On May 2, 2021, John D. Liu brought his crew to the BirdHouse to film for his upcoming TV series, The Flourishing Path. A pilot film will be launched in tandem with the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, for which John is an Advisory Council member.
The BirdHouse is the first urban-based project to be recognized by the Ecosystem Restoration Camps (ERC), which plays a role in the series.
What John D. Liu and the film crew witnessed that day was a community of people planting while singing, then sharing in the bounty of the garden. They also filmed Lazaro telling stories of the Elderberry tree and its sacred role in the Tongva culture.
John provoked a roundtable discussion of the importance of Hollywood and the stories the film industry tells about humans, our role in nature, and what we imagine possible in the face of our existential dilemma.
Because TV news dominates the cultural narrative, it gives most of us an impending sense of doom about the future. We tend to live with undeclared resignation. Yet the jury is still in deliberation. There are alternative stories to be told that can inspire a more beautiful world. It takes focus and practice to conjure up futures that entice and rouse our spirits.
"Hopepunk [movement] says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. Hopepunk isn’t ever about submission or acceptance: It’s about standing up and fighting for what you believe in. It’s about standing up for other people. It’s about DEMANDING a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can, with every drop of power in our little hearts."
The role of the BirdHouse and its members is to learn, electrify, and transmit the collaborative know-how of greening urban areas that will reverse climate change in our region—and restore the rainfall. There is no reason why Southern California cannot again become a lush and vibrant landscape inhabited by people who care.
For three decades John D. Liu has been studying and reporting on restoration projects around the world. The stories are compelling and inspiring.
For me, the most moving example of large-scale restoration is the ongoing project of the Loess Plateau in China. Once the fertile birthplace of Chinese culture, the whole region was turned to desert by the same land practices that have led to most deserts of the world. Egypt, Mediterranean, Sinai, and Central California were all man-made by deforesting without replanting, plowing without cover cropping, and eradicating roaming herds.
Now, after 25 years of massive human collaboration, organized and paid for by the Chinese government, beauty and fertility has returned to an area the size of Belgium. The Yellow River no longer runs yellow with the lost topsoil that gave it its name. The people live in natural abundance and there is peace in the land.
The UN has warned that soils around the world are heading for exhaustion and depletion, with an estimated 60 harvests left before they are too barren to feed the planet. California is said to be ten years from desertification.
One of the major contributors to large-scale sources of heat is the “heat island effect” of urban areas. The hard, reflective surfaces of roads and rooftops are dramatically hotter than areas with the protection of trees and grasses. As this urban heat rises, it takes atmospheric moisture with it—moisture that would normally form into rainfall.
We can reverse this trend by building a living canopy and tending it until it flourishes and becomes the great work of our time. The BirdHouse has started to reclaim unused plots of soil here in Beachwood Canyon. It is so rewarding to hear from dog-walkers and passers-by about the joy it brings them to see these plots in bloom with sunflowers, wildflowers, goldenberries, rabbits, and birds. Our neighbors have begun offering their water sources, seeds and helping hands.
We joke that the purpose of the BirdHouse is to create shade for Bella and the salamanders. In fact, it is a primary goal to create shade. Not with structures, but with plants—layers of plants.
BirdHouse members tend to the soil, restoring the natural life-giving vitality that creates the conditions for more life: plants, insects, and animals, including humans. Other members prepare songs, food, and art to nourish the soul. (Watch video.)
In the BirdHouse Garden, we’re learning to waste nothing and to use everything. Greywater from surrounding apartments feeds the orchard canopy. Cut grass from local gardeners feeds our compost along with the horse manure and straw from the local stables. Used lumber and abandoned Ikea cabinets are repurposed for building structures, terraces, and raised beds.
Land cannot go to waste. Soil is alive. A growing number of public and private parcels that we tend to are beginning to form a mosaic around the canyon, with agreements that build trust in the community, while reversing the heat island effect, little by little. The garden at the BirdHouse is at least 10° cooler than the street above.
People who thought they were powerless to enact change, find a place in this work, while living in the inquiry, “What does it take to live a life that planet earth now demands?”
By singing and telling stories of biophilia, the BirdHouse has become a place for new stories to emerge, where we can imagine rousing futures not driven by grim-dark. By studying soil, Permaculture, and applying systems thinking, we’re encouraged by the return of biodiversity and a pathway to drinkable rivers. We participate with the Tongva-Gabrielino, the first people of the land we now call Los Angeles, and create the conditions for a culture of care, for people and our places.
View this 7 minute video tour of the BirdHouse.
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