INTRODUCING REGENOSCOT

I've started a Facebook page, RegenoScot, to help people and projects for sustainable living to connect up, help each other, learn, and share information, ideas and experience, a bit like the brilliant Off Grid Friends page. I've had lots of great help from there and it's good just to know that you're not the only crazy fool out there going against the established flow.
FLAG FREE
I wanted the RegenoScot header to reflect my own hopes for Scotland and all my family and friends up there. Dylan Thomas was once asked what he thought of Welsh Nationalism and he replied, "I've got three words to say about Welsh Nationalism and two of them are Welsh Nationalism", which is a bit how I feel about Scottish Nationalism...  I hope we vote Yes to independence and I hope it's a new beginning for Scotland but I'd love it if people everywhere around the world looked for what they have in common rather than what makes them different. So there's no flag on the RegenoScot header. We do have a lion but it's a lion with a lion cub to symbolise strength with gentleness, learning and caring.

A wonderful photo, "The Lion King" by Neil Agate: http://500px.com/photo/3972512/the-lion-king-by-neil-agate

NEW THINKING, NATURAL ECONOMY
I don't feel encouraged when the independence discussion revolves around oil production. It's reliance on fossil fuels that's brought the world to the brink of mass extinction. Let's make this an opportunity to build a new kind of economy based on the regeneration of real natural wealth rather than chasing illusory financial wealth at the expense of the environment. So there's a photo on the Regenoscot header of the reciprocating roof at the Cwm Harry community garden project, symbolising local initiative, cooperation, local food production, and the regeneration of natural resources.

The future's woody...

SCOTLAND THE BRAVE AND INVENTIVE
Let's keep our feet firmly on the ground and let's keep our heads firmly in the clouds, looking for local solutions to world problems, allowing a fresh flow of inspiration, new ideas, intuition as we look for local solutions to world problems.

Life support - natural wealth is the fundamental wealth

The idea, much promoted by politicians, corporations and run-of-the-mill economists, that they are creating wealth is bollocks. They talk of wealth as a financial thing but there is nothing of any financial value that does not come primarily from natural wealth. The pursuit of financial wealth in the "developed" world is leading to a devestated Earth. Our most important work is to regenerate natural wealth wherever we are. We live our human lives within a network of other life and our health depends on the diversity, abundance and health of that network.
Ruth and I are lucky in finding ourselves in a situation where we have been able to start this change in attitude and way of life living here on the farm. I know it doesn't seem so easy to go against the established flow when you are locked into the system to find money to pay the everyday bills. All the same, if we don't change our attitude to wealth individually and collectively it will only get harder and harder to avoid the destruction of the Earth's ability to support much life of any kind. Does your daily work regenerate or use up natural wealth? Is there any way you can regenerate a bit of waste land, grow some food, sow some flowers for the bees, do some random act of kindness for a stranger? There's loads you find you can do when you get started.

Ecology and healing, life support systems

Regenerating Natural Wealth

First steps: revoluion in a little crate - local food, no pesticide, save money, use some of your waste to make compost... win, win, win

Listening to politicians and corporations you could think that wealth only means financial wealth. This is bollocks. There is no financial wealth that doesn’t depend on natural wealth to generate it.
Tragically, in pursuing financial wealth alone we've considered natural wealth, people and the environment as expendable, and look where that’s getting us.

This is an everyone problem, we’re all responsible for our materialist/consumerist/corpocratic system and attitudes. If it’s not what we want we can change things by our individual actions, stop buying stuff wrapped in plastic flown in from the other side of the world, start growing some food and regenerating abundant local systems that give us our basic needs for a start.