January

“If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.” Robin Wall Kimerer (2020). Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. 

One month into winter (January 27), this black locust tree shows Spring time. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC), taken January 27, 2024. 

Solstice

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC), taken November 7, 2023.

cooperation

“In fighting against resistance, we will become more focused on getting rid of the problem than on understanding what it is; by contrast, when working with resistance we want to suspend frustration at being blocked, and instead engage with the problem in its own right”. Richard Sennett (2013). Together. The Rituals, Pleasures & Politics of Cooperation. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

unselfing

"Observing something beautiful" is "an occasion for unselfing" and it "may well hold the key to our collective survival. Because it means that our role here on earth is not simply to maximize the advantage in our lives (...). It's to maximize (protect, regenerate) all life. We are here not just to make sure we as individuals survive, but to make sure that life survives. (...) We must attempt, with great urgency, to imagine a world that does not require Shadow Lands, that is not predicated on sacrificial people and sacrificial ecologies and sacrificial continents. More than imagine it, we must begin, at once, to build it." Naomi Klein (2023). Doppelganger. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

Human rights

«(...) words and ideas underwent a radical currency devaluation, a crash connected, in ways we have barely begun to understand, to the torrent of words in which we are swimming (...). I appreciated Greta's "Blah, blah, blah" speeches because they precisely captured the pervasive feeling of speechlessness, far better than my own impotent and sullen silences in this period.» Naomi Klein (2023). Doppelganger. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

November

"(...) metamorphosis occurs when two or more unlike elements are joined (...). Here the craftsman has consciously to decide if the combination will best work like a compound, in which the whole becomes different than its parts, or like a mixture, in which the elements continue an independent coexistence." Richard Sennett (2009). The Craftsman. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

Less machines

While reading about the «Workshop in Rotterdam: How to Build a Bike Generator», discovered the larger solution scenarios for human powered societies, that tackle much more then climate crises and fossil consumption. They present integrated solutions to increase biodiversity, reduce city concentration, production near place of consumption, better health, sustainable farming, better soils and food, more wellbeing. All of that with less machines and more human power, as envisioned in the Human Power Plant. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

October

"If we had 30 days to save the world, would we act before the 29th?" Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

September

"For the eye has this strange property: it rests only on beauty; like a butterfly it seeks colour and basks in warmth." Virginia Wolf (1930) in The Essays of Virginia Wolf: volume IX. Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC)

Setembro

"Feeling the touch, discovering the colour, memorizing the smell. Weaving quietly different textures and tensions. Creating peace to guide action. Liberating the mind to shape possibilities." June 2021, What can we do with what we already have?...

Photos by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC)

September

"The demand for urban nature-based solutions can be expected to rise exponentially, as greening cities is the best measure to address the accelerating urban heat island effect". European Investment Bank, Hudson, G., Hart, S., Verbeek, A. (2023). Investing in nature-based solutions – State-of-play and way forward for public and private financial measures in Europe.

Photo: Temperate part of, probably, the smallest garden in the city. Taken in august 2023 by Monica Pinheiro. Free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

September

"Space is transformed into place as it acquires definition and meaning." Yi-Fu Tuan (2005). Space and Place. The perspective of experience. Photo taken in July by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

September

"Build a life that you don't need to escape from." "If true peace and clarity are what you seek in this life (...) know that you will find them nearby and not faraway". Ryan Holiday (2019). Stillness is Key.

 

Photo: Probably the smallest garden in the city: tropical part. Taken in august 2023 by Monica Pinheiro. Free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

July

How strange that people who try to protect the Planet are called «activists» or «rebels», instead of «protectors» or «carers». Even stranger is that people who deliberately destroy the Planet are called «businessman» instead of «mass murders» or «planetary destroyers». 

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

July

Made by Mother Earth and Father Time, and Love. Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

July

"Particular attention should be paid to the material used, for good craftsmanship is built on natural foundations, and nature assures the material's quality. (...) When a certain locality is rich in a certain raw material, that material gives rise to a certain craftware. It is this resources, the gift of nature, that are the veritable mother of craftwork." Soetsu Yanagi (2018). The Beauty of Everyday Things.  

Photos by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

July

"When you can see yourself from outside, you contemplate existence with more humility and perceptiveness than when (...) you imagined yourself as the best self, your city as the best city, and what you called life as the only conceivable life." Rafael Argullol cited by Irene Vallejo (2022). Papyrus: the invention of books in the ancient world. Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

July

"It's a strange sort of pain. (...) To die of yearning for something you'll never experience." by Alessandro Baricco (1997). Silk. Painting: gouache and watercolour. June, 2023.

nearness, seasonality and sustainability

The plants used in my tapestries come from my little garden, are gathered during my walks, or collected during visits to friends and family homes. Some are used right after collection in order to maintain enough elasticity to be worked out. Others are used dried because they offer great flexibility or because they gain other affordances with time. 

Seasonality plays a special role in my tapestries. Not only because plants availability vary according to each month, but also because I like to use daylight when I make them. Each tapestry has the plants of the season and corresponding availability, embedded. If you observe attentively you can guess the seasons they crossed until closure. 

I like to think in sustainability like a verb. The process of discovering ways of make things with what is available. Weaving them into being otherness. Like plants that are considered «invasive». I find it a lack of imagination. A strange classification for bio materials that can thrive in desolate places. Surviving by themselves, without any kind of input or demand on our part, and with their qualities can be transformed in so many beautiful or useful things. 

Weaving the tapestries is a way of giving body (and soul) to my living framework of doing what I know, the best I can, with what I have, wherever I am.

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

navetes

Navete ou lançadeira. Portuguese words used for shuttle. "A shuttle is a tool designed to neatly and compactly store a holder that carries the thread of the weft yarn while weaving with a loom. Shuttles are thrown or passed back and forth through the shed, between the yarn threads of the warp in order to weave in the weft. The simplest shuttles, known as "stick shuttles", are made from a flat, narrow piece of wood with notches on the ends to hold the weft yarn" ( Wikipedia ). 

In my tapestries I use repurposed ice cream sticks for the wool or cotton parts. For the plant parts it´s hands work, our best tool. Also in the photo, you can see two handmade wood needles, seldom used, but useful when needed more precision work.

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

June

June 18, 2023. Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

June

June 10, 2023. Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

June

June 20, 2023. Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

June

"Women have been the weavers of tales and tapestries. For centuries, they have unspooled their stories as they spun or threw the shuttle on their loom. They were the first to capture de universe as warp and weft. They knotted together their joys, hopes, sorrows, fears, and most private beliefs. (...) They interlaced verbs, yarn, adjectives, and silk. This is why text and textile share so many words (...)." Irene Vallejo (2022). Papyrus: the invention of books in the ancient world. 

Photo of tapestry (78 x 96 cm) by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

June

Estimates suggest that a garden of 1,000 square meters could sequester one ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year [see entry from November, 2019]. Miyawaki forests, or tiny forests, are even more efficient sequestering CO2 due to their greater biodiversity and vegetation density. I wonder how much CO2 am I sequestering in my little páteo high density forest (around 25 square meters)?

Even small, little apartment forests help to clean the air, reduce water runoff, lower heat, feed bees, attract birds (and free manure!), reduce the garbage produced (by composting and mulching), lowers stress, brightens the day and fills the space with ever-changing beauty. 

Unlike «things», Nature does not repeat itself. One never knows what flower will open next, what new plant will show up, or what culprit will eat the fruits that we longed for :)

May 2023 photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

May

Some people say “let’s invent a machine to sequester carbon” but “we already have a fantastic productive system to sequester lots of carbon. And beyond that, it produces food, timber, creates biodiversity, gives dignity to peasant labour” and promotes life in Syntropy (excerpt from short film made specially to be presented at COP21, Paris). 

So, what is this invention? 

It’s a Terrestrial invention, refined and matured along billions of years, that intelligent people are replicating, known among humans as «Agroforestry». 

Want to spend billions in carbon capture? 

Spend in agroforestry. And while capturing carbon, you will also be feeding the world, saving biodiversity, recovering our soils, creating local jobs, lowering the temperature, bringing moisture to soils, reducing inputs, among many other great things. On top of all the benefits, you do not need to use any rare materials for building expensive technology, only what’s available in each place, making it a resilient and strategical solution for any country.

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

May

"The basic unit for minds is the image, the image of a thing or of what a thing does, or what the thing causes you to feel; or the image of what you think of the thing; or the image of the words that translate any and all of the above." António Damásio (2019). The Strange Order of Things. Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

 

May

"A warning is not a prophecy; the former assumes that we have choices and cautions us about the consequences; the latter operates on the basis of a fixed future (...)" Rebecca Solnit (2022). Orwell's Roses. Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

May

"While options range from incremental changes to fundamental reform, science provides a clear warning about continuing on our current path." in Beyond growth: pathways towards sustainable prosperity in the EU, document for the European 'Beyond Growth' conference taking place next week (15 to 17 May, 2023), prepared by the Parliament, Directorate-General for Parliamentary Research Services, presenting "the economic and socio-ecological challenges facing today's society and offers a reflection on possible transition pathways and associated tools to move beyond growth in EU policies. The focus is the European Union and its Member States, with the global context integrated where relevant for understanding the status quo and discussing options." See also the brief «'beyond growth': concepts and challenges» (May 2023).

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

April

"(...) black locust produces a fruity and fragrant honey, and its blossoms are used for cooking." More about this tree in Sitzia, T., Cierjacks, A., de Rigo, D., Caudullo, G., 2016. Robinia pseudoacacia in Europe: distribution, habitat, usage and threats. In: San-Miguel-Ayanz, J., de Rigo, D., Caudullo, G., Houston Durrant, T., Mauri, A. (Eds.), European Atlas of Forest Tree Species. 

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

April

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

March

"Depth

We must be still 

Heart breaks 

Soul Fire 

Flood lines 

Earthquakes 

Depth over distance 

Deep roots 

And charred ashes 

Hardship carves stones 

Bring out the passes 

Scars make us beautiful, 

flawless, individual" 

Depth by Rising Appalachia (2021). 

Photo by Monica Pinheiro, free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

March

"The word integrity means moral consistency and commitment, but it also means something whole and unbroken, uninjured, and it's a quality found in many beautiful things." Rebecca Solnit (2022). Orwell's Roses. Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

March

"A garden is what you want (and can manage and afford), and what you want is who you are, and who you are is always a political and cultural question. It's true even of vegetables gardens (...) though more so with pleasure gardens." Rebecca Solnit (2022). Orwell's Roses. Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

February

"The order that matters most is not spacial but temporal. Sometimes pictures convey this, but the habit of seeing in pictures encourages us to loose sight of the dance." Rebecca Solnit (2022). Orwell's Roses. Lisbon Metro. Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).

January

[MP] What is your view about the myth of eternal growth?

[ChatGPT] As a machine learning model, I don't have personal views or opinions. However, I can provide you with information about the concept of eternal growth.

The idea of eternal economic growth is based on the belief that economic growth is necessary for the well-being of society and that it can continue indefinitely. However, this concept is based on the assumption that there are unlimited resources available for consumption and that the negative environmental and social impacts of growth can be managed or ignored.

However, as the global population and consumption continue to rise, it is becoming increasingly clear that the Earth's natural resources are finite, and that the negative impacts of growth, such as climate change, pollution, and loss of biodiversity, are reaching critical levels.

Many experts argue that the idea of eternal growth is not sustainable, and that the world needs to shift towards a more sustainable, equitable, and regenerative economic system that prioritizes well-being over growth. This system could be called a "post-growth" or "degrowth" economy.

It is important to note that the idea of degrowth economy is still debated and it is not a widely accepted concept. Some experts argue that it may not be practical or even possible to achieve, while others argue that it is necessary for the survival of the human race and the planet.

[MP] What would a future "post-growth" world look like?

[ChatGPT] A post-growth or degrowth economy is an economic system that prioritizes well-being and sustainability over economic growth. In a post-growth world, the focus would shift from increasing production and consumption to meeting the basic needs of all people, preserving natural resources, and reducing environmental and social impacts.

Some of the key features of a post-growth world would include:

• A shift towards a more equitable and localized economy, where decision-making is decentralized and community-based.
• An emphasis on meeting basic needs, such as food, housing, healthcare, and education, rather than maximizing GDP.
• A reduction in the scale and pace of production and consumption, to minimize the depletion of natural resources and reduce the ecological footprint.
• A focus on regenerative and sustainable practices in agriculture, energy production, transportation, and other sectors.
• A decrease in the use of fossil fuels and an increase in the use of renewable energy sources.
• A reduction in the use of cars and an increase in the use of public transportation, cycling, and walking.
• A decrease in the use of pesticides and other chemicals in agriculture and an increase in the use of organic farming methods.

It is important to note that the concept of a post-growth economy is still debated, and there are varying interpretations of what such a system would look like in practice. Some experts argue that it may not be possible to achieve and others argue that it is necessary for the survival of the human race and the planet.

[MP] Are there any experts on post-growth that I can contact to know more about this idea?

[ChatGPT] There are several experts in the field of post-growth and degrowth that you can contact to learn more about this idea. Here are a few notable names:

• Kate Raworth, economist and author of "Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist."
• Jason Hickel, anthropologist and author of "The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and Its Solutions."
• Tim Jackson, economist and director of the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Surrey, and author of "Prosperity Without Growth."
• Peter Victor, economist and author of "Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster."
• Giorgos Kallis, ecologist and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and author of "The Degrowth Alternative: for Environmental Sustainability and Social Equity."

You can also find more experts in the field by searching for degrowth or post-growth in academic databases or by visiting the websites of institutions that specialize in environmental and economic sustainability such as The New Economics Foundation, The Post Growth Institute and The Degrowth Network.

It's important to note that while the idea of degrowth economy is still debated, and it's not a widely accepted concept yet. Some experts argue that it may not be practical or even possible to achieve, while others argue that it is necessary for the survival of the human race and the planet.

Photo by Monica Pinheiro free to use if you respect the license CC BY-NC-SA ( CC ).