Taking off a few days early, I headed from San Francisco to Madrid to meet my Sis for a few days of play before making our way south to grab the parents in Malaga. If we had attempted our arrival a day earlier we would have been frustrated by the general strike that rocked Spain’s major cities, including Madrid and Barcelona. Instead we found our way to the capital without issue and enjoyed a couple wonderful days wandering around the city. As luck would have it, my time in Madrid coincided perfectly with a visit from my old friend Ben Golder, now studying ecological architecture on a Fulbright in Barcelona. Having his eye for expression of creativity and intelligence in the built environment just added to my own enjoyment of the metropolis. Plus it was just damned nice to see the dude (once upon a time Ben was a frequent house-guest in Dustin’s and my apartment in Granada).

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As I do so, part of me can’t help but ask ‘why bother?’. A critical voice reminds me that living in Santa Cruz, while joyful and rich in many facets of experience (family, friendships, natural beauty), always brings my creative output to a thudding halt. While wandering in unknown places I find that I always want my camera in my hand, that notes and poems and anecdotes are far more likely to find their way from my brain to a page, and that my little old website gets plenty of attention, back home everything gets too damn comfortable too damn quickly, and somehow comfort ends up being synonymous with stagnation. Creatively speaking, that is.

Buts its a new year. 2012! And after well over a year back in the heartland, I find myself likely to be here another year yet. So should I just accept that I am not capable in this environment of being creative and expressive in the ways that fuel something like this blog? I’d really rather not. I’d really rather use this space and any other tools available to inspire/motivate/push myself into practicing more acts of creative expression. So, having hacked down the weeds, repainted the walls, put in new windows, and convinced the squatters (hackers) to move along, I intend to break that old narrative and find a way(s) to utilize this space even though i’m not riding a camel around the pyramids or meditating in a jungle or whatever other nonsense young adventurous westerners manage to get up to.

Ta da. That’s all for the moment. An intention statements of sorts. If there is anyone out there reading, you are welcome to help hold me to it.

For good measure, since we’re already here..how about a few photos from the last however long. Here’s what was sitting gumming up the memory card in my camera. Sunsets and cats. I guess I could be doing worse.

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Anyway. I am settling for a time in Santa Cruz, which is a lovely place that represents neither end of the spectrum. And I started prattling about cities because I have been getting a nice ‘fix’ by taking frequent trips to San Francisco, a city that I love. This last weekend we found excuse for the drive in the Chinese New Year Parade, reportedly one of the world’s 10 greatest parade events. Unfortunately, the parade itself seemed a rather ghastly illustration of how capitalism can mutilate cultural expression: nearly every float was a giant advertisement for Visa, Wells Fargo, or McDonald’s. The parade itself is now titled the ‘Southwest Airlines Chinese New Years Parade’. Which certainly turns my stomach. Not to mention nearly the whole route was obscured by formidable bleachers which were paid-entry only. So much for an open community event. Ah well. The marching bands were still amazing…And we managed to have a pretty epic time no matter, splashing around in the rain, squaring off against some pretty intense Cashew Chicken, and following the evening south into the Mission for tea, jazz and visits with old friends. Here are a couple photos from that little excursion and other recent forays to the city.

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This site has received less attention than I would like over the last year and a half, due in large part to the lion’s share of my energy and focus being centered on my studies in England. As such, I am glad to make use of this page now to announce that I have completed my dissertation, and with it my masters degree in Development and Emergency Practice. The process which culminated in the completion of this last project  has been an incredible one. I shipped off to the UK to begin the course with little knowledge of what I was entering into, and found myself consistently amazed and inspired by the quality of the learning that was on offer, and most particularly by the exceptional individuals who provided it. I would be hard pressed to find words to recommend the program highly enough. Along those lines, I would like to express gratitude here for the guidance provided by Mohamed Hamza and David Sanderson, and for the invaluable support from Kevin Dunbar, Anita Cuddihy, Angelo Pancini, Elisa Pederson, Alec Stouras, the Schindlers, and Tom and Susie Johnson.

For any who are interested, a copy of my dissertation is available below, along with an abstract which gives an idea of its contents.

Click Here to Download

Abstract

Permaculture is a practical design system that mimics the functions and patterns of ecosystems in planning for sustainable human settlements, incorporating integrated systems for food production, shelter, energy capture and use, and a range of other material and non-material needs. The purpose of this dissertation is to evaluate the permaculture system in terms of its potential for application in development and emergency contexts.

As a point of departure for this study, it is proposed that the interrelation between global poverty and severe environmental degradation produces an unprecedented need for holistic approaches to development, capable of integrating poverty alleviation measures with sustainable ecological management practices. Permaculture is positioned as the focal point of research because its principles and methods seem impeccably suited to meet this need, and yet are lacking a substantial body of literature to recommend them.

The research approach utilized included an extensive effort to locate and compile what documented evidence does exist of permaculture in development and humanitarian situations, and to combine it with correspondence and key informant interviews to form as complete a picture as possible of the system’s capacities in these fields. Four case studies were selected for closest inspection, based on criteria including quantity of available information and ability to demonstrate a range of activities and outcomes.

Analysis of case studies, background information on permaculture design, and a range of developmental challenges towards which permaculture can be applied yielded clear insight into considerable potential for permaculture initiatives to achieve positive impacts in a variety of development and emergency contexts. Areas of substantial applicability include deployment of low-cost and adaptable methods for managing waste and accessing safe water in post-disaster environments, innovative design methods for refugee camp design and management, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions through sequestration of carbon, and most importantly, mobilization of integrated and adaptable systems for increasing livelihoods and community security while simultaneously rehabilitating ecosystems promoting sound environmental management practices.

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]]> http://zeyaschindler.com/2010/08/12/no-words/feed/ 0 http://zeyaschindler.com/2010/06/07/monday-rain-on-my-windowpane/ http://zeyaschindler.com/2010/06/07/monday-rain-on-my-windowpane/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:11:47 +0000 Zeya http://zeyaschindler.com/?p=1189 This little room of mine will not be mine much longer. A week or so and I’ll be carrying my home on my back again…

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my studies and procrastinatory online wanderings. Here is a first run at it.

In the last year I have appreciated very much the manicured, historied aesthetics of Oxfordshire, and particularly watching the seasons play upon them. That appreciation has in recent months been accompanied by a craving not only for the company of family and friends back home, but also for the actual landscapes of California. The incredible wildness and diversity of my home is something I have often taken for granted, and its pleasant in my separation from it to let my mind wander the from the dunes of the Mojave to the peaks and lakes of the Marble Mountains. This map, produced by Paramount Studios in 1927 and found at the excellent Strange Maps, depicts that diversity nicely in the context of the film industry. Establishing Hollywood as its center was due in part to the fact that nearly any imaginable landscape was available for filming within a few days travel. The vistas of Siberia, Switzerland or the French Alps could be approximated in the area around Lake Tahoe, the Californian Venice bore a solid resemblance to the the Italian original, and inland swathes of the southern end of the state provided likenesses of diverse ecosystems from Sherwood Forest to the Sahara desert. Interestingly, the  map also places the Black Rock Desert in the heart of Sudan. No wonder California pulls on the heart strings from afar.

Thinking on the importance of appreciating and loving the wild places I am lucky enough to call home has also been helping me to imagine a bit what it might be like to be living in the shadow of the BP oil disaster. Without working consciously at it, its easy to allow that mess to be something abstract, confined in the mind to a cluster of ugly headlines. People continue to perpetuate such gross violations of our natural heritage in large part because they can remain abstract and intangible to those who don’t experience them directly. Images are emerging from the gulf that start to bring the tragedy of it home, that make it more personal. But given my recent musings on the heritage of my own home, the most powerful tool I have come across for making the disaster ‘real’ is an online mapping device called IfItWasMyHome.com. By entering your zip code or town name you can view a superimposition of the BP spill on your own turf. As simple as the concept may be, the application of it seems powerful in its ability to stop it from being just someone else’s problem. Below are renderings of what the spill would look like in the Monterey Bay, and in my little corner of the UK. I recommend entering your own location here.

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]]> http://zeyaschindler.com/2010/06/05/all-the-world-in-california-the-bp-disaster-in-all-the-world/feed/ 2 http://zeyaschindler.com/2010/05/26/summer-in-england-was-lovely/ http://zeyaschindler.com/2010/05/26/summer-in-england-was-lovely/#comments Wed, 26 May 2010 21:36:00 +0000 Zeya http://zeyaschindler.com/?p=1156 I do believe summer may have come and gone this last weekend in England. The weather was absolutely gorgeous. Hot, sunny days and balmy t-shirt weather at 3am with all the windows thrown open. I didn’t make the most of it, locked up indoors for much of it working on a job application. Still, I was treated to a spontaneous punting adventure that was probably the most Oxfordy thing I have done over the year, complete with Pimms and lemonade, cheese and bread, and dappled sunlight through the trees. I even managed to punt without landing myself or anyone else in the questionably swimmable waters of the Cherwell. Anyhow its back to grey skies now. But here’s a few from the day…

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