VBC

the “village building convergence” is taking place in Portland this week and i only yesterday paddled into the stream of it.  for anyone who reads this and does not know what it is (www.cityrepair.org), the village building convergence is a ten day run of seminars and collaboration of people reclaiming community, seizing up earth and trade to work on building community, physical, house, body, mind, and noble spirit in a natural wise way.  i know that may sound a little vague, but it is a broad endeavor, this thing, originally sponsored (seven years ago) by the city repair office of portland… a lot of information is available on the above listed website.  people come from all over the world to take part in VBC and then return to their homes with its spirit and message.  as far as the building trades, there are normally twelve or more sites all over portland where builders are practicing natural building techniques, like cob, light straw clay, straw bale, natural stone work, etc.  and people cycle around helping the cite leaders develop these little community strengthening projects, which range from intersection repair, decoration, redefinition to tea houses and saunas and community centers.  during this time, there is a gathering every evening where all of the participants come to eat and then attend a seminar or lecture usually.  the reason i am writing this is because last night i saw a man named Paul Stamets speak.  it was probably the most inspiring public speech i have ever seen.  mr. stamets has been studying fungi ever since he began noticing mycological colonies in the forests during the short time he was in the forestry profession, or deforestry profession.  he is like one of the world’s premier authorities on mushrooms, fungi.  and like many visionaries, he IS a little “out there.”  that is not to say there is anything lacking in his theories or research; no, on the contrary, he is a rigorous scientist whose path lies in a direction of wholesome health and sustainable continuation of life on planet earth.  i am not going to go into an entire summary of his talk, because one can get his book, which i am going to imminently (“mycelium running” among a number of others), as well as check out the abundance of information on his website, www.fungi.com.  i will say that as the talk progressed i realized more and more fully that this man has a mind like god, the order of magnitude of his studies and their implication is of the highest scientific echelon.  he has several u.s. patents for growth and application of fungi on different catastrophia (as he calls some of our problems).  one of them is inoculation of hazardous waste sites, where he has developed a method of spreading spores of oyster mushrooms on soil saturated with oil or many other kinds of grave environmental hazards and the mushrooms metabolize the toxins, break them down, turn them into carbohydrates, completely clean the soil and damage done, and grow into perfectly delicious edible fungi!  this is no sham: he has patents and this technology is basically FREE and it’s fucking amazing.  the other example he gave was this ingenious inoculation of a crosscut (somewhat dormant fungus sample) and basically a mask of fungus on rice (which the mycelium begin to eat) and then put out for carpenter ants in a couple of places in the home, and within a very short time, the ants have spread the rice throughout the house, eaten it, become completely encased in these microscopic (undetectable to them) mycelia, mummified as it were, and tiny mushrooms sprout up through their stiff and dead bodies.  complete arrest of their destruction upon the house!  he has been totally shut down by pesticide companies, black listed and threatened because his technique would make treatment of this otherwise costly and ineffective (not to mention totally chemically noxious) process cost about fifty cents.  fifty cents to rid a whole house of carpenter ants.  this man needs our protection.  i may go see what’s involved here.  for the time being, read his book and learn more about the amazing kingdom of fungi!