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Wrath Of Gnon

@wrathofgnon

12 May

In the Hindu religion, planting certain herbs and trees is considered a traditional religious duty. Tulasi is known as Holy Basil: "A person is honored in Vaikuntha for as many thousand years as the days he resides in a house where tulasi is grown." — Vrukshayurveda, 10th century

"And if one properly grows bilva, which pleases Lord Siva, in his family, the goddess of riches resides permanently passes on to the sons and grandsons."
"He who plants even a single asvattha, wherever it may be, as per the prescribed mode, goes to the abode of Hari."

"He who has planted dhatri has performed several sacrifices. He has donated the earth. He would be considered a celebate forever."
"He who plant a couple of banyan trees as per the prescribed mode would go to the abode of Siva and many heavenly nymphs will attend upon him."

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Wrath Of Gnon

@wrathofgnon

7 May

It is okay to be interested in how our ancestors solved the problems they faced, because after all the human condition and its predicaments have not changed. To be cynical when someone finds solace or joy in reading Homer or Marcus Aurelius, Dante or Austen, is just unnecessary.

It is okay to go "Wow! Look at this!" when you see an ancient Egyptian child's knitted sock. Ancient Egyptian parents worried about their children's cold feet too. But this doesn't mean we should worship Egyptian feet or reject knitted socks as a barbaric relic of a distant past.

It is easy to imagine a day when factories will stop producing socks: whether by a lack of energy, rising seas, nuclear war, financial crises, etc. What is impossible to imagine though, is each family on their own rediscovering the art of knitting wool socks from scratch.

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Wrath Of Gnon

@wrathofgnon

4 May

Guardian forests (鎮守の森) used to be found in every village in Japan but these days we seldom see them, where the village guardian God manifests. They are usually centered around a small shrine and is as close as possible a remnant of the original forest coverage of the area.

Guardian forests belonged to the village (or the other way around?) and when charcoal or timber products were harvested it was only supposed to be used for religious festivals or in maintaining shrine buildings.

They also performed eco services: as forests were cut back to make room for fields Guardian Forests were important "safe islands" for pollinators, beneficial insects, bees etc. and a roosting place for birds that preyed on pests like rodents, grasshoppers etc. Better harvests!

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Wrath Of Gnon

@wrathofgnon

2 May

The majestic woven huts of the Dorze people in southern Ethiopia. When new the tallest of these reach up to twelve meters, made of a bamboo cage structure, thatched with local grass, bamboo or ensete (false banana) leaves. Well maintained a Dorze hut can easily last a century.

The older a Dorze home is, the lower it gets: the bamboo poles are attacked by termites and ground moisture, which is why maintenance often involves cutting off a couple of decimeters of the bamboo poles that touches the ground, every few years.

It would take a young couple about three months to build a hit for themselves, so often specialized craftsmen (who are trained in a master-apprentice sort of system are called in). As part of the payment, all meals are included. A clever trick to make sure workmen show up.

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Wrath Of Gnon

@wrathofgnon

23 Apr

All countries have their defining flowers, Dutch tulips, the English rose, for example. Today we associate Japan with the Cherry blossom, or maybe the Chrysanthemum, but for about 300 years, the Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius) was a major player in Japanese agricultural-economy.

Once grown all over the country as a major cash crop, today it is only properly grown in the iconic Tachiya River valley in Yamagata prefecture, where locals liked to bring impressed Imperial and Shogunate officials to view the endless fields of orange flowers from the mountain.

The flower arrived in Japan via Korea, according to tradition, in 538 A.D. It had come a long way from its origin on the shores of the rive Nile in Egypt (it probably made its way via the silk route together with Roman Imperial glassware which has also been found in Japan).

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Wrath Of Gnon

@wrathofgnon

23 Apr

So how do we fix unsustainable cities and suburbs? How do we go back from the machine scale to the human scale? In the same way that a one-size-fits-all sort of lifestyle was imposed on our cities, there are going to be as many solutions as there are cities and developments...

...a combination of leading by example, studying the past while trying to put ourselves in the shoes of those coming after us. Both carrots and whips. There is no need to raze and rebuild, rather we should consolidate, and stop subsidizing that which can't be sustained.

Good cities are always built on the human scale, useful to anyone regardless of age or possession of a driver's license, and have access to sun and water to some degree. Apart from that they can differ, a city in Algeria will look and work differently from a city in Ecuador.

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