Beamspun 5: 17th May 2020
Intro
Local sunrise / publish time: 0407 UTC (-10m)
Drawn out time. Long time. It's a thing. Our days are stretching out ahead of us, devoid of the novelty value we've become used to in our techno-middle-class lives. Repetitive days, sun up / make tea / sun down / dream / sun up / tea down / dream up / down down / etc.
This is how the great trees live, how the bees spend their days. No Netflix for cacti. No world concerts that the ants can tune into.
Enjoy the passage of time.
Links
- #arts: Oh my, what is this Botanical Mind online gallery thing with its sections on things like Indigenous Cosmologies and some intriguing podcasts? In another world, I would have taken the name "Happy roots" for this newsletter from Adam Chodzko's piece:
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#videos: Hey, can we replace the term "ecosystem" with "living, green infrastructure"? From Nebraska Forest Service's Community Forest video. Like, living infrastructure for physical and mental health - whoaaaaaaa. Crazy, right?
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#narratives: This is a most excellent critical look over 'solarpunk' as a genre, and covers a lot of the stuff in my head. Like many things, I love the fact that 'solarpunk' exists, but don't trust utopian visions to actually deliver. It's too easy to go from a hashtag to a TM, or for vision to turn into aesthetic (RIP, steampunk, sniff). Stay practical, punks.
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#solarpower: Like this article on unlikely solar farms for instance. Get out there and make energy in unlikely places. Figure out your specifics: "45 degrees is the preferred angle for optimum energy production at the Willow farm, which is also a steep enough slope to help snow slide off the panels." Know your economics.
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#narratives: But then again, perhaps the world we make is decided by the stories we read, even more than the news we see...
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#urban: Here's a cool thought - will communities take back control over abandoned urban spaces if our dire economic forecasts mean businesses shut down?
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#retro: I'll leave you with this image, via Devine:
Solnotes
OK, I've been fair distracted this week so this one's a little rushed - my seedlings have got to that point in my year where I probably need to do something with them, and then forget, so my fingernails are covered in either compost or tears. Both of these are bad for keyboards.
The newsletter format is starting to get easier though, which hopefully means I'll have some time this week to go through some of the stories I'm seeing out there. To the solar-kindle, fast!
OK, time to hit 'Schedule'. Get out there and make things happen.
Get in touch
For any feedback, suggestions, broken links, comments, or general 'hi there' type stuff, leave a comment, or you can find me hanging out in any of these places:
- Mastodon: @scribe@mastodon.sdf.org
- Gnu/social: @6gain@loadaverage.org
- Twitter: @6loss
- XMPP: 6gain@xmpp.zone
- Email: beamspun (at) exmosis.net - until the spambots find me
I'm also documenting my own 'everyday solarpunk adventures' over at the 6suns blog.
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