Grape Thinking » Lifestyle http://grapethinking.com Fusing Mind with Vine Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:52:35 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 GrapeThinking http://grapethinking.com/grapethinking-video http://grapethinking.com/grapethinking-video#comments Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:40:26 +0000 Mu http://www.grapethinking.com/?p=3805 more...]]>

This video is a compilation of my harvests in the agroturismos of Italy, the desert of Argentina, and the sunshine of northern California. The music is one of my favorite songs of all time, it’s called Voyageur by Enigma. I moved out to California a year ago with a bottle of GrapeThinking, a bottle of ideas I guess you could say, that started filling up 5 years ago with conversation between myself, Jacob Bohall, Ruarri Rogan, Meghan O’Malley, and many others. Over the past year, those ideas have delightfully fermented, and the time has finally come for us to have a taste…

~circuit to cell, web to water, mind to vine~

]]> http://grapethinking.com/grapethinking-video/feed 0 الإكسير http://grapethinking.com/al-ikseer-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d9%83%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%b1 http://grapethinking.com/al-ikseer-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d9%83%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%b1#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:38:24 +0000 Mu http://www.grapethinking.com/?p=3118 more...]]> الإكسير in Arabic means al-ikseer, which is the source of the word elixir. The essence being the elixir of life… something alchemists have been seeking since the dawn of civilization. There may not be a magic potion that allows us to live forever, but the reality is that the elixir of life does exist.

The basis is an engine… a thinking engine that drives sustainable development, and more specifically, the health of the world. How do you create something in which the consumption heals the body and the production heals the earth?

Think about it

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]]> http://grapethinking.com/al-ikseer-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a5%d9%83%d8%b3%d9%8a%d8%b1/feed 1 California Dreaming http://grapethinking.com/california-dreaming http://grapethinking.com/california-dreaming#comments Wed, 27 Oct 2010 01:34:03 +0000 Mu http://www.grapethinking.com/?p=2877 more...]]> I’ve been in California for about 3 weeks now, and it’s been a vortex of amazing people, inspiring farms, and tasty elixirs. Right off the plane in San Francisco, I met a girl crazy passionate about sustainable development and permaculture with extensive experience in sustainable natural building… and she just so happens to love doing wine promotions. She was meeting a friend out here, who is an amazing young sustainable farmer and loves fermenting wine and home brewing. I really couldn’t have connected with people more aligned with my own passions… talk about synchronicity.

They bought a car with another girl (the rock star of the group), and were planning to head way north to work on a farm for a little bit. They invited me to go, so I left my suitcase with a friend in San Francisco and hit the road with them. The following few weeks were beyond amazing… so many serendipities. My favorite was running into one of the winemakers I worked with everyday for 2 months in Argentina earlier this year in a small grocery store parking lot in Napa, and I just so happened to have a bottle of the organic wine we worked on in my backpack. Our car turned into a sustainable circus. We worked on the farm we set out for, did a little harvest work at a winery, but mainly stayed on the road visiting sustainable farms all around northern Cali. We touched Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, and Marin.

A couple of our favorites were Filigreen Farm in Anderson Valley, where Chris Tebbutt has built an amazing mixed biodynamic agriculture setup of vines and fruit orchards, it was incredible. He also had huge solar arrays setup that produce 100% of the farm’s energy… a true thinking farm. We also visited Paul Dolan at his biodynamic Dark Horse Farming Ranch in Ukiah, which was powerful. He has an “energy center” with his flow form, preparations, and a stunning “bug strip” of crazy flowers and vegetation that generates the biodiversity and balance in his vineyard. On our way south, we made a stop at Solar City somewhere on 101 south of Ukiah, which is a sustainable building/living community. We slept in a teepee and talked about what it takes to build sustainable communities.

Somewhere along the way we got tipped off about the Bioneers conference down in San Rafael so we trekked down there and crashed the conference for the weekend. I talked to Rebecca of the Biodynamics Association about heading up their booth for a day in exchange for a free pass, and she graciously accepted my offer. We got to see some amazing speakers and share even more amazing ideas, and I was able to pitch biodynamics all day Sunday at the trade show.

We just kept going, drinking, laughing, breathing, seeing how these amazing farms are changing the environment, all while staying break even along the way. We went crazy and then sane and then crazy again. It was a ride. Now, I’m back in San Francisco to soak in what this place is all about, and make some magical elixirs along the way…

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]]> http://grapethinking.com/california-dreaming/feed 1 Planting some roots http://grapethinking.com/planting-some-roots http://grapethinking.com/planting-some-roots#comments Fri, 24 Sep 2010 20:26:04 +0000 Mu http://www.grapethinking.com/?p=2763 more...]]> I’m moving to the Bay area in a week to plant some roots. After traveling so much, experimenting and experiencing so many environments over the years, the time is now to plug in to an area and begin to build something. It is our dream to build sustainable environments around the world, and I know the place to base is San Francisco. I’ve known it for awhile. There is that open, forward-looking innovative mind that is so prevalent there along with the beginnings of a true sustainable culture… here’s to the crazy ones

]]> http://grapethinking.com/planting-some-roots/feed 0 Visit to Vinci http://grapethinking.com/visit-to-vinci http://grapethinking.com/visit-to-vinci#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 21:13:48 +0000 Mu http://www.grapethinking.com/?p=2242 more...]]> I had a chance to visit Vinci, Italia this past weekend, the hometown of one of GrapeThinking’s great inspirations, Leonardo Da Vinci. Below, I share my thoughts and sights on his balanced way of thinking and being, leading to unmatched accomplishments in both the arts and sciences. Everything he did was in brilliant harmony, whether it was the science of painting or the art of engineering and exploring human anatomy. He was a true master of the mind… and body.

My theory is he used his infinite curiosity as a feedback loop to direct his body, hands, and eyes to work and operate in a balanced fashion (ambidexterity), which resulted in greater structural and energetic harmony between the two sides of his mind. This allowed him to have clear and simple insights into innovation…. lol, I know. Just being there filled me with a type of inspirational energy I’d never felt before.

Odd Art Plaza outside of Museum

Vitruvian Man, the ESSENCE

There was a wedding in Da Vinci’s home the day we were there

Striking view from Da Vinci’s home

Full Moon on the ride home

Vitruvian Man in Vinci

The Vitruvian man

The essence of a human being

Practically you see he’s inside of a cube and a sphere at the same time

It was Da Vinci’s way of saying that the anatomy, the shape, the essence of a man, of a human , of a woman… is perfect.. it’s the essence of the universe… it’s the chiave, the key

It’s probably one of the most well recognized symbols in the world other than the Coca Cola brand

We are here in Vinci, Italia, which is the small town where obviously Leonardo Da Vinci was born and raised, and nurtured his genius

You see right here we’ve got the vigneto, the vineyard, and the olive trees

It’s what the locals here in Italia say is the key to their good health… olives and good wine

Wedding

(Wedding cheers)

That’s pretty cool

We’re here at the house where Da Vinci was born.

The greatest genius in the history of humanity… LOL

Where he was born

And of course, we’ve got all the olive trees goin on down here

Lexus and the olive tree

Just had a wedding here

Full Moon

And on the way back from Vinci, we’ve got a little Luna Piena, piena? Luna Piena? (Si)

Luna Piena or Luna Nuda… full moon

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]]> http://grapethinking.com/visit-to-vinci/feed 0 Vigneto delle Sangiovese http://grapethinking.com/vigneto-delle-sangiovese http://grapethinking.com/vigneto-delle-sangiovese#comments Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:20:06 +0000 Mu http://www.grapethinking.com/?p=2231

The sangiovese grape is the foundation fo the famous chianti wine from Toscana, Italia. There are said to be many alchemists in the hills of Tuscany brewing up life enhancinig elixirs with sangiovese as their base.

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]]> http://grapethinking.com/vigneto-delle-sangiovese/feed 0 Making Elixir in Alto Adige http://grapethinking.com/making-elixir-in-alto-adige http://grapethinking.com/making-elixir-in-alto-adige#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 14:16:54 +0000 Mu http://www.grapethinking.com/?p=2205

See more of the winemaking process at the Castelfeder winery…

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]]> http://grapethinking.com/making-elixir-in-alto-adige/feed 0 Point B http://grapethinking.com/point-b http://grapethinking.com/point-b#comments Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:55:57 +0000 Mu http://www.grapethinking.com/?p=2176

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]]> http://grapethinking.com/point-b/feed 5 Point A http://grapethinking.com/lxr-0-1 http://grapethinking.com/lxr-0-1#comments Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:23:39 +0000 Mu http://www.grapethinking.com/?p=2157

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]]> http://grapethinking.com/lxr-0-1/feed 0 The Answer is Simple http://grapethinking.com/the-answer-is-simple-women http://grapethinking.com/the-answer-is-simple-women#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 06:23:26 +0000 Mu http://www.grapethinking.com/?p=2021 more...]]> I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past year, and its vibration is now a part of my consciousness. The key to not only my success in life, but the sustainability and success of our planet is quite simply women. They bring balance, they bring harmony, they bring resourcefulness and renewability… yet most importantly they bring love.

I’ve been working with an amazing company here in Philadelphia called SEER Interactive and it hit me last week in our company wide meeting sitting around the whole office together with 11 women and 3 men. It was one of the best meetings I’ve ever been a part of. Not only was it relaxed, humorous, and productive, more so than most meetings I’ve attended, but I left with an overwhelming sense of peace… something I’ve never felt before in endless male dominated board, class, and conference rooms.

Sometimes I tend to feel that women possess the essence of the universe and men are simply expendable, thus the reason why man created religion and has scoured the earth with linear wasteful supply chains and chaotic ways of capitalistic thinking, because we are not in rhythm with the universe like women are. So instead we stomp around and kick up dust trying to feel what women do naturally… the connection.

There are so many problems with the world, and the reasoning could be infinite. I argue it is because of a simple disconnect between men and women, mainly in man’s lack of understanding of the enlightenment that women provide. It is the woman who is in rhythm with the world, the seasons, and the lunar cycles. They feel it, they don’t think it, they don’t have to. And they inspire men thru this feeling to create, to build… to fulfill our destiny. Everything that a man does, when taken down to its fundamental element is for a woman, the love of a woman. A man that does not love women, that does not cherish women and surround himself with strong women, cannot be enlightened… cannot create.

My personal enlightenment to all, to god, came from one thing… my love for the women in my life. There is no reason to get lost in the details and ideals. Everything is very simple. I think I’m starting to get it now.

I love women!!

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