Laura Bruno has published a wonderful piece that thoroughly explores what is in my own heart during this climactic period of accelerating wag-the-dog events that promise vastly increasing police presence lauded by an apparently brain-dead public. I too, have wondered, “Should I leave the U.S.?” — and discovered when traveling in Thailand recently the enticing prospect of a “retiree visa” that simply needs to be renewed every six months. I met one expat from Florida at the wat (temple) near Chiang Mai who has made this his decision. He looks relaxed and content.
I am not relaxed and content. That’s for sure. Not here. Not yet, despite learning how to meditate over there, and, since my return, meditating faithfully, every single day.
And yet, and yet! I’m supposed to be in this crazy place, supposed to plant my feet in its mysteriously fertile ground, supposed to help build regenerative culture from the bottom up, right here, right now, in my heart, my home, my neighborhood, my town. While all the mind-control bombs are crashing around me. While all the promised police drones whiz by. While the ambulances wail and the fire trucks scream.
Yesterday I attended an event at a local church celebrating the publication of the Permaculture Manual: Garden Farming for Town and Country, a hefty book that Peter Bane, an internationally known permaculturist who has also chosen to plant his roots here, right here, has written to help everyone in towns and suburbs begin to recreate the world we all want to live in, one in which we wake up each day, eager to begin one more day of focusing on what’s right about our world rather than all that has gone wrong. One more day of moving into harmony within ourselves and with each other and the natural world. The atmosphere was convivial. Young permaculturists trained by locals Peter, his partner Keith Johnson and Rhonda Baird mingled with others who have only recently begun to realize what they must do to stay safe during this times: get back in touch with nature, gather together, learn to grow our own food. Food security. That’s the first priority. Number one. Everything else will follow.
This afternoon, at 1 p.m., we shall have our first garden event of the year in the Green Acres Neighborhood Garden (GANG) , which is planted in the middle of the Green Acres Neighborhood Ecovillage (GANE). The GANG is beginning its 5th year. The ecovillage, which is based on the principles of sustainability that we built into our official city plan for the Green Acres Neighborhood Association (GANA), is — alas!‚ still more vision than manifestation.
Today we will plant seeds in the new hugelculture bed and decide which of the many projects we’ve been dreaming about will get done this year. I’ll help, and take pictures to post here and elsewhere later.
Here, finally, is Laura Bruno.
