My name is John Stollmeyer and I teach people about permaculture.
I come from the St Ann’s watershed, in the dry forest ecosystem of the western Northern Range, in the Orinoco bioregion. I spent my boy days in the bush foraging mango, chennette, cashew, plum, sapodilla and caimet. I still live in the St Ann’s watershed, by choice.
I have a stepson from my first marriage. My present spouse, Susan Dayal, and I choose not to have children. It takes a “village” to raise a child. In our dysfunctional communities made up of fenced-in nuclear families, there is not enough “resource” to bring up sane human beings.
I first adopted my Mohawk haircut while living in Ontario around 1993. I was inspired by the Oka standoff, when the town tried to develop a private golf course and condominiums on native burial ground.
Both my parents were free thinkers. My grandmother tried to take me to the Anglican church but I was too restless and disruptive. I did go through with confirmation at Trinity College, but that was the end of it for me and religion.
I presently describe myself as a bioregional animist. For animists (who attribute a soul to plants, inanimate objects and natural phenomena) the world is a sacred place and we humans belong.
People are not good or bad but act more or less selfishly/selflessly depending on how they got hurt.
It is a foundation myth of our culture of maximum harm that there is one right way to do anything. The reality is, there are optimally appropriate ways of relating to “others” (two-legged, four-legged, rooted, winged, water, rock, wind, etc, persons) depending on the ecosystem we share.
To relax, I practice Da’i’ G joka (ie, “Gravity Joker”) a Creole synthesis of Tai chi and Yoga I am working out. I also spend time in the bush sitting still.
I don’t listen to music a lot but I sing to myself. I dance all the time, at home alone, and am often first on the dance floor, no alcohol necessary. It is a solo affair though; I never had the discipline for dancing with a partner.
My favourite singer is Shadow.
I imagine people might dismiss my lifestyle choices as coming from a place of privilege. I understand that the support I get from the “system”; the access to travel and my education have given me the opportunity to take the long view.
I support the West Indies cricket team, but in the lurch. Spectator sports are symptomatic of the constant bombardment with distractions of consume, consume, consume that prevent us from accessing our true feelings. We carry an accumulation of emotional baggage that interferes with our ability to act from a place of reason. A more participatory culture, where people spend more time relating directly with each other, would be healthier.
From an animist perspective, all our food is composed of souls. We need to know where the products we consume have come from, how they have been made, from what raw materials, (what animists refer to as All Our Relations). The closer to home we depend on for our needs, the smaller our ecological footprint, and the more gracefully we will ride out the coming bottleneck.
My ambition is to live long.
I teach permaculture (the simultaneous cultivation of several crops). While living in Ontario in the 80s I came across the bioregional movement. I returned in ‘94 and set up crafting high fashion jewelery from calabash and coconut shell. With every piece, the customer received a brochure articulating the bioregional vision and the principles of permaculture. For ten years I never received any feedback. Except one man said it sounded like a religion.
The best part of the job is doing physical work out of doors. The worst is writing reports.
I am a pilgrim by nature, wherever night meet me and I rest my head is my home.
A Trini is original, creative and self-possessed.
According to the Sufis, Trinidad is where heaven touches earth. When he sailed into the Gulf, Columbus believed he was in the Garden of Eden. This is a place where everything flourishes: predator and prey, parasite and host, sycophant and psychosis, waster and scavenger. It’s place with a history of the coming together of many cultures; rich in a diversity of influences.