and a great way for me to track all of the work I am doing and get credit for it!

The mapping in the afternoon was sweet.  Starting to see all the faces from the class warmed my heart and grounded me in even more for the class.  During the mapping we were able to identify a grey squirrel, a jesus bug, wild onion, and a wood thrush. It is awesome to see the mapping happening, even if in a micro way.  There are thousands of species to discover and identify and it is important to be careful in identification.  I also started the sun study for the pool area where there is a small existing garden. The long term goal for COSM is that it will be a world heritage site not only for art, but for plants and animals as well.  Our planning and visioning is a 1000 year plan, which is super epic and super deep and makes it sooo very imperative that we take consideration in what we implement or modify.

A crazy mushroom we were unable to identify

Our epic mapping books (some of them anyway)

In the evening we watched "Transition 1".  What a great film, I highly recommend it. It is really positive and helps to showcase great solutions and tools to changing our system!  Afterward we watched "End of Suburbia" which was also good.

Today was the official start as I mentioned earlier and we began in the altered states where we did a meditation to bring us into the now.  I kept hearing the strong message:
Be here now.  Live in your heart ALLways.

Moving into the nest we reviewed our last session, the permaculture ethos and principles.  Then we reviewed names and started to share a bit about our last 4 months.  Patterns emerged and the sacred mirrors in all of us were revealed.  The most common was this feeling of Chaos, yet order.  So much happening, and nothing that we could have planned, yet this strong feeling that everything is going to be ok and realizing we all got alot done, despite feeling a bit scattered.  We are reminded that being here grounds us in the important permaculture work and we can all work together to support the work we are all doing.

This afternoon we were blessed with a visit from mycologist Martin Bridge to relate mushrooms to soil ecology but also share with us some cultivation techniques and do a mushroom walk.  I have been noticing a mushroom theme in my life as of late, so it was so auspicious to have Martin here right after seeing Paul and really start to understand mushrooms more.

The beginnings of our class alter ;)

A slide from Martins presentation

Martin with us on the land at the mushroom sculptures

In class with martin :)

Turkey tails (sorry they are super hard to see ;) )

A mushroom we were unable to identify. Any ideas?

This evening we watched a super deep film called Anima Mundi.  Please please please watch this film. It is evolutionary!  I am finishing off the evening with a little research on the mushrooms we identified today for the mapping book and working on a little art as the creative juices are flowing freely again.

The greatest gift I have received by being here at COSM is the ability to immerse myself in my work, recognize how deeply I still feel about Permaculture and reconnect with my heart in the deepest of ways. What do the next 3 days have in store???  Oh and photos to come very soon!

All my love,
Kym Chi

August :)

What can I say about August...

August was a challenging month, and also a very exciting one.  The month began with an ending as I left my day job at Talisman centre. I was feeling some fear around this as it means that i no longer have a steady pay cheque, but mostly I felt (and still feel) empowered and excited to embark more deeply than ever into my passions of Permaculture, Art and Energy.  I feel so inspired by the people surrounding me that have taken the "leap" to immerse themselves and dedicate themselves to their paths and I only see success in those individuals.  I hope to manifest this same success and to date feel extremely supported in the path i have chosen.

Shortly after my last day of work I left for Shambhala, the last festival of this season where I was scheduled to teach a Permaculture seminar.  I was really stoked to share at Shambhala.  It is such a large festival and I believed that Shambhala needed the Permaculture consciousness as earth care seemed to fall to the side with much of the focus being on the entertainment (which is obviously also very important!).  When I arrived at Shambhala, things seemed hectic, but I went with the flow.  Within the first 24hrs, so much had happened and I found myself feeling a little disconnected from myself and little too connected to everyone else around.  Being an empath, I feel everything from everyone and most often I protect myself from this and use it as a tool when asked to help someone, but for some reason, at the festival, I opened myself up wide.  I was feeling so much suffering and self doubt, I started to question why I was there, as it felt that my conference was not supported, none of the conferences were supported as they weren't even placed on the festival schedule and it seemed as though most peoples priority was to party, rather than to connect with the divine.  Although I was feeling pretty disempowered by the whole experience, by the time I went to sleep I was filled with the courage to share the Permaculture wisdom. Regardless of the support by the festival, I had the understanding that all this suffering and self doubt I was feeling was the reason I love Permaculture so much and emphasized my desire to share it with others.

During my talk, we built an interactive art piece while discussing how Permaculture ethics and principles can save the world. The feedback from the participants was awesome and I love how much I can learn from my students too! Here is a photo of the piece we created:

 Aside from my talk, there were a couple notable moments for me at Shambhala.  It was super inspiring to hear both Raw Foodie David Wolfe and Unified Field expert Jamie Janover speak.  I also feel blessed to share some deep moments with some of my closest friends and see my family be able to express themselves in a deep way through all of their work at the Village. (which was pretty epic!)

All in all Shambhala was a lesson for me about who I once was and who i am now, remembering a message from July, that I can reinvent myself, through my heart in each and every moment. I will never be the person i once was and  I don't know where this path will lead, but I do know it is the right one for me, right now in this moment.  Permaculture allows my heart to sing to new heights, full of love to the depths of my soul!

After the festival I escaped to the hotsprings with no cell service, it was nice to get away to be with myself and the infinite universe.  Here I asked some questions, one of which was, "how do I reach my full potential?" The answer came quickly, that this can be done by connecting with my heart and expressing fully through it.  Funny, I think i knew that already, just needed a little reminder.  Again, this was just more emphasis to continue in the direction I have chosen, this is where I feel most connected to my heart! Returning home, I remind myself of the importance of love and send myself some love energy.  In this moment I recognize that i have been protecting my heart from being hurt by others, and understand that if I continue to do so, I will never reach my full potential.  This is when I decide it is time to just open up fully, let go of the fear and let love reign.  It is challenging to do this, but i feel deeply that the rewards will outweigh the challenges greatly.

Being back in the community of Calgary has been so great!  I have been showered with support of the new farmers market in Inglewood and blessed with well wishes for my Permaculture journey locally and beyond.

One sad thing I came home to, was a hail decimated garden at the AREA.  I feel that the death of the gardens reveals an opportunity for rebirth and is a physical symbol of what many of us are going through right now.  Letting go of our old selves to allow for the new, to allow for the connecting with all beings and to allow us to connect with our unique creative self expression.  Although i dont see our garden coming back to what it was before, I see that what has survived will be better than ever, what we plant new will help cultivate the soil, and next year the garden will be stronger and more resilient than ever!  One thing that I really love about the AREA is that it is a constant evolution, always growing, always changing, always renewing.  This place shows us what is possible in our lives, whether its by growing food, building resiliency or constantly evolving.  It is truly a blessing to be a part of this beautiful space.

I am excited as always to see and experience what is to come in the following month! Some exciting notables will be part 2 of the Visionary Permaculture Course and a couple of awesome Permablitzes (dates to come soon!)

Infinite Love, gratitude and giggles,
Kym Chi

July Updates

The end of June and the beginning of July have proven to be most inspiring, deep and profound and more than ever i am understanding my place in this vast and infinite universe.

I feel truly blessed to have been able to speak and share some wisdom  so far at Inshala, Entheos and Astral Harvest.  I am so thankful for those that came to my talks and were able to share their beautiful wisdom with me as well.  One of my favorite things about teaching is that i am able to learn so much from my students.  I am curious to see what teaching at Shambhala will be like as it is so much bigger and has a bit of a different focus in comparison to some of these other smaller more intentional festivals.  I have come up with a different idea for Shambhala that will include music and the building of a live art peice while I teach. I am hoping this will draw more people in and help spread the Permaculture consciousness on a larger scale.  I am not sure what the schedule is, but if you are at Shambhala i hope you can make it to my talk!

The AREA garden is coming along super well!  Photos are attached below.  We have all the beds planted and most are flourishing, small gopher and rabbit concern to try and find a solution for, but I am sure we will get it sorted!  There are 6 organizations planting as well as a few other involved in other ways including compost tea spraying, the building of the herb spiral (completed in May) and helping with the mapping process (this is going to be really exciting!).  Our main focus right now is working on the forest garden, adding more art elements, digging of the exterior swales and the mapping.  We are also working on the volunteer program (thanks to all that have been volunteering so far!) and the Farmers Market which will debut on August 21st!  We have been having a great year so far and I cant wait to see how it all looks in a month from now!

My internship with Verge Permaculture has also been great.  It has been awesome and therapuetic to get some hands on experience and see how the process all goes in a super productive annual veggie garden, greenhouse and forest garden!  There are also great benefits like fresh strawberries right off the plant and awesome dinner salads every intern day!

Giggling Chi Tree has also been super busy!  So far this summer I have worked on 3 designs and have hosted one blitz.  I have two more blitzes coming up one of which is on July 29th in SE calgary.  Please check out www.permaculturecalgary.org for more details!  With Giggling Chi Tree I am also working on an exciting new design which I cant say too much about now, but will have details for you soon!  I will be teaching 2 cob bench workshops in August and September that I am super excited about, go to my website for details. www.gigglingchitree.com

On top of all the exciting Permaculture stuff, I have also been able to do alot of self reflection and I have discovered so many amazing things about my self and the gifts that I have to offer.  In my younger years I always felt a bit alienated as I didnt know anyone quite like me and had a hard time finding community.  Now I am blessed to be surrounded by amazing community, but have still struggled a bit to find my place.  Although I am friends with many like minds, we are all so different and because when I was younger i was ridiculed for this, I have been afraid to share my full self with some of the people I know.  I have recognized now that the people in my life have fully accepted me and that I am the only one that is not accepting me.  There may still be a few people in my life that have a hard time, but I cannot allow for this to hold me back.  I want to spread my wings and share my whole self, my whole vision with the world and this is the only way that I can fully contribute to the collective and to help the collective to be whole.  I want for everyone to be able to fully express themselves and therefore I want this for myself as well.  I also realize that we can recreate ourselves in each and every moment, through our hearts.  In order to do this we need to fully surrender our pasts, embrace and love who we are in the present and understand we will never know who we will be in the future.  A little tough to swallow, but also super exciting!  I hope to live these values fully!

Another thing I have been working on since COSM is recognizing my intention in all of the things I do.  So whenever I make decisions I ask what my intentions are and make sure that my choices are reflecting my intentions.  It has been challenging sometimes to have the strength to do or not do certain things, but the results are awesome! I am able to focus all of my energy into the most important things which really help me to move forward more quickly with my visions!

Lastly, I feel so very grateful to be on this ever changing, ever excting journey! So blessed to have such amazing experiences and filled with crazy gratitude for all of this amazing love I feel!
Wishing you all the very best on your journies and hope to hear about everyone elses inspiring lives!
Talk to you again soon!

Giggles and Gratitude,
Kym Chi

Summer is upon us!

Wow! Can you believe a whole month has passed since my last entry!  It has been a whirlwind since returning from the amazing COSM land.  We held our first annual Urban Agricutlure Day at the AREA which was a great success.  We had 15 vendors of local Urban Agricultural goods from Cheese Making, Apples, Window Farming, Spin Farming, Permauculture, Chickens and more!  We also showcased some great free talks and saw over 400 people pass through our cozy quarter acre property. Looking forward to a bigger and better event in 2013!

 From there it was straight into the Garden. So far we have reworked the soil and freshened up the beds with some sweet compost and straw and have edged the beds nicely with some free cinderblocks.   We have also planted some squash, peas, beans, salad greens, kale, spinach, swisschard, radishes, carrots, tomatoes and more. Yum! We also planted a variety of tea herbs and culinary herbs into our brand new herb spiral created during an awesome water management class.  Next steps are to get the other organizations in to do their planting and then continue on with more exciting projects.  I will be keeping you posted as things progress and adding pictures as things continue to evolve. Over the summer I will also be creating mapping package of the AREA which will show visitors details of the Permaculture implementations as well as many sectors such as water, wind, people and animals.  The most exciting project at the AREA will be the installment of a new weekly market!!  I can't share too many details yet, but it is just what Inglewood needs! Stay tuned :) It has been truly inspiring to see the way the space evolves and I feel super blessed to be a part of it.

I am also very excited to begin the process of an Advanced Diploma in Permaculture specializing in Education.  This will be an amazing upgrade to my current education and I will be thoroughly documenting my progress and sharing as much as I can here on my blog. The amazing Delvin Solkinson is going to be mentoring me through my journey and if anyone is interested in Permaculture on the West Coast, I highly recommend checking out his many offerings at: http://gaiacraft.squarespace.com/ . Delvin is one of the most inspiring people I know and he strives to spread the love of Permaculture and Visionary Art.  You can also see some of his other amazing projects here: http://elvism.squarespace.com/

I have been interning with Verge Permaculture for 2 months now, I can't beleive how time is flying. Its been a ton of fun and I have been learning alot including: Installing a first flush system, pollinating and pruning tomatoes, installing drip irrigation, building awesome vermi bins and so much more. Last week was the best when we guerrilla planted some potatoes... YAY!!! I am really looking forward to what we will do next and have taken on the special projects of creating some maps of the Verge Permaculture Headquarters and designing a cob bench!

Ok... so what else have I been up to?  Art wise I have been feverishly creating some new Orgone Generators and Geometrical lanterns for Inshala Music Festival and Astral Harvest.  I started working with some new products and after working through the kinks I have created some sleek generators.  For those of you who don't know, Orgone Generators are sculptures made from resin, metal and quartz crystals that transmute negative energy, dispel EMF's and Chemtrails and omit all around good energy.  Pictures to come very soon!

Not only will I have some art installed at the above festivals, I am most honored be sharing some Permie Wisdom at Inshala, Entheos, Astral Harvest and Shambhala! I will be evolving the talks for each festival so each one will be a little different then the next.   Evolver will also have the dome set up at Inshala, Fozzy Fest and Shambhala.  I hope to see you out for at least one of the amazing festivals.  Here are postings for schedules at Inshala, Entheos and Astral Harvest.  Shambhala schedule to come soon.

http://www.inshala.ca/storage/Sched2012.jpg
http://entheosgathering.com/2012/conference
http://www.astralharvest.com/2012-conferences/

Van living is proving to be pretty awesome with a few challenges like my fridge breaking down and my solar panel malfuntioning.  It is pretty pricey to replace a camper van fridge, but I must do it as fresh veggies are super important to me! I will be putting the new fancy fridge in tomorrow and will be able to run it off of AC/ 12 V and Propane so that will be great for all my summer travelling and times when I can't plug in in the city.  As far as the panel goes, I will be getting some help next week and hopefully learning some tools for trouble shooting with it in the future ;)  All in all though it is pretty awesome and I do really love being mobile and having my own little sanctuary. I will keep you all in the loop as to how the repairs go :) 

I think that is about it for today, looking forward to sharing more of my adventures with you as they come about and please feel free to share any of your awesome stories with me as well!!
Lots of love and infinite giggles,

Kym Chi

Visionary Permaculture Day 3 and 4. :)

I have so much to say about yesterday and yet so little that can actually be communicated in words.

We spent most of our morning talking about connections and starting the "zoning" process.  It was amazing to engage with all of these beautiful and creative entities to work through building the connections and placing elements in the zones that make the most sense.  The funnest part is that there really is no right or wrong way that elements in a system connect.  It is organic in nature and really reflects our needs and yields at any given time.  There is a grand goal of working to build a system that functions most efficiently based on stacking functions and placing items in the areas where they are most effective. This is done for not only the needs and yields of new elements, but also of existing elements in the present and in the future.

Our class is so inspiring and the mornings activities built a new appreciation of the gifts and talents that we each can offer to the collective whole.  It also sparks consciousness of opportunities to help someone who can benefit from your outputs. There are infinite possibilities for beneficial relationships in every system.

In the afternoon we finished zones and then spent a charged couple of hours interacting with the Grey's in their beautiful studio.  It was great to hear their account of the connection with the land and to get a deeper understanding of how COSM arrived in this sacred space.  Hearing from them really helps to anchor our work here and understand the intentions to a cosmic level.

We finished our classtime with a walk along the wisdom trail... There are so many levels of consciousness and wisdom on this land and I am soooo stoked to delve in to it and learn from the nature spirits here.

Dinner was delicious as always, again I am so grateful for the gift the volunteers here offer in providing us with the nourishment we need to continue our intensive journey here.

In the later evening we were gifted an amazing opportunity to interact with the Grey's on an intimate level in there studio for a Wisdom talk.  The theme of the discussion was prayer and faith.  It is really hard to put into words just what happened in that room, except that is was beautiful and it was in this moment we all really truly became a full on community.  I also really felt connected into my path of self love and the recognition that I will continue working hard on this.

It was an amazing information packed, emotion packed high vibration day.

Today, day 4! It was super beautiful today, clear skies were shining on us!  We spent almost the whole day outside and really got focused in and talked sectors and patterns.  I think we all felt super charged from yesterday so we were really able to get things done today.  Lunch time was spent at the compost blitzing out the path around it with a quick sheet mulch.  Some biodynamic plants were put there recently, but the invasives are trying to take over, so some cardboard and leaf mulch should hopefully help.  We will find out in September! It felt great to do a bit of labour, sometimes this is when I feel most connected to the earth.

The afternoon went by super fast, but at the same time it was almost like time stood still.  We finished our day with 2 very special gifts.  The first together in the nest sharing our thoughts about the course and our intentions for the next few months and secondly spending another super deep time with the Grey's where we really got some more concrete perspective on their visions for the land.  It was super special and a great way to end the beginning of our journey at COSM.

I will get on a plane early tomorrow morning and head back to Calgary.  I have said a prayer asking that I take the amazing lessons learned and wisdom integrated back home and share it with intention and love. I will not soon forget the brilliant experience of COSM and am super excited to continue contributing to the blessed land.

Please take some time to check out cosm.org and if you feel called to contribute or visit, do not hesitate to make the journey!

In epic gratitude and visionary love,

Kym Chi

                                Our spiral of connecting elements, everything works together!

                                           Our super rad zone project, pretty sweet design!

                                                       Awesome design by zones part 2!

                                               

                                                              The Wisdom Trail to.....

                                                                The Cistern! Beauty!

          Another divider in my notebook with another important principle... Design from Nature!

                                  Delvin, giving the Permaculture sermon from the Pulpit! lol

                                                Part 2... lol Prrrraise Permaculture!!!  Lol

                               Yay, spiral heart plant, anyone remember this from day 2???

                                                                        Sector chat

                                                                        TREES!!!!

                                                                Compost awesomeness.

                                                  Pattern Mandala in the labyrinth :)

                                                        Group works mandala spiral

               A nice view of the area surrounding the guest house.  Lots of opportunity here :)

The final chat and rad interaction on the land with the Greys :)  The beautiful end to the beginning of a journey!