Earthworms

Want to eat your home landscape? Want to work with Nature in some of the most efficient, effective and - Yes, EASIEST ways? Farmer and Permaculture practitioner Matt Lebon will set up your place to grow a feast for you - and for your bug-bird-nature neighbors.

Matt recently parlayed his five years of deep experience as manager of our town's EarthDance Organic Farm (home of the Farmer Training School) into his innovative enterprise Custom Foodscaping. He can design and plant a custom edible landscaping package for home or business customers, or work with you hands-on to help develop your own Herb Garden, Food Forest or profitable Vegetable Farm.

Matt's enthusiastic skills can produce Edible Schoolyards to Chef's Gardens to Taste-Full Home Gardens. As he says, "Have your landscape and eat it too!" Photos of Foodscape at VICIA Restaurant, Permaculture Orchard at Principia College, Chicken Food Forest at a private home.

Learning Opportunity: 2-Day Foodscaping Course - Feb 16-17 2019

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms audio engineer.

Related Earthworms Conversations:

St. Louis Food Policy Coalition Grows Health & Environmental Resources (Dec 2015)

Farming on a Downtown Roof: Urban Harvest STL (June 2015)

Permaculturist Tao Orion Goes Beyond the War on Invasive Species (March 2016)

Urban Flower Farming with Mimo Davis and Miranda Duschack (Feb 2015)

Social philosopher and mathematician Charles Eisenstein takes on the issue of our time, in terms that may give humankind another way to get our minds, hearts and action around Climate Change.

Drawing from Eisenstein's new book Climate, A New Story, this conversation with Earthworms host Jean Ponzi offers perspective, options and much-needed hope for our species capacity to course-correct relative to the systems that support life on Earth, including us.

Music: Abdiel, performed live at KDHX by Dave Black. THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms audio engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: Drawdown: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (March 2018) Carl Pope: Creating A Climate of Hope (April 2018)

Joan Lipkin: Theater Takes on Climate Change (October 2017)

What does "Citizenship" mean - and how can we revive, revitalize and re-energize it in society today?

Earthworms host Jean Ponzi explores Citizenship ideas and options with guests David Wilson - longtime regional sustainability professional who has led Citizenship Education Clearinghouse, MO Coalition for the Environment, and the OneSTL Regional Sustainability Plan process for East-West Gateway Council of Governments - and Anna Holland - student at Lewis & Clark College, volunteer for the 2018 Illinois Congressional campaign of Betsy Londrigan - and Earthworms audio engineer!

Citizens - Listen Up! Thank you!

Music: Balkan Twirl, performed at KDHX by Sandy Weltman and Carolbeth Trio

Missouri Coalition for the Environment's Ed Smith, Policy Director, and Water Policy Coordinator Maisah Khan present a report on current energy, water and pollution-related issues from the St. Louis Region.

This update covers potential EPA Superfund resolutions to the radioactive-material contaminated West Lake Landfill, clean-up proposals for lead contamination in the Big River, and more fine work from MCE. As MCE approaches their milestone 50-year anniversary of service in 2019, Ed and Maisah and the MCE staff, interns, board and allies continue hard at work protecting Missouri's water and air quality, open space and food access. This is exemplary work - worth hearing!

Music: Hunter's Permit, performed live at KDHX by Mister Sun

THANKS to Jon Valley, engineering this week's Earthworms

Daniel Wildcat, Ph.D., proffers Traditional Ecological Knowledges as antidote (literally) to destruction. His scholarship and teaching at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, is rooted in the relationships of Indigenous knowledge, technology, environment and education - elements related to each other, and to us.

What can each of us learn from an Indigenous cultural and ecological perspective? And how can we apply ourselves as individual antidotes to destruction along this kind of path?

Dan Wildcat directs the Haskell Environmental Research Studies Center, and is a founder of the Indigenous Peoples Climate Change Working Group.

Dr. Wildcat comes to St. Louis on November 8 as guest of the Harris World Ecology Center, and one of three speakers about Traditional Ecological Knowledge. This event is free, but registration is required.

Music: Cadillac Desert, performed live at KDHX by William Tyler

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms diligent engineer.

Related Earthworms Conversations: Plants, Indigenous People and Climate Change with Ethnobotanist Dr. Jan Salick (December 2015)

The Patterning Instinct in Human Nature (June 2017)

Our minds and bodies are powerful healers, and strong in maintaining well-being for each of us, overall. But do we use these inner tools?

The profession of Therapeutic Horticulture brings together plants and people, to explore and promote well-being in both profound and simple ways. Jeanne Carbone and her colleagues on the TH team at Missouri Botanical Garden offer a new program to help us explore and strengthen well-being, in partnership with Nature.

The setting for this exploration is Seiwa En, the Japanese Garden of Pure, Clear Harmony and Peace, at Missouri Botanical Garden in the City of St. Louis. Pathways and reflection points provide many opportunities to cultivate personal well-being.

This new program, Journey to Well-Being, includes three guided visits to Seiwa-En and prompts to experience and reflect on your own, in a series of weekly walks. Self-guiding options make this journey as convenient as it is powerful, especially in relation to a jewel of nature in the St. Louis region.

Registration is open for the winter session, with additional sessions coming in 2019.

Music: Bitter Root, performed live at KDHX by Matt Flinner

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: Grow, Create, Inspire with Crystal Stevens (December 2016)

What's possible when we humans talk to each other? Brian Ettling believes a talk can turn the tide of harmful changes to Earth's climate. He's been acting on this conviction since 2012, when he joined the Climate Leaders Network, and became an active force in the Citizens' Climate Lobby.

Brian returns to Earthworms with an update on his interactions with legislators and fellow citizens - and an emphasis on key solutions each of us has the power to achieve:

• Communicate with elected leaders about climate issues
• Get involved with a group to "make your voice louder"
• Invest in clean energy and energy efficiency in your life
• Vote!

Coming to St. Louis October 17 - Brian Ettling and Fred Miller present "How to Speak about Climate Change with Confidence" hosted by St. Louis University - AND teaching a 3-hour adult class on Climate Change at St. Louis Community College, October 13.

Music: Jamie, performed live at KDHX by Yankee Racers

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms Audio Engineer

Related Earthworms Conversations: David & the Giant Mailbox: Walking and Talking Climate, Nation-wide (December 2015)

DRAWDOWN: Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (May 2018)

Climate of Hope with Sierra Club's Carl Pope (April 2018)

Brian Ettling for the Citizens Climate Lobby (December 2016)

In a downtown office building, entrepreneurs work side by side with a visiting group of Tibetan monks. Business ideas are taking shape and a brilliantly vivid "painting" with sand is, literally, making peace. It's all in a week's work for innovation culture in St. Louis!

Earthworms' guest Geshe Monlam Gyatso and his fellow monks of the Drepung Gomang monastery are on a Sacred Arts Tour to U.S. cities. Earthworms' friend (and fellow guest) Patty Maher is hosting this group, as she has with groups of monks for several years. The T-Rex incubator welcomes their creation of a World Peace Mandala, Sept 25-30. On Friday Sept 30, the monks' Dissolution Ceremony will transform this beautiful work into a blessing of the waters of the Mississippi River in a ceremony everyone is welcome to attend.

Namaste!

Music: Balkan Twirl, performed live at KDHX by Sandy Weltman and the Carolbeth Trio

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms' ace audio engineer.

Related Earthworms' Conversations: Photographer Neeta Satam Documents Himalayan Climate Change (March 2018)

Patty Maher's Historic Green Home Rehab (August 2017)

Batteries. We rely on them, we burn through them - some of us want to recycle them. The national Product Stewardship partnership Call2Recycle works with battery manufacturers to support "circular economy" management of resources in batteries, for us all.

Tim Warren, Earthworms host Jean Ponzi's longtime recycling colleague, shares a thorough report on the what-why-how of battery recycling for the U.S. today.

If you use power tools, a mobile phone, a laptop, a wristwatch or hearing aid, or drive a hybrid vehicle - or simply continue to use a flashlight - this update will be useful! The Call2Recycle Locator can help you find a battery recycling option near you. Check it out - and recycle your batteries, of all kinds!

Music: Rear View, performed live at KDHX by Belle Star THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms' intrepid engineer

City of St. Louis and near-suburb residents might think "our" watershed is nothing more than a concrete drainage ditch. Theo Smith, coalition chair, and other members of the River Des Peres Watershed Coalition, see this urban waterway differently.

River Des Peres drains over 115 square miles in the City of St. Louis and nearest suburbs, before it joins the Mississippi River. A coalition of Water quality and biodiversity advocates are joining together again this fall to raise awareness of the vital role of River Des Peres - and to pull out the trash that compromises its capacity in our regional watershed, overall. The River Des Peres Trash Bash will mobilize dozens of volunteers to support this waterway, on Saturday October 20, 2018, from 8 am to 2 pm.

Results from 2017: Hardworking Trash Bash volunteers cleared 6.6 tons of trash from the rivers and creeks in the River des Peres watershed in just 3 hours! This tally includes 2.2 tons of scrap metal and 1.8 tons (101) of tires that were recycled!

See yourself this year in this cadre of water quality champions!

Music: Giant Steps performed live at KDHX by Dave Stone Trio

THANKS to Anna Holland, Earthworms' audio engineer Related Earthworms Conversations:

Eco-Logic Applied to Road Salt Application Protocols (July 2018)