Hello, dear friends. I find the teachings of Stoicism a great help in strengthening my ptsd-scrambled brain.
It has been universally beneficial to regular folks for 2,500 years now.
You may find it a useful, practical guide to strengthen your mind in these turbulent times.
Previously, I had written a 3-part essay series on the Stoic teachings of the Roman Epictetus that makes for a brief grounding in Stoic practical basics. You will find it in the Resilience Group Essay Queue:
http://caucus99percent.com/content/stoicism-trauma-survivors-part-13

This is Part Two of a four-part series on the thoughts to himself of the Roman Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome. I present an introduction on what Aurelius means to me and then his thoughts without comment: for they speak clearly for themselves directly to the reader.
If you've read Part One, skip straight to the quotes, eh :=) Thank you the wonderful discussion in part one.
Here is Part One: http://caucus99percent.com/content/resilience-how-stoic-marcus-aurelius-...
More below.

Hello, dear friends, from the old loafer. I find the teachings of Stoicism a great help in strengthening my ptsd-scrambled brain. It has been universally beneficial to regular folks for 2,500 years now.
You may find it a useful, practical guide to strengthen your mind in these turbulent times.
Previously, I had written a 3-part essay series on the Stoic teachings of the Roman Epictetus that makes for a brief grounding in Stoic practical basics. You will find it in the Resilience Group Essay Queue:
http://caucus99percent.com/content/stoicism-trauma-survivors-part-13

This is the first of a four-part series on the thoughts to himself of the Roman Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome. I present an introduction on what Aurelius means to me and then his thoughts without comment: for they speak clearly for themselves directly to the reader. More below.

Hi there, we've had a marvelous long weekend, the unofficial start of summer in SE Ontario. When we lived in northern Ontario, it was the 1st of July long weekend :=) With summer here and a long list of outdoor projects, I'm announcing the Resilience Group summer loafers schedule. I usually create 5-6 resilience posts per week. During Summer Loafers it will be 2-3 (brief) posts per week.
On that theme then, here is another bit of Wendell Berry's practical wisdom: his 9 rules for consumption. I had posted his 9 rules for replacing an older technology and have appended it to this post. More below.

Hi folks, from a glorious Victoria Day long weekend in SE Ontario. This is our traditional National Gardening weekend. Our family is all out in the garden this weekend. The old man just came in for a snack and to rest my back. My word, people are out in force with gas-powered polluting tools. You can't hear yourself think!
We quit using gas-powered outside tools (mostly, except for a big chipper - the little one is electric, and a big chainsaw - the little one runs on an 18-volt bttery) run our powered garden tools on batteries (hopefully learn enough solar to create a DC battery-powering station).
Anyway, I had wanted to write up something from Wendell Berry on replacing older technology with a new one. Sadly, there's no time today, but I can at least post his list of requirements. More below.

The process of converting a house to renewable energy begins with:
1. Upgrading its passive solar features, then,
2. Tightening the envelope through adding insulation, upgrading windows, and so forth.
3. The next stage is adding solar hot water heating. Heating water accounts for a quarter to a third of energy usage in a home and using solar water heating can substantially cut the energy bill.
4. Then PV.
5. And then whatever is still needed.
Let's look at three options for adding solar water heating to our homes.

Folks sniff at DC. Well, yes, that DC too :=) I mean the other DC; the low-tech power of direct current.
Fair enough. Here's the story of the War of Currents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents
I'm a big fan of Low-tech Magazine (free online), produced out of Barcelona, Spain.

http://www.lowtechmagazine.com
This post is to promote Low-tech Magazine and to marvel at its editor's low-tech, DC-powered apartment office. More below.

How we organize ourselves is critically important.
If we organize ourselves around cooperative principles, we will mostly act cooperatively.
However, if we organize ourselves around competitive principles, competition will ensue.
Now, at a societal level, western society as a whole is organized based on competition, and particularly, war as the ultimate competition.
Our task is to reorganize our local communities along cooperative principles so as to become more resilient in a world gone mad facing unstoppable climate change. However, we must be clear in our minds about this: we cannot recreate more resilient local communities using the same competitive principles that created the mess we're in:

The corporation has no place in the human future: it is a sociopathic invention by pathologically greedy people to rob society blind.

Co-ops are the primary vehicle for weaning a local community off of corporations. The only legal forms of conducting in towns should be single-owner, partnership, and co-op. More below.

We have the usual hi-tech weather guides. We have an electronic temperature sensor and I check the Wunderground (https://www.wunderground.com) 10-day forecast every day.
As always with hi-tech, it makes us dependent on them. We grow up "not needing" to know how to read the weather signs for ourselves. The neighbourhood squirrels are smarter than me about, well, a lot of things, weather being one of them :=)
I wanted to learn about weather myself and low-tech is the way to knowledge. More below

Climate change is drying out the planet's already dry areas. And agricorps have worked diligently to worsen the soil and destroy ecosystems for more profits. The climate news can be most depressing. April was another record-breaking month, the 7th in a row. Yikes. If you live in a drying area, you might be interested in permaculture's practical lessons for greening the desert. More below.

Bisbo's recent desert treatment spurred me to finally rouse myself from my typical lethargy.

Here's the Chateau's answer to extra water for the garden.