Who is the "Lotus" of Lotus & Michael? Name something creative, she nails it

 Who is Lotus?

Artist

Writer

Home Chef

Gardener

Designer 

Want to see more? Visit and follow Lotus Moongate

Needless to say, I am grateful to be involved with such an exceptional individual.

Reprinted from the Lotus & Michael website: Back to the Future: The Story of Plant Dyes - Read this--your planet is depending on YOU

 “Back to the Future”-The story of Plant Dyes (https://www.lotusandmichael.com/blogs/news/back-to-the-future-the-story-of-plant-dyes)

September 17, 2024

Most clothing today, even if the base material is natural, is made using chemical dyes. And a huge amount is disposed every year and ends up in landfills. Here are some facts:

Water- It's estimated that 20% of the world's water pollution is as a result of the fashion industry's dyeing and cultivation processes, with over 800 chemicals used to transform raw materials into fabrics.

Chemicals, pesticides, and wastewater are all released into the ecosystem. We are consuming them every day.

​By 2030, the total amount of fashion waste is expected to be 148 million tons– equivalent to 17.5 kg per person across the planet. (Global Fashion Agenda)

(Source and Learn more: https://www.hawthornintl.com/impact-of-fast-fashion)

It wasn't always that way. In fact, until the end of the 19th century, most garments got their color from plant-based dyes.

Let's take an example we all know: Levi's Jeans.

It is a well-known story that in the 1850's Levi Strauss, a German immigrant and dry goods seller, sold a fabric which used indigo dye from Nimes, France which was then called Serge de Nimes. He teamed up with Jacob Davis to make the original Levi's, workwear with rivets for extra strength.

(Source)

The fabric for the original Levi's was organic and plant-dyed. It came from a flower, Indigofera tinctoria, which was probably sourced in India. Some 20+ years later, a chemist figured out how to duplicate the flower synthetically. So today chemical indigo is known as C16H10N2O2. Your Levi's today (and almost all denim jeans) are made from this chemical.

Then:

(Source)

Now:

(Source)

Of course, plant dyes are limited by their nature, but synthetic substitutes can be produced forever and in any quantity. Also, synthetic substitutes will be cheaper because they are mass produced in chemical plants and plant dyes are produced in an arduous process.

Synthetic dyestuffs are resident along your body, and inevitably end up in your water, whether through textile waste or your washing machine. Even if cotton is biodegradable, the dyestuff is not. Worse, plant dyes will not adhere to synthetic fabrics at all—check your closet, that is a lost cause.

Typical thinking is: “Meeting demand is the only priority because the more our customers buy, the more money we make. And nobody has measured the residual harm.”

Wrong. We believe that it is our mission to go back to the future and make beautiful garments which will do no harm to us or the environment.

Plant dye garments are part of our sustainability statement. What is more, garments dyed naturally with plant dyestuffs reflect the true beauty of nature, not our ability to mimic nature with chemicals. Their colors are vibrant and—well, alive.

If you buy our plant dyed garments, you cast your vote for a better future and agree to limit your wardrobe. You can take comfort in that once they lead a long and multifunctional life (in accordance with our Wabi Sabi belief, they will have a clear mission in your closet). And, if disposed, they will not be still there in the soil 200 years from now.   

IF you don't, you are contributing (in your own small way, but image everyone else is thinking that. Where does that leave us?

Not convinced? Read this article in National Geographic. Are some of YOUR clothes in there?

Now, will you make your statement with our plant dyed Roughwear?

Shop now.                                             

Welcome to the Revolution- A new (old) way of learning- The Way of the Unicorn

Welcome to the Revolution!


I believe most of us, old and young, who have been through university and graduate education, have the same recurring nightmare: piles upon piles of reading, where we had to underline and guess what was significant or what we would be required to remember. Then, even if the instructor reviewed in class, normally we would still be required to remember something from the hundreds of pages we were assigned.


What a ****ing nightmare! Think about the average graduate student that has a 5 course load. Each class may assign 50 or more pages per week, x 5 is 250 pages/week, x14 is 3500 pages/semester. Plus extra reading and studying for exams.


So the honest question for all of us is, is the textbook supposed to be the major source of learning? And just how does the student distill what is important if instructors don’t do it for them? And, if the instructor distills the important parts, how is reading beforehand really a productive use of time?


My experience in my education was that the courses where I relied on the instructor, not the text book, to do the teaching were the ones I got the most out of and still remember. As an example, I was honored to have W. Edwards Deming as an instructor at NYU Stern. No textbook no homework, just come and listen. Because it was HIS subject and he knew it. Another was Military History with Bela Kiraly, a Hungarian General who led the forces that resisted Stalin after WWII.


IN all of this, we should make a distinction between remembering and learning. The former will help you pass tests (not everyone is as good at remembering as others) but will not embed the learning in your head. In fact, an hour later, our mind tells us to jettison the weight and forget the stuff you will no longer need. If we really learn, it becomes muscle memory and our cortex keeps a drawer for it.


To make things a lot worse, here comes Gen Z: born connected, with a virulent dopamine addiction, reducing their attention span to almost nil. When we ask them to read 50-60 pages, they don’t; not necessarily because they don’t want to, because they can’t.


So, depending on a book to do the teaching and preparing the student to think about the subject enough to discuss it articulately in class, doesn’t work, especially in today’s world and especially with foreign students. Now the student, who is not stupid, recognizes that their job is to survive, and the way to do that is do what is necessary to pass or get your grade, whatever that is.


Most of us are in denial of those facts, and the publishing companies, who at least partially get paid by weight, don’t want us to face up. Now including links and other digital doohickies that make the text look not so archaic seems to be the answer.


It is not. Add digital case studies to the text, that is what the student will look at. The ONLY thing. So now they paid for the textbook because they need to get to the case studies.


As an instructor who had spent decades in international business, when I started teaching, I subscribed to the old formula. What did I know? After a couple of years of teaching I had to face up to the fact that the textbooks were not getting read and, even if they were, nothing much was being retained.


My decision then was to eliminate the textbooks and base my teachings on what I knew and believed, supported by videos and other digital media which were much shorter and much more to the point. And I found that discussions and presentations, which were dependent on the students’ thought, were the most valuable learning elements.


So I came up with the idea to write something which would be short, to the point, and require the students’ time for thinking not reading. Thus came The Way of the Unicorn and, with the guidance of the publisher, became a unique interactive playbook not a textbook. The terminology itself explains the difference.


This was all intuitive on my part as a leader of students and someone who was responsible for providing the plays they would use after graduation. They would not enter the workplace as a blank slate.


I didn’t know, when embarking on the project, that wise men before me had led a path to this methodology. The guiding principle for The Way of the Unicorn was stated by Ben Franklin, and maybe was originated with Xun Kuang:


“Tell me and I will forget. Teach me and I will remember. Involve me and I will learn."


THAT is how we need to teach our students and we must provide them with the media which will accomplish this. Granted this is a gift of our technology so we should use it and not be stuck in the old ways because booksellers want us to continue to be in denial or because that is the way it has been done before; for them to change to this format would be cannibalizing billions of dollars of inventory and a sea change of approach.


The military actually has been practicing this forever. When you go to basic training, your training focuses on involvement: Here’s your rifle, now shoot. Oops. You learn because you have to.

This is indeed a revolution, and welcome to it. It is welcome for both students and instructors. Welcome to The Way of the Unicorn!

NOTE: If you qualify as a university instructor or administrator, you may email me at mls19@nyu.edu and I will arrange for you to have guest access to the publication.

 

Fashion and Lotus and Michael and Wabi Sabi

 Wabisabi and Fashion

Wabisabi & Lotus & Michael

 

“Taken from the Japanese words wabi, which translates to less is more, and sabi, which means attentive melancholy, wabi-sabi refers to an awareness of the transient nature of earthly things and a corresponding pleasure in the things that bear the mark of this impermanence.” (link)

Fashion by its nature is impermanence; it is the celebration of the new and the now

But, think about it: some parts of fashion endure and take on new avatars that resonate with us.

The same goes for nature; things pass, fade, come back and give us renewed joy.

This is our work at Lotus & Michael:

Less is more—minimalist, classic style-humble color, built with quality, comfort and endurance in mind—adorned with embroidery as a touch of elegance:

The fading and rebirth of flowers, creatures and all the earth’s gifts, celebrated with our embroidery.

Clothing that is simply multifunctional, as at home at work as on the beach or out to dinner as opposed to impulsive additions with a questionable role. More and newer is not necessarily better; it may add clutter to your wardrobe and decision-making.

“Wabi sabi encourages us to create empty space in our life instead of adding more and more. In that way, instead of pursuing objectives created artificially by the consumer society, this new empty space will gradually fill up only with what is beautiful and essential, instead of with noise and pressures that cause us stress.”   This is the difference between Lotus & Michael and fast fashion that consumes our brains and money: Our garments will play many roles, and perform with equal beauty for years— you can donate the rest- we did.

At the same time we recognize the impermanence of life and nature, so we celebrate our gifts, do not take them for granted, and understand that it is our responsibility to sustain them. 

The true beauty of Wabi Sabi is wonderfully captured in this story from India:

“A farmer who lived to the north of Jaipur would go to the closest spring to his farm every day for water. To carry the water, he rested a long wooden pole on his neck. A bucket hung from each end of the stick, which he would fill at the spring.

After a while, when he was returning home after fetching water, he realized that one of the buckets was half empty. Apparently, it had a small crack. The farmer decided to keep on using the broken bucket for years.

The bucket that always made it back home full was proud of its achievements. Every day it blamed the other bucket for the problem caused by its flaws.

‘You’re always spilling the water on the way back,’ said the perfect bucket. ‘You do half the work I do – you’re useless!’

‘I’m really sorry… I’m ashamed that the water leaks out because of this crack I have,’ the imperfect bucket apologized. Ashamed of its flaw, the bucket that always made it back half empty began to get depressed andbecame less and less talkative.

One day, the farmer heard the two buckets’ conversation. And he turned to the imperfect bucket saying: ‘Have you noticed that beautiful flowers have sprung up on your side of the path, but on the otherside there is nothing but earth and stones?’

The perfect bucket, lost for words, looked at the imperfect bucket enviously.

‘I planted seeds on your side of the path and every day you watered them when we returned home together,’ the farmer went on. ‘Over the last few years, I’ve been picking some of those flowers to decorate my house. Without you, I would never have been surrounded by such beauty.’” 

When we at Lotus & Michael wear our clothes, we make our statement-- we celebrate the then, now and tomorrow in a way that recognizes the nature of simple beauty and the complex marriage of fashion with function.

Does that resonate with you? Join us!

8 poems by me

I love writing poems- maybe because it is the only medium where I can combine irony humor and have a lot of fun with no consequence or outcome, because I do it for enjoyment and not to take myself too seriously. 

I have occasionally thrown in a poem here and there on this blog, but here's a quick selection of 8 that I like:

I am

I am

A blip in time;

I have no past

I have no future

Gone in an instant

A Blip

A blip

Can last

A hundred

Even a thousand

Years.

In Time

In Time

I will

Laugh

Cry

Love

Eat

Shit

Fuck

Revere

Nature

Kiss

Babies

Pet

Dogs

Doze

In Sunlight

Walk

In Rain;

This

Is MY

Time.

The Present.

The Helmsman

He stands tall against the wind

Grey-bearded, hand on the helm;

His skiff has survived storms,

Sharks, and the boiling sun.

At the bow sits a small young girl

With only a bucket hat

To protect her from the spray.

She looks anxious, afraid

they will never reach their destination.

Then she comforts herself

With the knowledge that she is not alone;

The Helmsman has made it many times

And is courageous, fearless,

Committed unconditionally to the journey.

He stands tall against the wind

Grey-bearded, hand on the rudder;

And he understands

The importance

Of arriving.

Fuck the rest.

My Life is Full of Shit?

That’s all you got?

All there is to it?

Just a bunch of shit.

And me with no pot. 

Is it all of you?

With your insincere twitter

That put me on the shitter

With your lies and drivel

And me with no shovel...

Does it pay off?

To be honest anymore?

When everyone else

Is none but a whore?

If you won’t join in

And you mean what you say

Then save the day

And just withdraw.

Where does an honest man go?

What does he do?

Find a soulmate for you

And, together, blow.

Don’t make a speech

Just pack it in

Find a beach

With lots of gin.

Unlimited lime

Unlimited shrimp

And bullshit is a sin.

Cats and Dogs

The Cat

(with Homage to Carl Sandburg)

The foggy cat

Enters on little cat’s feet

Takes a

slowly

slithering

shit

and moves on.

I love my dog

I love my dog

And he loves me.

I love him so much

I lift my leg to pee.

I dig my Pig

I dig my pig

She’s cute and fat,

She stole my heart.

My stomach asks, 

Can we eat that?

Hello Swimming Duck

Hello swimming duck!

Your paddling feet

Webs are a treat;

Your glistening breast

Sous Vide is best;

Your delicate thigh

I enjoy with rye;

Your supple leg

Yum! braised with fig;

Your elegant wings

Oh! my belly sings;

I love you, duck-

You’re a glorious creature

As a menu feature!

Wham-a-Lamb

Wham, you juicy lamb!

Fatty and delicious:

Your leg is so supple

It makes my mouth bubble.

I see your little head

Detached from the rest--

You look so surprised!

Were you not advised 

your taste was the best?

The Way of the Unicorn- Welcome to the Revolution!

 

Below is the Welcome section from the publication:

Welcome!

Welcome to The Way of the Unicorn.

Why did I write this book?

I wrote this book because, when I started teaching several years ago,  I felt the results of my teaching were not satisfactory. Even if the students liked me and my teaching, what did they actually take away? Not enough if anything. Why?

One key reason is that the few key concepts facts and teachings that really counted were getting buried with the crush of information that typically is thrown at college students. Just for example—let’s say a student is taking 5 courses during the semester, and each one requires 50-60 pages of reading per week. That’s up to 300 pages before any questions, quizzes, discussions etc. And not exactly romance novels—usually boring, wordy and written at the writer’s level, not the student’s.

Not so much, right? Let’s say you are a foreign student, reading in English. Or you are a GenZ student with a serious dopamine addiction. What will you do to satisfy it? Probably put the book down and spend your time on TikTok or the like.

The final result of the above is: most students didn’t read the 300 pages. How many did they read? Little or none. Those that did attempt to read got washed away with words. This is the case today, and academics and publishers alike have to face it. Publishing house libraries and bookstores are filled with books that may be 5-600 pages long. Now many publishing houses are conceding to the digital world and adding links to their publications. So now students have to read and look at the links.

When there was nothing but books, we couldn’t solve the problem. And we were used to that regimen. Today’s technology allows us to do more with less—and make it interactive from the getgo.

The evolution of my teaching and using the available technology led me to reduce the amount of reading I assigned, focus the students’ time on thinking and retaining  what is important to remember. Consequently, I developed lectures that took my students in that direction—thinking and talking about a topic helps you to internalize what it is about.

That is the first and most important premise of The Way of the Unicorn: spend students’ time thinking not reading. And talking about what you think.

But what is this Unicorn stuff?

My experience in business combined with teaching marketing and strategy courses led me to recognize that, to be successful in business (and isn’t that what we are teaching students to become?), you need to rise above the clutter and be special. As I have said in the book more than once, Be a Unicorn, not an Also.

If you agree with that premise, then how do you think it, do it, plan it and deliver it? Not just today, but sustainably? That is what the book is about.

There are literally tens of thousands (maybe more) of pages written about the subjects I discuss in the book. My goal is to distill those pages into what you need to know and remember.

Second point: The Way of the Unicorn is written to tell you what you need to know to adopt a successful business strategy. Period.

Because of this, I do not accept that it is a textbook. If I wanted you to play football for me, I would not furnish you with the complete history of the game and every play that has ever been run; I would give you a playbook that is appropriate for next week’s competition: Here’s what you need to know for now.

Final problem to overcome: The most challenging task I found as an instructor at the undergrad or graduate level was to get students engaged and actively involved in the class. Every time I was evaluated, the focus was on this point. So The Way of the Unicorn is totally interactive, using updated technology to compel students to participate and spend their time thinking about the subject- not reading about it. 

I believe this book is a new paradigm for teaching. Its methodology is suitable for any major or subject, if the writers orient themselves in the way I described above.

What is different about students learning from The Way of the Unicorn than traditional pedagogy? A saying is attributed to Ben Franklin which may have originated 2000 years before in China by Xun Kuang:

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." Because the students are totally involved in their learning, they will retain more with less. 

Third point: Students will learn from themselves and other students; this is much more likely to be internalized than when it comes from an instructor.

That said, the book is linked with the LMS when it needs to be.

The chapters are the homework and the lecture. Totally interactive and participative. This will make for more productive time for students and instructors alike.

None of this could have been accomplished without the help of Great River Learning. I am very grateful for their belief in me and my project.

Read on and enjoy the experience.

I also hope that you can use this book as a reference point for business. Again, why it is a playbook  not a textbook.  The latter are sold, donated or disposed after school. I hope this is your Little Red Book that you carry with you and leave in your top right desk drawer.

Michael Serwetz

June 26, 2024

Ridiculously hot and sunny.