Cool Article About My Dad from Montauk Sun

Montauk's Green Guerrilas

by Nanci E. LaGarenne

"You say you want a revolution, well you know…” the Beatles sang it, the Green Guerrillas of Montauk are doing it. A quiet, peaceful, loving revolution is happening. The Green Guerillas are organic vegetable  farmers; there is a gaggle of Green Guerrillas  in Montauk alone. Their motto “We are all in this together  – save organic heirloom seeds and grow food,” was told to me by Mr. Jeff Frank, the guru and founder of the Green Guerrillas. “We are akin to resistance fighters on a mission to save Mother Earth. We are the Hobbits; the Dark Lord is out there.” The dark side being GMO’s, genetically modified  organisms.  “The fruit and vegetables are being poisoned from the seed,” Jeff says. “You have got to go organic to know what you  are getting in your food.” The chemical industry funds the hospitals and agricultural schools. In essence, we get poisoned  food and remain sick. In government, few care about our nutrition. We need agriculturally supported communities, not community supported agriculture. “We are changing  the verbiage,” says Jeff. Jeff Frank started his Green Guerrillas school, known as the Nature Lyceum, eighteen years ago and became  the first organic  distributor of organic heirloom seeds on the east coast. The school is a not-for–profit, environmental, horticultural  learning place,  now operating out of a church building in Riverhead. A two day course and you can become a Green Guerrillas, filled with knowledge and practical purpose about organics. High school students and senior citizens can attend  this course for free. Word of mouth is how people find the Nature Lyceum and Jeff.  “The only way to get into my school is to be sent by Mother Nature.” I have to agree with Jeff. In my own search to start  an organic vegetable garden at my own home, I found Susan Vitale, a Green Guerrillas, of the Gin Beach Market in Montauk. “Susan is an Elemental,” says Jeff. I smile. Elementals in lore are the “little people,” fairies, gnomes, pixies and dragons. In reality, they are the unseen forces of nature, the empaths, sensitives, Indigo children, healers,  the true care givers of Mother Earth. Susan’s energy  and goal is admirable. “My vision is to teach the kids.” Susan and Janine, two Montauk Green Guerrillas, recently planted a community vegetable garden at Saint Therese’s School. Going organic can be as simple as reading labels, buying organics from true organic farmers or starting your own organic farm with heirloom seeds. Buy Johnny Seeds, not Burpee.  “Ninety percent of the seeds out there have been genetically altered and are poison,” Jeff tells me. “We must un-program ourselves and slow down.” Jeff’s principles of living are as follows: One- eat organically.  Two- think out of the box. Three- develop short term memory (forget what upsets you and stay in the moment). Four- make believe  (you are happy, healthy, wealthy and wise). Five- love unconditionally. “If you do these five things you direct the movie of your life,” Jeff says. “We need to learn how to respond and not react.” Eating organic un-poisoned, un-chemically altered food can help us on that journey.  Is it any wonder that more than half of American children are taking drugs for allergies and emotional, physical and educational disabilities? This generation of children is exposed to the most over processed, un-healthy food ever. This is just wrong! We can turn the tide. Green Guerrillas are here to show us how to  “make food your medicine and medicine your food,” Jeff says, quoting Hippocrates. Check Jeff out on You Tube, you won’t be disappointed. Ask around town, Montauk is brimming with Green Guerrillas. Gin Beach Market is a start, a meeting place of local movers and shakers. Go have an organic coffee and leave in better spirits.  “A shift is taking place,” Susan tells me. “The feminine energy is coming to the fore.” Mother Earth is in crisis, this we know, just turn on the news. However, we can change things. Embracing  organics is a beginning. The Nature Lyceum’s two day Green Guerrillas course is taught in a special way. “It is based on right brain feminine story telling,” Jeff says. Taking its lead from the Native Americans and modeling the organic farming after the Findhorn Garden, a spiritual community of organic farmers off the coast of Scotland.  The organic farmers off Findhorn Bay, instilled, if you will, their own light and energy into the soil and vegetable seeds.  The result, forty pound cabbages and a bumper crop! The Findhorn community exists to this day, as well as a school andretreat written about in a book by Eckart Tolle, titled The Findhorn Retreat. I for one will be taking Jeff’s course at The Nature Lyceum and become a Green Guerrilla. I will purchase organic heirloom seeds and grow my own small vegetable garden. It is never too late to change. Jeff himself knows this firsthand. He died and came back to life. He writes about his experience in a book called  “The Angles of Saint Francis.” If this sounds eccentric or religious, I assure it is not. Jeff relies on two sayings daily: “Have a silly day, and Yua-Tah-Hey,” a Navajo greeting meaning “Walk in Beauty.” I leave you with a quote from J.R.R Tolkien. Frodo Baggins says to Gandalf in Fellowship of the Ring: “I wish it need not happen in my time,” says Frodo. Gandalf replies,  “So do I, and so do all that live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do  with the time that is given us. ”www.thenaturelyceum.org