Subject: suggested reading

From: Mattiussi Marco <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 11:35:34 +0100

Hi all,
I'm quite new to this list, and this is my first posting, hope will
interest someone....
Moreover, i'm a self teached english speaker, so apologize in advance
for any mistake i could make.

I'd like to suggest the reading that started my interest in
permaculture, organic gardening and so on; 
the book i'm speaking about is the autobiography of one of the greatest
sailorman of all times, 
Bernard Moitessier's "Tamata and the Alliance". 
I began reading it because i was interested in sailing, as a philosophy,
as a free way of living, without boundaries, though disappointed by the
aristocratic behaviour of most of the people involved... you know,
money, girls, sport cars, wasteful way of life and so on (i'm stictly
speaking of Italy, not to generalise).   
However, the french sailor was for me on the "right way" in his view of
sailing, but going across that book 
i started to realize that he was also a great gardener, an
environmentalist and a pacifist of the higher stature; 
He was born in Indochina from french parents, lived there trough the war
and the decolonization process,
then sailed away in the oceans, alternating periods of living in the
small atolls of the pacific sea, where he managed to gardening
organically in harsh conditions, to improve the fertility and yields of
local coconuts plantations, to periods away from everything, alone in a
boat around the world, always in search of the "ALLIANCE", his name for
that mystical fusion of the man with the infinite... but let me stop
tell the story,
just say that he speaks about urban agriculture, forest gardening,
organic gardening, human manure, the difficulties of teaching new ways
of thinking (read about Tamata and the band of the cats!!)...

So, following that, i started reading Bill Mollison 's books, coming
across a lot of new ideas, and, with the help of the net, to realize how
vast is the movement outside my country, where, i'm afraid to say so,
little or nothing is know... yet the potentials i feel are very high.
I'm now starting to go "down to the earth" to cultivate a tiny piece in
my mother's backyard, hoping eventually to start something more
conspicous for the sake of the earth and the nature we're living in,
though neglected as it is today.

Any comment, advise or encouraging word welcome		

Marco Mattiussi (Piedmont, ITALY)

---

From: FionaNyx <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 1998 00:17:50 EST

Hi, great to hear from you.  I'll check it out.  Have you read the accounts of
Thor Heyerdahl?   He wondered whether man could have sailed from the old world
to the new before Christopher Columbus & so did it himself, TWICE:  Once on a
boat of reeds named Ra after the Egyptian practice, and later on a Balsa Raft
named Kon-Tiki for the southern pacific gods. 

Great to hear from you  from Italy!  My mom has an Italian stonemason
boyfriend (She's divorced.)

Happy Spring!  ~~Sherry/  [email-masked]

---

From: "April Sampson-Kelly" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 17:06:11 +1000

I saw the actual Kon-tiki preserved in a glasshouse made for it in an Irish
Medieval Village, complete with some rare sheep and boar and ancient
wooden road.
April

---

From: "April Sampson-Kelly" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 17:52:09 +1000

you are lucky to be in Italy and to be free to draw upon the experiences of
many of the  world's people.
Learn as much as you can now from the old people in your mothers village,
search and capture
the ways that are quickly being forsaken and lost.
their is treasure in your countryside and it is hidden in the knowledge of
the elders.
it would be great to hear what you find out, maybe here in the mailing list
or
on a homepage.
April

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
April Sampson-Kelly ADPA,BCA,MCA,GradSci,PDC
LC Permaculture Visions
leaders in permaculture learning by correspondence
[email-masked]
[email-masked]
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~askpv
GOOD PLANETS ARE HARD TO FIND
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----