- Time for Healing and Regeneration
The spread of the Coronavirus around the world has slowed humanity down globally in an unprecedented way. In many places around the world, and in much of the Unites States, including Oregon, where I am, we humans are staying in our homes as much as possible. Those of us that can are working from home, and those of us in jobs that must go on are working. Many of us – including the majority of those in the service industry along with the so-called “gig worker” cannot work. Of those that cannot work, many are not being paid. We are going into what will undoubtedly be troubled economic times (to say the least) for quite some time. Many of us will encounter the Coronavirus in one way or another, if we have not already. Many of us will get sick. Many will die. Both numbers will be less than they could have been because of the social distancing and shelter in place measures now in place. Things could have been handled better, they could have been handled worse, but one thing is clear: humanity has a lot to learn from its collective encounter with the Coronavirus.
One of the undeniable lessons from the Coronavirus is that we are ALL in this together. Every being on earth is connected, and with this many human beings traveling so far so often there is no escaping that. The Coronavirus is demonstrating that what each of us does really does matter – we are all an integral part of this world, and it is showing us that we are not invincible. It is also showing us that we are living in a world that is out of balance and one that is wounded. We, as individuals, are also wounded from living within our made-up human systems, segregating, and separating ourselves from the very environment that sustains us. We are depressed, have anxiety, are materialistic, value accumulation of monetary wealth, and have collectively lost touch with our very natures. At the same time the virus is pointing us towards larger solutions at every level – from the personal to the global.
On the individual level, as we slow down and are pulled from our “regular” lives, many of us are being jarred awake to our inner selves and to the dis-ease and absurdity inherent in those lives. We are suddenly confronted with the opportunity to get to know our authentic selves in a way that many of us may never have sought out and may never otherwise have found. As our work is disrupted, our usual social patterns are broken, and many of the events that we typically focus on rather than focusing inward of ourselves are cancelled, we may be left scrambling to find enough to distract ourselves from ourselves and from our fears. Although it is very difficult, looking at ourselves and our fears straight on, with authenticity, and with intention to really see what is there is one of the best ways to begin to combat that addiction to distraction that our bustling and materialistic world fosters in us.
While many of us may be facing that self for the first time ever, or for the first time in a long time, there are also many of us who live in our authentic self every day and who have grown accustomed to looking at ourselves and leaning into our emotions in order to learn, to heal, and ultimately to grow. What is most necessary for deep self-inquiry and self-healing is time and intention spent developing real self-care and self-healing methods and practices. Time is what most people living in today’s world do not have. It is worth noting here that not everyone is privileged enough to have their basic needs met during this time, but those of us that do can choose to use that privilege to ensure we are here to really show up for each other and the planet. That means we can use the time and space more alone, if we have it, not to react in fear or anxiety or fall into unhealthy coping mechanisms, but rather to learn to be still. To learn to really feel our emotions – and then to let them move through us. We can use the time and space to begin to heal ourselves and our lives. We can use the time to strengthen our support networks, or to build new ones. We can use it to reconnect with old friends (through phone and video and the internet). We can grow our existing communities, and we can work on creating new ones.
As we humans slow down, our environment, too, is taking this time to begin to heal – to begin to regenerate itself. Collectively we can see firsthand evidence, in a way we have never been able before, just what a toll we are putting on the planet with our busy, bustling, and constantly traveling lives. We can also see a way to mitigate that damage. Of course, we cannot live the way we are now forever, but maybe we can collectively work out ways to move around just a little bit less. Maybe we can focus just a little bit more on community and healing and taking time to really slow down. Although, of course, the impact would not be as dramatic as what we are currently seeing, the impact would be quite substantial. Perhaps if we are able to slow down enough to heal ourselves as individuals and to live as our authentic selves we will also be able to slow down enough to give the planet and the environment in which we live a chance to heal, as we work towards a symbiotic relationship with it.
2. I would like to start a collective
I had an idea that started to form in some corner of my consciousness several years ago. It was an elaborate idea having to do with a visioning of how the world might ever hope to get out from under our materialistic wealth driven economy that demands continual growth, treats humans like robots, and, lets face it, is straight-up murdering our planet which is ultimately a suicidal path for humanity as a species. In our economy before Coronavirus, there were all too many of us who did not have our basic needs met. Now we are poised at the edge of dangerously low economic times because of the virus that has swept the globe. As governments scramble to try to find ways to fund keeping businesses alive, as unemployment rates are going up and up, and as business are shutting down and we all spend as much time as possible at home we need to be thinking about the future. As we sit in this time of peace and calm before what is bound to be quite the storm, some of us have a pause to think. I realized this is the time for the rise of the collective. At least, this could be a time for the rise of collective living.
With the economy tanked, many will not be able to afford to live off the resources available to themselves as individuals. This must be reduced as much as possible for all of our collective good. If we want to have a smaller footprint on this planet now, and we desperately need to make a change in that direction, then we must move towards more locally sustainable communities. That is not to say we throw away our global connectivity entirely, but it is to say we could all benefit from spending a little more time and energy closer to home, and it would be hugely helpful to the planet if we were feeding ourselves more locally and sustainably as well. We need to reduce the number of cars on the road. Move towards cleaner energy. Work to help people get off the street and move towards a time where everyone’s basic needs are met. I cannot do all of this by myself, in fact none of us can. The time for stark individualism is simply over. We must come back together and learn to trust each other and work together so that we can move towards symbiosis with our planet.
I would like to start a collective. I can envision futures in which this collective comes into being and grows into something huge with many components, and this has been part of the difficulty in getting this idea out in the past. I have trouble knowing where to start. The basic concept is to form a self-governing collective that would be able to help give its members self-sufficiency as a collective so that they could live more freely from economic pressures and our consumerist, materialistic society. The idea would be resource sharing and working together across multiple fronts. Working together with collective property ownership, collective gardening and food distribution, collective vehicle ownership, ultimately a collective energy company perhaps, and so on. The idea works best in a relatively small geographic area, and the way to scale is by others creating their own collectives that can then interlock and interact with the initial collective – there is no profit, and you do not scale by infinite growth. I would like to work with many like minded people and I would like to show that we can move away from materialist capitalism and wealth-driven everything. And we can do so without having to have any sort of top-down, systemic change
3. Basic Needs First – Building Better Food Security
Although I am not necessarily the person to start this initial collective element, I may be a person who could help build a team, a landscaping and permaculture collective seems like a reasonable seed to use from which to organically grow the collective. I have been calling this seed collective “Faggtropolis Collective” in my mind over the years the idea has taken to fully form, and that is what I am naming this collection of writings, though really there is no attachment to it. It comes from the name of my house. My house is called Faggtropolis because my last name is Fagg and my sister helped me name it that. So, with that out of the way, I can see an initial Faggtropolis Collective Landscaping, Permaculture, and Food-Share company. The company is a nonprofit that is entirely collectively owned and managed. To begin with the company would need some minimum number of humans to get it off the ground.
At a minimum there would need to be one or more folks apt at permaculture design and planning, some landscaping folks, and some people who have property that they own and are interested in growing food on. We would also need one or more people to work on tracking and organizing the resources and the humans. Ultimately there would need to be people to collect and redistribute the food that was grown across all the properties. Essentially the collective would be farming in multiple yards in an area and then redistributing all the food as collective goods. Perhaps people could join the collective as members in a variety of ways. Ultimately there could be types of membership for people who worked for the collective and a different type for those who maybe just provided property, or perhaps who provided funding for some of the collective’s activities.
The idea would be to start with a team that could grow a system for collectively having as close to all the food that we needed as possible. Along with food these properties can be used to grow building materials, such as bamboo, as well as plants with medicinal use. Ultimately the collective could grow to include canners and people who make herbal remedies. Initially there are those members who work for the collective and those who are members for growing and food sharing purposes. The idea would be that this company is a non-profit, and it would only pay the members who do work for the collective and to expand the collective’s resources. There could be forms of membership where people take care of their own yards and just contribute food. And membership gets you food. There is a greater variety and a greater abundance of food through the collective planning model. Any extra food can then be donated to those in need outside of the collective. Ultimately I envision there being a collective store in which members can come and get things for free (as part of their membership) and non-members can come and buy from the collective, as long as there is enough food to go around.
Since building this type of patch-work food forest in an urban setting will take many years, it seems like a very good place to start as soon as possible. Perhaps at the beginning it is a group of dedicated friends who decide to build food gardens and work towards their own back yard food forestry? Perhaps it is something a little more formal than that. Development of the system for tracking everything, in consultation with some people who have a good understanding of what type of back yard permaculture is possible in the area of the world where Faggtropolis begins would be ideal. More people growing more food on their own properties is the very necessary beginning step. The next step will be finding the people who are interested in growing this type of collective and building the necessary trust to take a leap of faith and get going.
4. Visioning the Long Term, Finding Those First Steps
The long-term vision is cities that are green with permaculture across most of the yards and common spaces so that neighborhoods (or other sustainable regions or other containers for small collectives) are (as close to) food sovereign as possible. Resilience built within communities so that they may survive through what lies ahead. Ultimately, perhaps, a new type of social structure and culture could arise based on the idea of symbiosis and collective. But, working backwards, it seems like some sort of permaculture landscaping food sharing collective could be a place to begin. It would be amazing so see neighborhood permaculture projects or other groups of landowners working together – patchworking farms across the city. I know many are doing things like this already. I would love to be a part of bringing more. And more cohesion.
Faggtropolis could begin as a pilot project for a non-profit or company that works to get going interlinked permaculture projects with a system for tracking inventory and knowing what to grow when and where. Ideally, there would be a systems scientist or person who could work with modeling. I see so many huge possibilities, but that really is enough of an introduction. I would like to start to tell the story of my dream. Come with me as we leave this right now behind. I hope that this dream may serve as a sort of template, or jumping off point, for many collectives of humans in time to come. I also want to be very clear that although this is “my” dream, in that I am bringing it to you through my conscious and individuated awareness, I do not consider it mine. I know it is shared by a great many, and I am sure it both is being and has been written about before. I simply wanted to add my voice to the choir and share my particular view and part of this shared vision. And will begin to do so here, in the form of a fictional telling of a vision of my dream through the character Noel seeding her own Faggtropolis Collective.