Certified Simple

You may be certified simple - in a good way - if you engage in a variety of actions that establish your credentials as a serious simplitista.

This certification honours a lifestyle that values simplicity, sustainability, and mindfulness.

For example, if you would rather stick needles in your eyes than go shopping, you may be certifiably simple.

Other signs to watch out for are if you

- grow some of your own food,

- have a composting system,

- have fewer possessions as the years go by,

- try to acquire things you need in the following order, 

Borrow, barter, rent if applicable, find for free, buy used, buy new on sale, and last resort, buy new full price,

- interrupt a walk to pick up rubber bands and other useful things,

- spend more time in nature than your average bear,

- walk, bike, roll, or use public transportation when possible instead of drive,

- repair and mend clothes,

- make your own cleaning products,

- cook your food from scratch, or

- hope to have your personal possessions down to what can fit in a shoebox by the time you leave this materialistic world,

you may be certifiably simple… in a good way. 

A very good way.

Let us know how simplicity manifests in your life in a comment below. 

Grow Potatoes

The Potato Harvest by Fritz Boehle

Bill Mollison, a pioneer of the permaculture movement in the 1970s, offered simple yet profound advice:

"Grow potatoes."

Permaculture is a design system and philosophy that aims to create sustainable and regenerative living systems by mimicking nature. Developed by Mollison and David Holmgren, it's based on the following principles:

Permaculture Principles

1. Observe and interact with nature
2. Catch and store energy
3. Obtain a yield
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
5. Use and value renewable resources and services
6. Produce no waste
7. Design from patterns to details
8. Integrate rather than segregate
9. Use small and slow solutions
10. Celebrate diversity
11. Use edges and value the marginal
12. Creatively use and respond to change
    
    

Applications of Permaculture

• Ecological design
• Sustainable agriculture
• Regenerative agriculture
• Agroforestry
• Eco-friendly architecture
• Community building
  
  

Mollison emphasized the importance of growing potatoes as a staple crop in permaculture systems due to their high yield and nutritional value. He often referred to potatoes as a "superfood" and encouraged their cultivation in permaculture designs.

I used to be a couch potato. 

Now I grow potatoes!

Sometimes the answers are as simple and doable as that.

2 Simple Rules to Live By

Life is not that complicated (although we do tend to make it that way).

For example, I live by two simple rules.

1. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

and

2. Let your freak flag fly.

Everything else is superfluous.

Why I Live Plain and Simple

Why live a plain, simple life? 

Plain living, as the Quakers say, allows us to listen for the "still, small voice of God". You don't want anything drowning that out.

Living plainly and simply requires one to discard the non-essential, or resist it from the start. 

Things that are not necessary get in the way of the things that are necessary. I have no time, effort or money for things that are not necessary.

When individuals become serious about learning more about themselves, the Universe, and their place in it, they don't usually go shopping.

They also probably don't go to movies, or restaurants, or the gym, or large entertainment gatherings. These all may be nice, but they are extra. 

And ultimately, unnecessary. 

One important reason I live a plain and simple life is to get rid of anything that gets in the way of that which is important.

When the still, small voice of The Universe speaks, I don't want to miss it.

It could be the buzz-buzz-buzz of the bumble bee going from nasturtium to nasturtium as I quietly harvest pole beans. 

Or the whispering of the wind in the trees  while I take in a solitary, contemplative walk.

It might be the bubbling and babbling of the brook, running to join the ocean (The Watery One) after a rain. 

Or the laughter of the new neighbour's  baby while I sit (not thinking, or worrying) on the patio.

 

In the cacophony of consumerism, and the lifestyle needed to support it, those peaceful voices are drowned out.

That is why I live plain and simple.

Plan For Today

Art by: Lisa Davis

Drink water

Make food/eat food

Toilet

Yoga

Sing

Be in Nature

Care for Linda

Wash my bowl

Sleep

That's all

Optional: anything else.