Fashion 2012: Plants growing in gowns!

I have to give credit to Reuben at Rancho Reubidoux for sharing this designer's work.

Designer Egle Cekanaviciute has created a 6 piece line of clothes made from organic raw materials like potato sacks, which are cut with crevices in which plants are growing.

Reuben has written a whole post on the work, which you can check HERE.

Or, go straight to the website by clicking HERE!

Peace and peas! Enjoy!

Who is going to look out for the seeds?

Seeds are a precious inheritance of humans, passed down for millenia by all the human societies that have lived before those of us alive today. Modern agriculture has already caused a massive loss of seed diversity within the last 2 generations. This is in part why it is so important to eat organic and to grow your own food if possible.

The truth is, even bioengineers of genetically modified crops depend on seed diversity so that they have a pool of genes to draw on to create new seed types. Seed diversity is in the interest of EVERYBODY.

Seeds are life! Seeds are our life! Seed diversity is necessary for the future of humanity.

So, who is going to look out for the seeds? WE ARE!

And these organizations are helping us out:

Seed Library of Los Angeles

GMO Film Project

Cornucopia Institute

Native Seed Search

Seed Savers Exchange

Seeds of Change
Organic Seed Alliance
Navdanya (and Vandana Shiva)

Tree People

Baker's Creek Heirloom (who are partnering with the Label GMOs campaign)

Other heirloom/organic/non GMO seed companies

Local to Global Life Works

Many community seed banks around the world

Many others!

Everything is related

Everything is connected. We live on a globe. A globe, by definition, is a 3-D circle, and what is a circle if not a closed circuit. Something that happens on the other side of town or the other side of the planet may exist in isolation in certain regards, but in the bigger picture, they are directly correlated.

The chaos that human society faces today is a direct result of choices that our forefathers and mothers have made, putting modern humans in the difficult situation of having to reevaluate things that have been taken for granted for generations in the United States as 'good' or at least as not harmful to humans and our local communities.

This blog post is just about sharing information about a few things going on in the world locally from Los Angeles to the global level. We ask that you reflect on these connections, who is benefitting in the short or long term, and who is being harmed. We argue that in the long run, no one benefits from selfish investments, not even the profit seekers. As mentioned above, we live on a closed circuit. Everything cycles back around, at some point.

Occupy LA (see Tony Velloza video above), building Los Angeles factories in low income/people of color neighborhoods (see opening video to this blog post), selling and increasingly planting genetically modified foods regardless of human/environmental health risks, food costs, and government investment into shady energy deals are all fundamentally related issues.

Local to Global Life Works photo taken of Ciclavia in 2011

So what can you do?

The first thing is to educate yourself. Let what you learn (and the likely resulting repulsion) inspire you to get creative -- yes, that's right, use the problems in the world to help you find your own creative ways to step out of the cycle of destruction that has been created for us by powers outside of our control. 'Our' refers to ALL people alive today, since one person is just part of a bigger picture, even if one person can make a huge impact on the world. Try to work on thinking of the plants, animals, peoples and elements around you as intrinsically connected to yourself. Work on healing your personal pains and finding peace within. The Dalai Lama says that there will not be peace on Earth until everyone can find peace within themselves. Remember that YOU MATTER! And that the world is still filled with beautiful things and places, and that small steps now lead to big movement in the future.

Lastly, make sure to contact your elected representatives to voice your opinions on things as frequently as possible. If you give up on your government, it will give up on you.

Peace and peas!

Local to Global Life Works

Who Owns the Future of Food?: From genetically modified organisms to seasonal organic

Dear community,

I am organizing an event (not an official Local to Global event) sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee Los Angeles on seeds, seasonal foods, genetic modification of food, and the connection of these issues to local and global peace. If you are around, come join us! See details below.

Peas and carrots,

Nisha Namorando Vida

Local to Global Life Works Founder/Director

*********

Date: Thursday, March 8, 2012

Time: 7:00-8:30 pm

Event title: Who Owns the Future of Food?: From genetically modified organisms to seasonal organic

Organized by: American Friends Service Committee

Address: 634 S. Spring St., 3rd Floor. Los Angeles, 90014.

Cost: Free

Description:

What is in your food? In the United States, purchasing an industrially farmed, processed and packaged food item containing ingredients shipped several times across the globe and requiring laboratory work (in the form of pesticides and genetically modified seeds) is oftenfar cheaper than purchasing a locally grown carrot or tomato from the neighborhood farmer’s market.  Industrial agriculture is a primary contributor to global warming, behind automobile and factory exhaust, and highly processed foods resulting from the industrial agricultural process are a primary contributor to obesity, diabetes, heart problems and other illnesses. Over 70% of foods eaten by Americans contain genetically modified seeds, and the farming of soy is a primary contributor to the massive destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Food is traded as a commodity on stock exchanges, meaning that it is grown and sold to raise a profit for business people. In response, urban communities across the United States have started to grow their own food from organic and heirloom seed.

What exactly is a ‘genetically modified seed’? What is 'heirloom'? What does growing one’s own vegetables have to do with peace in one’s community and world peace? Who owns the future of food? Join the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Friends Peace Dialogue to address these questions. Come learn something new and contribute to this important conversation. Our featured speakers for the evening are Megan Bomba and Deanna Marie Weakly.

Megan Bomba:

Megan is a UC trained biologist, who helped coordinate the founding of the Seed Library of Los Angeles (SLOLA), helps manage it currently, and is spearheading the effort to create a branch of the library in Northeast Los Angeles. SLOLA serves as a way to collect and catalogue heirloom and non-genetically modified seeds grown by Los Angeles basin food growers for current and future generations of Angelenos.

Deanna Marie Weakly:

Dee is a Master Gardener who started the rooftop garden at the LA Community Action Network. She continues to work with Skid Row and other downtown Los Angeles residents to grow edible plants and is also working with City Year on a school garden project at Compton Elementary. Her goal is to start an urban farm on the Angel’s Flight hillside in downtown LA. This urban farm would be accessible to all downtown Los Angeles residents.

The Friends Peace Dialogues is a monthly speaker series sponsored by the AFSC for the community. Learn about AFSC's Friends Peace Gardens at Los Angeles area high schools here: http://rootsforpeace.blogspot.com/.

Come join us!