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.

 A few days after leaving Talisman Centre I took off for Shambhala to share some Permie wisdom at the seminars. 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:

 At Shambhala I was also blessed to see Raw Food extraordinaire, David Wolfe and Unified Theory expert Jamie Janover... super inspiring!

 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. For those of you just learning about the market, please come by! We are at the AREA every Tuesday from 3:30pm - 8pm. There is great local produce, meat, honey, bread and more!

 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, a couple of awesome Permablitzes (dates to come soon!) as well as the Abundance festival taking place at the AREA on September 29th.

 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!

  So far this summer Giggling Chi Tree has worked on 3 designs and 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 Updates

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