Conscious Choice: Ted Lowe, Living Consciously

January 1996

Ted Lowe, Living Consciously

by Sharon L. Comstock

Ted Lowe bent his head in reverence. The early autumn sunshine made a halo around his golden hair as he knelt to pluck a tiny seed pod from a plant. While there are people who are labeled "eco-terrorists," there are no "eco-saints." But Lowe, of west suburban Wheaton, comes close. Having left the corporate world behind, he has created a haven where birds, butterflies, and the community can have a prayerful, or at least "prairieful" experience.

Lowe has converted most of his suburban lawn to vegetable, fruit, and native prairie gardens as part of a Thoreau-like return to nature. A natural part of his living from the land is reduced waste and trash. Lowe’s "living lightly" produced one can of garbage for all of 1994 and one so far this year.

"When I first started [this lifestyle], I thought maybe I was giving up, but now I don’t at all," said Lowe. "Don’t listen to the people who say you’re having to give up. The rewards are second by second. You can’t hurry up joy. It’s something to be appreciated. It’s behind the next leaf, the next flower...." As if to prove his point, a vibrant swallowtail landed on one of the evening primrose plants Lowe began growing this June. It flexed its yellow wings slowly, warming itself in the sunshine. Lowe smiled.

Perhaps the most noticeable evidence of Lowe’s lifestyle is his creation, "The Paddock Prairie Botanical Garden." Open to all who have an interest in learning about the native prairie, the garden extends the length of his simple brown ranch. Chipped wood paths (some made by Lowe from a dying willow tree on his lot) guide visitors through shoulder-high flowers and grasses.

"Certain areas I’m trying to keep native," said Lowe, bending down to handle a dried pod. He crumbled its seeds, letting them drop into the soil. "Eventually I want to diversify a lot more," Lowe stopped short. "This is Evening Primrose. It turns out that the birds love this. I’ve never had gold finches in the yard until this year. Sometimes I come around the house and there are a dozen of them here and they flutter up. To some extent, I expected butterflies and birds to come, but that was a surprise."

Lowe fingered the plants as he walked, like a father running his fingers over his child’s head. We approached a brick-trimmed rose garden, its flowers in orderly rows. He explained that he didn’t want to make the Botanical Garden a "sculpted thing" like the rose garden he had put in a few years ago. "Recently, I’m going with the natural and letting it go the way it goes," said Lowe. "This year I made more organic shapes. Last year it looked like an engineer’s and scientist’s yard. This year it looks like an artist’s garden," he said.

Lowe can’t escape being an engineer and scientist, however. Each of the 56 native prairie plants is meticulously numbered with blue ink on white tags. A carefully designed diagram of the garden is mounted on a polished wood sign worthy of the Morton Arboretum. "You can play here," Lowe said, gesturing over the heads of the blooms and seed pods. "You can say,‘I like that plant, what is it?’ and you can look it up. Or you can read here,‘Oh, I’ve heard of this plant, what does it look like?’ and you can go and find it," he said.

How did he start? A key factor is community. Lowe belongs to the Northern Illinois chapter of a group called "The Wild Ones," not your "garden-variety" club. The members work to restore native prairie plants to the Midwest by naturalizing open land. Instead of coleus and impatiens, members grow blue stem and thimbleweed. The group received $5000 from AT&T to establish prairie on school property across the Chicagoland area, in a program called "Little Prairie on the School." According to Lowe, the advantages of growing native prairie grasses are that they are natural, drought-resistant, and that they loosen the soil, preventing the water run-off that occurs with typical lawn grasses.

"May through October, something is always blooming here," said Lowe. "So when people want to learn what the settlers saw when they arrived, that is what this area can offer." he said. "The prairie wouldn’t look like this, but I want to establish a place people can learn from."

Lowe interrupted himself to point out another native species. "I love this plant." He reached toward some Indian grass. Appropriately enough, a grasshopper clung to the thin stem. As Lowe walked his hands kept plucking, almost caressing, the grasses and seed pods, crumbling seeds as he went.

"This plant is really cool — a cup plant. This forms a cup. The birds know that, so they go up and drink," he said.

"Oh! Look at this!" He turned to find clumps of sticky brown seeds clinging to his clothing, like children to their mother. "Wow, this is great. I wonder where they came from?" Lowe began to scan for its parent plant.

To the left of the prairie area is another of Lowe’s creations: the Community Share Garden. "This started out as extra plants, actually. I thought,‘Well, I’ll tear up some grass and plant some over there.’ May as well let the neighbors share in the food. I don’t need it all," said Lowe.

The message is simple: share. "Don’t waste. Share what you have. In nature there is no waste. None. The output of one process is the input of another. We have to copy nature more," he said. "A couple of times the kids took too many onions. I said,‘Just take what you need and share the rest.’ It’s hard to learn how to share. The earth people, in a way, are instilling another anxiety — that there are limited resources. The earth, really, is abundant. But if we waste it, then it’s not," said Lowe.

"Do you like raspberries?" he gathered raspberries in his palm and offered a handful. "It’s hard to resist them. They’re just hanging there." He dropped one, picked it up, blew on it, and popped it in his mouth. "I used to be a Boy Scout," he explained.

Everything Lowe grows is organic. Rhubarb. Asparagus. Potatoes. Strawberries. Squashes. And, of course, tomatoes. "I have thousands," said Lowe. A vegetarian for seven years, he decided to grow his own organic food for the last two seasons. "Some people say I have a green thumb, but I think it’s more a matter of having a green heart," he said. "I think you can learn whatever you want to learn. If you want to learn something you learn it a lot faster than if you don’t. I like the idea of having a fresh supply of organic food and I like the idea of sharing with my neighbors," he said.

Lowe canned for the first time this year and has a pantry stocked with jars of tomatoes and pickles. "I can. I freeze. I eat fresh. I have friends over for lunch," he said. Hot peppers hung to dry in the sunshine. Two wooden compost bins quietly sat by the back of his house. He turned the soon-to-be soil a couple of times. "This year I’m building a cold frame so I can grow things in February or March. I have wood and glass windows from a friend. The rest I got out of the garbage," said Lowe. He called it a "landfill coldframe." "I just want people to know that this is what you can do with suburban land if you want to."

A return to nature is a lifestyle choice that many are making in the face of an increasingly frenzied culture. Living simply may not mean living easily, but it’s living closer to the basics or sources of life.

"It’s definitely not fringe," said Lowe. "It’s not mainstream, but it’s on its way in. Intelligent things will happen on their own whether or not we try to make them happen."

For Lowe, living consciously also meant turning away from corporate culture and creating a career that allows him to express the twin values of peace and ecology. Having worked for 15 years as an engineer for AT&T, at Bell Labs in Naperville, he has lived the corporate lifestyle. He was instrumental in putting together the recycling program at the Indian Hills campus of AT&T, where nearly 80 percent of solid waste is now recycled. He was an active member of the company’s environmental club as well. But the time came when he felt he had outgrown the corporate environment. On June 1 of this year, he left.

"Since I’ve left Corporate America I’ve unwound. I’m really experiencing a great change in my psyche," he said. "There is no freedom [in corporate culture]. It’s a constant compromise. I wanted to leave for years. I was using 10 percent of my creative energy, [but] time and money drove me. It was a sweatshop, more or less. You can’t think in that type of atmosphere. I need contemplation time." Lowe brushed back some lose strands of his shoulder-length hair. "Why did Thoreau not live in Manhattan?" he asked. "When I left, people sent me e-mail thanking me for opening their eyes about the environment, not‘Thanks, for all the code you wrote, Ted.’ I think it’s a good sign that I’m moving in the right direction."

Lowe’s new "not-for-very-much-profit" company, Creative Spirits, is an "eco-technology" venture, fusing multimedia with environmentalism. "I want to produce something I call‘anti-commercials,’" said Lowe. "Instead of a company advertising to people, it would be people-to-people and people-to-companies." Instead of selling a product, he plans to "sell" ecology. "I want to build a creative, versus destructive, company. I really see it growing and being part of a network that is anti-cynical. You can use your energy to create solutions, and I think there is an opportunity now more than ever to do that," he said. "In time I plan to self-produce art and animation for media advocacy for the earth. I want it to be eye-opening and informative. I want to spread the message of peace and a sustainable earth." Lowe plans to use video production, animation, and the Internet to spread his environmental message.

Lowe’s lifestyle is a curious blending of retro-living and cyberspace. Living from the land mingles with 21st-century technology that defies labels. Perhaps that is the future. But isn’t it a paradox to use a mediated reality — video and the Internet — to further ecological living? "It is in a way. But technology is a tool to use to go out there. Don’t let the video replace going outside and doing something for the earth," said Lowe. Technology is a way to begin the journey.

"It takes time to create a new livelihood and life. People think if you can’t observe it, it isn’t happening. You plant a seed and say‘Well? Well?’ Rewards will come to those who slow down.

"It’s not giving up. It’s getting tranquillity. Getting your soul back. How much is your soul worth?"

Lowe tags his e-mail messages with this quote from Henry David Thoreau:

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler."

Resources
How to Get Started.

To reach Ted Lowe and Creative Spirits, you can visit his homepage.
Send email to trl@mcs.net. Or you can phone him at 708-260-0642.

To contact The Wild Ones, get in touch with Pat Armstrong, Co-president, 612 Staunton Rd., Naperville, IL 60565. Pat’s phone number is 708-983-8404.

Recommend this page to a friend

Top Ten pages recommended to friends: