(Envisioning the Beginning of the Beginning)
Part 1:
There was no doubt the pandemic that struck the world was a good time to think about community building and change. It seemed like a good time, as well, to revision and strengthen existing community and relationships as well. As such, the time seemed right to take those first steps towards the vision of Faggtropolis that seemed at times so large, so far away, that it was impossible to see where to start. A lot of the time this was worst when the seer was attempting to be the sole origination point for his vision. Instead, it had to be a collective effort. Essentially from the beginning. The large-scale vision was a brighter future that was waiting in a distant potentiality. The current time period made that brighter future seem rather illusive on many fronts. The beginnings of severe climate collapse had appeared. A pandemic had struck the entire globe, both pointing to the problems we need to address with the way we have been doing things by showing us how the environment around us begins to heal if we can just stop what we are doing, and seeming to welcome in a potential new rise in fascism and a new low in economic stability, with a significant chance that efforts to stimulate the unstable and crashing global economy would in turn lead to an even greater rate of human-caused environmental degradation. It was possible the brief reprise of the first pandemic would be enough to turn the direction of the economy and beckon in the rise of a more environmentally resilient way of life for humans, but it was highly improbable. But this only meant that getting started was more important than ever. Or, perhaps, just that the time had arrived. In either event, Noel knew that there were many people that shared her vision of the future, and she knew that she personally had come to know several people – especially in recent years – who could (and likely would) be instrumental in shaping the rest of her life and contribution to that future because she saw clearly that it was not hers alone – either to dream or to create. So, Noel sat and pondered where to start, and how to gather the group of humans that would be a part of her seed collective. She hoped there would be many seed collectives formed that could work together, but she had to start with hers.
Noel was a property owner. She didn’t have a lot of land, but she had a reasonable lot with a house. She had several friends who were similarly situated. Some of them, like Noel, had employment they could do from home, so they were not being severely impacted economically by the pandemic. Some of them, however, did not. She also had friends with various backgrounds and amounts of knowledge and skill around building, landscaping, permaculture design, growing plants, computer programing, accounting, and more. And those friends had friends, and so on. Some friends owned property and were wonderful gardeners, knowledgeable in helping plants that provide food for us thrive. Noel envisioned the start of her seed collective to be a group of friends and friends of friends coming together to collectively start a collective organization (in which all had equal value as integral parts) that could work towards becoming a permaculture collective with the goal of providing for itself and for those that cannot provide for themselves within the collective’s community. This would be achieved by creating food forest/permaculture projects on the properties of those members who own property, as well as ultimately funding a property to serve as a larger food forest and also seed nursery and incorporating bamboo and hemp for use in building and other. The idea would be to be as food independent as possible, and to be as local and symbiotic as possible. Initially, however, it would just be the properties of the initial members.
The land-owning members of the collective (or, at least those who wanted) would agree to have their land used for permaculture production. We would need to have enough permaculture designers and gardeners etc. to plan and then implement the projects on these initial properties. We would have to have people working on building out a database and modeling system to keep track of the designs and plans. The initial properties would be designed to be all part of the same system of properties – meaning that they would be designed to work together, and to provide a good variety and hopefully to ultimately meet most of the food needs of that seed of people (at least to get as close as possible), and also to have a range of medicinal herbs and plants that would also be available for the collective members. All additional foods and herbs and other useful plants would be donated to the collective’s community.
The initial group would likely need to be on the smaller side, and the first real step would be to identify that group of people who might be ready to take the step of formally forming an organization of some kind, and beginning to work on how seed funding might best be obtained. Noel was seeing a group forming, and then getting a preliminary idea of how many properties might be involved (the scope land-wise of the initial permaculture project), and how many people it might take to implement this design. If a permaculture designer is not in the initial team, perhaps the team could consult with one at this early phase. With a basic idea of that scope, then we would understand how many people we might want to be able to support with the seed funding as implementers. Initially, Noel envisioned applying for seed funding – possibly as a grant and starting the collective as a nonprofit organization – that would cover the needs of several people who would be designing, building, and implementing the permaculture projects. Other people who were members that contributed land perhaps, but were still working in other employment, would keep that employment and would not take any money from the collective at first. All would be equal members, though, and that is very important. Equal in consideration and worth. Not necessarily all equal in what the collective would (particularly initially) be able to provide. Regardless of how the seed funding was obtained, it would have to be able to pay for the living of whoever would contribute their full service to the collective.
Noel tried to think through how many fulltime, or full commitment (?), members might be reasonable. She realized she was not going to find a number and would eventually just have to make her idea known and see who wanted to work on building that part of the dream together with her. But the idea would be that the seed funding would cover those who would be fully time committed to working for the collective good on collective projects. Members would have a balance with their personal time and personal projects, but these members would be spending most of their time on collective projects. These members would need to receive enough money to live comfortably from the collective. Economic support to match contribution in hours – but there is no hierarchy or pay scale, and everyone works together to ensure that all members are receiving what they need to live fulfilled, creative, lives.
In the beginning, it seemed there would be a lot of work for a designer, and this designer could work on the initial farm design (across all the properties) and could coordinate implementation. This would be quite a lot of work and may be more than one person. This person, or group, would work with a plant person or group. These teams would work with a landscaping and gardening team that would implement the designs. The same teams that implement designs could accomplish maintenance and possibly harvest. Eventually there may need to be a distribution team for all that is collected. Some people could fill more than one role, and ideally collective members would be able to spend time in multiple groups and learn more skills as they wished. Part of the funding could be for education. Members could be supported financially to the level of their contribution, in terms of what the group considers to be fair and reasonable – and always subject to more conversation and continual change.
All members would agree from the beginning that this organization, again, however funded and ultimately whether “for profit” or “nonprofit” would be non-hierarchical and evolutionary. The organization would be formed to meet a specific evolutionary goal, which is working towards healing and creating resilient communities that are symbiotic with our planet. Forging a path for a brighter future for humanity, and for this planet, although if humanity ends up going away, the planet will continue on and be just fine without us too, so really it is coming from a place of hope for humanities continued inclusion in the evolutionary path of this planet in this time and space. Ultimately the path of the organization would be determined by its members, and more than that, by what emerges from their work together and their interactions at the local level.
What this would mean in practice, is that all founding members (and all members taken on in the future) would have an equal consideration in terms of their voice in the organization regardless of role at a certain time. Leadership would be agreed upon and would never be just one person. Initially, Noel could see something like four or five landowners, a designer and a plant person, and maybe two or three landscapers. The designer could also help with implementation, if it worked out that way, and so could the plant person. Some of the landowners could help with implementation, or be designers, etc. The teams can overlap…
Noel’s head was spinning. A group of her friends – new and old – could come together. Some of them would own land on which pilot projects could be started. Some would be able to work on designing the projects. Some would be able to implement them. Once this happened, it seemed like the next step would be working towards a sketch of possible projects that could be included with a grant proposal, or a business loan proposal, or a proposal to investors or donors (whatever the case may be). But the first, first step would be trying to gauge interest and find that group of people.
How long had she been sitting here? She did not know. She made a habit of never keeping clocks around, and if they were, she liked them to be wrong (and differently so if there were more than one in sight). She had left her devise at home. It was a beautiful day, so she decided to walk home with an eye towards perhaps working in her own, modest, garden. While Noel really wanted to work towards this permaculture collective, wanted to catalyze it, to contribute, and to grow it, she had a feeling she would not end up being in that part of things. She saw herself more as a supporter and space holder, and as someone that everyone could come to. She felt at home thinking of herself in that type of nurturing role. Carefully helping make spacer, hold space for, and caretaker through the rise of collectivism.