Life and Spirituality

https://twitter.com/Nature_You_Love/status/673723479611432960 W hile in graduate school in Canada, a close friend of mine, Brad, recommended several nice books to read including the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit (we are still friends). Ever since, I have been fascinated by Hobbits. Recently I found a lovely picture of a lovely Hobbit home on twitter that is shared with this note. If a human wished to make a similar home it is recommended they choose rectangular doors and windows rather than round ones unless you would like to hop into your home rather than walk in, and keep in mind the following points: 1. Choose a house or cottage plan that has doors and windows in front and back only and none on the sides. This blog has several such plans if one cared to search through older posts. 2. Sink in the home about three feet in the ground and have it six feet above ground to give room height of nine feet in the middle sloping down to seven feet to the sides.. Th...

https://twitter.com/BEAUTIFULPlCS/status/634229660528869376/photo/1 T he majority of humankind now lives in cities around the world but some also live in farming villages scattered around the globe. While cities offer opportunities for modern services, they lack green and open spaces and also suffer from poor air quality. On the other hand, while farming villages offer green and open surroundings, they lack modern facilities. Many farmers, when they move to cities rarely want to return. This author applied his mind to the issue and tried to visualize urban and rural designs that overcome both these drawbacks so that mankind may achieve a much better quality of life than is possible now for most. Existing farms and villages can not be changed easily but whenever new cities or farming villages are conceived it would be wise to refer to these postmodern concepts. For ease of reference they have been termed as AM village or AM cities. AM Farming Villages https://twitt...

Author's backyard greened with help of kitchen waste water   W hile we hear of water shortages in California, several arid parts of the world have had to manage with little water for centuries. Human habitations exist in semi desert areas of the world that have little green growth around them A partial solution to this problem is to direct water used for bathing and washing clothes to a patch of green near the dwelling while directing toilet water to a septic tank and growing trees around it. Fruit Trees or a grape wine grown around it would only have to be watered a little for a couple of years. thereafter their roots shall find the nutrient rich septic discharge to convert the shit back to the fruit it came from :) One difficulty with directing waste water from washings to plants is that some of the available soaps and detergents harm plants and ruin the soil, some more than others, whereas some could even benefit certain plants. But, how does a consumer know which ...

The Driveway Very many posts in this blog have stressed the usefulness of growing more trees and green plants of all kinds to improve the planet we live on. It may be mentioned that an increasing human population on the planet has caused an expansion of cities and this is one of the factors that contributes to adverse climate changes. Not only is there less oxygen and bird songs when cement and concrete filled spaces increase but such cities act as heat sinks contributing to global warming. Humans do need strong homes to live in but there are ways in which cement can be minimized. An example is my urban home. A portion ahead of the gate is paved to create a driveway in my area, but mine has left a foot unpaved on a side to grow trees and bushes as shown in photo. Then a central portion on which a car tire would not come has been pebbled. That way rain can soak in. There was a time grass grew in the pebbled portion but now because of shade it does not. Some worry about ...

My grandson Naineysh (Golu) trying his hand at gardening   T he healthiest of vegetables are leafy green vegetables. The green color of leaves and grasses is due to a basic chemical of life called chlorophyll. It is a complex organic compound of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen with an atom of magnesium at its center.   The molecular structure of chlorophyll is virtually identical to that of hemoglobin, the oxygen carrying red pigment of our blood.  No wonder foods having an abundance of chlorophyll are some of the healthiest in the vegetable kingdom. In hemoglobin the central atom is Iron and in chlorophyll it is Magnesium (see image). Hemoglobin and Chlorophyll Some doctors think that foods with an abundance of chlorophyll discourage cancers ( see here ) while strengthening human blood. Just as the waste of plants, oxygen is our life breath; the waste carbon dioxide breathed out by humans as well as the waste excretion of humans is food for...

Clean air, sunshine, clean water and appropriate food are central to health of all life. Knowledge about food is essential knowledge for any human. It is surprising that in our world there are many persons, especially the young, who know more about sports and films than the basics of what constitutes good and healthy food. The first thing to know about food is that healthy food is not expensive. Much of it is derived from grass and other vegetation that grows in abundance on our planet, in spite of a burgeoning human population that exceeds seven billion. Milk and meat is produced by grass eating animals and we as humans consume the seeds of grass as wheat, corn, rice etc. let us just briefly list the types of food a human requires: Carbohydrates : These are a primary requirement to mitigate human hunger. Wheat is a primary source for it supported by other food grains such as rice, corn etc. Wheat has excellent storage capacity and it can be consumed in a variety of ways s...

Without groves of trees cities lack beauty: Image source: https://twitter.com/BEAUTIFULPlCS/status/634229660528869376/photo/1 S everal earlier posts in this blog have mentioned it is better to live in a rural or country area surrounded by greenery rather than in crowded cities. An earlier post proposed a configuration of farm lands (termed AM farms for identification) that combined some of the advantages of urban living with rural life. However many persons are still compelled to, or prefer to, live an urban life in big towns or cities. That is just as well because the population of our planet is now around seven billion and with such a heavy population it is a necessity. A large proportion of humans must continue to live in cities. However, it is possible to live amidst greenery even in urban settings provided cities are designed for it. This post proposes the configuration of a city that brings some of the advantages of a rural life along with its greenery to towns and...

In a comment of my last post it was mentioned that rural living might be good for some individuals. Present day urban life usually involves an eight-hour workday along with commuting that may be up to one to two hours a day for the round trip. This leaves little time for an individual for himself or herself and it is not surprising then that some individuals who go through that for most of their lives get dehumanized. It is not written in any scripture that the normal workday should be a fixed eight hours, day in and day out. I have lived in towns and countries where the work hours were from eight a.m. to one p.m. six days a week and commuting time to work was just five minutes. However, that is an exception rather than the rule. In ancient times the normal working hours of an individual varied throughout the year. There were weeks of round-the-clock work followed by weeks of lean hours. In modern times this sort of thing has become confined to a few areas of life such as farmers and s...

T he last two posts described a configuration for farm lots titled as AM farms. This one provides a few more details. Essentially, AM farms were described as farm lots that are two hundred feet wide and half a mile deep on the average, yielding farm lots of a little over ten acres each. Each of the farm lots would be of unequal size if they face a curving road as shown in the adjoining figure. Curving roads are more natural for rural areas. Often such roads are laid so that they are on lowest ground to catch the run off rainwater. However, AM farms are such that they are not completely rural but rather semi urban because of their configuration and because a depth of two hundred feet is permitted for construction of homes as well as commercial establishments such as shops, restaurants, pub, primary school, produce shop, motels etc. A width of two hundred feet on the road is sufficient to set up both a residential home as well as a commercial establishment if the width is divided i...

T he developed economies of the world, reeling under debt and rising unemployment, have been facing severe economic pressures ever since the crisis began in 2008. One may wonder as to where the future of developed economies is heading. The developed economies still lead the world in high technology manufacture such as such as computer chips, aircraft etc. They will probably continue to do so for several more decades. However for the rest of manufacturing, ranging from undergarments to motorcars, it appears that high standards of living coupled with high wages in developed countries makes much of manufacturing uncompetitive in a globally trading world. It is partly for this reason that economies of the BRIC countries are growing rapidly while developed economies stagnate or struggle with insignificant growth. The largest of developed economies, the US, that is largely consumer driven hopes to grow once again if consumer demand increases. However a sustainable future for mankind...