Ecovillages are intended to be socially, economically and ecologically sustainable intentional communities. Some aim for a population of 50 - 150 individuals because this size is considered to be the maximum social network according to findings from sociology and anthropology. Larger ecovillages of up to 2,000 individuals exist as networks of smaller subcommunities to create an ecovillage model that allows for social networks within a broader foundation of support.
Certain ecovillages have grown by the nearby addition of others, not necessarily members, settling on the periphery of the ecovillage and effectively participating in the ecovillage community (see, for example, Findhorn).
Ecovillage members are united by shared ecological, social-economic and cultural-spiritual values. An ecovillage is often composed of people who have chosen an alternative to centralized electrical, water, and sewage systems. Many see the breakdown of traditional forms of community, wasteful consumerist lifestyles, the destruction of natural habitat, urban sprawl, factory farming, and over-reliance on fossil fuels, as trends that must be changed to avert ecological disaster.
They see small-scale communities with minimal ecological impact as an alternative. However, such communities often cooperate with peer villages in networks of their own (see Global Ecovillage Network for an example). This model of collective action is similar to that of Ten Thousand Villages, which supports the fair trade of goods worldwide.
In 1991, Robert Gilman set out a definition of an ecovillage that was to become a standard. Gilman defined an ecovillage as a:
• human-scale
• full-featured settlement
• in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world
• in a way that is supportive of healthy human development, and
• can be successfully continued into the indefinite future.
Note: In recent years, Gilman has stated that he would also add the criterion that an ecovillage must have multiple centres of initiative.
The principles on which ecovillages rely can be applied to urban and rural settings, as well as to developing and developed countries. Advocates seek a sustainable lifestyle (for example, of voluntary simplicity) for inhabitants with a minimum of trade outside the local area, or ecoregion.
Many advocates also seek independence from existing infrastructures, although others, particularly in more urban settings, pursue more integration with existing infrastructure. Rural ecovillages are usually based on organic farming, permaculture and other approaches which promote ecosystem function and biodiversity. Ecovillages, whether urban or rural, tend to integrate community and ecological values within a principle-based approach to sustainability, such as permaculture design.
An ecovillage usually relies on:
• "Green" infrastructural capital;
• autonomous building or clustered housing, to minimize ecological footprint;
• renewable energy;
• permaculture;
The goal of most ecovillages is to be a sustainable habitat providing for most of its needs on site. However self-sufficiency is not always a goal or desired outcome, specifically since self-sufficiency can conflict with goals to be a change agent for the wider culture and infrastructure. Its organization also usually depends upon some instructional capital or moral codes - a minimal civics sometimes characterized as eco-anarchism:
• local purchasing so as to support the local economy;
• local food production and distribution;
• moral purchasing to avoid objectionable consumption;
• consensus decision-making for governance;
• a choice to respect diversity.
The term ecovillage should not be confused with micronation, a strictly legal, not infrastructural, concept.
Whenever we talk about biodesign we should simply bear in mind just how amazingly superior a spider's web is to any load-bearing structure man has made - and then derive from this insight that we should look to the superiority of nature for the solutions.
An Earth House is also known as an Earth Berm or an Earth Sheltered Home, it is an architectural style characterized by the use of natural terrain to help form the walls of a house. An earth house is usually set partially into the ground and covered with thin growth, and is often intended to have a small ecological footprint. Modern earth houses are built with concrete walls and insulation.
Unlike traditional residential houses built on the ground, the aim of building an earth house is not to live under or in the ground, but with it. If ground and house are separated, a house is built "into the air", resulting in the loss of heat and humidity, and the exterior shell of a building loses lifespan.
The earth house concept uses the ground as an insulating blanket that efficiently protects it from rain, low temperatures, wind and natural abrasion. The main entrance to an earth house is sometimes on the roof.
An earth house does not have to be built under the ground, it can be placed onto naturally grown terrain. The earth house is a flexible construction which can be built according to the wishes of its owners, fulfilling the requirements for individuality, environmentally friendly construction, and energy conservation.
The structural engineering of an earth house creates for an organic design requiring spatial sense and creativity. Earth house architecture brings to mind habitable sculptures, incorporating artistic claim and sculptural quality.
Structures, which are designed as integral arches, can be constructed as stiff individual objects or by means of a sprayed concrete procedure. Arches made of sprayed concrete provide for free and organic shapes, allowing rooms to become suffused with light. The sprayed concrete procedure was first used by natural scientist Carl Akeley in 1911.
Akeley patented a device able to spray fine-grained concrete. While sprayed concrete is mainly applied in underground engineering and tunnel construction, Friedrich Kiesler was the first to use this technique for the construction of buildings. Swiss architect Peter Vetsch improved the technique over several years. To date, he has built over 40 earth houses using sprayed concrete, and he can therefore be considered the leading authority in this area of expertise.
The sprayed concrete is applied to a finely meshed metal stretch net which is welded onto the supporting armature. The curvatures are bent and formed according to the intended shape of the building. A 20 cm thick polyurethane solid-foam-insulation is sprayed onto the outside of the arches, protecting the house from low or high temperatures. A fleece filter mat is then laid on top of this and the building is covered with a thick layer of soil some 80 cm to 3 metres thick.
The foundation of the buildings designed by Peter Vetsch are built conventionally. The interior walls of an earth house are furnished using loam rendering which provides superior humidity compensation. The loam rendering is finally coated with lime-white cement paint.
Earth houses by exponents like Peter Vetsch or Arthur Quarmby are based on the interpretation of an environmentally conscious, ecological and progressive architecture. They stand out due to their closeness to nature and allow an experience beyond the usual four walls and their right angles. The earth house concept uses its surroundings as an advantage - the surroundings are not adapted to the building, the house is shaped in order to preserve the natural environment.
Modern earth-house architecture incorporates the latest interior finishing, such as contemporary kitchens, bathrooms and house-control systems. Furthermore, every house is newly designed in accordance with the wishes of its owners. Every earth house can therefore be considered a highly individual object. The focus of this planning process is the human being, who is given the opportunity to integrate a "third skin" into his own architectural language. Earth houses can be built as single residential houses or housing estates.
Insulation, energy and CO2 savings:
One of the main ecological benefits of earth-house architecture lies in its natural insulation. The unique architecture cools the house down in summer and keeps it warm in winter. A further advantage is the higher air humidity of 50 to 70% compared to overheated rooms of conventional houses in winter. Furthermore, as earth houses are impermeable, they can be considered ideal for controlled air conditioning.
Windstorm and earthquake protection:
The unique architecture of earth houses protects them against severe windstorms. They cannot be torn away or tipped over by strong winds. Structural engineering and, above all, the lack of corners and exposed parts (roof), eliminate vulnerable surfaces which would otherwise suffer from storm damage. Furthermore, earth houses benefit from improved stability due to the organic shapes of arches.
Landscape protection and land use:
Compared to conventional buildings, earth houses fit perfectly into their surroundings. Their soil-covered roofs incorporate the environment and protect the natural scenery. Soil-covered roofs return parts of the green landscape and, therefore, contribute to the oxygen-nitrogen balance. Contrary to conventional roofs, earth-house roofs bring back usable surface.
They can also be built as terraced structures if the slope is appropriate, thus using far less land area, because the structure can be built right up to the property boundary. Owing to the condensed means of construction, more green space remains available. Furthermore, earth-house structures can easily be built into hilly terrain, compared to conventional houses, which require flat land.
Fire protection:
Compared to other building materials, such as wood, earth houses feature efficient fire protection owing both to the use of concrete and the properties of the earth itself.
Light:
Earth houses are built using wide glass facades and dome-lights, allowing rooms to become bright and suffused with light. Dome-lights provide natural light for bathrooms and secondary rooms.
Civil Defense:
Due to the mass of the earth between the living area of an earth house and the surface, and earth home offers significant protection from blast damage and fallout associated with a nuclear war.
Let architects sing of aesthetics that bring rich clients in hordes to their knees; just give me a home, in a great circle dome where stresses and strains are at ease.
A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles (geodesics) lying on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the entire structure. When completed to form a complete sphere, it is known as a geodesic sphere.
Typically the design of a geodesic dome begins with an icosahedron inscribed in a sphere, tiling each triangular face with smaller triangles, then projecting the vertices of each tile to the sphere. The endpoints of the links of the completed sphere would then be the projected endpoints on the sphere's surface. If this is done exactly, each of the edges of the sub-triangles is slightly different lengths, so it would require a very large number of links of different sizes. To minimize the number of different sizes of links, various simplifications are made. The result is a compromise consisting of a pattern of triangles with their vertices lying approximately on the surface of the sphere. The edges of the triangles form approximate geodesic paths over the surface of the dome that distribute its weight.
Geodesic designs can be used to form any curved, enclosed space. Oddly-shaped designs would require calculating for and custom building of each individual strut, vertex or panel - resulting in potentially expensive construction. Because of the expense and complexity of design and fabrication of any geodesic dome, builders have tended to standardize using a few basic designs.
Geodesic domes provide an enclosed space free of structural supports. The basic structure can be erected quickly from lightweight pieces by a small crew. Domes as large as 50 meters have been constructed in the wilderness from rough materials without a crane. The dome is also aerodynamic, so it withstands considerable wind loads, such as those created by hurricanes. Solar heating is possible by placing an arc of windows across the dome: the more heating needed, the wider the arc should be, to encompass more of the year.
Nowadays, there are many companies that sell both dome plans and frame material with instructions designed simply enough for owners to build themselves, and many do to make the net cost lower than standard construction homes. Construction techniques have improved based on real-world experience during the past several decades, and many newer dome homes can resolve some of the disadvantages that were true of the early dome homes.
At the heart of the Equal Distribution village will be the main kitchen & food building to facilitate processing foods harvested from our organic farm.
Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on crop rotation, green manure, compost, biological pest control, and mechanical cultivation to maintain soil productivity and control pests, excluding or strictly limiting the use of synthetic fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, plant growth regulators, livestock feed additives, and genetically modified organisms.
Since 1990, the market for organic products has grown at a rapid pace, to reach $46 billion in 2007. This demand has driven a similar increase in organically managed farmland. Approximately 32.2 million hectares worldwide are now farmed organically, representing approximately 0.8 percent of total world farmland. In addition, as of 2007 organic wild products are harvested on approximately 30 million hectares.
Organic agricultural methods are internationally regulated and legally enforced by many nations, based in large part on the standards set by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), an international umbrella organization for organic organizations established in 1972. IFOAM defines the overarching goal of organic farming as follows:
"Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved." - International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements
The second main building in the Equal Distribution village will be the Arts & Crafts building with equipment enabling wood & carpentry work, pottery, clothing manufacturing, instrument making and much more.
The Arts and Crafts Movement was a British, Canadian, Australian, and American aesthetic movement occurring in the last years of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century. Inspired by the writings of John Ruskin and a romantic idealization of a craftsperson taking pride in their personal handiwork, it was at its height between approximately 1880 and 1910.
The Arts and Crafts Movement began primarily as a search for authentic and meaningful styles for the 19th century and as a reaction to the eclectic revival of historic styles of the Victorian era and to "soulless" machine-made production aided by the Industrial Revolution. Considering the machine to be the root cause of all repetitive and mundane evils, some of the protagonists of this movement turned entirely away from the use of machines and towards handcraft, which tended to concentrate their productions in the hands of sensitive but well-heeled patrons.
Yet, while the Arts and Crafts movement was in large part a reaction to industrialization, if looked at on the whole, it was neither anti-industrial nor anti-modern. Some of the European factions believed that machines were in fact necessary, but they should only be used to relieve the tedium of mundane, repetitive tasks. At the same time, some Arts and Crafts leaders felt that objects should also be affordable. The conflict between quality production and 'demo' design, and the attempt to reconcile the two, dominated design debate at the turn of the twentieth century.
Those who sought compromise between the efficiency of the machine and the skill of the craftsman thought it a useful endeavour to seek the means through which a true craftsman could master a machine to do his bidding, in opposition to what many believed to be the reality during the Industrial Age, i.e., that humans had become slaves to the industrial machine.
The need to reverse the human subservience to the unquenchable machine was a point that everyone agreed on. Yet the extent to which the machine was ostracised from the process was a point of contention debated by many different factions within the Arts and Crafts movement throughout Europe.
The third major building in the Equal Distribution village will be the recording studio and performance hall.
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording. Ideally, the space is specially designed by an acoustician to achieve the desired acoustic properties (sound diffusion, low level of reflections, adequate reverberation time for the size of the ambient, etc.)
The typical recording studio consists of a room called the "studio", where instrumentalists and vocalists perform; and the "control room", which houses the equipment for recording, routing and manipulating the sound. Often, there will be smaller rooms called "isolation booths" present to accommodate loud instruments such as drums or electric guitar, to keep these sounds from being audible to the microphones that are capturing the sounds from other instruments or vocalists.
Recording studios generally consist of three rooms: the studio itself, where the sound for the recording is created (often referred to as the "live room"), the control room, where the sound from the studio is recorded and manipulated, and the machine room, where noisier equipment that may interfere with the recording process is kept. Recording studios are carefully designed around the principles of room acoustics to create a set of spaces with the acoustical properties required for recording sound with precision and accuracy.
This will consist of both room treatment (through the use of absorption and diffusion materials on the surfaces of the room, and also consideration of the physical dimensions of the room itself in order to make the room respond to sound in a desired way) and soundproofing (to provide sonic isolation between the rooms). A recording studio may also include additional rooms, such as a vocal booth - a small room designed for voice recording, as well as one or more extra control rooms.
The fourth major building in the Equal Dstribution village will be the day care and education centre.
Day care or child care is care of a child during the day by a person other than the child's legal guardians, typically performed by someone outside the child's immediate family. Day care is typically an ongoing service during specific periods, such as the parents' time at work. The service is known as child care in the United Kingdom and Australia and day care in North America (although child care also has a broader meaning). Day care is provided in nurseries or creches or by childminders caring for children in their own homes. It can also take on a more formal structure, with education, child development and even preschool falling into the fold of services.
Some child-minders care for children from several families at the same time, either in their own home or in a specialized child care facility. Some employers provide nursery provision for their employees at or near the place of employment. Child care in the child's own home is traditionally provided by a nanny or au pair, or by extended family members including grandparents, aunts and uncles.
Independent studies suggest that good day care for non-infants is not harmful. Some advocate that day care is inherently inferior to parental care. In some cases, good daycare can provide different experiences than parental care does, especially when children reach two and are ready to interact with other children. As a matter of social policy, consistent, good daycare, may ensure adequate early childhood education for children of less skilled parents. From a parental perspective, good daycare can complement good parenting.
The rest of the equal-distribution structures will be residential housing.
Buildings will be divided into family size (3 - 5 people), couple size (2 people) or single size, based on personal and operational needs. All residential buildings will be equipped with bedrooms, small kitchens, bathrooms and storage.
Alternative energy is an umbrella term that refers to any source of usable energy intended to replace fuel sources without the undesired consequences of the replaced fuels. Typically, official uses of the term, such as qualification for governmental incentives, exclude fossil fuels and nuclear energy whose undesired consequences are high carbon dioxide emissions, the major contributing factor of global warming according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and difficulties of radioactive waste disposal. Over the years, the nature of what was regarded alternative energy sources has changed considerably, and today because of the variety of energy choices and differing goals of their advocates, defining some energy types as "alternative" is highly controversial.
The term "alternative" presupposes a set of undesirable energy technologies against which "alternative energies" are opposed. As such, the list of energy technologies excluded is an indicator of what problems that the alternative technologies are intended to address. Controversies regarding dominant forms of energy and their alternatives have a long history.
A water turbine is a rotary engine that takes energy from moving water. Water turbines were developed in the nineteenth century and were widely used for industrial power prior to electrical grids. Now they are mostly used for electric power generation. They harness a clean and renewable energy source.
Water wheels have been used for thousands of years for industrial power. Their main shortcoming is size, which limits the flow rate and head that can be harnessed. The migration from water wheels to modern turbines took about one hundred years. Development occurred during the Industrial revolution, using scientific principles and methods. They also made extensive use of new materials and manufacturing methods developed at the time.
A wind turbine is a rotating machine which converts the kinetic energy in wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used directly by machinery, such as a pump or grinding stones, the machine is usually called a windmill. If the mechanical energy is then converted to electricity, the machine is called a wind generator, wind power unit (WPU), or wind energy converter (WEC).
A photovoltaic module or photovoltaic panel is a packaged interconnected assembly of photovoltaic cells, also known as solar cells. The photovoltaic module, known more commonly as the solar panel, is then used as a component in a larger photovoltaic system to offer electricity for commercial and residential applications.
Because a single photovoltaic module can only produce a certain amount of wattage, installations intended to produce larger electrical power capacity require an installation of several modules or panels and this is known as a photovoltaic array. A photovoltaic installation typically includes an array of photovoltaic modules or panels, an inverter, batteries and interconnection wiring.
Photovoltaic systems are used for either on- or off-grid applications, and for solar panels on spacecraft.
Biofuel is defined as solid, liquid or gaseous fuel obtained from relatively recently lifeless or living biological material and is different from fossil fuels, which are derived from long dead biological material. Also, various plants and plant-derived materials are used for biofuel manufacturing.
Globally, biofuels are most commonly used to power vehicles, heat homes, and for cooking. Biofuel industries are expanding in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Recent technology developed at Los Alamos National Lab even allows for the conversion of pollution into renewable bio fuel. Agrofuels are biofuels which are produced from specific crops, rather than from waste processes such as landfill off-gassing or recycled vegetable oil.
Hemp is the common name for plants of the entire genus Cannabis, although the term is often used to refer only to Cannabis strains cultivated for industrial (non-drug) use.
Industrial hemp has been tried for many uses, including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food, and fuel with modest commercial success. In the past three years, commercial success of hemp food products has grown considerably.
Hemp is one of the fastest growing biomasses known, producing upto 25 tonnes of dry matter per hectare per year and one of the earliest domesticated plants known. For a crop, hemp is relatively environmentally friendly as it requires few pesticides and no herbicides.
Hemp can be used as a "mop crop" to clear impurities out of wastewater, such as sewage effluent, excessive phosphorus from chicken litter, or other unwanted substances or chemicals. Eco-technologist Dr. Keith Bolton from Southern Cross University in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia, is a leading researcher in this area. Hemp is being used to clean contaminants at Chernobyl nuclear disaster site.
Biofuels such as biodiesel and alcohol fuel can be made from the oils in hemp seeds and stalks, and the fermentation of the plant as a whole, respectively.
Henry Ford grew industrial hemp on his estate after 1937, possibly to prove the cheapness of methanol production at Iron Mountain. He made plastic cars (the so-called Hemp Car) with wheat straw, hemp and sisal. Filtered hemp oil can be used directly to power diesels. In 1892, Rudolph Diesel invented the diesel engine, which he intended to fuel "by a variety of fuels, especially vegetable and seed oils."
Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies. It was first developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and their associates during the 1970s in a series of publications. The word permaculture is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture, as well as permanent culture.
The intent was that, by rapidly training individuals in a core set of design principles, those individuals could design their own environments and build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements - ones that reduce society's reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution that Mollison identified as fundamentally and systematically destroying Earth's ecosystems.
While originating as an agro-ecological design theory, permaculture has developed a large international following. This 'permaculture community' continues to expand on the original ideas, integrating a range of ideas of alternative culture, through a network of publications, permaculture gardens, intentional communities, training programs, and internet forums. In this way, permaculture has become both a design system and a culture of Rewilding the human species.
Forest gardening (also known as 3-Dimensional Gardening) is a food production and land management system based on replicating woodland ecosystems, but substituting trees (such as fruit or nut trees), bushes, shrubs, herbs and vegetables which have yields directly useful to humans. By exploiting the premise of companion planting, these can be intermixed to grow on multiple levels in the same area, as do the plants in a forest.
In part based on the model of the Keralan home gardens, temperate-climate forest gardening was pioneered by the late Robert Hart on his one eighth of an acre (500 m2) plot at Wenlock Edge in Shropshire. Robert began the project over thirty years ago with the intention of providing a healthy and therapeutic environment for himself and his brother Lacon, born with severe learning disabilities.
Starting as relatively conventional smallholders, Robert soon discovered that maintaining large annual vegetable beds, rearing livestock and taking care of an orchard were tasks beyond their strength. However, a small bed of perennial vegetables and herbs they had planted was looking after itself with little intervention. This led him to evolve the concept of the "forest garden". Based on the observation that the natural forest can be divided into distinct layers or "storeys", he used inter-cropping to develop an existing small orchard of apples and pears into an edible polyculture landscape consisting of seven levels.
A locavore is someone who eats food grown or produced locally or within a certain radius such as 50, 100, or 150 miles (240 km). The locavore movement encourages consumers to buy from farmers' markets or even to produce their own food, with the argument that fresh, local products are more nutritious and taste better. Locally grown food is an environmentally friendly means of obtaining food, since supermarkets that import their food use more fossil fuels and non-renewable resources.
"Locavore" was coined by Jessica Prentice from the San Francisco Bay Area on the occasion of World Environment Day 2005 to describe and promote the practice of eating a diet consisting of food harvested from within an area most commonly bound by a 100-mile (160 km) radius. "Localvore" is sometimes also used.
The New Oxford American Dictionary chose locavore, a person who seeks out locally produced food, as its word of the year 2007. The local foods movement is gaining momentum as people discover that the best-tasting and most sustainable choices are foods that are fresh, seasonal, and grown close to home. Some locavores draw inspiration from the The 100-Mile Diet or from advocates of local eating like Barbara Kingsolver whose book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle chronicles her family's attempts to eat locally. Others just follow their taste buds to farmers' markets, community supported agriculture programs, and community gardens.
A study in the 2007 Dewey Health Review revealed that a locavore diet (study included 100 individuals ages 18-55 eating local food grown within an 80-mile (130 km) radius) resulted in a 19% increase in sturdiness of bowel movement and an overall drop in sleep apnea and night terrors.
Raw foodism (or rawism) is a lifestyle promoting the consumption of un-cooked, un-processed, and often organic foods as a large percentage of the diet. If 100% of a person's total food consumption is raw food, he/she is considered a raw foodist or living foodist. Raw foodists typically believe that the greater the percentage of raw food in the diet, the greater the health benefits. Raw foodism or a raw diet is usually equated with raw veganism in which only raw plant foods are eaten, but other raw foodists emphasize raw meat and other raw animal products.
Depending on the type of lifestyle and results desired, raw food diets may include a selection of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds (including sprouted whole grains such as gaba rice), eggs, fish (such as sashimi), meat (such as carpaccio), and non-pasteurized/non-homogenized dairy products (such as raw milk, raw milk cheese, and raw milk yogurt). Raw foodists can be divided between those that advocate raw vegetarianism or raw veganism, those that advocate a raw omnivorous diet, and those that advocate a diet of only raw animal foods (carnivorous).
Adherents of raw foodism believe that consumption of uncooked foods encourages weight loss (and stability, without the risk of re-gaining), while also preventing and/or healing many forms of sickness and chronic diseases. Some medical studies have indicated that different forms of raw food diets may lead to various health problems, while other studies have shown positive health outcomes with such diets.
In this age of pharmaceuticals, vitamins, and other supplements, the relative simplicity of healing food is often overlooked. Fermented raw foods have a long history of consumption as a staple all over the world and can still form the foundation of a healthy diet and nutrition. Fermentation is a natural and time-honoured method of food preservation that not only retains the goodness of organic whole foods, but actually enhances their healthy qualities. In addition to being used as part of a healthy meal, some fermented foods should be highly regarded as dietary supplements because they have such incredible healing properties.
Ital or I-tal is food often celebrated by those in the Rastafari movement. The word derives from the English word "vital", with the initial syllable replaced by i. This is done to many words in the Rastafari vocabulary to signify the unity of the speaker with all of nature. Rastafarians derive their beliefs and morality from intense personal meditations and prayer, and therefore there is no single dogma of Rastafarian belief. Due to this emphasis on individual personal meditation in Rastafari, the expression of Ital eating varies widely from Rasta to Rasta, and there are few universal "rules" of Ital living.
The primary goal of adhering to an Ital diet is to increase Livity, or the life energy that Rastas generally believe lives within all of us, as conferred from the Almighty. A common tenet of Rastafarian beliefs is the sharing of a central Livity among living things, and what is put into one's body should enhance Livity rather than reduce it. Though there are different interpretations of ital regarding specific foods, the general principle is that food should be natural, or pure, and from the earth; Rastas therefore often avoid food which is chemically modified or contains artificial additives (e.g., color, flavorings, and preservatives). Some also avoid added salt in foods, especially salt with the artificial addition of iodine, while pure sea or kosher salt is eaten by some. In strict interpretations, foods that have been produced using chemicals such as pesticides and fertilizer are not considered ital.
The name Rastafari is a portmanteau of "Ras" (literally "Head," an Ethiopian title equivalent to Duke and which was the pre-regnal title of Haile Selassie), and the first name of Selassie's pre-regnal given name, Tafari Makonnen. The movement is commonly referred to as "Rastafarianism", but this term is considered derogatory and offensive by some Rastas.
Spiritual use of cannabis, rejection of western society (called Babylon, which literally means "confusion"), and various Afrocentric social and political aspirations, such as the teachings of Jamaican publicist, organizer, and black separatist Marcus Garvey (also often regarded as a prophet), whose political and cultural vision helped inspire Leonard Howell to develop the foundations of this world view. Haile Selassie however, was in favor of a Westernized Ethiopia, introducing the first hospital and airport to his people. The Rastafari movement predominantly emerged in Jamaica in the 20th century, and it proclaims Africa (also "Zion") as the original place where the body of the first man was found, which established independency among blacks.
Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady. Reggae is based on a rhythmic style characterized by accents on the off-beat, known as the skank. Reggae is normally slower than ska. Reggae usually accents the second and fourth beat in each bar.
Reggae song lyrics deal with many subjects, including religion, love, sexuality, peace, relationships, poverty, injustice and other social and political issues.
Dub is a music genre, evolved from reggae, that involves revisions of existing songs. The dub sound consists predominantly of instrumental remixes of existing recordings and is achieved by significantly manipulating and reshaping the recordings, usually by removing the vocals from an existing music piece, emphasizing the drum and bass frequencies or 'riddim', adding extensive echo and reverb effects, panoramic LR delay, and dubbing occasional snippets of lyrics or instruments from the original version.
Dub music is characterized as a "version" or "double" of an existing song, often instrumental, using B-sides of 45 RPM records and typically emphasizing the drums and bass for a sound popular in local sound systems. The instrumental tracks are typically drenched in sound processing effects such as echo, reverberation, part vocal and extra percussion, with most of the lead instruments and vocals dropping in and out of the mix. Another hallmark of the dub sound is the massive low-pitched bass guitar.
The music sometimes features processed sound effects and other noises, such as birds singing, thunder and lightning, water flowing, and producers shouting instructions at the musicians. It can be further augmented by live DJs. The many-layered sounds with varying echoes and volumes are often said to create soundscapes, or sound sculptures, drawing attention to the shape and depth of the space between sounds as well as to the sounds themselves. There is usually a distinctly organic feel to the music, even though the effects are electronically created.
A record press is a machine for manufacturing vinyl records. It is essentially a hydraulic press with a closing force of 100 tons and is fitted with moulds. Labels and a vinyl pattie (pre-heated vinyl blob) are placed in the mould cavity while the moulds are being steam-heated with an ideal steam pressure of 140-170psi. Stampers (metal plates, one for each of Side A and Side B) for each title to be pressed are fitted to the moulds. The stamper contains a negative image of the grooves. The moulds close and through the process of compression moulding the vinyl fills the cavity and takes the form of the finished record, complete with grooves courtesy of the thin metal "stamper".
Water at a pressure equal to the steam pressure is then admitted to the moulds which both expels the steam and cools the moulds down. The press opens and the record is removed from the moulds. The overflow vinyl at the edges is trimmed and the records stacked and allowed to cool. Cycle time for a 7" record is about 15 seconds and for a 12" record about 25 seconds.
The last record presses ever made are probably those built and supplied by Alpha Toolex to Melodiya Records (USSR) around 1986. Record presses in use today were made in the 60s and 70s.
The sweat lodge (also called sweat house, medicine lodge, medicine house, or simply sweat) is a ceremonial sauna and an important ritual used by some North American First Nations or Native American peoples. There are several styles of sweat lodges that include a domed or oblong hut similar to a wickiup, or even a simple hole dug into the ground and covered with planks or tree trunks. Stones are typically heated in an exterior fire and then placed in a central pit in the ground.
Rituals and traditions vary from region to region and tribe to tribe. They often include prayers, drumming, and offerings to the spirit world. In some cultures a sweat lodge ceremony may be a part of another, longer ceremony such as a Sun Dance.
The most important part of sweat lodge etiquette is respecting the traditions of the lodge leader. Some lodges are done in complete silence, while others involve singing, chanting, drumming, or other sound. It is important to know what is allowed and expected before entering a lodge. Traditional tribes hold a high value of respect to the lodge. In some cultures, objects, including clothing, without a ceremonial significance are discouraged from being brought into the lodge. Most traditional tribes place a high value on modesty as a respect to the lodge.
Kundalini Yoga is a physical and meditative discipline within the tradition of Yoga, associated with the subdivision of hatha yoga. It describes a set of advanced yoga exercises. The exercises are also sometimes referred to as Kriya Yoga or simply Kriya. According to Hindu tradition Kundalini yoga is a pure spiritual science that leads to enlightenment and God-Realization. The awakening of kundalini means awakening of inner knowledge.
The term "Kundalini" is based on several words and has several meanings. The word ending with "i" indicates that it relates to the feminine principle and deals with a form of SHAKTI (energy) and PRAKRITI (nature).
KUNDALA means the ring. A ring or a circle has neither beginning nor an end. It is infinite and that is why it is a symbol of creation. Cosmic energy is circling constantly; we do not know when the Universe began and how long will it last.
The other roots of "KUNDALINI" are KUNDALIN, serpent, and KALA, time or death. The symbol of the snake has many meanings: ignorance, energy, unhappiness or happiness, death, time and change. In Indian mythology Lord Vishnu rests on a thousand-headed snake and sends out the first vibration (Sphurna), from which the entire Universe evolves.
The symbol of snake also refers to the poison and danger that lies in ignorance. Ignorance is as poisonous and deadly as a cobra. But poison can also heal and even have a life saving influence. Knowledge about its correct application and dosage is an important thing. Just as the power to heal is contained in poison, supreme knowledge lies dormant in the "ignorance" of the unconsciousness. Just as a snakebite can suddenly change our life, when the Kundalini awakens our consciousness changes fundamentally and we reach another dimension of time and space.
We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.
Kukulcan was a Maya supreme god, to whom the Maya attributed many functions. Not only was he a god of the four elements, he was also a creator god. His name means "the feathered serpent", representing the balance and integration of good (the eagle) and evil (the serpent).
The Aztec merged him with their Quetzalcoatl, related to gods of the wind, of planet Venus as the morning and evening star of the dawn, of merchants and of arts, crafts and knowledge. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge.
He originated from Toltec myth, where he was a divine hero who taught the Toltecs laws, fishing, healing, the calendar, and agriculture. He was also the symbol of death and resurrection.
His attributes, each representing one element, are a maize-ear (earth), a fish (water), lizard (fire), and vulture (air). He emerged from the ocean, and disappeared in it afterwards ...
