About Me

[About] - About Me(read in Korean)

About Me

© misooDESIGN, MiSoo Kim

My name is MiSoo Kim. I currently live in Gerbach - a very small village in middle western Germany. Bayreuth- a University City in southern Germany. Halle an der Saale (Halle at the river Saale) in the middle eastern Germany.

I start this blog, 'My-ecoLife' in order to share my experiences about ecological Life & Lifestyle with others. Since 2001 I´ve been making efforts to live in ecological way.

Here are those steps of mine towards an ecological life(below ecoLife).


My footsteps towards an ecoLife

My first footstep towards an ecoLife has started from reading one book "Acient Future : Learning from Ladakh", written by Helena Norberg Hodge. Actually that was my first assignment to read that book and to write a review in my first semester of University in 2000.
That opened my eyes towards social & ecological themes.

Then I met Helen Nearing(not in real, but through books like "a beautiful life, love and leaving" so on)
on the way to Germany in order to participate an international workcamp in summer, 2001. At that time,I was dreaming of those life like Nearings'.

The camp was organised by one german organisation "Öko-Zentrum : eco-center in English". There I met several people engaged in social ecological themes like social fair, against nuclear power, & Permaculture so on.

There I also met those who were vegetarians because of ecological reasons.(till that time I had no idea at all of vegetarianism. Till then, My opinion about vegetarians and the reason why to be vegetarians were because of religious reasons like mungs in temple or health problems like some allergy sufferers.)
So their motivation to be vegetarians - because of ecological reasons, that impressed me quite much.

All those events, people and conversations during work camp gave me some chance to think thoroughly about those themes. And that motivated me to join those streams-"so called an ecoLife(living ecologically)".

Then I decided to be a vegan as a third but a real footstep towards a ecoLife on Autumn 2001.

My next eco footsteps were
- to concerned ecological methods and to find out ecological materials for my Artwork(because I studied sculpture at that time. )
- to get information about vegetarianism.(concerning to health and environment)
- to live a daily life more and more ecologically.

My latest footstep towards an ecoLife are

2005-2007 | I worked at the Permaculture Project Eberswalde by following Permaculture principles for 3 years since 2005 as I've moved to Germany. I was a member of the student-initiated group against GMO, GENug, too.

Permaculture is a way of sustainable, alternative, and ecological land use or lifestyle founded by the australian Bill Mollison. In the past Permaculture meant Permanent Agriculture, but thesedays it enlarged the meaning to Permanent Culture.

Bill Mollison has suggested several ways for realising permaculture. But they are not a brand-new creation but more like a collection of acient wisdoms and methods from grandma to mom, which he collected, modified, and applied them.

2008 till Autumn 2010 | Owing to living condition, I could live not in the naure, but in the cities. Inspite of several difficulties, I made efforts to live a daily life in ecological way, e.g. living without fridge, reusing the used water from kitchen and bathroom to WC, and collecting fruits in nature, so on.

Since 2010 till now | Since I've moved to Halle, I could get my own 'home vegetable garden'. At last I've realised 'self-sufficient' life about food production, even if at the moment it's just seasonal during summer and autume period.

I use Terra preta like substrate, Biochar compost at my garden. Terra Preta means black soil in Portuguese. It's very rich black soil over 2m deep. Naturally it is not possible to find the black soil layer accumulated more than ca. 30cm, because of the climate- like rainy season in tropic. But Archeologists found that soil layer at the residence of Amazon Indians. Later several scientists have started to research the Terra Preta and made efforts to find out the secret recipes of Terra Preta, in order to apply them to comtemperary world and to solve several environmental problems. Biochar is one of the key point of the Terra Preta.

At the moment I and my husband have concentrated on realising the life of ecological circulation by the methods reducing external energies like maintaining home garden followed by the philosophies of Terra Preta, Permaculture, Forest Gardening, Natural Farming so on, using Terra Preta compost toilet, Water recycling, and Rainwater using system so on.

마지막 수정: 2013-12-03