An Experiment
There’s a need I’m sensing especially in my women connections, but also with a number of men, to have more support as we traverse this collapsing Empire. Because there are so few us who are fully up to speed, and because we are spread over vast geographies, we can’t meet on a regular basis to sit, face to face, and offer one another the kind of safety and attention that we deserve and that would fully support us. What we have instead are telephones and email and blogs.
We’ve talked, Tim and Andy, and I, about setting up a discussion forum and I’ve put the word out to a few people who have said they would like to help but no one has really stepped forward to set it up.
So I’ve decided to try an experiment. Instead of using my blog space only as a place where I post long, edited, essay-like pieces and then send out a notice to those who have signed up to be notified that I’ve posted something new, I’m going to post shorter, less well-developed, more journal-like entries and invite people to post their own experiences.
I will notify those who have asked to be notified of blog postings only this first time as I don’t want to jam people’s inboxes several times a week. If you want to see how this goes you can check in on your own as you care to.
If there is indeed a great need for this sort of interaction then after a couple of weeks we’ll have a sense of that and we can decide how to best proceed.
I’m going to suggest some guidelines for this:
1) That we be mindful that the intention of this interaction is to give and receive support. Using the 12 step tradition as a guide, I suggest we speak of our own experience, strength and sense of possibility and refrain from criticism, attempts to “fix” one another, or judgment. It is certainly fine to respond to one another in the spirit of “what you wrote touched this in me…”
2) That we also be mindful of length of posts. We all probably need more time outside in the real world of plants and animals and weather and less in front of computer screens. If we write with the intention to get to the heart quickly, our posts will likely be read and responded to more fully. Also posts that utilize spaces between thoughts are easier to read and digest.
3) I will moderate the comments. That means if a comment strikes me as mean or critical or thoughtless I will not post it.
So, here’s my first offering to this experiment:
At the beginning of her latest post on Peak Oil Blues, Kathy offers a quotation from Proverbs: “Where there is no vision the people perish.”
Whenever I read an aphorism or proverb I think about how bound it is to the culture it came from. That gives me some possible context for questioning the embedded and unexamined assumptions. In this case I resonate with the wisdom and also see that the wisdom in it applies to us who are in this culture. Vision may not have been so necessary in a culture that was tribal and land-based. The concept of vision implies a conscious desire to create change. We have been indoctrinated with false notions of “progress.” I think this is part and parcel of our culture. We constantly want change because this is such an unsatisfying culture to be living in.
So the wisdom that “Without vision the people will perish” is wisdom that pertains specifically to this culture. There IS wisdom to having vision in this culture or we will perish in the gloom of current reality. In What A Way To Go, near the end, Tim says there is a great energy created when we hold two things simultaneously: an accurate assessment of where we are and a clear vision of where we want to be. He then goes on to say that the people of Empire have neither. Obviously I agree.
What a Way To Go pretty fully nails down the assessment of where we are. We hint at where we want to be but suggest that “the happy chapter” if there is to be one, will have to be written with the rest of the community of life.
For those of us who are fully in touch with “where we are” the next step it seems is to find a vision for ourselves that speaks to where we want to be. Then the trick is to hold both simultaneously in our hearts and minds: both the heartbreak and grief, and at times panic, of the current situation, and also a vision of how we want to be, how we want life to be. Holding vision as possibility but not using vision as a sophisticated form of denial of what IS, is challenging.
This idea comes from Robert Fritz’ book, The Path of Least Resistance. The image that is helpful in understanding this idea is that of a rubber band stretched between two objects. On one end is “current reality” and on the other is “vision.” The stretch between the two can be experienced as “creative tension.” If we hold both current reality and vision simultaneously, but keep our commitment to the vision then the tension will tend to resolve in the direction of the vision. If the vision is too far away from current reality the rubber band will snap which leaves no tension at all. If, on the other hand, all vision is lacking, or too close to current reality, then the band is slack. In that case there is no tension or energy to support creativity. And finally, if there is no accurate assessment of current reality then vision is just fantasy, ungrounded. There’s more to say about all of this, of course, because it’s a compelling model and image. But that’s what Robert Fritz’s book is about.
So this is the vision that I began writing in my journal this morning:
“I have a vague vision of a group of people who live very simply, who pursue a life together, who cooperate with their landbase in order to meet their basic needs for food and shelter. They have time to play and dream and grow spiritually.
What does that mean? What comes to mind is an image of children playing. Why do children play? Well, they play because there is intrinsic satisfaction and fulfillment in mastery. For children, play is all about mastery and the joy of increasing facility in whatever they are engaged in.
I want a life with time to play with others in spiritual pursuits: where we explore how to be more conscious and loving in our relationships and communication; grow more adept at working with, rather than against the laws of Life; become more attuned to what those laws or priniciples are; create a life that is one joyful activity after another, much as I witness the life of the birds and squirrel outside my window.”
How is it with you? Do you have a vision? Is it grounded in current reality? What are the challenges to doing that? How do you get/give support to those around you? Are you lonely for others to embark on this journey with?
Blessings and courage to find vision that is grounded in reality,
Sally
Email This Post To A Friend
This entry was posted
on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 12:07 pm and is filed under Sally's Blog.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Good start, sweetie. Sounds fun.
When I think of vision, I often get caught up. My assessment of current reality, and my assessment of the consequences of current reality for future reality, is often so bleak and dire that I can’t find any room to squeeze a vision in there!
It helps me to remember that neither current reality nor future reality is or will be monolithic. it will play out in a million different ways, in a million different places.
And it helps me to remember that it’s not what the vision is, but what the vision does.
And it helps me to remember that my vision need not be one of sticks and stones, of physical reality, or even of doing. It can be a vision of being.
So I envision a world where human beings are being in a sacred place, in a sacred process, where they are being related, whole, connected, and living as co-creators with the universe. I envision a world where the lessons of control and domination have been learned. I envision a world where we remember who we were, see who we now are, and step into our potential as worthy members of the Community of Life.
December 13th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Hello Sally,
Thank you for writing this and attempting to solve the problem of bringing people who are in the know of the state of things together to solve and create a future we can not only live with but thrive in. (Under the circumstances its pretty daunting.)
Cameron & I met you and Tim in Lawrence Kansas when you came to show the movie and do a talk. Since then Cameron and I have been taking in everything we can about the situation at hand and any solutions and ideas anyone has had about our situation. I have almost finished Culture of Make Believe by Derek Jensen & Cameron has been doing a lot of blogs on Population and Global Climate Change. We even hosted a showing of What A Way… at our house last weekend but the weather kept most away. (We are going to try again after the holidays.)
Mostly our discussion now is between each other and a few select others. We recognize how difficult it is to try and get folks of like minds together on this. We are focusing a lot on our individual and collective plans for our future. My main breakthrough about this was about Play and I’ve been thinking about play alot in the past year and creativity. Derek Jensen gives an analogy in Culture of Make Believe about McDonaldazation and the machine we all function within and how if you add creativity to that, (i.e. go into McDonalds and order a hamburger medium rare with mayo on the side.) it shuts the system down. My own job right now, its impossible for me to be creative and to be myself- and when I am, its discouraged. (Luckily I overheard another person being brazenly herself no matter what - which is frowned on by everyone here, and made a great friend! )
I have a friend that threw out a question to those groups “in the know” like a local sustainability group and the Ishmael groups here, about your role in a “tribe” or group of people. And how we can’t just desire to get a group of people together and create a tribe JUST to create one. Each member has to have a talent, interest, role etc. And he asked everyone to remember back to when they were a child. What were you doing most then? What was your role in the group usually? (If I wasn’t solitary with the local dog/ checking out the daisy’s in the back field, I was the one folks came to hang out with one on one or to talk over issues or problems with. My friend was always organizing a play or a group to dance. We still hold these roles it seems today.)
Another friend recently said when he was a kid, going into the tunnel palace’s and slipper slide tubes, he would make the most intimate and close connections in that little world.
I definitely agree, play is where people connect not only with their selves but with others. So my new vision of my future is starting to be open to creating opportunities and experience for Play and Creativity in my life and others.
As for a way to get everyone together easier- as internet tools go, I find a lot of folks seem to really like Yahoo Groups. We have an Ishmael group, a Derek Jensen group AND a Burning Man group here in our area and it seems to be a bit over kill because we all seem to want similar things. (So creating another group might just be equally over kill…) I think just connecting to local groups such as these and getting involved - not just communicating online only- is definitely a way folks could find some support and connection.
.
I thank you and Tim so much for opening my eyes to the bigger picture. And thank you for continuing to blog. I would be happy to share links to our blogs and any contact info to some local likeminded groups in Kansas if anyone is interested.
Sincerely,
Trish
December 13th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Trish, I was the kid that walked on the rocks between a line of trees that separated one lot from another, and made up stories. I laid in bed late at night, and made up stories. I’m still making up stories, and they sometimes make me laugh and I have to finish them to find out what happens in the end.
That earlier vision, Sally was part of the story. I must tell you a bit more, because you asked. It’s the story of why there wasn’t enough barley, and why the Baker asked for more. There was a thief in the community. To be exact, there were three of them.
Billy, Bob and Barbara had their own vision to make a really great beer, so they slipped into the barley storage, and took a lot of it. They brewed it, and it was so great, they started bartering it (gouging really) and the word quickly got around that they got a really great tasting beer happening over on Elm Street. The Baker found out too, soon enough.
They, and their families, all went to a council of Restorative Justice (www.iirp.org,) and were heard. The entire agreement was a bit long to post here, but the short version was that they would (1) give the Baker some of the beer; (2) put in work hours comparable to the loss she described by not being able to make the bread; (3) become primarily responsible for growing the replacement PLUS 1/3 of the stolen barley and finally; (4) grow additional barley to keep and expand the beer business. Everyone was satisfied with what happened, and went home.
In my vision, we remain foolishly human, despite wanting to be holy. We irritate each other, tolerate boredom, are selfishly self-centered, and remarkably generous for no apparent reason. We lie to ourselves and each other, but our connections are so intimate, our escape so impossible, we simply must get back to resolving the conflict, and seldom does it result in the harsh punishment of banishment or prison. There are usually better ways.
There are people who’s work we gladly take over so that we can leave them time to sing to us or write to us or create great works of art. We live a life so “up close and personal” that it feels impossible to have any privacy, to keep secrets, to be unfaithful. There are holy fools and brewery thieves. There are psychologists that love chickens and there is the drunken Baker who throws a big Restorative Justice party with the beer she was given. There are birthday cakes and heartbreaks. There are tragic deaths and unexpected births. There are clothe baby butt wipes and clothe adult butt wipes that no one could have once imagined using, just like in my vision, no one can imagine flushing drinking water down the toilet.
Just the ramblings of a madwoman who likes to tell stories…
December 13th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Dear Sally,
When I heard the idea of this “vision thing,” I was prepared not to like what I read. But your vision touched me deeply. First, what it wasn’t… It wasn’t a typical male vision of a plan for the future about how Gore would lead the world in environmental correctness. No, your vision was an intuitive reading of what you hold in your heart. It was deeply spiritual. It was of life lived simply, in harmony with others and the planet, at a pace that would be hospitable to your spirit. Your vision is a wonderful picture of the biblical image of Shalom. It is a place where we not only honor and protect children, but also the Child within us.
We live in an age dominated by Ego, where the power is always fueled by massive amounts of fear, imagined, real and manipulated. It seems to me we run away from the fear by seeking to establish control, so the energy is turned to grasping for superior position, power, wealth, knowledge. The irony is that none of these truly satisfy our deeper longings for intimacy and love. If we are to move toward sustainability, I am convinced we will have to do a lot of work helping people to let go… let go of the addictions to power and the false things that money provide to distract us from the deeper fears inside us. How do we let go of Hummers and second homes, vacations to Rome, and eating meat once a day? So many little things; so much resistance to overcome.
At times I am nearly filled with despair at the challenges before us. Will we be able to successfully move from adolescence to maturity? Thankfully, I am a spiritual man and I have spiritual resources to sustain me. It helps to know there are others thinking along similar lines. Peace, Fred
December 13th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Hello Sally
Your idea of a forum for interacting with like-minded people is a great idea. We have all grown up in whatever kind of Culture, but they are all in different ways Prisons of the Soul — Pyramids of Control and submission to an Authority outside of the Self, because we start off Life thinking that the Culture Prison we happen to find ourselves in is Real and all there is. So we try to survive the best we can in this “Reality” and we end up selling our Souls/Minds to the Highest Bidder. Then, as we grow older we begin to realise, in varying degrees and at different speeds, that we are being exploited and manipulated by the “System”. So we initially become disillusioned and cynical and slowly it dawns on us that we can respond to Life in more meaningful ways and we explore … which is what this Forum will help us achieve in a Spirit of Comraderie(all being part of the Whole of Life, rather than individuals competing to survive) . Well done and I look forward to sharing my Travel through Life and hearing how others have.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
Sally and Tim,
During the circle discussion in Ashland, Oregon I think I surprised everyone by saying that I had known instinctively that civilization had it all wrong since I was in the third grade. Actually I must give credit to two publications for awakening me to alternative ways of living, of filling my child’s imagination with “vision” of how I really wanted to live.
The first was a series of articles in Life magazine in the 50’s called “The Epic of Man”, eventually published as a large-format picture book in 1961. In it were magnificent original paintings of stone age men courageously bringing down big game, and of neolithic village life: people making tools and clothing, the bounty of hunting and gathering being brought back to the camp, children playing, all in a close-knit extended family tribal group and surrounded by pristine natural beauty. In my bones I knew that this was my rightful heritage, stolen from me by this civilization I was trapped in.
The second was a book titled _Og, Son of Fire_ that my third grade teacher read out loud to the class. It was about a pair of caveman friends named Og and Ru. Their lives were so *real* compared to mine — they had adventures, faced dangers, got to live in the elements with the wild animals. Again, instinctively I knew that this was how I wanted to live, and that modern life was a cardboard cut-out of the real thing. I made my first stone axe at the age of eight.
Neither Time-Life books nor my third grade teacher thought they were putting subversive ideas in childrens’ heads, but that was the effect on me. If we want to have a vision of where to go, of what works, perhaps the best place to look is behind us before we got lost. As Daniel Quinn stresses in his writing, we humans had a way of living that worked for millions of years, a way that my own experience tells me is still written in my DNA. We can do it again, if given half a chance.
December 14th, 2007 at 12:53 am
Aah! - to play once more. To balance on the edge of the upturned table on the lawn in the garden of the apartment block, clinging to its legs as the waves rage and the storm whips the water and the ship. To feel the danger and to creep forward in its face to secure the [something that was loose].
I chose to stay in this arid marginal land because the pace of life was so much more humane. The city has doubled if not more and now with urbanization there is a large population of desperate and poor people. Those that can are choosing to move out of the urban centre to the fringes of City land; others move into guarded sectional title complexes with a single guarded entrance.
I have joined an embryonic eco-village group but progress is painfully slow. A land base here would have to be centred on a water supply, there is so little rain, and it would have to be rather large to support just one person. One head of cattle needs 10 ha [about 20 foorball fields] and a water supply to live.
All the ways I can imagine need a transoprt system to to take goods produced to a market, goods or produce from the land base. So even if I am a mamber of the success of the group I am still running the present system.
Aah - to play one more.
Pensively
Bernhard
December 14th, 2007 at 2:36 am
I saw your dvd/movie yesterday and was profoundly moved, although I’ve known all this for a long time and lived accordingly. This wasn’t difficult because I grew up after WWII in EAst Germany in great poverty, hunger etc. cherishing every scrap of food and metal. and never stopped being shocked about the wastefulness on all levels of life here.
Anyway, it is of greatest importance that your movie gets seen by as many people and as quickly as possible, most importantly by key decision makers. Not knowing what you have been doing to promote it, I ordered immediately 10 copies to show it to all my friends myself, lend /give some to organisations who might want to show it (e.g. Sierra Club) or my senators, representatives on federal and state levels. I have phoned already and left messages. One copy goes to the library. It would be of key importance to have Senate members -all of them-see it and be moved (hopefully), as well as heads of the largest corporations. Who has access to them?
I thought of Soros, Bill Gates, Toni Robbins, actor R. Greer; but I am not connected. The same people have also financially supported equivalent causes. The Sierra Club might help spread the movie throughout the states.
What are you planning, doing now, etc. ? I am in the USA until Jan. 7, then I’ll be gone for 3 weeks, and then back.
I am an ex-academic, photographer, journalist/writer; an active senior.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:48 am
Dear Sally; Thank you so much for your writing; I’ve enjoyed reading you immensely and am enriched by you repeatedly. You know, really, I want a tribe just for the sake of having and being art of a tribe, just like I want to live for the sake of living, Of course, there are real dangers involved in members of the dominant culture “playing Indian,” for example, but like Tom implies, tribe is in our genes. I envision a multi- ethnic tribe. As I was told by a Mexica/ “Nahuatl” elder, we all need to go back to our roots and recover our original traditions and our original instructions from the Creator, but we also have to remember that we are all here now. I will say then, with some trepidation, that I would be willing and even eager to be in a multicultural “tribe” that had an authentic indigenous base. I would be lying if I said that there is not also a bit of pragmatism involved here for me: I see the short and medium range future as being very dangerous for people of Mexican and indigenous descent here in the US, especially as thing collapse and as scapegoats are targeted more and more, and as more and more environmental and economic refugees flee here from the third world. And so I see having a multicultural community as being kind of a buffer to a coming period of intensifying racial hatred in the US that could lead to genocidal or quasi genocidal conditions here under foreseeable circumstances. Race, gender and class issues will still be huge internal matters. No one, no matter how long we’ve been working at it, is pure, yet. All of it is burned just too searingly deep in us. So, any community will have to have healing as a primary focus and will have to have a finely tuned focus on establishing and maintaining Balance, and in helping all of us to “Walk in beauty.”
When I was 16, before the system had dealt me its initial crushing blows, I most wanted to create beauty –as an end in itself, just like I want tribe an end in itself, and probably for just the same “reasons.”
I’ve seen the beginnings of such a community, based on just this model, an indigenous base with other cultures overlaid upon and resting on that base, begin to emerge at the South Central Farm here in LA, when the farmers and their supporter took over the land that had been the US’s largest community garden for over a decade, in order to prevent it from being seized to be turned into a warehouse or a sweatshop. What I learned there is that the land itself can teach us the most important things we need to know, if we can really listen. To see some of what I wrote about the occupation of the Farm and the resistance and community that sprouted there, one can see my blog at http://the-fourth-world.blogspot.com/
Look under the heading “La Tierra/ The Earth,” for the South Central Farm essays.
Thank you for this idea; it really does get hard to carry the weight of the Times we are in alone.
Blessings,
Juan Santos
December 14th, 2007 at 9:41 am
What a lovely night that will be.
On the new moon, a restored Creation.
Buffalo by the millions thundering across the Great Plains. Ten thousand Humpback Whales breaching into the star-lit night.Elephants, all over the continent Trumpet in celebration.
What a lovely night that will be.
In a Holy instant all babies cease to cry.
No cause for tears
Separation impossible
Even memories of war are gone.
What a lovely night that will be.
December 14th, 2007 at 9:41 am
My vision: free food, no bosses, symbiotic equilibrium
- HR
December 14th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Friends,
A couple of things touch me as I read these comments. First, the idea of play that seems to resonate with people. I’m so serious. My childhood was so serious. We worked all the time. Up until very recently I saw the coming times as MORE WORK. Like REALLY more work. I mean, I don’t know much about growing food. I’ve had a few gardens and if one could exist on basil we’d be okay. But to tell the truth, I’m a pretty slacker gardener if you look at my history.
So life after the grocery store has looked like a lot of work. Survival sounds like WORK. And yet I get a really watery feeling in my gut if I declare I want to play. Is the whole concept of work a structure of Empire and the work ethic just part of the chains that keep us imprisoned? Is it heresy to declare that I want to play at this?
I find my throat gets a little tight and my eyes well up with tears as I write that. I long to be in a circle of faces who could witness this upwelling of feeling. I didn’t know it was there until this moment. I’m fucking sick of work. I hate it. The birds don’t work. The squirrels don’t work. The trees don’t work.
Is it possible to step into joy and play in the face of resource depletion, crashing climate systems, plagues and death and wars and drought? Jeez. This IS going to require a paradigm shift and a spiritual journey. But there is something very deep that is bubbling up here. Thanks for resonating with the feeling of longing for play. I want to bring play out of the realm of “childish” and somehow make it sacred.
Another thing that touches me is the ability people have to imagine us two-leggeds in situations where our goodness is expressed in greater measure than our badness. Community that cares for and also reins in its own people when they are out of line. In small, intimate groups that won’t, can’t, don’t, run away from one another either physically or emotionally or spiritually this is very much a part of my vision.
I had some dreams last night. I will write those in the next post.
So far it feels like a pretty sweet experiment we got going here. Let’s see where it takes us.
Sally
December 14th, 2007 at 9:54 am
Tom, I remember that book! I just googled it and found this website ( http://www.altontobey.com/epic.html ) about the guy who did the paintings, with some of them reproduced there. And you can get used copies at Amazon for as low as $1.30…
I had a similar experience with a book of Native American “myths” that I found on the shelf of the one-room schoolhouse I attended as a child. I do not remember enough of it to find it now. I remember how that book deeply moved the little boy I was then. There was an aching for the lost, and a sense of the possible. Now, growing into an adult human animal, I am feeling much the same thing reading Daniel Pinchbeck’s latest: 2012 - The Return of Quetzalcoatl.
As I read over these comments, tears well up in my eyes, and I realize how deeply I miss the close community of other mutants. I want to talk philosophy with Fred for hours on end. I want to balance on a table with Bernhard and be “remarkably generous for no apparent reason” with Kathy. I want to sit in circle with Juan and create beauty, and stand as a buffer between him and the world, sharing deep blessings and finding, together, our original instructions from the Creator.
Doors open. Paths appear. Birds call and I follow. We may get there yet. We may. For now we have now. That is enough.
Peace, all, and thanks.
Tim
December 14th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Sally,
Here is my good news: When I spend the day, outside in my garden (something I cannot do right now, and it grieves me deeply) I “work hard” and sweat but it doesn’t “feel” like work, and I don’t notice the time going by, until hunger or thirst or darkness brings me in. I notice I’m happier and saner. Could it be that “hard work” is a myth that tells us the clean hands and computer work is “easy,” where as manure and rocks and soil and plants are “hard?”
I remember the first time I used a new computer, without my husband standing over me. I hit a few buttons, and everything stopped working. I ran downstairs, and threw myself on the bed crying. I assumed I broke it, and silently swore I’d never touch it without help again. It was too much “work.” (I obviously recovered…)
When my daughter was young, she loved to “kiss worms.” I still like to play in mud puddles, but now I call it “gardening.” I love to sit around watching chickens. It is the best form of television. I even love to don a mask and clean out the coop once a year, and see the excitement the girls have when they come back in. (Maybe “love” is an exaggeration…)
I’m fond of the land I live on, because it reminds me of my ancestral land (I never lived on) that Cromwell complained: “Not enough land to bury a man, not a tree to hang him, not enough water to drown him.” My people fought oppressors by learning to speak in such a twisted language that the oppressors couldn’t understand it (and sometimes they confused each other!) My people believed in fairies and little people that wanted those rock clusters left just as they are, so we’d plow around them. My people knew endurance and sang songs of resistance and the land. We fiddled and shared community. We were Pagans who believed that you couldn’t own the land because the land owned YOU.
I now live with trees people call “not valuable” because they aren’t thinking about burning it, and we have water (for now), but the rocks are everywhere and the soil is randomly deep and consistently steep. It’s okay to hike on, our Government says, but we live on it anyway.
I think of Bernard in his desert. I want to read “Where the Wild Things Are” with Tom. I want to cry with Sally & Tim and then tickle them. I want to hear stories of East Germany from Sigrid and I want to shake hands with Juan. We hear you, Juan. Your message rings loudly here, that urban gardens do work, and there is great effort to crush them out. Your work has been a great inspiration to me, personally.
I want to tell you, all, of my great frustration at hearing others longing to open their homes and land to participate communally with others, but finding no one responding. I’m hearing still others wanting to join in community, but feeling they cannot because other commitments keep them tied to where they are or who they are. Maybe that elastic is pulled just too tightly to link the two (what a great metaphor, Tim. I find it very useful). Maybe the pull of city living still holds too much charm. Maybe the notion of “owning” our own is still too powerful.
It feels like two lovely young people on different sides of a dance hall, longing to dance, and believing no one will dance with them. “I don’t think he/she will be the right one” they say “and if I’m dancing with them, what if the right one shows up?”
I have a vision that we can somehow encourage the dairy farmers to “hang on one more year” until the great turning happens and they can make a living. These men and women outside work full time jobs so they can keep their cows but can’t AFFORD their cows from milking them. My vision is that we can help them hang on, and not sell off their animals and land to developers.
Is keeping cows “work?” If it is, why do these farmers do it year after year, losing money? Is sex “work,” clearly it can be if you aren’t having any fun or loving who you are engaging it with.
Is cleaning a chicken coop “work?” Clearly it is, but what if you can’t wait to see the reactions when the hens come back in? (They wait by the window to BE let back in…) They walk all over, saying in their silent language “Wow. This is cool! Look here! See, I can scratch here and fluff things up!” And I throw some ’scratch’ down and they say “Hey, Henni, look! And GREAT FOOD is in here too!”
Sort of like seeing the kids first come down to view all the presents under the tree.
You gutta love us mutants…
December 14th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
Lots of thoughts crowding out each other, each one wanting to be first in the list! Unlocking the food… a group of women sitting in a circle, singing together, talking, sharing, working on baskets, beading, leather clothing, felting, pottery… a tribe isn’t a commune but is something like good neighbors working cooperatively while each has their own life as well… I have the place but so far no one I’ve invited has felt this was the right place for them. All these thoughts, crowding each other out, so fast, I have trouble sorting enough to share.
I’m a short term pessimist and long term optiimist. I have a vision of the future that includes people living in harmony with each other and balance with the earth, recognizing themselves as one of the relatives, not as the patriarchs of the planet. Short term is really quite terrifying and if I focus on short term too much, it upsets my equilibrium enough to stop my preparations.
My preparations are very real, not just vision of ‘how nice it would be.’ I’m working on unlocking the food for my family, and hopefully for a small tribe. We have land for garden - at the moment 9000 sq.ft. with plenty of water and the most nutritious soil possible since it was dug from the bottom of a silted in lake. We have the hunting, living in the middle of a national forest that goes for miles of mountainous, elk and deer filled terrain. We have the gathering with those same miles filled with choke cherries, raspberries, strawberries, yucca, so many things we don’t know the names of or uses for, we have the raising with chickens just purchased, goats coming soon, pigs on the horizon. It’s a beginning in unlocking the food. Solving problems like how to feed the chickens, goats and pigs without purchasing feed for them - just another step in unlocking the food - will come gradually. We have to make a beginning.
But it gets so lonely on this mountain and I’d like a tribe. That vision of a group of women - I would so much love to see it come into being. We have the place, but only for people who really DO want to live in a primitive way, only for those who can envision themselves living in a tipi or a yurt, or an indigenous structure built naturally from the things of the earth.
I’d love to find people from among those who understand what is happening in the world. Sometimes it gets so lonely.
Lua
December 14th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
There is a great book called “Deep Play” by Diane Ackerman that touches on much said here. Play is indeed not childish, it is spiritual, and at the core of who we are. We have forgotten much when we work more than we play!
I’m almost done with Joanna Macy’s “Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World”, and hope to use its lessons to lead something for Earth Day 2008. There are many on the path who need to connect with each other. I hope this will bring some of us together.
Sally, thanks for starting this experiment. Tim, count me in on the “mutant circle”. ;^)
December 14th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
My blog has my vision, but I’ll try to be brief:
Regardless of how we would like to live, each species has to contribute more usefulness to the universe than they use up in resources. Microorganisms decay structured materials so that those materials can be used by plants. Life is about creating a Net gain. The limits we see approaching are due to the fact that overall, we are huge consumers. We could buy a lot of time with very little Descent from our current state of 99:1 ratio of waste to usefulness. (see http://www.storyofstuff.com )
Cities, science, technology can all have a part to play (protecting against asteroids?), but we need to make these things into Net contributions to the universe and not pretend that the externalities don’t exist.
As for this connections thing, I just hope for a geographic type of progression, so that as more people join, we can create additional connections in person. Such as the http://www.greendrinks.org groups have done.
December 14th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Reading what everyone shared took me surfing on my own emotions, up, down, up….. “Yes!” ‘”Yes!’ “I think/ feel/hope/fear that too…..” It is very good to connect with “tribe,” even electronically. Around most folks these days, I feel like an alien.
The rubber band analogy is helpful. I will remember it at those times when the distance from the here of our collapsing society/world seems futher from the there of a saner, happier future than I think I may be able to peddle.
My husband and I are cofounders of a small permaculture farm community in SW Wisconsin, across the state from where we live presently We just bought the land this year, have yet to build our home there, sell our present home, and move. There is so much to be done to get the farm in sustainable operationing mode. We go back and forth….. which also gives rise to the feeling of having a foot in each of two different worlds.
It does seem to me that if the next chapter in the story of our collective existence is to see us all eating 3 meals a day that we need to be working very hard on change at the physical level, not just visioning.
http://www.wiserearth.org is a good site for networking with others who are at work transforming the world in a positive way.
I look forward to more of the conversation here!
Shivani
December 15th, 2007 at 2:13 am
Sally,
Your words “The birds don’t work. The squirrels don’t work. The trees don’t work” are something I observe every day, wistfully, and often point out to others. My best neighbors are the ravens, who work a little in the morning, then spend most of the rest of the day preening, sitting around, grab-assing with each other, and sometimes playfully harrassing the wild turkeys just because they’re turkeys. They watch the air like surfers watch the ocean, ever ready to play on the wind and thermals.
It is not lost on me that they have a better gig than I do.
The most salient fact that stuck with me from Marshall Sahlins’ book _Stone Age Economics_ is that all over the world when anthropologists study extant hunter gatherer tribes, they find an average of four hours per day of work. The rest of the time they spend playing, gossiping, napping, etc. — sort of like my raven friends. If a brief abundance of food demands extra work to process and store, they tend to take compensatory time off later. And remember, the studied tribes are ones that have all been forced off of the best, most productive lands, and have to make their living in marginal ecosystems. Imagine a lush ecosystem like California’s central valley, and it’s possible that at one time daily work averages were even less.
So if we lucky “civilized” folks work a nominal eight-hour day (with staggeringly more hours the norm in past times) and the “uncivilized” hunter-gatherers work half as much, where does the difference go? I suggest that a clue might be found in the fact that a good rule of thumb for all combined taxes (local, state, and federal) is around 50% — in other words, we are still working four hours a day to cover all of our physical needs, same as a hunter-gatherer, and the rest is sucked away by ruling elites. We are milk cows, only the milk we give off is money. The theft is legitimized by calling it “interest” paid on public “debt”, money which the central bankers magically created out of thin air.
Yes, tribes have their form of socialism, a sort of intra-group taxation, where obligations to each other must be met. But the aged, infirm, and children are all taken care of, there is no unemployement, there are no gold-brickers, and most importantly, there is no parasitic ruling class.
December 15th, 2007 at 9:44 am
In case you haven’t noticed, Sally posted a follow up post in a different thread. It’s here: http://www.whatawaytogomovie.com/2007/12/14/the-experiment-continues-two-dreams/
December 15th, 2007 at 10:01 am
I’m appreciative at the amount of insight and experience here. Beautiful words that touch and expand my own vision: “Ten thousand Humpback Whales breaching into the star-lit night.Elephants, all over the continent Trumpet in celebration.”
What a liberating thought that approximately 50% of our current collective labors go to the ruling elite. If we stayed in small home communities and did not go places beyond what we could on foot or bicycle, if we took care of our own and governed ourselves we’d be way ahead. Intuitively this is not news to me but doing the math certainly reinforces that and it’s empowering to to do the math.
Tim just asked me to reflect on how much time I’m spending in front of a computer screen these days. I know that several things hold us back from instituting a formal “forum” on our website:
1) we don’t want to spend more time online moderating such a site
2) we don’t know how to set us a forum that would provide more services, such as helping people make connections in their geographic locations or focus their comments on particular threads of interest
3) we don’t know if the benefits of people connecting in this way outweigh the costs of people connecting this way, the costs being time spent in front of a screen rather than in direct contact with the real world of animals, plants and people, face to face.
What do you all think about that? Do the benefits of time online connecting with others electronically outweigh the costs?
People have ask us how to help. If a formal forum provides real benefit to people then this is one thing that would really help and would serve others: If you want to have a more formal forum and have the skills to set such a thing up, and/or if you have the time and interest to moderate such a forum (watching for “trolls,” who are there not to contribute but to disrupt, and then dealing with those) then let me know and we’ll pursue this as a real possibility.
BTW: So far in this experiment we’ve not had to “x” any comments because people are responding in thoughtful, kind, ways with no attacking or blaming. Thanks for that.
December 15th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Sally,
This is a wonderful thing that you have started here. I think it is a giant step forward. Thank you, thank you, thank you. What we are talking about is nothing less than peace on Earth. Peace with Earth. What we need most right now is physical proximity. I really do want to hold your hand an look in your eyes. All of you. The most basic form of community is a group of people standing together holding hands. A network of local tribs seems like the next step. If that meens being in front of a cumputer to organize, so be it. I’ll help in what ever way I am able. This is what I think, for what it’s worth…………..rcd
December 17th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Five years ago I really needed the online community - hearing from other people who understood what I was going through and what was real versus what was smoke and mirrors in the world validated the changing reality with which I was coming to terms.
Then I went through a period of absolute frustration about everything and rejected most of my online contacts, as well as bailing out of several discussion forums. They just seemed to yak to no final conclusion and led nowhere for anyone who was actually making changes in their lives.
Today I need online communication for a different reason. I’m looking for people. I’m on a very precise and focused search for exactly the right people to join us in (physical) community and I believe that eventually, if I continue on my quest, someone will pop up who is exactly the family we’ve been searching for.
Both needs are critical. Some people need to vent while they’re watching their paradigm of reality turn into quicksand. Others need to connect with each other so that perhaps we won’t all be quite so alone when the tipping point is finally reached and the snowballs turn into an avalanche.
I do not believe this format will take care of the need. It will become too tedious to search out individual comments in a single page scrolling down. The yahoo group format works well for most discussion groups. Is there some reason it would not work well for this one? I know the Derrick Jensen forum is so tightly controlled that it almost feels like entering a police compound when one finally gains entrance, and yet it didn’t stop a very clever and subtle troll from destroying the group feeling, so I don’t think more and more controls are the answer. Just going with the flow and seeing what happens probably would do as well as anything.
Lua
.