Life in Green Acres Village during CV Lockdown

Only one thing has decidedly changed: No more Thursday Community Dinners for the duration, since they inevitably draw way more than ten people.

Otherwise, for we who are more in tune with nature than with the existing culture, not much changes here; or I should say, whatever massive, ongoing changes occur in the “outside world,” and that do indeed intersect with our “inside world” — and yes, they have to do with bleed-through from stress on the “economic system,” — even so, we podmates remain extremely grateful for  “stay at home” orders that confine us to the inside of our little micro paradise.

Yes, we continue to see/feel/work with Green Acres Permaculture Village as one possible template for a transformed future. A thoroughly decentralized future, in which millions of tiny organic, permaculture farms, run by individuals, partnerships, and groups of like-minded and like-hearted souls networked horizontally, dot the entire face of this beautiful earth, rejuvenating both deserts and “food deserts,” and reconnect us with each other, the land below, and the cosmos above.

In cities, these tiny farms are beginning to seed themselves inside alleys, empty lots, parks, balconies, rooftops, high rise trellises.

In suburbs, our wasteful, lonely l suburbs, where way too few people, in sometimes way too big houses, occupy way too much land while ignoring it, or mowing or pesticiding it. Yes, lots of social experiments ongoing now here too, converting those green lawns to productive horticulture while newly sharing and caring for each other’s welfare, skills, talents, productive use of primal energy that flows through us all, as we begin to move below money and remove the internal psychic blocks to our full, human expression..

Imagine: gigantic monocrop megafarms carved  into smaller pieces, much smaller, the soil remediated by farmers on tiny farms; and/or larger farms converted to regenerative practices, for example, like Joel Salatin, of Polyface Farm, his herds of animals moved daily from plot to plot to rejuvenate the land the way the buffalo once roamed; and/or check out Mark Shepherd in Minnesota, his focus on “Restoration Agriculture.”

The  obvious alternative to our vision, as we all know, is “globalism,” a centrally organized and run, top down,  soulless, bureaucratic New World Order, as envisaged by the UN in Agenda 21 and 30.

BTW: there is one item with which I would agree with Agenda 21/30: and that is we DO need to leave plenty of room, of course, for the real wild, species large, small, and microscopic, with whom we humans co-inhabit this beautiful earth. However, keep in mind that the UN’s  “sustainable development”  (oxymoron?) scheme to “save the environment” would have us all move into “smart: cities, where we would be chipped, vaccinated, and hooked up to AI, inside tiny boxes, where, I presume, we would continue to scarf down the the usual fake food produced by Big Ag, which in turn would continue to make us sick and thus continue to feed insatiable Big Pharma. NO!

No. No. No!

Here in GAPV, our fearless farm manager Cherisse (Rebecca) decided that this year each household would be responsible for its own nearby garden, with the original large side garden reserved for things we want to grow a lot of.

I love our new social experiment. Puts me in mind, once again, of the contradiction between socialism and capitalism that we are constantly working here to dynamically integrate, moving in one direction (oops! too far!), and then in the other (oops, too far!).

The latest experiment, to have costs for all utilities in all three households shared, leans way into socialism, and makes those of us who appreciate the idea of remembering to turn off the lights when not needed, chafe. Much more likely to feel responsible when the costs of one’s own household’s extravagence is borne more directly!

The current plan of having our own household gardens, goes in the other direction, leans us more towards capitalism, where each household feels more responsible for its own plot (a plus!) and yet the situation could verge on territorial (Is your garden bigger than ours?).

I love these little experiments in how to link and express both individuality and community. No doubt, whatever we discover from this year’s experiment will alter the direction for next year in some way.

Ever since March 23, and March 31, when Saturn and Mars left Capricorn for Aquarius, the principal sign that governs both groups of equals and social experimentation, we’ve been on it! YES!

What experiment are you hankering to get going? You have the next three months to begin. Keep in mind that Saturn will regress back into authoritarian Capricorn, resonating with the rare and portentious Saturn/Pluto conjunction that occurred only once, in mid-January, and then showed its massively destructive penchant (remember: death before rebirth) soon after as the media and WHO promoted Coronavirus “Pandemic,” which, the longer it goes on, threatens to undermine/topple all the current structures at every scale that we once took for granted.

Keep in mind that Saturn will regress back into Capricorn at the end of June, and remain there until both Saturn and Jupiter make their actual conjunction at 0° Aquarius on December 21, Winter Solstice. THIS date, and this Great Conjunction, which only occurs every 20 years, will serve as the real new beginning to whatever social experimentation we are playing with now. I speak not just of our little group process here, but more generally, of the world as a whole. Dig in!

From recent, twice-weekly, work parties: