Blog post #25 - Build an EcoHomestead, and the People will come!

Build an EcoHomestead and the People Will Come!

As our overdeveloped civilization continues its downward spiral, an increasing number of people will be looking for alternatives. Even the most stubborn close minded folks can only hold on to an illusory worldview with the force of their wills for so long before reality begins to break through. Our bodies sense that things are awry in our world whether through economic uncertainty, social division, or global warming. That same sense, when strong enough, can break through the mental constructs we have tediously built up to assure ourselves that everything is all right. When that happens, and as it happens to more and more people, living real world examples of authentic lives being lived according to a different set of values, will be crucial to ensuring that the transition to a better world will be a peaceful one.

Our goal then, will be to affect as many people as possible through the example of sustainable living. By following the path laid out above, we believe that joy will naturally emerge from us in this process. This positive feeling will ultimately have the greatest effect in potentially transforming the lives of others. Once again, arguments based on theories and values, by themselves, will not produce the societal changes that we need. That approach has more often than not led to more intellectual debates and societal division, rather than any progressive action.

The times ahead seem sure to bring us many challenges. With the crises concerning energy, climate, and food fast approaching, we are all quite unprepared to handle them appropriately. Recent political events have not only exacerbated the external problems but, perhaps more important, have diminished further our already weak cultural bonds. If people could experience the possibility of living better lives while using fewer resources, then we would be much less inclined to resort to theft and violence in the face of actual scarcity.

With the entire planet in crisis, and nowhere left to hide and wait out the storm, Vishu Magee claims that we can no longer afford to walk our spiritual path in isolation from the needs of the world around us. He believes that for the foreseeable future, the spiritual path and the path of sustainability will be identical. Healing will be of the highest importance.

Magee sees sustainability as a particularly dynamic aspect of the wholeness archetype. To the extent that our personal vision begins to reach these archetypal and universal sources, our work takes on a transpersonal or collective aspect. Thus we come to the crux of the solution. We need to broaden our awareness to include all people, all creatures, and all places, while simultaneously grounding our physical labor in one specific location.

The key is to shift to a new ethic and worldview where our relationship to Nature becomes joyful and rewarding enough to discard those creature comforts and old addictions that weigh us down. Magee follows that this shift of worldview must be grounded in actual experience rather than intellectual study. This is just the example that my family hopes to provide.

If we, as a movement, can have an effect on enough people, individual by individual, family by family, organization by organization, then we might just have a chance at averting the catastrophe that Jimmy Carter warned us of nearly thirty years ago. As far as technical knowledge is concerned, we have developed just about everything that we need to survive the coming crises and to transition to a new paradigm. Whether through rainwater catchment, organic gardening, green design and natural building, or renewable energy, those bioneers who took President Carter’s call seriously have been developing these systems for more than three decades now.

What is missing is a wider campaign to spread knowledge of these ready and available alternatives as well as the desire to actually implement them. We must lead by example, not just by threats. We need to provide solutions to the problems we identify. It is hoped that this thesis project has provided some indications for how we might continue to proceed in this direction. Remember that ultimately this struggle is over the imagination. We must portray a possible future that is so compelling for so many people that it is utterly irresistible. We will need all the tools at hand to achieve this goal. A Better World Is Possible!