About the designer of this
website:
BEGINNINGS / INFLUENCES:
I am a 70 year old man born and raised in the good ole U.S.A., in Michigan, in
1952. My educational qualifications: According to my high school transcript
I have an IQ of 124: 114 in Language; and 133 in Non-Language. My high school
education was obtained from a Catholic school which was accredited by the
University of Michigan. I majored in Math & Science and my GPA was 2.82.
My college education was from a Junior college by the name of Lake Michigan
College that was ranked academically 10th in the nation at the time. I was
enrolled in the Engineering curriculum there. My GPA there was 2.85.
My interest in the Garden Of Eden Project probably originally began in
3rd grade Religion class at the Catholic school I then attended. It was
initially sparked by some things I heard about Adam and Eve in the Garden of
Eden, the conventional Garden of Eden story told to children. I felt like I had
some kind of simple vision way back then, although it wasn’t precise.
Throughout my Catholic school education of 12 years, I never heard a lot more
about the Garden of Eden.
Part of my Garden of Eden influence was growing up near my grandfather's farm
in Michigan (partially organic), where I gained much knowledge and experience
helping my grandfather and uncles to harvest and plant fruit and vegetables
such as: carrots, potatoes, beans, corn, apples, peaches, cherries, pears,
plums, etcetera.
Growing up in Michigan I was impressed by a rather unique vegetarian religious
organization called the House
of David Israelites, as well as the Christian 7th Day
Adventists who also advocated vegetarianism. I soon began to connect
vegetarianism with the Garden of Eden concept.
I was also very much influenced by the music of the 1960s, including the
influences that British rock-n-roll had on America. Certainly The Beatles, The
Moody Blues, Led Zepplin, as well as many other
American and British musicians definitely had a very great influence on my life
in those days (and still do). The 1960s era was most definitely a time of great
upheaval of the somewhat stagnant American antiquated religious values prior to
that. Although many people went too far in the other direction (heavy drug use,
extreme sexual promiscuity, violence, etcetera), most people benefitted from
the refreshing energy that it brought to America and the world.
I also started smoking a little pot now and then in the 1970s and no doubt the
affect of the herb did help to inspire my creative thoughts. I could never
understand why marijuana should be illegal. After all, God did say in the Bible
(Genesis 1:29): Behold I have given you EVERY plant yielding seed that is on
the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it
shall be food for you...... So if God said He gave us all plants, how can man
legally make it illegal? We obviously have corruption in government!
At around the age of 22, I moved to California and I became vegetarian. In
California I was influenced by the Hare
Krishnas, Buddhists, 7th Day Adventists, as well as people I met while
living in San Francisco. I also read some very good books about health and
vegetarianism. One of the best was called The Mucusless
Diet Healing System by Arnold Ehret.
MY EXPERIENCE:
My direct experience in this Garden of Eden Project originated in 1990, from
living and working in another Garden of Eden Project initiated by some people
living in Oroville, California. We felt that the term "Garden of
Eden" had no copyright on it, as God would have it. I spent nine months
living in community with them, helping them plant approximately 100 (out of
their 400) fruit and nut trees of about 30 to 40 varieties on their 8-1/2 acre
piece of ex-horse ranch land. We planted 1 year old bare-root fruit tree
saplings. We used aged horse manure, organic composted soil, rock dust
fertilizer, hay and dead leaves, as we planted. We installed drip-line
irrigation for all the trees and they did tremendously well, doubling and
tripling their thickness in six months. I also built a small A-frame cabin from
recycled lumber and assisted in building a geodesic dome and other small
structures.
I also lived in a small informal community in the Sierra Nevada mountains. I had a work-trade situation there. The owner had
many different fruit trees planted among the relatively wild surroundings
there. I helped tend to the trees, harvest, dry fruits, etcetera.
We all enjoyed the surrounding (rather pristine) wilderness there, as well as
spring-fed hot tubs and drinking water. The panoramic views there were
incredibly awesome!
MORE RECENTLY:
I lived in Santa Cruz, CA. From 1991 to present. I was
homeless from about 1991 to 1999. Why was I homeless? Because I knew this would
be the only way I would have enough time to work on The Garden of Eden Project.
Between taking part-time jobs and sleeping in the redwoods, I was able to spend
hours every day in the public library doing my research for this Garden of Eden
Project website.
While being homeless, eventually I joined Food
Not Bombs in Santa Cruz, where I became one of the main volunteer cooks.
I was especially pleased with FNB because they were vegan. Every week, several
local supermarkets donated large quantities of produce to us. I made a lot of
friends and had a lot of good times while in FNB. Also around this time I began
to learn how to use computers.
I was fortunate enough to eventually acquire a part-time job with the
Interfaith Satellite Shelter Program (ISSP), which is a program that works in
cooperation with many local churches in Santa Cruz County to temporarily give
homeless people a place to sleep for the night and a hot meal. I worked 4 hours
a day at $6.00 per hour and received free room and board. During my free time
in the day I did most of my research for the materials on this website. I was
able to spend my money for using a computer at Kinko’s, printing up materials,
etcetera.
MY STATUS TODAY:
I have been a vegetarian for about 45 years now and vegan for 30 of those 45 years.
Since I became vegetarian in 1975 I had been generally quite healthy. However,
when I became homeless in 1991, my health did generally, albeit very slowly,
start to go downhill, mostly due to the oftentimes poor quality and variety of
food offered by the various homeless organizations, especially for those of us
wanting to maintain a vegetarian diet. This is not to put down homeless programs
in general. On the contrary, I feel that they are generally doing a good service
for homeless people. However, if one wants to remain a vegetarian, it presents
a lot more of a challenge to get good nutrition.
So, eventually, I found that I had to get off of the streets for my health and
sanity. For the last 20 years or so I have been working mostly full-time (as I have for most
of my adult life) in order to maintain my own computer and to maintain this
website. However, working full-time has severely limited my time for creativity
and has also consumed a very large part of my energy that would otherwise have
gone into promoting this Garden of Eden Project.
I would dearly love to find a generous wealthy supporter who would willingly pay me
enough to to live on (because I currently now have no job) and so I could devote
my time toward building The Garden of Eden Project. However,
until some wealthy person steps forward to provide me with this I am only going
to promote the Garden of Eden vision via my website. I am NOT going to attempt
to actively try to create or build a Garden of Eden community. I can only hope
that my website will inspire others to put it all together and actually build
one of these communities. Best of luck to all of you!
Offerings? Suggestions?
E-mail me at: rick@gardensofeden.org
Click HERE to go to HOMEPAGE.