CATALYST Magazine June 2020

JUNE 2020 VOLUME 39 NUMBER 6

CATALYST R E S O U R C E S F O R C R E AT I V E L I V I N G

The Little Pond at Big Pink’s Tea House by Greta deJong

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The Little Pond at Big Pink’s Tea House

W

hen I was a kid, my favorite place to hang out was the slough (nowadays we’d call it a wetland), a quick bike ride west of where I lived. I’d sit on my haunches, transfixed by the tadpoles wiggling through the greenery and crystal clear water.

Four decades later, John deJong built a little tea house in our back yard. Next to it he dug a large hole, added a pond liner, carpet, rocks, a pump and water.

This shady, burbling area is home to many (but never enough) plants, goldfish, kombusia mosquito fish and, as of last month, a red-eared turtle who graduated from neighbor boy Sam’s terrarium. The

pond is visited by robins, raccoons, small birds that cling to the iris and cattails, and once (that I saw) a Cooper’s hawk!

Like the Velveteen Rabbit that became real when well-loved, this pond has become a true and natural pond to me (even though I clean the pump filter every morning). It teems with life and beauty, changing with the light and the seasons. The overhanging tea house is a great place for reading, meditating and, of late, Zoom meetings. It is a place of respite and renewal.

It’s remarkable, what can be done with a hole in the ground!

— Greta Belanger deJong

How to get the most from this online issue of CATALYST

S

ince the print version of CATALYST is no more (at least for the duration of the pandemic), you’re probably reading this right now through the ISSUU platform, quite possibly from the reader embedded in our home page!

Thank you, by the way: By reading the magazine in this flip-through format, you’re seeing the ads from the local advertisers that help keep us in business.

The ISSUU reading platform has some cool features that you may not know about. For example, the website links in the stories and ads here are clickable—they should open a new tab or window for you, so click away without worrying about losing your place!

Also, the entire magazine is keyword searchable. Take a look at the lower right-hand side of the reading window, and you’ll see a small magni-

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Click the ‘Copy’ button to get the link to paste elsewhere. Or you can click one of the icons to share to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or your email.

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Click on the issue you want to download, and then click the ‘Download’ button from the black bar along the bottom of the reading window.

—Pax Rasmussen, Executive Director, Common Good Press/CATALYST

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CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

June 2020

Entertaining new thoughts

A black writer addresses how to respond to “Riots never solve anything!”

BY GRETA BELANGER DEJONG

I

know I’m not the only person who has paused to rethink my assumptions recently. I’m speaking, of course, about systemic racism.

Take, for instance, looting.

I just read an essay by Rafi D’Angelo that appeared on his “So Let’s Talk About...” website (https://soletstalkabout.com)on May 28, called How to respond to “Riots never solve anything!” I was curious, because I’m one who always says that.

He begins with the obvious, something I hadn’t thought about since grade school history class: “This country was founded on rioting (and looting). The colonists didn’t politely ask to be independent—they started a war.” Oh yeah. The Boston Tea Party. I do recall being aghast, thinking that was a terrible waste of what was probably very nice tea.

Before that was the Boston Massacre: Colonists threw snowballs at British soldiers, who responded by shooting five colonists dead and inciting further rage.

That was in 1770.

D’Angelo says reasons for riots are complicated, but invites the reader to look at pictures of the Minneapolis

protest, which he says turned violent when police fired rubber bullets and cans of tear gas into previously peaceful protesters.

“Everybody reacts to stress differently...[But] how do you feel about your country when people who look like you...are dying in larger numbers from [Covid-19], have the police called on them over a dog leash, are told they’re trespassing on property they pay rent for, are brutalized by armies of cops, and are killed in broad daylight for the crime of jogging?” Are we more concerned about the loss of property or about dead black people?

To those (mostly whites) who point out that there are better ways than looting, he gives high-fives (with a sardonic edge) and offers a good list for ways to help the cause. Up for some selftransformation?

“Keep working on those better ways.

Don’t let the riots stop you. Fight for criminal justice reform, fight for income equality, fight for universal healthcare, fight for free education, fight for higher taxes on the 1%—fight for all those things that would make rioting less likely. And while you’re fighting the

long, slow war toward Black people having a fair shot in this country, the same war we’ve been fighting for hundreds of years, there will be times when some people directly affected by the war see your actions as futile and they just wanna break some stuff. Clutch your pearls less and speed up the war if you’re so offended by property damage.”

It’s hard to grok white privilege when it’s all one knows. There is much to comprehend, for both the head and the heart.

Books about black history and racism are flying off bookstore shelves. First on my own list are Ibram Kendi’s How to Be an Anti-Racist and Me and White Supremacy: A 28-Day Challenge to Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor, by Layla Saad, an expansion of her free online workbook.

This is an historical moment, with a focus and energy that feel new. An opportunity. If we will sustain it, a world of learning, and maybe even enlightenment, awaits.

Greta Belanger deJong is the founder and editor of CATALYST Magazine. Gretchen@catalystmagazine.net/

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BY AMY BRUNVAND

June 2020

ENVIRONEWS

A congressman once told me that Utah’s vast barren desert was an unappreciated economic asset. Everything we make, he said enthusiastically, involves some kind of toxic byproduct that has to be disposed. — Chip Ward

Audit: Community Impact funds misspent

A

legislative audit of Utah’s Permanent Community Impact Funds released in May found that money is being misspent for industry subsidies and economic development instead of for the intended purpose to mitigate social disruption caused by boom-andbust extractive industry.

The funds are collected as royalties on oil, gas and mineral extraction of federal public lands. Since local communities can’t collect property taxes on federal land, this money is supposed to help fund things like parks and recreation, public safety, sewage treatment, street lights and so on. The law does not allow using the money to help private businesses or to make lowinterest loans to the private sector.

The auditors found that the Utah

Community Impact Fund Board (CIB) has been handing out massive subsidies to fossil fuel industries. In 2019, CIB gave $27.9 million to the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition to plan for a Uintah Basin Rail Line intended to export Utah coal to Asia.

The auditors found that the Utah Community Impact Fund Board has been handing out massive subsidies to fossil fuel industries.

CIB also gave a total of $59.5 million to upgrade and pave the Seep Ridge Road in the Uinta Basin order to access oil and gas fields.

Lisbon Valley Copper Mine bankrupt The Lisbon Valley Copper Mine that operates on federal and state lands in San Juan County went bankrupt in March, just a few months after announcing plans to extend the life of the mine by pumping sulfuric acid into the ground to dissolve copper ores.

The mine previously went bankrupt in 2008 when mine owners overestimated potential production and set prices too low. The defunct mine was acquired by the current company in 2009. In March, mine employ-

Likewise, $9 million was given for the Leland Bench Road, also to benefit the oil and gas industry.

Environmental groups have opposed these projects because government subsidies for fossil fuels prevent an energy transition to cleaner fuels.

On principle, community impact funds paid by industry should actually be used to help communities, not plowed back into industry. The fossil fuel handouts have an appearance of corruption, but the auditors blame it on lack of appropriate guidelines and note that “no CIB policy exists to assure projects adequately alleviate mineral extraction impacts.”

Performance Audit of the Permanent Community Impact Funds: www.olag.utah.gov/olag-doc/202003.pdf

ees were furloughed with no paycheck until the company can sell its assets to cover payroll. This time the bust was caused by the economic downturn related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The closed mine left behind 380 million gallons of sulfuric acid. An emergency order for reclamation from the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining noted, “The failure of the pumps at the leech pads and ponds would result in a release of sulfuric acid into the environment after only 37 hours.”

Green Energy for Inland Port?

I

n May, the Utah Inland Port Authority (UIPA) and Rocky Mountain Power signed a Joint Clean Energy Cooperation Statement for the industrialized area under development near the Salt Lake International Airport and Great Salt Lake.

Some renewables have become cheaper than coal, but Rocky Mountain Power didn’t prepare for an energy transition. They don’t have infrastructure to supply renewable power because they never built it As a first step, Rocky Mountain Power is preparing a 10-year power use forecast for the port area together with a forecast for renewable storage and generation forecast.

UPIA Executive Director Jack Hedge says the green power plan is meant to build trust and demonstrate a commitment to sustainability. However, it’s just as likely that the announcement is meant to greenwash a project that has had no environmental planning.

A Rocky Mountain Power news release about the deal quotes Hedge saying, “The market is driving to more sustainable practices and we

must be at the forefront of that movement.” His reference to “market forces” is a red flag. As long as coalfired power was cheap, Rocky Mountain Power failed to develop renewable infrastructure.

In 2015, HEAL Utah published a report titled Brown Sky: The Truth About How Rocky Mountain Power Spurns Renewable Energy that details how their “Blue Sky” program was based on buying renewable energy credits, not developing renewable

energy infrastructure. Since then, some renewables have become cheaper than coal, but Rocky Mountain Power didn’t prepare for an energy transition. They don’t have infrastructure to supply renewable power because they never built it.

In any case, the clean energy agreement only addresses power supplied by the utility company. It doesn’t address pollution from increased truck traffic to and from the Inland Port.

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continued:

June 2020

ENVIRONEWS Great Salt Lake garbage dump on the rocks

Revised Documents for Little Cottonwood Planning In May Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) released updates on the Little Cottonwood Canyon Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the road from the intersection of State Route 190/Fort Union Boulevard to the town of Alta. The study addresses traffic, parking, transit use and avalanche control.

Along with proposals like tolls, more transit or reversible lanes, the revised planning document also says that the Draft EIS will consider a number of more exotic options to reduce canyon traffic congestion such as gondolas, light rail, sky train, and monorail. Planning documents

offer a useful list of all proposals received during scoping, including ideas that are outside of the scope of UDOT planning.

Ski areas are already trying some ideas to mitigate congestion. During the 2018 ski season, Solitude Mountain Resort implemented parking fees; Brighton Resort gave parking preference to vehicles with three or more occupants. UTA offered more frequent bus service.

Utah’s ski areas shut down abruptly in early March so it’s hard to evaluate whether any of these strategies worked. A Draft EIS with opportunity for public comment is due to be released in summer 2021.

Little Cottonwood Canyon EIS: www.udot.utah.gov/littlecottonwoodeis/

A controversial landfill on Promentory Point in Box Elder County has run into financial trouble. Promentory Point Resources, LLC, owned by the California-based company Allos Environmental, failed to make the March payment on a $16.27 million bond that the company took out with the approval from the Box Elder County Commission.

The privately owned landfill is yet another toxic pollution threat on the shore of Great Salt Lake which is critical habitat for millions of migratory birds.

Friends of Great Salt Lake says that the Promentory Point landfill is unnecessary since 10 existing Utah landfill facilities already have a combined life storage capacity of 363 years.

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Hansjorg Wyss, a Wyoming resident and long-time supporter of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, has contributed $1 billion to help start a new campaign to protect 30% of land and water in the U.S. by 2030. At present, only 15% of land and 7% of oceans are protected from human development.

Noted ecologist E.O. Wilson says human uses should occupy no more than half of Earth’s surface.

Friends of Great Salt Lake has created kid-friendly selfguiding field trips for Antelope Island State Park and Great Salt Lake State Park. Learn about the watershed while you look for migratory birds, handle oolitic sand and hunt for brine shrimp!

Campaign for Nature: www.campaignfornature.org/home

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June 2020

CHANGE AGENT

How to make this moment the turning point for real change Basic lessons to draw from the past

BY BARACK OBAMA

A

s millions of people across the country take to the streets and raise their voices in response to the killing of George Floyd and the ongoing problem of unequal justice, many people have reached out asking how we can sustain momentum to bring about real change.

Ultimately, it’s going to be up to a new generation of activists to shape strategies that best fit the times. But I believe there are some basic lessons to draw from past efforts that are worth remembering.

First, the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States. The overwhelm-

ing majority of participants have been peaceful, courageous, responsible, and inspiring. They deserve our respect and support, not condemnation — something that police in cities like Camden and Flint have commendably understood.

On the other hand, the small minority of folks who’ve resorted to violence in various forms, whether out of genuine anger or mere opportunism, are putting innocent people at risk, compounding the destruction of neighborhoods that are often already short on services and investment and detracting from the larger cause. I saw an elderly black woman being interviewed today in tears because the only grocery store in her neighborhood had been trashed. If history is any guide, that store may take years to come

back. So let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it. If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.

Second, I’ve heard some suggest that the recurrent problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system proves that only protests and direct action can bring about change, and that voting and participation in electoral politics is a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. The point of protest is to raise public awareness, to put a spotlight on injustice, and to make the powers that be uncomfortable; in fact, throughout American history, it’s often only been in response to protests and civil disobedience that the political sys-

tem has even paid attention to marginalized communities. But eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices — and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.

Moreover, it’s important for us to understand which levels of government have the biggest impact on our criminal justice system and police practices. When we think about politics, a lot of us focus only on the presidency and the federal government. And yes, we should be fighting to make sure that we have a president, a Congress, a U.S. Justice Department, and a federal judiciary that actually recognize the ongoing, corrosive role that racism plays in our society and want to do something about it. But the elected officials who matter most in reforming police departments and the criminal justice system work at the state and local levels.

It is mayors and county executives that appoint most police chiefs and negotiate collective bargaining agreements with police unions. It’s district attorneys and state’s attorneys that decide whether or not to investigate and ultimately charge those involved in police misconduct. Those are all elected positions.

In some places, police review boards with the power to monitor police conduct are elected as well. Unfortunately, voter turnout in these local races is usually pitifully low, especially among young people—which makes no sense given the direct impact these offices have on social justice issues, not to mention the fact that who wins and who loses those seats is often determined by just a

wholesale rehabilitation; others should make minor improvements.

Every law enforcement agency should have clear policies, including an independent body that conducts investigations of alleged misconduct. Tailoring reforms for each community will require local activists and organizations to do their research and educate fellow citizens in their community on what strategies work best.

As a starting point, here’s a report It’s often only been in and toolkit developed by the Leadership Conference on Civil and response to protests and Human Rights and based on the civil disobedience that the work of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing that I formed when I political system has even was in the White House. And if paid attention to marginalyou’re interested in taking concrete action, we’ve also created a dediized communities. But cated site at the Obama Foundation eventually, aspirations have to aggregate and direct you to useful resources and organizations to be translated into spewho’ve been fighting the good fight at the local and national levels cific laws and institutional for years. practices — and in a I recognize that these past few months have been hard and dispirdemocracy, that only hapiting—that the fear, sorrow, uncerpens when we elect govern- tainty and hardship of a pandemic have been compounded by tragic ment officials who are reminders that prejudice and inresponsive to our demands. equality still shape so much of American life. But watching the Finally, the more specific we can heightened activism of young peomake demands for criminal justice ple in recent weeks, of every race and police reform, the harder it will and every station, makes me hopebe for elected officials to just offer ful. If, going forward, we can chanlip service to the cause and then fall nel our justifiable anger into back into business as usual once peaceful, sustained and effective protests have gone away. The con- action, then this moment can be a tent of that reform agenda will be real turning point in our nation’s different for various communities. A long journey to live up to our highbig city may need one set of re- est ideals.

Let’s get to work. ◆ forms; a rural community may need another. Some agencies will require Thank you, President Obama. few thousand, or even a few hundred, votes.

So the bottom line is this: if we want to bring about real change, then the choice isn’t between protest and politics. We have to do both. We have to mobilize to raise awareness, and we have to organize and cast our ballots to make sure that we elect candidates who will act on reform.

12 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

P R

June 2020

The rise

S

ixteen years ago I moved to Utah and was greeted with two jokes: first, that all spicy food was intercepted at the state border and dusted down with a mythical “blanding agent,” and second, that Utahns had invented fry sauce because ketchup alone without mayo to cut it was too picante.

Fast forward to 2020, and a sudden awareness that I am now somewhat immersed in a totally unexpected spicy food culture here

“Now you can go Harmons and get fresh Thai chilies, but who would have thought of that 15 years ago?” says Kreisel.

in the former Land of Bland. There are now native-sprung Utah hot sauce companies and peppery condiments and jellies coming out of kitchens all over the state.

It’s not just in Utah. Nationally, and perhaps internationally, spicy food is having a moment. The overwhelming popularity of the YouTube show Hot Ones is a marker for this phenomenon—in it, host Sean Evans interviews celebrities while both consume a succession of spicier and spicier chicken wings.

The format is genius—as the wings get hotter, the interviewees’ “public faces” come off. We love to see this happen to people who are usually so collected, and we like to be unstrung occasionally ourselves. People all over are lining up to experience

the compelling, flavorful agony of the chili. In an effort to get to the bottom of this phenomenon, I talked to five local purveyors of spice and asked them what’s driving this expansion.

THE CHEF

The first person I sat down with to research this article was my friend Adam Kreisel, a chef and proprietor of local catering company Chaia Cucina. (www.chaiacucina.com) I’ve been collecting hot sauces (perhaps overcollecting them) since I discovered the Hot Ones show last year, and by the time Adam arrived in my kitchen, the count in my fridge door pocket was 34 different

Passion & Restraint SLOW FOOD

e of spicy food in Utah

BY ALICE TOLER

bottles of sauce (OK, definitely overcollecting!).

I hauled them out onto the kitchen table and he graciously gave tasting notes on each while he mulled over the question of why spicy food is suddenly so popular: “The interesting part about working with chilis is understanding physically how they operate, because that’s not always the same depending on the pepper. So this one,” he indicated a sauce, “is super hot, but that heat is really piquant and small, and with this other it’s big and wide and smoky.

“I never cook with heat just for heat’s sake, though,” he continued.

“There needs to be a reason for it, and flavor that comes with it.”

Utah has recently become much more multicultural, he said, and spice has come along with that.

“California got full and everyone started spilling over the edge and migrating, and you’ve ended up with a pretty big Thai and Vietnamese community here, and those guys like spice.”

But weren’t the Mexicans here first? Those guys like spice, too.

“Yeah, but they got here before you could get the ingredients, and their food got blander because of that. Now you can go Harmons and get fresh Thai chilies, but who would have thought of that 15 years ago?”

THE SELF-MADE SUCCESS

A Mexican who would agree with Adam is Jorge Fierro, the charismatic and dedicated developer and owner of local Rico food products brand. (www.ricobrand.com) Adam Kreisel,

Continued on next page

14 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

Continued:

June 2020

❂ A local list to help you get your heat on !

Free Range Fudge by Black Market Trading Company (Sandy) Chili Beak (SLC) Bear River Bottling (Logan)

When he arrived in Salt Lake City in 1986, he found the state of local Mexican cuisine to be pretty disappointing. Sensing a niche, he started providing a better experience with his take-home beans and burritos and salsas, and his business took off.

He had to be careful, though.

“When I had my little market making refried beans, one day a lady came up and said ‘Jorge, my twoand-a-half-year-old son ate your beans, and he was crying because they were really spicy!’ There’s no spice in my ingredients, so I asked my cook, who was from Veracruz, and he admitted that he put some jalapeños in there to give them more flavor. I said you can’t do that!”

This was in 1999, and things have changed a lot since then.

“In my 21 years as an entrepreneur, I’ve seen people in Utah start

Rustic Tomato Chili Sauces (Draper) SLC Fermenting Co. (SLC) Firebirds Chile Co. (SLC) Grandma Sandino's Sicilian Sauce (SLC) Salsitas Mendoza (SLC) Z's Hot Sauces (Ogden) Salsa Queen (SLC) Salsa Diablo (SLC) Rico Brands (SLC) Van Qwartel Flavor Science (SLC)

Jorge Fierro

SLOW FOOD to demand more and more spice, especially in the past five to seven years. Utahns are becoming huge foodies!”

He also credits the LDS Church for some of the expansion. “You find returned missionaries who want to find where the spicy food is here!”

But still, spice has to be provided carefully. “Americans don’t like to be surprised,” he says. “Let them know!

If you present a surprise factor you can lose a customer because some of them really cannot take it. I believe that we as a company have been able to respect that.”

But, he notes, people everywhere are getting more adventurous.

"More and more restaurants are taking the risk with spice. Those little chili pepper icons on the side of the menu to show the hot food...they just get more and more!"

THE SWEET TOUCH

Rick Black is just the kind of returned LDS missionary that Jorge is talking about. He spent his mission in Korea exploring the kimchi-based cuisine there, though he describes himself as always having been an “adventure eater.” Now he and his brother have started a business, Free Range Fudge (www.blackmarkettradingcompany.com), making chili-spiced fudge in three different flavors and levels of heat. This is a sort of “gateway drug” for spice— the perfect storm of sweet, hot and chocolate—and it has already won many fans.

Rick is particular about his product. “What I’m most disappointed in when you go to pepper in chocolate is that anything else you can find commercially is one-noted.

They only use one pepper, usually

Chili-spiced fudge is a sort of “gateway drug” for spice— the perfect storm of sweet, hot and chocolate—and it has already won many fans. just a cayenne, though sometimes they’ll use chipotle. With me, it depends on the batch, but in my fudge I’m using from seven to 12 different pepper varieties, to provide a complex heat.”

Why Utahns are suddenly waking up to the world of spice? “The 2002 Olympics…that’s to me when we got a diversity of restaurants and providers, and after that, people demanded a little bit more. Not only that, but I’ve always heard that as Continued on next page

16 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

Continued:

SLOW FOOD

Health benefits & more !

1) Peppers get you high!

Capsaicin makes the brain release endorphins and dopamine. A good wallop of spice can make you lightheaded, depending on your sensitivity level.

2) They present a spiritual challenge: the Baniwa people of the Amazon basin use peppers as a rite of passage. Adolescent Baniwa eat the peppers to demonstrate their patience and courage, to purify their bodies, and to protect them against bad spirits that cause disease.

3) Along with dairy products, spicy foods are believed by many to provoke odd and memorable dreams. This may be because the gastrointestinal disturbance caused by eating peppers rouses the sleeper out of a REM state several times during the night.

4) Studies have indicated people who eat spicy food regularly have lower LDL cholesterol levels and better cardiac health. Capsaicin may also act as an anticoagulant.

5) Spice ramps up your metabolism and may help you lose weight! Eating hot peppers at breakfast may

help suppress appetite for the rest of the day.

6) The endorphins released when you eat spicy food can help alleviate pain all over your body, and they also reduce inflammation.

Some migraine sufferers experience headache relief by eating hot peppers, and the anti-inflammatory effects can help alleviate allergies.

7) If your gut can tolerate capsaicin, then eating spicy food may help you maintain healthy digestion by reducing stomach acidity and stimulating saliva and digestive juices. But if it hurts you, don’t eat it!

8) 2015 and 2019 studies both indicated that eating spicy food 6 or 7 days a week is associated with increased longevity.

9) Capsaicin is antibacterial, and there are some indications that it can selectively kill cancer cells.

10) Capsaicin creams applied to the skin treat psoriasis and alleviate arthritis.

11) The antiviral properties of capsaicin have been investigated to combat the herpes virus and to treat shingles.

Black family

you age, your taste buds dull, and with the Baby Boomers getting old…we want our spicy food. So, you’re welcome, everyone!”

THE ENCYCLOPEDIAN

One purveyor of Rick’s fudge sauces is Roger Damptz (facebook.com/BurnYourTongue). A low-key legend among spice enthusiasts in Utah, he knows everything there is to know about hot sauce and carries the state’s most comprehensive variety of sauces.

I first became aware of Roger when a couple of friends heard I was researching this article and told me of an almost-mythical array of hot sauces…but I’d have to drive to Ogden and plumb the depths of the Quilted Bear, a craft and home decor consignment shop at the Newgate Mall. Intrigued by this speakeasy-esque mystique, I con-

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tacted Roger and drove north. I was a bit disappointed not to have to provide a secret password to a masked heavy behind a door slot,

but Roger’s overwhelming enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge more than made up for it.

He has over 27 linear feet of hot sauces on 10 shelves in the middle of the store, nestled among decorative aprons and hand-painted figurines.

“When I’m fully stocked I have over 550 different sauces,” he says.

The Hot Ones show has been good to him. “It’s been a key to some of the growth,” he says, “but I’ve also been doing my part to bring hot sauce into the mainstream.

He started his business as a hobby in 2007 and moved to the Quilted Bear in 2009. “I’ve been advocating for hot sauce the whole time,” he says. In fact, Roger attends both the Scovie Awards and ZestFest, annual competitions crowning the best spicy concoctions, and he sends Utah-produced sauces to nationallevel reviewers to get our locals more exposure.

He also credits the LDS returned missionaries with helping expand Utahns’ appreciation of spicy food, but also notes that nationally the phenomenon has been tied to the rise of craft beer and specialty barbecue sauce.

Is there anything unique to Utahproduced sauces? “The guys here rate their heat a little higher than it might be elsewhere, because they don’t want to scare people off. They don’t want to blow your mouth out!”

Utah is spice-curious, but Utahns are still a pretty cautious bunch.

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THE ENTREPRENEUR

Another man chasing his pepperhead dream is David Born, a former

Continued on next page

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18 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

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SLOW FOOD the Utah foodie: “Mormons are raised with a sense of community that helps with co-ops and incubators. People understand how valuable that is for everyone! Our food truck industry in Salt Lake is just amazing.”

As Utahns become gourmands, they appreciate spicy food more and more. “Flavor enriches your life,” he continues, “and who knows, maybe global warming is bringing the heat!”

David’s enthusiasm, like that of every other interviewee I contacted, is infectious. “I’m taking a risk and building something creative that I’m passionate about and coming out with new ideas.” Indeed, he’s already expanded Chili Beak to include a delicious line of spicy caramels, and has been talking with other local companies about collaborating on spicy products.

David Born

THE TORCHBEARER

vice president at Sevillo Fine Foods, who recently left that company after acquiring local brand Chili Beak hot chili oil (www.chilibeak.com).

“Chili Beak posted on Facebook that they were closing their doors, and I was so sad—they had such a great product! So I reached out to them, thinking maybe there’s a way to keep this going.”

Like Roger, he sees a connection to the craft brewing phenomenon.

“There’s a huge crop of microbreweries, and people who are chasing their passion in life.”

“Mormons are raised with a sense of community that helps with co-ops and incubators. People understand how valuable that is for everyone!” says Born.

“We’re in a really progressive place with a lot of creative individuals in the food world here,” says Born. He also sees how a different aspect of the LDS culture fosters the rise of

And finally for the longest view of spicy food in Utah I was able to find, I spoke to Lucy Cardenas of the famous Red Iguana restaurant (www.rediguana.com).

Born into Utah’s premier spice family, Lucy is continuing a family tradition started in the 1960s. “We always had spice in our house and in our restaurants,” she says. “My parents introduced a lot of different flavors into the valley, and they were pioneers in that. I think it’s a good sign that the world is evolving and people are experimenting. Different cultures are being introduced to different communities, and slowly but surely they introduce their way of eating and cooking, too. It makes life spicier and a whole lot more fun.”

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PSYCHIC, AUTHOR, SPEAKER, TEACHER

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Lucy Cardenas

So has the Red Iguana had a hand in helping this along? “I hope so! We have a mole amarillo that is extremely popular, and it’s our hottest one. We garnish our plates with a little serrano pepper and they can be so spicy! I know that not everyone indulges, but I hope that Red Iguana has influenced people’s taste buds.

Spicy food is good for you, and good for your health. It represents the fact that people are openminded. Hot spicy food will unite us all!”

Why do we suddenly love spice so much? I think the trend tracks the weaving together of cultures globally.

It’s a culinary indicator of how interconnected and interdependent we are. The world has gotten mighty small all of a sudden. Sevenplus billion of us leaves not a lot of elbow room, and now with the pan-

COLUMNIST FOR

“I think it’s a good sign that the world is evolving and people are experimenting,” says Cardenas. demic we can’t ignore it any longer, or assume that we can’t be intimately affected by events that originate thousands of miles away.

I have three flats of pepper seedlings to go into the garden this year, and by the time quarantine is lifted I hope to have a decent crop to share with friends and neighbors.

We might have to stand six feet away from each other in the meantime, but “blitz spirit” has made us friendlier. Spicy food might just save the world after all. ◆ Alice Toler is a born-again pepper enthusiast, captivated by the conundrum of capsaicin, and fascinated by its far-flung influence.

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20 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

CHAKRA SERIES

Visuddha the throat chakra The key to self-expression

BY TODD MANGUM, MD

Editor’s note: The Chakra Series, by Todd Mangum, MD, first appeared in CATALYST in 1995 and was repeated in 2009 and 2013. These stories remain among the most read in our online library. In 2020 we are bringing you an updated version, which began with January’s Introduction to the Chakras.

CHAKRA FIVE

Location: throat.

Governs: our metabolism during activity and determines our resting metabolic rate.

Main issue: communication and self-expression.

Externalizes: as both the thyroid and parathyroid glands.

Element: sound.

When balanced: we feel harmonious.

Color: a harmonic of BLUE. Key words: vibration, creativity, voice, language, myth, talking, listening, harmony, resonance, rhythm, music, singing and chanting.

Influences: the neck, cervical spine, shoulders, trachea, vocal chords, throat, mouth, gums, teeth, tongue, ears and jaw.

Deficiencies: manifest as stifled creativity, repressed communication and an inability to speak our truth. Often these feelings are described as a lump in the throat or that the cat has got our tongue.

Excesses: appear as incessant chatter, or loud and boisterous behavior.

Imbalances: manifest physically as chronic sore throats, strep throat, neck and shoulder pain, earaches and infections, canker sores, swollen glands in the neck, laryngitis, hearing loss, and hyper or hypometabolism.

T

hroughout history, humans have chanted as a form of praise or to enter deep states of meditation and worship. All of nature chants, from thunder to birds to the rustling leaves of the aspen tree.

Only modern humans have forgotten to chant. As a result, we have become disenchanted with our world. To become enchanted literally means to be roused to ecstatic admiration.

Sound and creation Many years ago, I heard a tape which had crickets chirping over a background of what I thought was a choir of humans singing. A few moments into this beautiful mix a woman explained that what was being heard was not a

Through the fourth chakra we feel love.

Through the fifth we have the ability to express it. human choir. The “choir“ was the exact same recording of the crickets slowed down to a frequency resonant to that of humans. The intended effect was a dazzling and delightful way to show that all of creation exists in a constant state of praise and gratitude, that this is our natural state. The chanting is not in praise of some being far removed, but in praise of being itself; in fact, the sound of praise, emitted in a million different ways through vibration, creates the universe.

[Listen to and read about this recording: www.snopes.com/factcheck/god-39s-chorus-of-crickets/] This belief that sound is responsible for the creation and maintenance of the material universe is held by many spiritual traditions. Our vocabulary is full of associations that reinforce this concept. A destructive idea, someone whose judgment is falling apart, and an unstable structure are all called unsound. The fact that we use the word “spell” to describe the creation of words, as well as the invocation of magic, shows the inherent creative power we attribute to language and sound.

Now, the science The endocrine glands which interface with the fifth chakra are the thyroid and parathyroid glands. The parathyroid glands rest upon the surface of the thyroid and are responsible for maintaining calcium and phosphorus levels in the blood. The thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland located at the base of the neck in front of the trachea or windpipe. The thyroid acts as a thermostat which controls the body’s tem-

perature and regulates metabolic rate of every cell in the body.

Thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), which is secreted by the pituitary gland, controls the amount of hormones produced by the thyroid gland.

Thyroxin or T4 accounts for roughly 80% of hormones secreted while the remaining 20% is liothyronine or T3.

T4 refers to the presence of four iodine atoms attached to several molecules of the amino acid tyrosine. T3 is produced, in the thyroid and throughout the body, from T4 by the enzymatic re-

The intended effect was a dazzling and delightful way to show that all of creation exists in a constant state of praise and gratitude, that this is our natural state. The chanting is not in praise of some being far removed, but in praise of being, itself; in fact, the sound of praise, emitted in a million different ways through vibration, creates the universe. moval of one specific iodine atom. T3 is much more metabolically active than T4. Whether the thyroid is under or overactive, the deleterious consequences of its malfunctioning can be extensive.

Hyperthyroidism is due to an excessive amount of thyroid hormones.

Symptoms include an increased body temperature, jitteriness, restlessness, anxiety and insomnia. Hyperthroidism frequently triggers an irregular rapid heart rate called atrial fibrillation. Left

untreated, this arrhythmia can sometimes be fatal.

Hypothyroidism results in an underactive metabolism most often due to an insufficient amount of thyroid hormones. The problem can occur from a failure of the thyroid gland or from a deficiency of the hormones that stimulate the thyroid like TSH. Hypothyroidism manifests as a wide variety of clinically recognized symptoms. The more common ones include fatigue, depression, infertility, weakness, menstrual disturbances, diffuse muscle aches and pains, thinning hair, dry skin, repeated infections, constipation, carpal tunnel syndrome, memory and cognitive disturbances, cold intolerance, cold extremities and weight gain. Elevated cholesterol is extremely common in patients with hypothyroidism.

Not all people with hypothyroidism will have all these symptoms, and not everyone with these symptoms will have hypothyroidism. Western medicine considers measuring the levels of TSH and free T4 to be the gold standard for diagnosing hypothyroidism.

However, relying solely on these two blood tests misses a significant number of patients who in fact have hypothyroidism.

Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or an insufficient amount of T3 are frequent but often missed causes of hypothyroidism. Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease, produces antibodies that interfere with the production and function of the thyroid hormones.

Testing the levels of free T3 and checking antibody levels in addition to the standard thyroid panel will result in more accurate diagnoses.

Much newer information involves also checking levels of Reverse T3 in relation to total T3. The science and reasoning behind these concepts arebeyond the scope of this article.

As much as 40% of the American population may suffer from some de-

Continued on next page

22 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

Continued:

CHAKRA V in excess and its close relatives fluoride and chlorine, can all inhibit thyroid hormone formation. Mercury from dental amalgams and food contaminated with a variety of other environmental toxins have also been reported to reduce metabolic efficiency. Choose your food and water sources carefully.

Activities to harmonize the fifth chakra and balance your metabolism involve expression and creativity.

Sing, speak your mind, chant or join a drumming circle. Learn to play a musical instrument. Generously praise the people in your life. Sit quietly in nature and enjoy to the symphony of sounds around you. ◆ Todd Mangum, MD, of the Web of Life Wellness Center in Salt Lake City, is a holistically oriented physician in practice for 30 years.

gree of hypothyroidism or hypometabolism, according to Broda Barnes, MD, a clinician and longtime researcher specializing in thyroid physiology. While medical diagnostic standards have continually evolved and improved over the course of this century, Dr. Barnes’ simple measurement of basal body temperature remains a reliable indicator of one’s metabolism (see sidebar).

It is important to remember there are other causes of a low body temperature. Another forgotten but invaluable indicator of hypothyroidism is a simple reflex test of the Achilles tendon. A delayed or sluggish response is a strong indicator for hypothyroidism.

How to treat hypothyroidism A variety of natural and synthesized thyroid hormone preparations are available to treat hypothyroidism. The standard Western medical treatment is levothyroxine or T4. Synthroid and Levoxyl are simply brand names of T4.

This is not always effective for, or well tolerated by, every patient. Cytomel is a commercially available prescription

containing only T3. Commercially available replacements which contain both T3 and T4 include Thyrolar, and desiccated animal glandulars from bovine and porcine sources like Armour Thyroid, Naturethroid and Westhroid among others.

Some benefits of desiccated bovine or porcine thyroid glands have been attributed to the complete range of thyroid hormones present in the glands. Although these work well for many, they are not appropriate for everyone. Working with an experienced practitioner, compounding pharmacies can create exacting customized prescriptions.

It may take several trials with various preparations in different dosages to discover what is optimal for you. It is also important to recheck the thyroid blood panel periodically. Clinical response, however, is often the most important indicator of optimal dose.

In addition to tyrosine and iodine, proper thyroid function depends on a variety of other nutrient cofactors.

These include certain B vitamins, essential fatty acids like evening primrose oi,l and the minerals zinc, copper, manganese and molybdenum. Iodine

Here is Broda Barnes’ method to test your basal metabolic rate

S

hake a glass thermometer down before you go to bed and leave it on your nightstand. Upon awakening and before getting up or moving around, take your temperature by placing the thermometer in your armpit, not your mouth. Leave it there for 10 minutes. Take at least six readings, on different days, and average them together.

Menstruating women should do the test during the first week of their cycle. Men and postmenopausal women can do it anytime.

If your average temperature falls below 97.4 and you have several of the symptoms described in this article, you might very well suffer from hypothyroidism. Consider working closely with a healthcare professional to improve your metabolism.

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June 2020

HISTORY

Meet the rural and urban gardeners of 80 years ago

Victory Gardens in World War II

Editor’s Note: In April, we invited you to become modern-day Victory Gardeners (James Loomis, “Bring Back the Victory Garden,” https://catalystmagazine.net/bring-back-thevictory-garden/). Here we present the actual history of the national movement in World War Two from novelist and WW2 researcher Sarah Sundin.

F

or the average in American World War II, the Victory Garden was a practical way to contribute to the war effort. Some 20 million Victory Gardens were planted (US population in 1940 was 132 million), and by 1943, these little plots produced

40% of all vegetables consumed in the US. It is estimated that 9-10 million tons of vegetables were grown.

The need for Victory Gardens Wartime needs stretched agricultural production. The United States not only had to feed its own civilian and military popbut ulation, many of the Allies relied on America’s bread basket.

In addition, Usank boats of hundreds food-laden ships bound for Britain.

While the need ex-

BY SARAH SUNDIN

panded, the number of farm workers decreased due to the draft and—ironically—due to the internment of Japanese-Americans.

Canned fruits and vegetables were rationed starting March 1,

Communal gardens were planted in parks, vacant lots and baseball fields.

1943, so civilians were encouraged to grow their own produce to supplement their rations. The use of fewer canned goods would decrease the use of precious tin and reduce the strain on the heavily taxed rail and road systems.

The Victory Garden program In December 1941, shortly after the United States entered World War II, Agriculture Secretary Claude Wickard began promoting Victory Gardens. The Department of Agriculture produced pamphlets to guide urban and suburban gardeners, magazines and newspapers published helpful articles, and patriotic posters urged participation.

Neighborhood and community committees were formed with veteran gardeners guiding newcomers. These committees also helped with distribution of surplus food and sharing of equipment. Many garden tools were made of steel, which was in short supply, so sharing between families was encouraged.

The ideal Victory Garden produced fresh vegetables in season and plenty to be preserved for winter.

Eleanor Roosevelt planted one on the White House lawn. Communal gardens were planted in parks, vacant lots and baseball fields. Sites for these gardens

Where were gardens grown?

Victory Gardens sprang up on farms, in backyards and on city rooftops. Window boxes were converted from flowers to vegetables.

How to garden?

The average small town- or citydweller knew little about gardening.

Pamphlets provided sample planting schedules and garden plans to show newcomers how to grow enough to feed their families for a year without wasting seed or food.

These pamphlets described how to choose the garden site, prepare the soil, fertilize, plant properly, weed and harvest.

The Department of Agriculture and the War Production Board prepared a special Victory Garden fertilizer for home use.

Preservation

Who could participate?

Victory Gardens were promoted as family fun, as good healthy recreation for all ages. Farmers were encouraged to plant gardens for family needs as well as their usual cash crop. Those living in small towns or suburbs were the best candidates for Victory Gardens. Interestingly, the Department of Agriculture discouraged city-dwellers from gardening, afraid of seed being wasted on poor soil and poor lighting.

dens provided fresh vegetables for school lunches.

included San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the Portland Zoo in Oregon, and Boston’s Copley Square and Fenway Victory Gardens.

The Fenway site is still an active Victory Garden today.

War plants often planted gardens on their properties for use in company cafeterias, and schoolyard gar-

The ideal Victory Garden produced fresh vegetables in season and plenty to be preserved for winter. Women’s magazines published articles about how to can, store, dry, pickle and freeze the bounty. People were encouraged to share their surplus with others in their neighborhoods.

Victory Gardens in World War II were more than a way to increase morale. They produced a significant amount of healthy food, allowing agricultural produce to be used for the military and the Allies, and reducing the use of tin and transportation. Despite rationing, the average American ate better during the war than before. The Victory Garden was part of the reason. ◆ Sarah Sundin is a bestselling and award-winning author of World War II novels, including The Sea Before Us, The Sky Above Us and The Land Beneath Us. A mother of three adult children, Sarah lives in California. www.sarahsundin.com.

26 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

WORKING TOGETHER

More on the Neighborhood Resiliency Initiative:

Building gardens on common grounds

BY JULIE HIRSCHI

Such a great resiliency installation for a deserving family! This is a great example of Hugelkultur which involves burying logs and green waste to mimick the natural decomposition process of a forest ecosystem. Join the neighborhood resiliency movement! Thank you to everyone who volunteered! —Michael Cundick

S

ince its inception in March, the Neighborhood Resiliency Initiative (NRI) has installed over 20 community gardens in the Salt Lake Valley, from Rose Park to Draper. The project’s purpose is to increase the supply of locally grown fresh food by connecting neighbors willing to share labor, land, tools and expertise.

Volunteer Masha Shukovich says she never considered herself much of a gardener, but has always wanted to learn. When she first heard about the NRI she volunteered her skills as a writer and storyteller for the group’s website and

outreach. She is now learning how to garden from mentors she connected with through NRI. Shukovich knows firsthand the importance of growing your own food during times of economic turmoil

Neighborhood Resiliency Initiative founding members Cundick and Roller understood the importance of having fresh, healthy, local food available especially during times of crisis.

and uncertainty. Shukovich immigrated to the United States in 2004 from the former Yugoslavia where, as a child, she lived through a civil war. Her family lived in post-Soviet style housing, along with many other families who were struggling to get by. They all shared a small communal patch of land where her father planted a garden.

“We had a cherry tree and an apricot tree and they were just the sweetest, most delicious cherries and apricots that I've ever had,” said Shukovich. “It was such a gift in that space, that gray and depressing place, to have these trees.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit

Utah it reminded her of growing up in a war-torn country and the fear that often affects communities during these times of unrest.

“It was a comfort to have that little patch, which created some sense of normalcy in all of that chaos. It was a different kind of chaos than living right now. But there's so many parallels to be drawn,” she said.

Well-timed The pandemic arrived at the beginning of Utah’s growing season. Would-be gardeners were looking for help in starting new gardens and had questions about composting, when to plant and locating resources.

Founding members Barbarella Roller and Michael Cundick believed that the centralized food supply chain would be disrupted by the shutdown. They understood the importance of having fresh, healthy, local food available especially during times of crisis. Thus began the Masha Shukovich nursing her daughter Maya in the spot where she hopes to build her new garden space.

Neighborhood Resilience Initiative.

Cundick and Roller are experienced gardeners who were ready to hit the ground running forming the NRI. (Read about Roller in the May 2020 CATALYST: The Neighborhood Resiliency Initiative, p. 36.)

Cundick has been passionate about urban farming and gardening for close to a decade, and has participated in multiple communal gardening and permaculture efforts.

About 10 years ago he started Artists for Local Agriculture, a nonprofit organization uniting the artistic community in support of sustainable urban farming. He received his Permaculture Design certificate in 2015 and apprenticed for six months at Heartwater Farm, an off-grid permaculture demonstration site in Southern Utah. He is the chair of the Utah Permaculture Collective and co-director of agriculture for the Krishna Food Forest and Farm. He also helped co-found SLC Air Protectors, a local organization championing clean air in Utah. And he is now in the running for Salt Lake County Mayor on the Green Party ticket.

Back to the future “When times get hard, people tend to connect back with nature and with wanting to provide for themselves, to feel that sense of control and sovereignty and resiliency,” he says, reflecting on the Victory Gardens movement of previous eras (see https://catalystmagazine.net/bring-back-the-vic

tory-garden/ from CATALYST, April 2020 and “Victory Gardens in World War 11” in this issue, page 24.)

Cundick believes that, in an urban setting like Salt Lake City, community gardens could potentially provide people with up to 40% of their daily calorie intake from vegetables locally grown, “which would have the added benefit of giving people meaningful, healthy activities and also augment food supplies with really fresh, nutritious foods. We don't Michael Cundick

“The NRI is really a tool to help neighbors connect with each other more easily and have the support they need to succeed in their communal gardening projects. Since this is residentdirected, every project will differ and is up to the relationships that are developed in the course of the project,” Cundick said. want to just be living off canned beans when we could have roasted beets and arugula and fresh-picked salads in the mix,” he said.

Early spring crops planted in these gardens (peas, spinach, lettuce and radishes) have taken root and are already producing.

Continued on next page

28 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

Continued:

WORKING TOGETHER

Mark Hammond with his wife Kameron Hammond in their backyard garden in Draper.

Cundick likes to incorporate more diversity into his gardens than most traditional gardeners. Wood boxes and container gardens are the norm, but in one instance Cundick worked with a land donor in Millcreek to build a Hugelkultur mound, where a trench is dug and logs are buried under a mound of compost to create a raised garden bed with decaying wood providing a rich soil from beneath.

Neighbors helping neighbors Cundick describes the NRI as a “neighbor helping neighbor” initiative where an organizers have access to a database of people living nearby who want to contribute to gardens as mentors, volunteers, land donors and resource donors.

“The NRI is really a tool to help neighbors connect with each other more easily and have the support

they need to succeed in their communal gardening projects. Since this is resident-directed, every project will differ and is up to the relationships that are developed in the course of the project,” he said.

If a land donor doesn't have the resources for a communal gardening project, then resource donors can be contacted to provide the tools, plants, compost and other necessities. Several community members have volunteered to cover the cost and provide resources. Wasatch Community Gardens recently do-

“One silver lining of this pandemic is that we have reason to meet our neighbors again and recognize how important it is to have local security networks.”

nated hundreds of tomato plants to their cause.

Once the garden produces, land donors are encouraged to share their produce with volunteers and those who are in need in their community.

“One silver lining of this pandemic is that we have reason to meet our neighbors again and recognize how important it is to have local security networks,” said Cundick.

Working together Neighborhood Resiliency Initiative gardening mentor and steering member Mark Hammond wanted to find a way to bring his community in Draper closer together. This year, in light of the pandemic, he built five 4x4 garden beds in his backyard with his wife and daughter.

Hammond is a neighborhood block captain for emergency preparedness and posted photos of his garden to a neighborhood Face-

book group he started. Since learning and talking about the NRI with his neighbors, he said that more people in his area have been interested in gardening.

He passed out “Hello Neighbor” flyers around his Draper neighborhood inspired by Salt Lake City Mayor Mendenhall’s community network assistance campaign. The flyer, also found on NRI’s website, introduced Hammond and the initiative and invited his neighbors to get involved.

“I thought it would be a good way to get people to know each other better because when it really comes down to disaster situations like pandemics, knowing who your neighbors are is the most important thing,” he said. “The people right around you are the ones you need to know; you need to have their trust to be able to work together to solve problems.” ◆ Julie Hirschi is a freelance journalist and storyteller.

When she’s not busy writing, she’s outdoors with her three boys or drinking coffee.

Get involved in the Neighborhood Resiliency Initiative

To find or organize a community garden in your area, visit www.neighborhoodresiliency.com where you can sign up as a volunteer, land or resource donor, mentor or organizer.

They are currently following and practicing the state’s recommended physical distancing and sanitation precautions related to the pandemic by limiting their numbers and wearing masks in all gardening projects.

30 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

Mulch

GARDEN LIKE A BOSS

Few things have such dramatic impact on plant health in our hot, dry climate—and are so simple

BY JAMES LOOMIS

M

ulching is the art of nourishing and protecting your soil with a layer of organic matter applied evenly to the surface. It mimics the way that nature recycles organic matter to build soil.

Nature abhors bare soil and goes to great lengths to cover it. Wherever you find undisturbed communities of plants, you’ll find the soil surface covered with leaf litter, plant debris, and other organic matter protecting the delicate microorganisms underneath.

Next time you’re in the West Desert of Utah, get down on your hands and knees and take a look.

You’ll find that even there, the soil is covered, protected from that harsh desert sun.

Underneath the layer of mulch, where it meets the soil, is known as

the duff layer. This is where the highest rate of microbial activity occurs.

By maintaining a mulch layer on top of your garden soil, you are actively harnessing the power of countless bacteria, beneficial fungi and other organisms, to recycle organic matter into plant available nutrients. This is

By maintaining a mulch layer on top of your garden soil, you are actively harnessing the power of countless bacteria, beneficial fungi and other organisms, to recycle organic matter into plant available nutrients.

the art of building soil; boss move, my friend, that’s how nature do.

Mulching helps prevent weeds, as it robs seedlings of the light they need to grow. Those that do manage to germinate are far easier to remove, as they they struggle through the mulch layer, searching for the light.

Mulching also has a dramatic effect on retaining moisture in the soil. By reducing the temperature of the soil, evaporation is slowed.

Keeping the soil moisture consistent improves the health of the plants, as most of our vegetable crops enjoy even and consistent moisture.

When is the best time to mulch?

While it may seem logical to answer “always,” this isn’t quite the case.

Mulch has a great insulating quality, which keeps the soil cooler than it would be when exposed. Because of this, it is beneficial to remove your mulch layer in early spring to allow the sun to warm the soil for planting early crops. Once cool weather crops are growing vigorously, the mulch can then be replaced. For heat-loving crops such as tomatoes

and peppers, I’ll keep my mulch layer removed until early June, to maximize the soil-warming effect of the sun.

Mulch should also be removed when starting plants from seed, as the very qualities that help to deter weed growth will prevent the proper germination of your desired seedlings.

Applying mulch is as simple as spreading an even layer of the organic matter of your choice on top of your garden beds. When applying it, don’t mulch right up to the base of plants. The crown of a plant, or where the stem meets the roots, generally benefits from being dry, and mulching the base of plants can encourage rot, especially in young plants.

Types of mulch Composted tree material / green waste Pros: inexpensive in bulk, looks great, easy to apply, long lasting nutrition Cons: can be expensive in bags, single use plastic packaging

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The key word here is composted. It is important to never use uncomposted wood shavings or chips in your garden, as this will tie up available nitrogen for quite some time as the soil works to break down the material. This is my mulching material of choice, as it is wicked easy to apply, looks really clean, and for those of us with large gardens it is readily available in bulk from local suppliers such as DT Green Waste or Transjordan Landfill. Both of these companies recycle and compost

Don’t mulch right up to the base of the plant. Mulching the base can encourage rot, especially in young plants. local green waste, with no composted biosolids. For those with smaller gardens, bagged products are readily available at all garden centers; be prepared to pay substantially more for that convenience.

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organic matter in the off season. (Remember to remove it early next spring to prevent smothering if you have perennials or self-seeding annuals.)

Pros: super cheap, easy to apply Cons: little to no nutrition, messy to transport, messy in the garden It’s hard to beat a bale of straw for covering a large area for a little bit of money.

However, it tends to blow around, and since it is the leftover stalks of plants harvested for grains, there is little in the way of nutrition for the soil once it breaks down.

If you’re ambitious and looking to haul a bail or two inside your vehicle, make sure to put down a tarp, or be prepared for “forever straw” in your carpet.

Grass clippings

Alfalfa hay Pros: super cheap, easy to apply, sustained nutrition Cons: possible weed seeds, messy to transport, messy in the garden Like straw, a bale of alfalfa hay goes a long way and makes quick work of a mulching job. However, since hay is harvested from the living plant and quickly dried, it provides a long-lasting source of nutrition as the microbes break it down. Like straw, it can also be messy during transport and after installation. Certified organic hay is recommended.

Chopped leaves Pros: free, readily available Cons: hard to keep in place

Dried leaves that have been shredded or chopped with a leaf vacuum make a good mulch. Be careful with full-sized leaves, as they can often form a “mat,” which will rob your soil and plant roots of valuable oxygen.

Piling all of your leaves in a deep mulch on your garden beds in the fall is a fantastic way to take advantage of the insulating power of a deep mulch, which sustains the soil warmth gained over the summer months for increased microbial activity into early winter. Worms, detritivore insects and beneficial fungi absolutely love this layer, and is a great way to build soil fertility and

Pros: free, loaded with nutrients Cons: the fact that you still have a lawn, potential herbicide residues Grass clipping are another free option, although warrant a number of cautions. Fresh clippings can form a “mat,” similar to whole leaves, which will rob your soil and roots of oxygen, so be careful not to apply too deeply at once.

Grass lawns are also one of the highest uses of herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides in the US, far exceeding chemical inputs in agriculture per acre. If you use grass clippings, make sure they’re coming from an organically managed lawn.

A word about synthetic mulches These should never be used in the garden. Made from materials such as shredded tires, these mulches are mulch in name only. They provide little benefit, release toxic compounds during their slow degradation, and have no place in a vegetable garden. ◆ James Loomis is a full-time urban farmer, educator and permaculture hooligan.

33

COMMUNITY CALENDAR See the full list of

June events on our website

WWW.CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET/COMMUNITY-CALENDAR

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34 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

HERBS

Herbs for a magical Midsummer Potions you can make to soothe your summertime body and celebratory soul

S

ummer Solstice is just around the corner! The last few months have been a bit dark and heavy for many of us, so I’m looking forward to celebrating the Sun, the Summer, and a little magic along the way. I’m here to introduce you to a few of my favorite midsummer herbs and share some simple ways you can bring their magic and medicine into your summertime celebrations.

St. John’s wort The Old English word wort implies an herb with celebrated medicinal value and folklore. St. John’s wort is one of my favorite Midsummer herbs, and if you happen to have room in your garden for a veritable carpet of sunny flowers, I encourage you to bring in this beautiful plant next year!

BY JOSH WILLIAMS St. John’s wort is best known as an herbal ally that lifts the mood and chases away the blues, but there’s so much more. The bright yellow flowers of this plant which have tiny perforations giving it the scientific name Hypericum perforatum are like sunshine energy just waiting to be harvested. Plucking fresh flowers and soaking them in sunflower oil for 30 days yields a rubyred topical rub that’s soothing for skin, nerves and pain.

As an ally for our Midsummer celebrations, St. John’s wort helps drive away any lingering darkness or heaviness from winter past. For those of us who feel like we haven’t really had a proper springtime this year with quarantine restrictions in place, St. John’s wort can help usher in the warmth of the Sun and get us in the mood for longer, warmer days.

Try making a St. John’s wort oil and using it as a gentle massage oil, or as an anointing oil to mark pulse points with sunshine vibes when you need it most.

If you’ve ever had the blessing of smelling good quality chamomile, you’ll know the scent is just like apples!

Damiana You’ll hear me talk a lot about damiana (Turnera diffusa) around Valentine’s Day each year as it’s one of my favorite love-inspiring herbal allies. But damiana has an affinity for summertime, too! Working with the unique aroma and flavor of damiana at midsummer helps us to celebrate the fertility, growth and abundance happening in the natural world.

Even though we may be confined and hidden behind masks, nature is blooming with a wealth of energy and love.

For all your Summer Solstice celebrations, try making a simple Midsummer Mead. Soak 3 Tbsp. organic damiana leaf in 750mL mead. Using a quart-sized Mason jar, combine damiana and mead, soak for 8-12 days, then strain and return to the original mead bottle. You can also craft an alcohol-free version of this using sparkling apple cider.

Chamomile & calendula Both of these flowers love to grow here in Utah with a little TLC, and they make fragrant additions to gardens and walkways.

Chamomile gets its name from

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the Greek for ground apple, and if you’ve ever had the blessing of smelling good quality chamomile you’ll know the scent is just like apples!

Chamomile (Chamomilla matricaria, C. recutita) and calendula (Calendula officinalis) both carry that summer energy in their bright, yellow-orange flowers.

To bring in their virtues for your honoring of the high-sun, make a cool toner that you can spray on face and skin to calm and quiet the skin when it gets hot, dry or irritated from too much sun. To make, add a handful of chamomile and calendula flowers to a quartsize Mason jar. Fill with steaminghot water and allow to cool completely. Strain, then return to the Mason jar and refrigerate. Use within one week.

I like pouring mine into a mister bottle and taking some with me whenever I head out for a hike or a day in the sun. You can also use this toner to draw the heat out of mild sunburns. It feels amazing!

Wild roses Utah is home to several species of wild rose, including Rosa canina, Rosa rugosa and Rose centifolia. Each of these roses is fragrant with folklore and medicinal uses, and they each bring a unique color, shape and aroma to wherever they grow.

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I love working with wild rose at Summer Solstice as a flower to help us open up and enjoy the fullness of life.

Roses are also considered to be a yin tonic in Chinese herbalism, making them nourishing to the moist, cool, fluid parts of being—perfect for hot summer days!

Roses can be enjoyed in teas, tinctures, foods, and baths. But my favorite way to work with them is to gather and dry the flowers and toss them onto a Midsummer bonfire to scent the air and carry your sunshine-filled intentions out into the world.

Wishing you a healthy, happy, and peaceful summer. ◆ Josh Williams is a traditionally trained clinical herbalist and owner of Greenthread Herbs, a full-service herbal apothecary in the Avenues neighborhood of Salt Lake City. www.wortcunner.com

36 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

NEW IN TOWN

Creature of nature: Jimmy Turner A visit with Red Butte Garden’s new executive director

BY SOPHIE SILVERSTONE

R

ed Butte Garden’s new executive director, Jimmy Turner, arrived in Utah from Australia on March 13. The same day, in response to Covid-19, the garden shut down.

At a time when this garden, the largest botanic garden in the Intermountain West, was about to bloom—hold their massive spring plant sale, announce their summer concert series lineup, host weddings and book summer camps—their opening date became an unknown.

While quarantining for two weeks, Turner met his new staff via Zoom and addressed Covid-re-

Turner is one of the world’s biggest horticultural social media influencers, with a Twitter following of 230,000 people.

lated job furloughs. It was a surreal adjustment to a new life for the Texas native.

We sat beneath the Japanese wisteria pergola in Red Butte Garden in late May. The garden had been closed to the public for over five weeks now. This was only the new executive director’s fourth visit to the garden since arriving.

Turner is now poised to announce the opening date of the garden in mid June, where his priorities are to “continue to service the community and do it socially responsibly and safely. There is a lot of to-ing and froing at the moment. It’s a whole new

world for everybody,” he says. Turner has been adjusting to the pandemic by sharing spring in the garden through photos, virtual tours and online “boredom busters” for kids.

Meet the new director “Jimmy...is an innovator, a skilled administrator and communicator, and the ideal person to build on the tremendous legacy of this Garden’s past leaders,” said Laura Snow, University of Utah Chief of Staff. Turner holds an undergraduate degree in plant and soil sciences and a master of science degree. He’s been working in the field for 30 years. “This will

Red Butte Garden is home to half a million spring-blooming bulb plants.

Turner and his partner, Toby Stedford, came to Utah from Sydney, Australia, where Turner left his position of six years as the director of horticulture management for the Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain

What’s next for Red Butte Garden

In contrast, Red Butte Garden, which opened in 1985, is in a very different “young adult” stage of garden life. This was part of the reason Turner was attracted to the position.

He sees much opportunity in Red Butte Garden’s “What am I going to be when I grow up?” stage. Turner wants to ask, “What are we to the local community? What are we to the botanic garden community?

Trust. Prior to that, he had served as What are we for the larger conservasenior director of the gardens at the tion community worldwide?” He Dallas Arboretum & Botanical Gar- views gardens as living memory, where decisions made now will den in Texas for over a decade.

Turner created a carnivorous plant linger 100 years from now.

Turner replaces Dr. Gregory Lee, exhibit at the Royal Botanic Garden who is retiring after 17 years— that drove record visitation. He organized one of the largest and most nearly half of the young life of Red successful plant trials in North Butte Garden. Turner notes that Dr. America while at the Dallas Arbore- Lee was great at taking his time with tum. Incidentally, Turner is also one Red Butte and making decisions of the world’s biggest horticultural carefully.

“Gardens take time. In a garden social media influencers, with a Twityou can make a mistake and spend ter following of 230,000 people.

“In the last few months I’ve expe- years trying to fix it. Gardens grow rienced drought, huge fires, floods, slowly—any garden that grows a stressful international move, cats quickly is a landscape. Landscapes, nearly frozen during transit, pan- to me, are built overnight, and are demic, earthquakes…” he recently replaceable,” says Turner. He emphawrote—one of his few non-plant sizes his wish to listen to the staff throughout his integration phase. posts—on his page @TexanInOz. He says he loved the job and Aus- He also wants to see the garden tralia but after one of the worst through all four seasons before makwildfire seasons in over a decade ing any big decisions on changes. “I and record-breaking droughts, it need to take the time to let this garwas just time to move on from the den figure out what she needs to be. position, where a large part of his Continued on next page

While quarantining for two weeks, Turner met his new staff via Zoom and addressed Covid-related job furloughs. It was a surreal adjustment to a new life for the Texas native.

be my last stop in my career before I retire,” says Turner.

For him, his life path was always destined for horticulture. Regarding his clear vocational direction, he says, “I thought that was normal for everybody, but my partner tells me, ‘No, you’re the strange one.”

Originally from Garland, Texas, Turner comes from a long line of farmers and gardeners. He remembers his grandmother telling him about digging up and passing down the family bulb plants from generation to generation. Not surprisingly, his favorite plant is a bulb plant, the daffodil. Much to Turner’s delight,

job was to make budget cuts to the well-established garden. At over 200 years old, the government-run Royal Botanic Garden is one of the most historic botanic institutions in the world.

38 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

There are a lot of things we could do that may not be right for Salt Lake City. We’ve got to find out. That’s the fun part, is finding out.”

First things first: to open the garden. Turner says the first two weeks will be for garden members only. This is to not only thank their sustaining members who are an important part of what is keeping the garden afloat financially, but also to help work out the kinks in the required Covid-19 precautions with slightly fewer visitors. Precautions include touchless payments online, one-way walkways and other spacial-distancing measures to keep people safe.

Turner anticipates record visitation when they open, but he wants to do it the right way. He understands that green space is a big contributor to our mental health.

The pandemic has impacted the garden in many ways financially, of which a major piece is the 60% of their revenues from the summer concert series which was canceled in late May. Turner hopes to explore what smaller, more intimate gatherings might look like in the garden.

He says he’s fond of the saying “When you plant a garden, you plant hope.” In his first letter to the public as Red Butte Garden executive director, he writes, “Gardens are a variety of things to different people. To many of us they are places of hope, healing, and comfort—something we definitely need right now.”

And while he stresses that the tim-

Continued:

JIMMY TURNER

ing of the pandemic could not have been worse to impact every one of the Garden’s revenue streams simultaneously, he also says not to worry about the garden itself. He’s more worried about the staff and how to employ them in such a difficult year.

The deeper questions Beyond this year’s financial challenges, Turner hopes to contemplate the deeper questions: What does the community need from this garden, which communities are they not serving, and how do they engage people regarding the im-

The summer concert series which typically provides 60% of the Garden’s revenues, was canceled in late May. Turner hopes to explore offering smaller, more intimate gatherings in the garden. portance of plants in our lives?

“Plants are the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the makeup you wear, the hair dyes, the medicine. At the end of the day, plants are pretty much everything. No plants, no people,” says Turner.

Especially in the age of Covid, people seem to be reawakening to our connection to nature. Nurseries are having an incredible year as people return to their gardens.

Turner knows the magical feeling of growing his own food, and loves sharing that with others.

“We are creatures of nature. [In nature] our blood pressure goes down

and we feel better. We celebrate weddings, funerals, and so many other big occasions outside with flowers–nature is a part of who we are and how we interact with each other,” he says.

Turner thinks back on his childhood, when he could ride his bike for miles, or play in the front yard for hours, and how differently most modern families live, with less time spent in greenspace. As condos and apartments in Salt Lake City keep popping up at a breakbeat pace, our population steadily increases. The Gardner Institute projections anticipate 600,000 new residents in Salt Lake County and our state population nearly doubling by 2065. The tighter we pack into this city and more reliant on technology we become, the less greenspace each family will have of its own.

Turner can’t wait for the day soon when the garden is open and he is able to watch people enjoying themselves there. “Little kids running to go smell a flower, people sneaking a foot in a flower bed to take a photo to send to mom—it’s those little moments when people are oblivious to people watching.

Absolutely engrossed in their surroundings. I’ll get emotional because, to me, this is everything,” says Turner.

“This is my life, this is my career, but at the end of the day, my obsession. To see people get a glimpse behind the emerald curtain and see what I see is probably my happiest moment. How to make more of that happen is really what I want to do, and to show people the love that gardens can give you.” ◆ Sophie Silverstone is a CATALYST staff writer and the director of community outreach.

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40 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

FILM

Spaceship Earth A new film to inspire the power of small groups and to reimagine our world

BY SOPHIE SILVERSTONE

photos courtesy Sundance Institute

plains and the plants and animals to go with it. The team grew their own food, recycled everything, and carefully monitored each little ecosystem down to the smallest scale.

When they harvested a sweet potato, they could see the little uptick in carbon in their atmosphere.

While the team of Biospherians documented their mission, the majority of what the public saw around the experiment was from TV news media. Media coverage at the time largely framed the event as a spectacuou may remember the story—in 1991, in Oracle, Arizona, about an hour north of Tucson, eight lar failure, or a fraud, and often pointed to cult accusapeople sealed themselves inside “Biosphere 2,” tions around the group that had launched the $200 a glass-enclosed space built to mimic Earth’s million project. Critics said there was a lack of credible biome. Their mission over the course of two science backing, and often referred to it as “trendy ecoyears was to explore the possibilities of how humans logical entertainment.”

On the surface, the series of bite-size news reports could survive in a closed system.

The enterprise, funded by a Texas oil billionaire, was from the Biosphere 2 project present a cautionary tale motivated by the potential in licensing technologies for from a simplified perspective.

The longer, more nuanced story is about the group of building future human colonies on Mars.

The project as a whole was driven by a group of coun- imaginative individuals who had traveled the world and made the seemingly impossible possitercultural idealists who saw it as an The team grew their own ble, long before Biosphere 2 was conopportunity for research and to inspire of. This story was never told, better stewardship for our own planet. food, recycled everything, ceived until now.

Constructed from 1987 to 1991, BiosIn an internet search around two phere 2 covered 3.14 acres (less than and carefully monitored years ago, director Matt Wolf came one third the area of a Salt Lake City each little ecosystem down upon a photo of what he initially block). Inside was a mini Earth, comthought was a still from a science ficplete with a desert, ocean, rainforest, to the smallest scale.

Y

tion film—a group of eight people in Star Trek-evoking attire, standing in front of a giant glass pyramid.

Wolf zoomed out 25 years to the story behind these people and the pyramid and gave it a new life.

“I was looking for the story that was bigger than Biosphere 2, at a group who literally reimagined a world. They were catalyzed by an early awareness of climate change.

This project was really discounted and taken over largely because of political and economic forces,” Wolf told us in January at the film’s Sundance premiere.

“As a filmmaker I’m always looking for stories that are ripe for reappraisal, and this is certainly one of them, given our current environmental crisis,” says Wolf.

The Biospherians In a time when nearly every Earthling has been spending a little extra quiet time, and wondering what the future will look like after COVID-19 reveals all the societal, financial and ecological cracks in Biosphere 1, Spaceship Earth tells the story about

a small group of individuals who had not just been reimagining our planet for decades —they had done a lot about it.

The group met in San Francisco in the 1960s. They had wanted to do something in theatre, business, art, and science, so they decided to do it all. They called themselves the Synergists.

Inspired by the likes of Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch and Rene Daumal’s Mount Analogue, they set out to build a sustainable ranch in New Mexico in 1969 and kept going from there.

“The moments of all possibilities last a very short time, and that’s why you act,” says original member Kathelin Gray in the film.

The charismatic leader of the group, John Allen—Oklahoma-born, former military, Harvard MBA graduate, theatrical figure—attracted characters from all over: architects, social workers, theatre buffs, the list goes on—emboldened by the idea that the power of a group is greater than the sum of its parts.

The name Spaceship Earth is a nod to Buckminster Fuller, the originator of the geodesic dome and author of Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, a short book published in 1969 in which he talks about planet Earth flying around the universe, with a finite amount of resources that cannot be resupplied.

In the years leading up to the undertaking of Biosphere 2, the group had kept upping their challenges.

They built a boat in which they trav-

“They were catalyzed by an early awareness of climate change.” eled the world, started an art gallery in London, built a hotel in Kathmandu and held ecological think tanks, all the while touring as a theatre company called the Theatre of All Possibilities.

“I see both the possibilities of ambitions, and also the limitations of it.

That is part of the parable of Biosphere 2. Failure is part of the equation, too, and you can learn things from that: It’s more important to take risks than to operate in a safe space where you’re guaranteed to have success,” says Wolf.

Swept up in their world of “all possibilities” and meanwhile searching for where they went wrong, Wolf unravels a story of ambition, longterm impact versus the curse of short-term economic investment pressures and human foibles, and the power of small groups. Wolf dusts off the story that was largely discarded from public memory and re-examines the question posed by Biospherians: If this small group can use their collective skills and experience and cooperatively manage their impact, why can’t we? ◆ Sophie Silverstone is a CATALYST staff writer and director of Community Outreach.

The documentary re-telling, full of archival footage and recent interviews with the group behind Biosphere 2, can be rented through Utah Film Center here.

Spaceship Earth is also now available on Hulu, Amazon Prime, Google Play and YouTube.

42 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

Be cool

YOGA

Spring into a summer yoga practice

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oga teachers often describe yoga poses in terms of their heating and cooling qualities. Many of us sequence our everyday yoga classes with these qualities in mind. For example, I like to start a practice with heating poses, and move gradually to cooling poses, ending with a generous Savasana (final relaxation).

As we move into summer, I orient my classes toward the cooling side of the spectrum. As a person who’s prone to overheating, I’m well aware of the downsides of adding more heat to an already overcooked body. But many of my students love the more heating poses—standing poses, backbends and core work. In order to continue to offer a well-rounded practice, I still include poses that may be inherently heating.

How can we balance the need to stay cool with the desire to engage in a well-rounded practice? When I studied at the Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute in Pune, the late Geeta Iyengar proposed a solution. In the last days of a three-week intensive, as we were preparing for the grueling 20-hour flight back to the States, Geeta offered a markedly more gentle approach to practice than she had in the previous weeks.

While we spent much of our prac-

BY CHARLOTTE BELL tice time in calming restorative poses in those final days, we still practiced standing poses in every session. The standing poses we practiced did not have to create excess heat, she said—if we practiced them with a “cooling intention.”

In an indirect way, Geeta was talking about an aspect of karma.

Our intention colors the results of our actions.

• Be aware of your breathing. The way we breathe influences the state of the nervous system. Restricted or agitated breathing in any pose can cause a sympathetic (fight-or-flight) response, including heat and agitation. Slow, deep breathing yields a cooling, calming parasympathetic (rest-and-digest) response. If your poses are restricting your breathing, relax your effort.

• Stay inside your body. Even though most of us know that yoga is not supposed to be competitive, we all tend to compare ourselves to others, and to our past or imagined future practice. We tend to apKarma includes both intention and proach yoga as if it were a sport, foaction. This means that our actions cusing on what we think poses bear consequences—pleasant or should look like. Turning awareness unpleasant—depending on the ac- inward, to the internal moment-totion, but also on the intention be- moment sense experiences in each hind it. Our intention colors the unfolding asana can help us results of our actions. For example, dampen the tendency to practice if we practice asana with an aggresaggressively. sive or competitive attitude, we are Try these suggestions and then likely to feel more heated or agitated after our practice. If we prac- take time between poses to feel the tice with an attitude of curiosity and aftereffects. This will help you deopenness, we can practice any velop an inner reference system to pose, even heating poses, and guide you toward a practice that emerge from practice with a sense both energizes and cools you. ◆ Charlotte Bell has been practicing yoga since of calm and ease.

Here are two key ways I’ve 1982. She is the author of several yoga-related (most recently, Hip Healthy Asana) and learned to manifest a cooling atti- books founder of Mindful Yoga Collective in SLC. tude while practicing asana: www.CharlotteBellYoga.com/

June 2020

CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

43

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44 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

CULTURE & SOCIETY

Salt Lake City’s recent protest and perspectives from a young black student

“This time they can see our pain”

Y

ou can call the protest violent. By the end, it was. But understand that when you do so, when all you are willing to see is the parts of activism that make you most uncomfortable, you risk drawing the conversation away from the reasons for the protests and riots, happening now with more vigor and rage than ever before.

Perhaps the worst thing we can do right now is focus on riots and looting yet remain silent about the murders, the racism, white supremacy and the longstanding inability of our society to protect and respect black lives.

Attending Saturday’s downtown protest was, for me, an act of listening to and trying to understand our black community and their anger, hurt and resilience. Some white protestors were clearly there to advance their own agendas and express personal rage, but watching hundreds of people—groups of friends, siblings, whole families— march or drive around downtown and up to the state capitol to demonstrate was to observe the important practice of allyship. https://guidetoallyship.com/ Organized by Utah Against Police Brutality, the car caravan rally route began in front of the Public Safety building just east of the Downtown

Library. I ended up near the end of the long lanes of participants, stuck in traffic near the intersection of

State Street and 500 South. Here, the view was incredible. People spilled out of car windows and poked out of sunroofs. Signs read “Stop killing black people,” “Silence is violence” and “My skin is not a weapon.” Chanters called “Black lives matter!” and “No justice, no peace, no racist police.”

Many people, most wearing masks, had given up their cars and were walking at that point, and we honked and waved at them as they passed. Did everyone know where they were going? We moved together, as one, like a school of fish, strong and able to protect itself from predators.

Even as the tune changed and different factions grew violent as police moved in, it was clear that, for whites, this gathering was about lis-

BY EMILY SPACEK

tening and trying to understand.

In my post-protest discussions, one black friend said that for some time now he’s felt as if he was watching something like the genocide of his own people, as images and videos of dead black bodies filter across phone and tv screens with grievous regularity. Another said that one of the most helpful things white people can do right now is to talk about racism. Confront it in your social circles. Listen to black people and believe them.

Thus, I realized that in writing about the protest, it is not my perspective you need to hear. Instead, I share with you the voice of one of my former students, a 15-year-old from Rwanda who moved to Utah a few years ago. He attends a predominantly white school.

Conversation with a young black student When he first heard about George Floyd’s death, his reaction centered on a realization that this was the norm—another black person was murdered by police. He explained that racial aggression and even death by police is something black people can’t help but fear in daily life.

“It’s always the same… what cops

do to black people. We can’t just be. For example, when I go to the gym, my mom, she tells me to take my hood off.

She says people might think I’m a thug or whatever just because of the way that I look.”

At school, not only could white friends wear their sweatshirt hoods up without having to confront that lingering association, but sometimes they’d make pointed comments at him that always felt uncomfortable.

“Every time, they’re like ‘Can I touch your hair?’ I mean that’s not racist, but it makes you feel different.” Some might dismiss a question like this as inconsequential, but repeated invasive comments (known as microaggressions) can lead to a person feeling isolated, especially in largely white institutions where they might be the only ones ever asked such questions. What’s more, black hair has a political history in the US. While “black” hair is often seen as exotic or unprofessional, “white” hair is accepted as the norm: neat and professional. Many school and company dresscodes restrict historically black hairdos such as braids, dreadlocks and bantu knots. My student also discussed his hesitation at wearing his favorite hairstyle, dreads, due to his mother’s fear that he might be seen as thuggish and disobedient—an inconvenient association in school and a dangerous association on the streets.

He is the hardest working teen I know, yet his economic and racial

status put him at a disadvantage to succeed in many aspects of the school system.

For instance, he is an excellent soccer player and carried his school’s junior varsity team. I was

He is the hardest working teen I know, yet his economic and racial status put him at a disadvantage to succeed in many aspects of the school system. certain he would be the very next pick for varsity.

“When I was sad about not making the varsity soccer team… I don’t think it was because I wasn’t good enough,” he told me. The high school team this student tried out for is nearly entirely composed of white players and is notorious for parent politics involved in the selection process. At the time, it frustrated me greatly that the coaches picked a different student over him.

Making it on varsity is extremely important to him. The more years

on the school’s best team, the more likelihood of being scouted by colleges. If he doesn’t make the varsity soccer team next year, he may switch to track and field as a route to the exposure necessary for scholarships despite his enduring love for soccer.

His school certainly lacks teachers and staff of color, but the silence of his white teachers is what bothers him most. “My teachers don’t talk about [race]. They fear to talk about it. When it comes up, they go silent.”

Regarding the late May protest, he said he wanted to go but, “for me, that’s taking a big risk.”

He might wish he could go to the protest. He also wishes he could wear dreads without his mother fearing for his life.

But when the police see you differently, he acknowledged, that’s when it becomes the deadliest problem.

“I try to be good to everybody at school. But I can’t always take the time to explain [my experiences with racism] to everyone. Sometimes I can see they don’t believe me,” he confessed.

“But to be honest, I love these protests. A good thing I see right now is that this time, there are white people there. This time they can see our pain.

“At the end of the year, when I go back to school, people are going to understand better. Maybe they will listen.” ◆ Emily Spacek is a CATALYST staff writer.

®

46

COMMUNITY

APOTHECARY

WE ARE OPEN w/ a student practitioner

MASSAGE

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Call 801-355-6300 ext. 1 to book your appointment

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review our COVID prevention measures by visiting: healingmountain.edu/updates

Natural Law Apothecary 12/20

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AYURVEDA

Maria Radloff, AWC, E-RYT5006/20 480.600.3765. SLC. Ayurveda is the art of longevity and health. Maria specializes in ayurvedic healing using food choices, lifestyle & routines, herbs and yoga practices.

She offers personal ayurvedic consults for preventive health and healing, corporate wellness packages, public workshops and educational events. www.Mariyurveda.com

ENERGY HEALING

Abi J. Bateman, Reiki Master/Teacher

801.859.2513. Body-mind-spirit-connection.

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Cynthia Boshard, Reiki Master12/20

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HERBAL MEDICINE

Summer Morning Program Starting Soon + Learn more or request

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Natural Medicne Clinic of Utah10/20

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INSTRUCTION

“Energy Codes” Certified Master Trainer, Kathleen A. Bratcher, LMT 6/20

R E S O U R C E DIREC TORY

801.879.6924. 1555 E Stratford Ave, STE 400, SLC. Embodiment exercises, meditations and principles from Dr. Sue Morter’s book, The Energy Codes, #1 L.A. Times Bestseller. Awaken health potential—grounded in energy medicine, neurobiology, and quantum physics— through EC teachings & exercises. Classes & private sessions available. Community on Facebook at Energy Codes Utah. afkb@msn.com

MASSAGE

Agua Alma Aquatic Bodywork 5/20

801.891.5695. Mary Cain, LMT, YA 500, MS Psychology. Relax in a warm pool supported by floats, explore the transformative balancing potential of water massage, likened to Watsu. Enjoy table massage using Transformational Neuromuscular technique, hot stones, Reiki and Yoga. We will find the right bodywork blend to meet your specific needs. Wellness coaching, excellent references. www.FromSourceToSource.com

Healing Mountain Massage School 801.355.6300, 363 S 500 E, Ste. 210, SLC. www.HealingMountainSpa.com

M.D. PHYSICIANS

Todd Mangum, MD, Web of Life Wellness Center 801.531.8340, 770 E. South

Temple, Suite #100, SLC. Integrative Family Practitioner utilizing functional medicine for treatment of conditions such as: fatigue, fibromyalgia, digestion, adrenals, hormones, and more. Dr. Mangum recommends diet, supplementation, HRT and other natural remedies in promoting a health-conscious lifestyle. www.WebOfLifeWC.com, www.thepeople@weboflifewc.com 5/21

NUTRITION

Teri Underwood RD, MS, CD, IFMCP8/20

801-831-6967. Registered Dietitian/Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner. Foodbased, individualized diet plans, high-quality nutrition supplements, and counseling. Digestion, Diabetes, Vegans, Cardio-Metabolic, Autoimmune, Cancer, Cognitive Decline, Food Intolerance, Fatigue, Weight Loss, Thyroid, Chronic Health Problems, Preventive Health.

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STRUCTURAL INTEGRATION Open Hand Bodywork DA

801.694.4086, Dan Schmidt, GCFP, LMT. 244 W 700 S, SLC. www.SomaDan.com

Suzanne Wagner

PSYCHIC, AUTHOR, SPEAKER, TEACHER

30 YEARS PSYCHIC EXPERIENCE

Author of “Integral Tarot” and “Integral Numerology”

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Catalyst magazine since 1990

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“ It is not enough

to just

up to all of us—Black, white, every“It’sone—no matter how well-meaning we

think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out. It starts with self-examination and listening to those whose lives are different from our own. It ends with justice, compassion, and empathy that manifests in our lives and on our streets.

—Michelle Obama (Former first lady)

”

seen this in South Africa “We’ve before. Beware of agitators and

instigators who use legitimate protests to ignite chaos between protestors and police.

—Trevor Noah (Comedian)

”

Background photo credit: DuJuan Mitchell

is NOT a o “Resistance Maybe your lane is p

maybe your lane is co maybe your lane is a maybe your lane is su Do NOT occup We n —Lin

#Bl

”

t be not racist. You must be actively anti-racist.

—Angela Davis If, going forward, we can channel our “ justifiable anger into peaceful, sus-

tained, and effective action, then this moment can be a real turning point in our nation’s long journey to live up to our highest ideals.

”

Let’s get to work.

—Barack Obama (Former president)

one lane highway. protesting, ounseling, rt activism, urviving the day.

T feel guilty for not pying every lane. need all of them. ndsay Young (Poet)

”

demands we take pride not only “ Today in reaching the sky, but also sustained

heights of decency, truth, compassion and justice for all, now! #WeStandWithYou #icantbreathe —Dr. Mae Jemison (First woman of color in space) on May 30, 2020

”

lacklivesmatter

50 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

Masking A survey of the mania

BY DENNIS HIMKAMP

SLIGHTLY OFF CENTER bikinis. On alternate days I can feel smug for wearing a mask and rebellious for not wearing one. Mainly I feel sad that we are dividing ourselves over this. If COVID-19 is the enemy, it has to be laughing at our confusion.

I

n these uncertain times, one thing we know for sure: People love tacos. The grand convergence of Taco Tuesday and Cinco de Mayo caused a drive- through/pickup gridlock around the state. I heard of wait times of two hours at any food provider with a vaguely Hispanic-sounding name.

Our newfound love of takeout food is creating billowing amounts of food packaging trash filling every public receptacle five times

We also have mostly agreed that daily public nudity is not an acceptable thing. So don’t go into crowds with a nude face. faster than normal. Thank you, city workers, for keeping up with the aftermath of our COVID-19 gluttony.

One of the few things that we can be sure of is that we sure aren’t sure about masks. People are getting shamed, ticketed and, at least in one case, shot for their decision. I find myself at odds with my own contrarian nature wanting to comply with the Utah governor’s strong suggestion to wear them.

Crafty people are joyfully sewing away with new designs of these face

This is how I see how the mask mania is breaking down.

1. Don’t tell me what to do: This is deeply ingrained in our American psyche. We are mostly descendents of people who fled other countries because they didn’t like to be told what to do. That was cool when there were just a small collection of east coast colonies, but now that there are 330 million of us, we need a little compliance. Red means stop.

Green means go. Yellow means go for it. We also have mostly agreed that daily public nudity is not an ac-

ceptable thing. So don’t go into crowds with a nude face.

2. It is the sign of submission: The segment of the population that is most worrisome are those who are protesting with large weapons, American flags and elbow-to-elbow protests. I know people are quick to jump in with Darwin theory, but most of these people look like they are old enough to have already procreated.

I’m just fine with any excuse for not getting a haircut.

3. It’s a liberal /conservative issue: I shop at both big box stores and politically woke natural food stores and I don’t see any difference in mask use. I actually feel safer in the big box stores because, well, it’s a big box and there is more spacial distancing room. Are the non-mask wearing people in the natural foods stores hoping the products therein will protect them? Are the non-mask wearers at the big box stores hoping the 80-pack of toilet paper is enough to shield them?

4. Maybe we should have always done this: We have sneeze guards on buffets for the same reason we are now wearing masks. Hospitals have always had high sanitation standards. Food poisoning and the flu have always been bad things.

Maybe this will get us to take sanitation more seriously? I doubt it.

Forgetting is contagious . ◆ Dennis Hinkamp thinks there has to be a perfect Father’s Day mask out there.

COMMUNITY

YOGA THERAPY

MEDIA

Certified Yoga Therapist (C-IAYT), Dana works through the body, supporting clients with a variety of issues to develop greater awareness of patterns, more effective coping skills, and improved health using not only tools of yoga and meditation, but also modern somatic and embodiment practices.

801.363.1818, 1971 N Temple, SLC. www.KRCL.org

Dana Levy, C-IAYT, M.A. 4/20 419.309.1190. A

dana@danalevyyoga.com www.DanaLevyYoga.com

MISCELLANEOUS ENTERTAINMENT 12/19 Utah Film Center

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LEGAL ASSISTANCE

Schumann Law, Penniann J. Schumann, J.D., LL.M

shops in a supportive, non-competitive environment since 1986. www.CharlotteBellYoga.com

KRCL 90.9FM DA

REAL ESTATE

801.898.3011 Serving: buyers and sellers of agricultural and rural farm properties within Utah.

Complete real estate services to guide you throughout the process and nuances of agricultural and rural lands. Consulting: water rights/shares, perc. tests, soil quality, conservation easments, hemp regualtions and urban home. www.hartcreighton@gmail.com

MOVEMENT & MEDITATION Red Lotus School of Movement

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ASTROLOGY

Transformational Astrology FOG

212.222.3232. Ralfee Finn. Catalyst’s astrology columnist for 20 years! Visit her website, www.AquariumAge.com, ralfee@aquariumage.com

PSYCHIC/TAROT READINGS Suzanne Wagner DA

Mindful Yoga: Charlotte Bell DA 1/20

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PSYCHIC ARTS & INTUITIVE SCIENCES

Creighton Hart3/20

MARTIAL ARTS 3/20 DA

R E S O U R C E DIREC TORY

707.354.1019. An inspirational speaker and healer, she also teaches Numerology, Palmistry, Tarot and Channeling. www.SuzWagner.com

PSYCHOTHERAPY & PERSONAL GROWTH HYPNOSIS

Rise Up Hypnosis 4/20

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52 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

June 2020

RESILIENCY

Finding solutions in the ways of the ancestors

I

f you live many dusty miles from a decent grocery store (and in the midst of a pandemic, in which your county has the second highest case rate in the state), you might find the notion of growing your own food a life-saver. That is, if you had access to the types of seeds that can thrive where summers are hot, temperatures extreme and rain sparse.

Protein would be welcome, too.

And wool, for warm clothing and to sell. Maybe some sheep.

Welcome to Navajo Nation, an area overlapping parts of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico—roughly the size of West Virginia—where 157,000 Navajos call home. In the past 20 years, population has been declining as the unemployment rate creeps upward. The current median age is 28, with an unemployment rate of 56%.

The Seeds and Sheep program was created earlier this year by Utah Diné Bikéyah (pron. dee-nay-bi-KAYah), a nonprofit supporting Native Tribes working together to Protect Bears Ears. The organization’s Traditional Foods Project is helping Na-

tive farmers restore or maintain a self-sufficient food system in this time of crisis and beyond by distributing seeds from area sources, including the Traditional Native American Farmers Assn. They also plan to offer Navajo churro sheep, a hardy breed raised by Navajos since the 1600s (a breed nearly made extinct by the U.S. government in the late 1800s) as well as Rambouillet, a mainstay on western ranches. Both are known as dual breeds in that they are good for both meat and wool.

The program recently received a boost from the National Resilience Fund, a project of Slow Food USA, which granted 23 food-based initiatives around the country through local Slow Food chapters. "By injecting extra funds to local community initiatives that most need support now, we will help them survive the current crisis and build resilient economies and communities for the future, with good, clean and fair food front and center,” according to their press release.

Slow Food Utah, our state’s affiliate, submitted the request on Diné

Bikéyah’s behalf; the program was awarded $2,000.

Slow Food Utah’s main project is providing micro-grants to local food producers, funded by proceeds from an annual dinner called The Feast of Five Senses. The motto of Slow Food International as well as its country, state and regional affiliates, is “good, clean, fair food for all."

“Our spiritual leaders are also talking about the need to repair our relationship to the earth across all of humanity,” says Alastair Lee Bitsóí (Diné), communications director for UDB. “Our organization is supporting the elders who say, ‘It is time to plant corn, it's time to pray for abundant food and wild game, and it is time to come together as a community to help each other.’ These are unprecedented times, and we are looking to the most knowledgeable land stewards in Utah to guide us forward.”

— Greta Belanger deJong utahdinebikeyah.org; tel. 385.202.4954; Utah Diné Bikéyah, P.O. Box 554. Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

COMMUNITY THERAPY/COUNSELING

Big Heart Healing, Dr. Paul Thielking

801.413.8978. SLC. Helping people on the path of personal growth, healing, and selfdiscovery. Through workshops and retreats, Dr. Thielking utilizes what he has learned as a psychiatrist, Zen student, and Big Mind facilitator to help others to experience a deeper sense of meaning, fulfillment, and joy in life.

Paul@BigHeartHealing.com BigHeartHealing.com5/20

Cynthia Kimberlin-Flanders, LPC 10/20

801.231.5916. 1399 S. 700 E., Ste. 15, SLC. Feeling out of sorts? Tell your story in a safe, non-judgmental environment. Over 21 years specializing in recovery from covert narcissistic abuse, depression, anxiety, life-transitions, anger management, relationships and “middle-aged crazy.” Most insurances, sliding scale and medication management referrals. If you've been waiting to talk to someone, wait no more.

Seasoned psychiatrist, Zen priest and shamanic healer. Sees kids, teens, adults, couples and families, integrating psychotherapy and meditation with judicious use of medication to relieve emotional pain and problem behavior. Specializes in treating identity crises, and bipolar disorders. Sees patients in person in Provo and Moab. Taking phone appointments. sproskauer@comcast.net

801.531.7823, 1569 S. 1100 E., SLC. M-F 11a7p, Sat 11a-6p, Sun 12-5p. Turiya’s is a metaphysical gift and crystal store. We have an exquisite array of crystals and minerals, jewelry, drums, sage and sweet grass, angels, fairies, greeting cards and meditation tools. Come in and let us help you create your sanctuary. www.Turiyas.com

SHAMANIC PRACTICE

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Sarah Sifers, Ph.D., LCSW 10/20

801.531.8051. ssifers514@aol.com.

Shamanic Counseling. Shamanic Healing, Minister of the Circle of the Sacred Earth.

Mentoring for people called to the Shaman’s Path. Explore health or mental health issues using the ways of the shaman. Sarah’s extensive training includes shamanic extraction healing, soul retrieval healing, psychopomp work for death and dying, shamanic counseling and shamanic divination. Sarah has studied with Celtic, Brazilian, Tuvan, Mongolian, Tibetan and Nepali Shamans.

Healing Pathways Therapy Center 3/21

435.248.2089. 4465 S. 900 E. Ste 150, Millcreek & 1881 N. 1120 W. Provo. Integrated counseling and neurofeedback services for anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship, life adjustment issues. Focusing on clients’ innate capacity to heal and resolve past and current obstacles rather than just cope.

Modalities include EMDR, Neurofeedback, EFT, Mindfulness, and Feminist/Multicultural. Info@PathwaysUtah.com www.HealingPathwaysTherapy.com

Mountain Lotus Counseling4/20

801.524.0560. Theresa Holleran, LCSW & Sean Patrick McPeak, CSW. Learn yourself. Transform.

Depth psychotherapy and transformational services for individuals, relation-ships, groups and communities. www.MountainLotusCounseling.com

Natalie Herndon, PhD, CMHC 7/20

801.657.3330. 9071 S 1300 W, Suite 100, West Jordan. 15+ years experience specializing in Jungian, Analytical, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Are you seeking to more deeply understand yourself, your relationships, and why you struggle with certain thoughts and feelings? Call today for an appointment and let's begin. www.HopeCanHelp.net NatalieHerndon@HopeCanHelp.net

Stephen Proskauer, MD, Integrative Psychiatry

4/20 801.631.8426. 76 S. Main St., #6, Moab.

R E S O U R C E DIREC TORY

RETAIL line goes here

APPAREL, GIFTS & TREASURES Blue Boutique 10/20DA

801.487.1807, 1383 S. 2100 E., SLC. Shopping Made Sexy since 1987. www.BlueBoutique.com

Dancing Cranes Imports DA8/20

801.486.1129, 673 E. Simpson Ave., SLC. Jewelry, clothing, incense, ethnic art, pottery, candles, chimes and much more! www.DancingCranesImports.com

Golden Braid Books DA 11/20

801.322.1162, 151 S. 500 E., SLC. A true sanctuary for conscious living in the city.

Offerings include gifts and books to feed mind, body, spirit, soul and heart; luscious health care products to refresh and revive; and a Lifestyles department to lift the spirit. www.GoldenBraidBooks.com

iconoCLAD—We Sell Your Previously Rocked Stuff & You Keep 50% 801.833.2272. 414 E

300 S, SLC. New and previously rocked (aka, consigned) men’s and women’s fashion, summer festival gear and locally made jewelry, clothing, crafts and decor. M-Sat 11a-9p, Sun 1p-6p. Follow us on Instagram/Facebook/Twitter @iconoCLAD to see new inventory before someone beats you to it! www.IconoCLAD.com3/20

Turiya’s Gifts8/20 DA

Dave’s Health & Nutrition 7/20

SLC: 801.268.3000, 880 E 3900 S & W Jordan: 801.446.0499, 1817 W 9000 S. We focus on health & holistic living through education, empowerment and highquality products. With supplements, homeopathics, herbs, stones, books and beauty care products, we provide you with the options you need to reach your optimum health. Certified professionals also offer private consultations. www.DavesHealth.com

SPIRITUAL PRACTICE line goes here

ORGANIZATIONS

Utah Eckankar 9/20 801.542.8070. 8105 S 700 E, Sandy. Eckankar teaches you to be more aware of your own natural relationship with the Divine Spirit. Many have had spiritual experiences and want to learn more about them and how they can help us in our daily lives. All are welcome. www.eckankar-utah.org

INSTRUCTION

Two Arrows Zen Center 3/20DA

801.532.4975, ArtSpace, 230 S. 500 W., #155,

SLC. Two Arrows Zen is a center for Zen study and practice in Utah with two location: SLC & Torrey. The ArtSpace Zendo in SLC offers daily morning meditation and a morning service and evening sit on Thursday. TAZ also offers regular day-long intensives—Day of Zen—and telecourses. www.TwoArrowsZen.org

The Source Within 6/20

Questing (solitary introspection in nature)

has been used by cultures, traditions, and mystics around the world for countless generations as a tool to “know thyself”. We facilitate questing programs for people seeking Self-discovery, a purposeful path, and transformation. Information online at: SourceWithinQuest.net

54 CATALYSTMAGAZINE.NET

URBAN ALMANAC

JUNE 2020

June 2020 A monthly compendium of random wisdom for the natural world and beyond.

COMPILED BY GRETA DEJONG June 1 Average temps today: high 78º, low 54º.

Sunrise: 5:58am. Sunset: 8:53pm.

June 2 These easy annuals are pollinator-friendly: alyssum, cosmos, calendula, zinnia, sunflower.

June 3 There are female dragonflies and male damselflies. Dragonflies hold their wings in a i r - plane mode at rest; damselflies fold them back against their bodies. A dragonfly can eat 100 mosquitoes a day.

June 4 Do you know the nature of your tomato plants? They are “determinate”—basically bushes whose fruit come

June 6 Free Fishing Day in Utah. No license required!

See https://catalystmagazine.net/spring-fishing-for-food-and-fun/ of age all at once—or “indeterminate,” continuing to grow (up to 12 ft.) and produce till frost hits. Indeterminates require staking. (Semideterminate are more compact, like determinates, but produce steadily, like indeterminates.)

June 5 FULL MOON @ 1:12pm.

This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as the Full Strawberry Moon because it signaled the time of year to gather ripening berries. It also coincides with the peak of the strawberry harvesting season. This moon has also been known as the Full Rose Moon.

June 7 From Earth 911, four questions for conscious shopping: Do I need this?

Can I borrow this?

Can I make this? Is this the best quality I can afford?

June 8 World Ocean Day (as declared by the U.N. in 2008). Oceans cover about 71% of Earth's surface.

June 9 Begin your day with a poem!

Subscribe to The Writer’s Almanac, hosted by Garrison Keillor. Check it out at www.garrisonkeillor.com/ or subscribe via your favorite podcast app.

annuals: nasturtium (edible), sweet alyssum (attracts beneficial insects), calendula (healing properties in flowers).

June 13 Hooray, the Downtown June 10 If you think you have a Farmers Marsnail problem (holes in plant leaves, ket begins silvery slime trails), grab a flashlight today! Covid and head to the garden after dark, restrictions when snails are most active. Easy are in place. pickin's! What I do with them: I place Also, pups them on the compost pile. As de- must stay composer organisms, they’re in home this year. their happy place. They will stay June 14 Fix your there, working for you, till they die own stuff. iFixit of old age, while some other soil life will help you will have feasted on their eggs. Na- with everyture at work! thing from apparel June 11 You know that female praying mantises eat their mate's head post-coitus. Did you know mantises also kill and eat birds? A 2017 study reported that both native and non-native mantids are a significant threat to ruby-throated hummingbirds. Believe me, you don’t want to see the photos.

June 12 In this month's

“Garden Like a Boss” column, James Loomis discusses mulches. If you have a small garden and are fond of experimenting, try planting a “living mulch” (or at least a border) of multi-purpose

and appliances to phones and vehicles. www.ifixit.com June 15 Birds need water for bathing and drinking. DIY birdbath: Find a large flower pot saucer, about two inches tall and set it on the ground or on a sturdy raised surface.

Add pebbles or a flat stone to help the birds judge water depth. Keep the pan filled with an inch or so of water. Enjoy the activity!

June 16 Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) is the favorite food of many butterfly larvae. It can remediate certain heavy metals from soil. It reduces swelling and improves hay fever symptoms, according to folk medicine. And the leaves are up to 33% protein, too.

June 17 Garden experiment:

Water your garden for the length of time you think is appropriate. Then stick your finger into the soil. How deeply did you actually water?

Frequent shallow watering develops shallow roots, making plants vulnerable to drought. Water less frequently, but more deeply.

June 18 Loved by youngsters and U.S. presidents alike (Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon), the yo-yo is one of the longestlived toys. Depicted in art from 440 BC Greece and thought to be present in China much earlier, yo-yos were also popular throughout the 1900s and are even today. www.wikihow.com/Use-aYo-Yo June 19 Juneteenth (also known as Freedom Day) is an annual state holiday in Utah commemorating the 1865 freeing of the last slaves in the U.S., ending a heinous practice that extended back to the 1500s.

June 20 Summer sol- stice is at 3:44pm. Also called Midsummer.

Today, the longest day of the year, the Stinging nettle

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June 2020

North Pole is most inclined toward the sun. Archeological evidence points to this solar event being honored and studied via astronomical observatories throughout ancient earthly civilization. In addition to the world-famous Stonehenge in Great Britain, Machu Picchu in Peru, sun temples of Varanasi in India and numerous pyramids in Egypt, North America also was home to many ancient solar-based earthworks and medicine wheels. “Woodhenge,” in the major prehistoric city of Cahokia (in present-day Illinois), is thought to be a solar calendar.

June 21 New Moon @ 12:41am. Father's Day has been observed in the U.S. since 1910. However, it was not officially recognized as a holiday till 1972.

June 22 Occupy your

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URBAN ALMANAC

front yard. Haul a few chairs to the porch or lawn, and a table upon which to set your book and beverage. Entertain an appropriately distanced guest or chat with a family member. Say “hi” to passersby.

June 23 Plants with bitter flavors have a cooling effect. Add endive, escarole, watercress and dandelion greens to your salads this month.

June 24 Midsummer Day. This is a good time to go outside, sit still, and hope to see a fairy (or, as they prefer, faerie). Or maybe just (re)read J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. You can also create a fairy garden; the things you can do with pebbles, marbles, sticks, stumps and moss!

June 25 Dandelions are in the sunflower family (Asteraceae)...as are daisies, marigolds, zinnias, gazanias, cosmos, dahlias and mums.

June 26 When using a fly swatter, aim an inch and a half from the fly’s back; flies jump up and back when they take off.

June 27 Easily repair scratched eye-glasses: Dab vehicle wax (e.g. Turtle Wax) onto scratched area of cleaned glass.

Buff in small circular motions with a

Watercress

lint-free cloth. If the scratch is not gone within five minutes, apply more wax and repeat.

June 28 Not only can you add corrugated cardboard, egg containers and empty paper towel and toilet paper rolls to your compost pile/bin; you should, especially if you're not so diligent about turning the pile. These irregular shapes will allow room for more oxygen, an essential ingredient for the microbes that transform your waste into compost.

June 29 If ants keep traipsing into a space where you really don't want them, mix a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water in a spray bottle. Spraying it directly onto the ants kills them. This also works as a deterrent, Spray around windowsills, doorways, wherever you see ants coming inside. (You can't smell the vinegar once it dries.)

June 30 Average temps today: high 90º, low 63º. Sunrise: 5:59am. Sunset: 9:02pm. ◆ Greta Belanger deJong is editor and founder of CATALYST. Gretchen@CatalystMagazine.net/

METAPHORS FOR THE MONTH OshoZenTarot: Completion, Harmony, The Creator Medicine Cards:Turtle, Turkey, Whale MayanOracle:Muluc, Ben, Oc AncientEgyptianTarot:Five of Disks, 6 of Swords, King of Swords Aleister Crowley Deck:The Moon, The Tower, Prince of Disks Healing EarthTarot: Grandmother of Crystals, Six of Shields, Grandfather of Crystals WordsofTruth: Exhaustion, Lying, Quantum Leap

B

atten down the hatches! June is coming in with waves of cataclysmic change, indicated by the series of three eclipses this month and next, with all the planets moving retrograde. We are moving toward catastrophe on a global scale the likes of which we’ve not seen.

What this will look like is anyone’s guess. So many things are teetering on edges that it almost doesn’t matter which event kicks off the cascade.

The cards, too, are at a level of intensity that I do not often see.

That which is alive was born and will die. Presently we are in a massive cycle indicating that many forms of death are all around us. While that’s what we need in order to find the doorway that will open to a very new form of existence, one cannot help but feel the tragedy that is unfolding globally and the suffering that many will experience.

First of all, this forced time off has been a great blessing for many people who came to realize the level of exhaustion that their bodies have been holding. Two months of having the time to regroup and heal has radically rearranged our priorities.

Business will never be the same. Many realize they would rather work from home. Some companies realize they do not need big buildings or offices. How

J UNE Batten down the hatches and prepare for a quantum leap

BY SUZANNE WAGNER much cleaner will the air become with fewer vehicles on the road?

Some people realize that they want a life…not necessarily a career. They want to enjoy their children, have picnics, grow a garden. The illusion that has been so carefully constructed to chain souls to desks is being revealed as a fear tactic—and a very unnecessary one. People want to work. You can work and be happier.

You can accomplish more with less drama.

A shift in consciousness, an awareness that there is more to life, will shatter the old paradigm.

The big card in the Tarot deck to focus our attention this month is the Tower. This card indicates a total breakdown of the old ways, beginning with the stock market.

June and July set the stage for a radical and sharp correction. If you have money in the stock market, move it into things that may have less payout but are solid and safe.

The Mayan Oracle card Muluc is the card of eclipses. We are going into an eclipse cycle. The shadow takes control and darkens the sky, making us fear the “retribution of the gods.” Mother Earth has already shown us in the kindest way how toxic we are to this world. But are we listening? Many are not. June and July will bring the message home.

The root cause of this moment is hate and fear. The emotional drama unfolding this month and next will force us to take an honest look at our doggedness and ridiculous attachments to obsessive beliefs that are blatantly untrue.

We are about to be humbled. The sooner we kneel and accept the truth of our self-deception, the faster this world can change and grow toward something magnificent.

It will be a world that I want to see and want to experience. But the transition will be harsh.

Many years ago, I had a vision of a future.

There were two worlds that both were Earth.

One world was being destroyed by greed, resentment, hate and fear. But another world was nearing.

There would be a moment when we would be given a chance to leap out of the old world and into a world intended for humanity and all of life. It would be a quantum leap—a leap to a level that without divine connection, complete trust and the ability to leave everything behind would be impossible.

Prepare to leap. ◆ Suzanne divides her time between Salt Lake City and Mendocino County, California. Her Utah visits are on hold till further notice. She continues to meet with clients virtually. Connect with her via www.SuzanneWagner.com/

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