It can be frustrating having all the tools for design, application and execution of permaculture, along with experience of growing food and getting it to where it needs to go, and seeing the waste of our food system and our culture of consumption. It is especially frustrating when you are a dreamer and ideas man as i am... mostly unpaid, living with no car, and dreaming of a piece of land/institute/artist hermitage to cultivate and create a space that will forever teach, sustain and provide to the possible and mostly distant next of kin, friends, family, and most of all strangers.
DON'T STOP, LIVE GENUINELY.
Through the RDNA year, a lot moved as an artist/gardener with very little drawing/drafting experience and a whole lot of dreams and ideas. the best way i found to cull the somewhat haunting dreams and ideas that flood my mind on a constant and hourly level, was in drawing out what i saw in my mind for designs. of course this is a good idea- any designer will tell you that. but i reached a second terrible space in looking at these finished drawings- damn i like that, and i want it to happen more then ever...
I am 28 years old. I have no medical insurance. i have not much in savings. no college degree. I am unmarried, and mostly volunteering and unemployed, socially against most of the cultural norm in this country, and don't often relate to my own generation let alone the lower or above.
I am a statistic that, in my mind, the US and most of western civilization sees as a drain on its resources (even though in reality i use very little), especially since i am technically not contributing to the GDP- the very heart of our destructive culture that puts value on the exploitation of people, resources, and creates all living things (and often non) into statistical commodities.
thus disconnecting everything from its natural relationship to everything else. we then devalue, and then revalue into false markets and ledger sheets. this locks our self and other into the new human drama- the seperation from what Humans are inextricably a part of- Nature and its natural order.
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.
One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a
slave than they are."- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, opening from The Social Contract.
i am a lackluster citizen NOT contributing to the consortium of american consumer culture. i am a Bum, lost soul, and all at once free... sort of.
AND I AM ABSOLUTELY AT PEACE WITH IT.
These two drawings reflect some of those ideals that a growing number (thankfully) of like minded people are moving towards in terms of a self reliance against a hyper-consumer based culture of individualist. we are so driven, and blinded, that we are literally killing our selves and working even harder to try and counter the very thing that is killing us... (albeit slowly ill admit and mostly of the usual top 10 diseases related to the very problem i am referring to).
Between house designs under 1000 square feet, gray water systems, ponds, food forests, passive solar design to heat the buildings, animal husbandry, medicinal botany, native plant nursery, i have come to realize i have nothing but time on my side...
although most of my plans include succession plantings of some fine plants and animals, many of these reach maturity in 20 years... meaning all the hard labor and work i must accomplish with my own two hands is ticking down a little more every day.
BUT as i have had in twisting conversations with fellow peers about time- time is a creation of our own existence and consciousness based on our own short life spans and past history (which on the great timeline of time is very very short compared to the rest of the species on this little blue dot).
Time.
Time used to be based on when the sun came up, the seasons changed, the ground could be worked, and the moon was in cycle; not a 9-5 day doing something you most likely don't even love.
i see time a little differently, finally, in terms of the emphasis we put on how much has been accomplished by a certain age or time, and the expectations that come with it.
we have a life time to do, and not a whole lot of time to spend on thinking about how. application is the best way to spend this said "time". and don't forget to put some time aside to learn, be in wonder, and share in the curiosity that flows with us in our NATURAL lives.
Where does this leave all of this in the rambling words of this post?
It leaves the fact of the matter that time is always on our side, that accomplishment and success is based on ones own happiness and not that of the status-quo of our toxic culture. its about what YOU want to accomplish, what your dreams are, and designs for a life you are hopefully wanting to be better, and leave behind something others can forever appreciate and wonder at. expectations should be and are only rooted with the self. and DON'T PANIC. living with as little as you need can put into perspective what some of the dreams are that you may want to ultimately leave behind after the short time we all spend on this little blue planet. If you dream and design for a better future, or a future in general, then you may have accomplished more then all the nay sayers of tradition. Permaculture is, after all, about healing what neglect and abuse has been done to both the human, the earth the human relies on indefinitely, and the community in which both (should) exist. Happy dreaming.
