oil + wax

welcome to the monthly matinée, a retrospective of the appleturnover long-form films. the final film to round up the year is oil + wax.

drawing on the core recipe of oil + wax lets us make homemade toxin-free salves, infused herbal balms, shoe polish, stove polish, furniture polish, water resistant waxed fabrics and more.

this little film uses principles of oil and wax to illustrate the useful frameworks of pattern language and permeability:

this, the second episode of the journal of small work series, builds on the ideas of the first, wood stove. if continuous improvement, those incremental changes that help us keep our balance while consistently taking dailyish action, combined with the stacking of multiple functions that make tremendously creative use of what we’re already doing, is all about compounding efficiency, then the next principles deepen and widen the effectiveness of the small work of ecological action. how?

this journal looks at pattern language.* as a method of re-skilling rapidly, it’s unparalleled. mired in the details as we seek harmony with living systems, we can instead learn overarching patterns. core recipes. with fluency in a pattern, we can then apply it to the detailed problems of shifting how we live into resilient, sustainable, even regenerative states.

as always, the film illustrates and elaborates on possibilities. i find the form of oil + wax and its provision of balms, salves, medicinal infusions, to polishes and water resistance that avoid waste, frankly gratifying.

to this concept of learning pattern language, add the framework of permeability, of profound interconnection. to add this piece is to create synergies, multiplying our small actions exponentially, so the whole is much, much more than the sum of its parts.

here i play with how shifting our mindset toward a keen awareness of profound interconnection of all living systems, alters the decisions we make. we can address the intense separations that underly how we’ve read the world and our places in it, then come into a different, at once new and ancient relationship that acknowledges, as our own sciences now demonstrate, that down to a minute level, we are in infinite exchange. add this tremendously permeable, reciprocal nature to a pattern language and we become effective in healing, restoring, reinventing how we exist. in an existential crisis this is essential work.

what pattern will you add next? i’d be delighted to hear of more possibilities in the comments. your small work inspires us all to action.

find some further reading here:

*A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction is a 1977 book on architecture, urban design, and community livability. authored by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein of the Center for Environmental Structure of Berkeley, California, with writing credits also to Max Jacobson, Ingrid Fiksdahl-King and Shlomo Angel.

*Permaculture One: A Perennial Agricultural System for Human, by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren

thanks for watching, sharing and supporting. meet you back here next week ☆彡