Community



Though there are wind-blown seeds from other worlds,
and forces unseen which shape who we are,
most people our largely the product of their culture.
It shapes us, as we shape it.

Yet the advantage is not ours,
for on the newborn child society begins from birth to exert an influence,
whereas the child's open mind does not discern but learn... to fly or to hold his chains.
Most people grow to be not sculptors, but clay
uniquely textured by reason and circumstance
but shaped nonetheless by a crucial common form.
Culture is the form.

I have faith in our collective journey. There is no reason not to trust in the evolution of Man.
Yet today we are bound by systems which do not evolve, but instead hold fast to fossilized forms.
We are limited in our progress as one people, to one people, by obsolete institutions clinging to power.
By confused governments with little reason or integrity, who shun true democracy and deliver hollow words.
By powerful corporations void of conscience which are driven to seek profit at any expense,
and which if unchecked will spare no exploitation in their work, including a struggle to the death against progress.
Even culture, even true human expressions and that word dreaded when it should be celebrated, media, are co-opted at every turn by for-profit institutions, with agendas and without them.
The miracle technologies existent today could be the collective voice of free people everywhere, the strongest song for freedom the world has ever known,
yet instead, we primarily have systems and voices of pure ignorance, and daily they loudly train us all.
This must change.
These forms, static at heart as dry hardened clay awaiting the hammer of revolution, must change.

But why not water, instead?
for this hard block we call the world
becomes soft and malleable in the hand,
when wet with the water of hope.

Society is ours to determine.
The living world that our children inherit is ours to define today.
We decide, everyday, and cast our vote with intent, with belief and with action,
whether to leave them with a future of freedom or trouble.

The struggle of our economics-driven societal models must be transformed.
The environmental chaos which is the product of this struggle must cease.
The time has come yet again for the fundamental patterns upon which society grows to be made fluid, and rearranged.

The difference is that today our society covers the Earth. Human societies are fast becoming Human Society, not country based, not clan or ethnically centered, not even class-divided, as we all slowly approach a middle ground, but global in scope. Universal. The fences which keep us separate are fading fast, while that which connects us is growing stronger. Today, the word 'society' can only mean human society. Today there is only us.

So, what do we need?
We need culture, the base from which to build.
But culture cannot be made, it cannot be contrived, it must grow and ripen in the fertile soil of community, our ancient home.
In community we will find sanctuary; for consciousness, for evolution, for culture.
In a culture healthy with community invaluable human networks can flourish perpetually.

Every group of human beings form a community. Regardless of intention, or empathy, or the socio-economic realities that may keep them locked in struggle, every group of human beings form a community. It is the nature of this union, the degree of freedom and prosperity available to those within it, that determines whether that community is sustainable, is desirable, is productive, is able to flourish.

We need communities within which people can live, with the most freedom possible, where they can love, create and play, safe and free from poverty, hatred, and all avoidable strife.
We need human settlements where people can work with meaning, and meet their basic needs with abundance,
without degrading their environment, and thereby threatening their own future,
and without disrespecting each other, and thereby threatening their union.

In order to achieve this we need many new formulas. We need a new understanding of authority and freedom. Our economic systems need new architectures which allow for cooperation. We need new living arrangements, new food sources, new structures, new languages. We need new models for quite nearly everything.

It is overwhelming when approached all at once.
So let's not approach it all at once.
The widest raging sea is crossed with time, wave by wave, storm by storm, but no sailor counts the waves one by one as they come.

We need new models for quite nearly everything, but as serendipity is wont, the archaic ways have already come loose from their static roots. Everything is up in the air and ready to land, rearranged upon new foundations. New systems and ways of thinking are cropping up in every province of the Earth, every day, faster, faster. And the best and most startlingly creative are growing strong.

Everything is changing, and everyone is a potential architect of this change.
We have the power of design.
We have the means to craft the future we envision.
Let's put thought into the nature of our nursery.








Much more coming...

The Sacred Pool

To speak of the natural Earth as sacred is not dogma. 

There is sacred in the life of man, regardless of whether we are able to recognize it. What is sacred if not the source of life? What is worthy of respect if not that which keeps us alive?  And for how long would we last, you and I, without that which comes from the Earth? 

Our daily nourishment? It doesn't come from the supermarket. It comes from the ground. The water we require, without which we are merely hours away from death? The oxygen we breathe? The atmosphere which protects us from scorching sun and freezing night? This is our salvation. 

Unless one's religion is suicide, the natural systems of the Earth, and the bounty they deliver, meet the definition of sacred. Without those resources, and the integrity of the natural systems which provide them, we are all dead. 
Dead, dead, dead. 
With them, we survive. In a potential paradise, no less. 

It's that simple. There is no dogma involved. 

Imagine a man, stranded in the middle of a desert, far, far away from anything else, with no chance of escape. 
There is only one thing there where that man is: a small spring-fed pool. The pool gives him fresh water to drink. 
There is a healthy population of fish and plants living in the water that gives him all the nourishment he requires. 

Should he respect the pool? 
Should he honor the water, feel the grace of its presence? 
If he were to honor the "inanimate" water would it be a fool's religion? A superstitious dogma? 

If anything is sacred in this man's life, any actual physical thing, it is the pool. 
It is all that keeps him alive. It is in fact inseparable from his body, for what happens to it is exactly what happens to him.  If the pool runs dry, he runs dry. If the pool is poisoned, he is poisoned. It is an extension of himself, and he, of it. Were he to start pissing into the water, were he to disrupt the balance of the system in any way, it would mean his end. For this man, to disturb the pool would be to commit suicide. 

This man's story is our own. 

We live in the middle of a desert. It is called space. It is essentially eternal, unfathomably cold and barren, and we live a currently impossible journey away from anywhere else.
 
The Earth is our little pool, our beautiful little pool, and despite how grand and complex is the interaction of her systems, essentially, precariously, her balance is as fragile. 

There may be another Earth-like oasis out there somewhere, it even seems likely, but neither we nor our children will be swimming off this island for good anytime soon. And, crucially, even if we were to find another planet to call home, and even if we were capable of making the journey, for how long would we keep it livable? Would we emigrate along with our ignorance? The practice of sustainability is planetary stewardship. It is a prerequisite to a good life anywhere in the universe, yet we presently have failed to embrace this most basic concept. If we can't learn it here in the paradise that is the Earth, then we don't deserve another virgin pool to piss in. 

The natural systems around us cannot be logically separated from the body of man. Any action that threatens their balance is a suicidal action. It may be a slow acting poison, but if the result is the permanent disruption of a vital system, the end will be sure and even relatively swift. 

In order for our societies to begin to act with this understanding, we must recognize the sanctity of the planet, and we must incorporate this understanding into every layer of our social fabric. This sense of preservation can be part of a cultural tradition that honors the Earth, and gives thanks for life, it can be a scientifically-calculated understanding fueled by our innate sense of self-preservation, designed to protect the natural systems of the planet from the harm we may do to them out of ignorance, or it can be a fusion of the two, but until we absorb this understanding completely into every aspect of human society, we will continue to race down a path to ruin. 

We must hold the Earth sacred. 

Do not waste time and energy pleading with the so-called leaders,
an appeal to conscience will be fruitless.
The conscience grows in an loving environment,
it is nourished by a respect for truth.
Most of these people don't live in that place, and none of them have the pleasure to work there.
The world they inhabit turns on lies and they accept them to survive.
They speak empty words and they hear empty words,
so do not expect their conscience to be awakened by more of the same.

No, do not waste time and energy pleading,
your pleas will be in vain.
Force the change,
force the change upon the leaders.
Force a change in their actions, with all your strength, and don't worry about their intentions.
Correct their actions, and the intention will follow.

With all power comes vulnerability.
As stronger grows a force of oppression
the more widespread grows it's opposition.
There lies our strength.

We can bring an end to these corrupt systems
which dictate how we live and die
and we don't need to destroy anything to do it.
We can bring them down by doing exactly the opposite.
We can force a change, and without force,
by coming together and creating something better.

It is by creating a better world that we will see it come, not by destroying what already exists.
It is by laying new foundations, in the midst of these useless towers, that we can build anew, a path, a city, a union. Together we can create new ways and systems which will make obsolete the failures of the past.

In the practice of Unity lies our hope.

There are so many more people disenfranchised than rewarded by this modern society which values so very little.
There are seas of people who have lost faith in their state, were it ever there at all.
These people, good people,
from all walks of life, and all political persuasions,
have the potential of an enormous force.
They are a flood that is held back by paper, a tiger in a cage of cloth.

Bringing just some of these people together into inspired, focused movements should be a goal of every socially-minded activist today.
Reaching out across perceived barriers of politics and culture,
as we work to redefine our society,
and to usurp control from the intangible forces that currently define it,
we have so much more to gain from Unity
than from adversity.

THE GREAT ASIAN SUNBELT SOLAR OVEN BRIGADE

The number one cause of deforestation in the world isn't corporate logging, it's cooking fires.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that more than 2.4 billion people lack adequate cooking fuels.
Many people spend as much money on fuel to cook their food as they spend on the food itself.

For these people around the world who need to cook their daily bread with fire, wood grows scarce, and every year more distant. The countless man hours of labor required to gather this wood (woman hours, actually), at farther and farther distances from the village, takes an enormous toll on these people's time. And the toll on the land, as millions of acres lose the vegetation they require to remain fertile, is devastating.

There is no solution so elegant to this problem as the Solar Oven.