So why won't the kids stay where they were born, and why are parents left in nursing homes, and why do fewer and fewer people want to be farmers?
Easy answer is the land does not belong to us, and what does belong to parents tends to be sold after their death, and that land is set up as a business venture not a sustainable home base (and is usually too large in the case of farms). The generations do not stay together because there is no land to keep the family united.
Rather than dissect countless social ills and symptoms-- why not look at a picture of all these things working well and harmoniously. It is our imaginations that will bring it forth, simply that. Doubting whether this is feasible ensures that it is not.
Imagine that you have enough space around you-- it is about one to three hectares (2.5 to 7.5 acres)-- you own this space. It sustains you, because you have made it that way. You planted everything; you designed the food forest, the pastures, the stands of native plants for the local wildlife and the vegie patches. Your children grew up there, and there is at least one who cares about it enough to pass it on to their children. You may be welcome to stay there when you are older and be involved in your grand-children's lives. Of course, some may even choose to be buried under a favourite tree or in a special clearing in the forest.
All of you become salt of the earth. What this means is that the people who live on their land become all but indistinguishable from the nature that supports them. It is a strong position to be in. And one that our ancestors knew well.
Just a reminder-- agri-business today does not look like this. There is a sense of desperation amongst farmers today. Reliance on loans, mechanisation, and an outside labour pool-- plus unfair pricing systems by the supermarkets who buy the produce of the land-- all guarantee that farm children will skedaddle to the city at the earliest opportunity. Their choice of course. But who is going to grow the children's food-- and for the rest of the people who live in the city? Very stressful and difficult for those who stay behind on the farms.
Why do this? Sure it is hard to change a big system like we have. But we have to want to change it first. Let's look at the ecology humans have created for ourselves. When we domesticated animals we started enclosing them with fences-- or thorny hedges-- to restrict their movements and ensure they would stay where we could utilise them. Soon after, over-grazing and over-logging were invented. Natural systems were degraded and the Sahara Desert was born. (I've heard that all deserts on earth are man-made.)
Mass species extinctions are now occurring because the remaining eco-systems are too small too support the creatures who once roamed over whole continents (because they could) and always had plenty of food as a result. (Some fluctuations in population occurred from time to time, and species came and went-- but life always prevailed because nature was strong.) People need a right-size ecosystem to support us. But at the same time we restricted animals, we began to restrict each other. Our home domains became smaller and smaller-- whilst oddly, larger and larger tracts were allocated to the animals we contained and controlled. (Think the development of cities-- property values served to shrink our home spaces-- also think of the sheep and cattle stations which cover areas in Australia the size of European countries.)
Nothing seems to be the right size any more. Logic and proportion have nothing to do with land-use practices today. It is as if we are on automatic pilot but have forgotten to see where our course is taking us. The excuse that it's always been this way doesn't work-- because it hasn't. And equally it cannot be said that it always will be this way, because it won't. (All things on earth must pass and have the quality of arising, existing and ceasing to be-- that's the proof of what I just said.)
So let's bring the balance back. Tiny shoe-box homes and cities and vast, unwieldy farm acreages aren't mutually supportive as we might think. The situation is unstable. The only creations of the city cannot be money, waste and intellectual property forever. And farms cannot continue to pump fossil fuel, irrigation water and debt into the ground indefinitely.
What could be is some happy medium-- farms being given to groups of people who want to make them into multi-family villages of right-size homesteads (as mentioned above). Russia found decades ago that small-holdings could be more productive when they gave even less than an acre to citizens to grow food-- to ensure national food security. An overwhelming majority of Russia's potatoes (as an example of a staple food) was subsequently grown in this way not on the larger farms. So it can be done. Plus, people instinctively recognise the superior qualities of expertly home-grown food compared to supermarket-shelf offerings. The potential market for this type of food is vast and lucrative for the home producer. We just need to remove the tax burdens and administrative headaches that primary producers currently have to endure.
The generations can co-exist in this way. There are rare examples of century farms that have produced food on the same land for over 100 years-- for their neighbours and nearby towns. A precedent exists! We might find if we examined these places that they are right-sized. To keep generations together, to keep society together, to stop the exodus from country farms (and maybe even reverse it) we need not to just have land, but the right amount of it. Just like other members of our ecosystem, aka plants and animals. That's right-- to be fully human-- which is so much more than flora or fauna-- we need to find our right place in the natural scheme. We are both natural and artificial. Unlike plants and animals, we are of our own making.
Saturday 15 February 2014
Sunday 9 February 2014
Here is One Answer- The Message is Abundance
Let's not confuse the message with the medium. Money is a medium of exchange-- so what is the message it brings? Just as there is a wide variety of content available in all our media today, there are a vast range of business services available. And I am glad to say that the tide seems to have turned, people around the world are starting to realise that being ethical is good for business. And more than that, it is essential. The key ingredient to one's prosperity it seems is having the health and well-being of our fellow planetary citizens-- and the planet-- foremost in our hearts and awareness.
Perhaps it is time for a bit of back-story. What is this blog about and why does it exist? Here's why. When faced with a situation where I wanted to offer something of help to people, whether it may have been a reiki circle or a community garden, I became aware of what was stopping people from getting involved or committing their time to what I considered to be clearly beneficial to them and valuable to the wider community. It was their need (both perceived and actual) for ensuring their own survival.. There was inevitably work, and that was because there was also food to buy and either a mortgage or rent to pay. However, it wasn't until a friend introduced me to the Ringing Cedars of Russia series (translated to English) that I finally gathered the scope of the issues facing us all.
Further to this, and directly relevant to this blog, the idea independently occurred (no one had to tell me, and I didn't have to read it) that each of us is indigenous to this planet, our earth. It is just that we don't feel it belongs to us because of the process (that somehow we allowed to take place) of commodification (being turned into a commodity) of the very ground we stand upon. Certainly we need to have some allotment of space for our very day-to-day existence, just as we need a certain amount of earth's atmosphere and fresh water just to live and breathe here. The last two are still free (except for tap water provided by local authorities), but to stand upon the earth and to shelter yourself from the elements (in your house) you generally have to pay. But why?
Indigenous people (including us, although most have forgotten this fact) have a relationship to the earth that is mutual and supportive. They (we) might say that they do not care for the land, but they (we) care for the things that live upon the land-- animals, plant, people-- and it is the land that cares for all of us (and them) in return. This being the case, the arrangement must be natural and independent of any financial games, wheelings and dealings or other contrivances of our imagination, and pre-dates and supersedes all of the above in importance and impact upon our lives. But you would not think so today.
I firmly believe that every one is entitled to the amount of land necessary to feed, clothe and house themselves and their (our) dependants. Not just for today, but forever-- in perpetuity. So-called indigenality (aboriginality, or indigenous status) is something of a red herring in my view, and to add another cliche, aborigines are the canaries in the coal mine. Western-type people are not suffering the same way in our cultural milieu because we are protected by artificial constructs that do not resonate with the world view of our aboriginal brethren. Imagine a strain of individuals raised on chemicals, processed food and hardy under these conditions. And another that requires fresh food and clean air and to touch the earth on a daily basis. Clearly our civilization favours the first, but that does not make them (us) any more worthy of survival, just freaks of nature really, mutants if you like.
Dispossession is something that bonds people in traditional societies with those in modern ones. European people (known as pagans) were treated much the same as the first inhabitants of Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australia (plus the Pacific) were-- and sadly are being treated today. And the pagans were the ancestors of so-called westerners today. It is not surprising that they (we) chose to visit the same treatment upon others that they (we) received. This does not make it right.
Today is our opportunity to start anew. Violent means will never achieve peaceful ends. Therefore let us seek out and employ peaceful measures to all the ills and problems facing humanity. It requires us to give a little. Economic abundance has its place, but at the heart of the matter having a roof over one's head is not a business proposition, it is much deeper and more significant than that. It is no game! But to play the games of economics we need to have something real at our base (when you play a board game you know you are playing, but you as a person are much more than a player, and you also know that). Let us level the so-called playing field. We are dealing with generations of unfair advantage and disadvantage (due to multiple episodes of dispossession on earth, aka "land grabs" and colonisation, enforced christianisation, etc.). So more is needed than telling one another to pull our socks up, "get a job" or to work for the dole. We need to make sure each of us has our basic land needs met. And the rest is fun and games.
Perhaps it is time for a bit of back-story. What is this blog about and why does it exist? Here's why. When faced with a situation where I wanted to offer something of help to people, whether it may have been a reiki circle or a community garden, I became aware of what was stopping people from getting involved or committing their time to what I considered to be clearly beneficial to them and valuable to the wider community. It was their need (both perceived and actual) for ensuring their own survival.. There was inevitably work, and that was because there was also food to buy and either a mortgage or rent to pay. However, it wasn't until a friend introduced me to the Ringing Cedars of Russia series (translated to English) that I finally gathered the scope of the issues facing us all.
Further to this, and directly relevant to this blog, the idea independently occurred (no one had to tell me, and I didn't have to read it) that each of us is indigenous to this planet, our earth. It is just that we don't feel it belongs to us because of the process (that somehow we allowed to take place) of commodification (being turned into a commodity) of the very ground we stand upon. Certainly we need to have some allotment of space for our very day-to-day existence, just as we need a certain amount of earth's atmosphere and fresh water just to live and breathe here. The last two are still free (except for tap water provided by local authorities), but to stand upon the earth and to shelter yourself from the elements (in your house) you generally have to pay. But why?
Indigenous people (including us, although most have forgotten this fact) have a relationship to the earth that is mutual and supportive. They (we) might say that they do not care for the land, but they (we) care for the things that live upon the land-- animals, plant, people-- and it is the land that cares for all of us (and them) in return. This being the case, the arrangement must be natural and independent of any financial games, wheelings and dealings or other contrivances of our imagination, and pre-dates and supersedes all of the above in importance and impact upon our lives. But you would not think so today.
I firmly believe that every one is entitled to the amount of land necessary to feed, clothe and house themselves and their (our) dependants. Not just for today, but forever-- in perpetuity. So-called indigenality (aboriginality, or indigenous status) is something of a red herring in my view, and to add another cliche, aborigines are the canaries in the coal mine. Western-type people are not suffering the same way in our cultural milieu because we are protected by artificial constructs that do not resonate with the world view of our aboriginal brethren. Imagine a strain of individuals raised on chemicals, processed food and hardy under these conditions. And another that requires fresh food and clean air and to touch the earth on a daily basis. Clearly our civilization favours the first, but that does not make them (us) any more worthy of survival, just freaks of nature really, mutants if you like.
Dispossession is something that bonds people in traditional societies with those in modern ones. European people (known as pagans) were treated much the same as the first inhabitants of Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australia (plus the Pacific) were-- and sadly are being treated today. And the pagans were the ancestors of so-called westerners today. It is not surprising that they (we) chose to visit the same treatment upon others that they (we) received. This does not make it right.
Today is our opportunity to start anew. Violent means will never achieve peaceful ends. Therefore let us seek out and employ peaceful measures to all the ills and problems facing humanity. It requires us to give a little. Economic abundance has its place, but at the heart of the matter having a roof over one's head is not a business proposition, it is much deeper and more significant than that. It is no game! But to play the games of economics we need to have something real at our base (when you play a board game you know you are playing, but you as a person are much more than a player, and you also know that). Let us level the so-called playing field. We are dealing with generations of unfair advantage and disadvantage (due to multiple episodes of dispossession on earth, aka "land grabs" and colonisation, enforced christianisation, etc.). So more is needed than telling one another to pull our socks up, "get a job" or to work for the dole. We need to make sure each of us has our basic land needs met. And the rest is fun and games.
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