Matt's Manifesto
Maybe if there is such a thing as a purpose for life it's the perfection of relationship. I see relationship weaving through all phenomena from exploding stars to dividing cells. It's the connections that make things happen. One entity acts and triggers others to respond, to form or sever links, to retreat or open up. Relationship gives a human lifetime meaning. And relationship drives the living networks we call ecosystems. A look at what we're doing to the world reveals a civilization whose members are in dysfunctional relationships with each other and the vaster communities of life. All the disasters we're engaged in are products of a deep seeded belief in scarcity. There's not enough, we can't share, we have to take all we can get, no one can be trusted and they better get out of the way or be annihilated. These views are untenable for happy, relationally healthy human beings. But as a culture we've long been involved in closing down emotionally,
learning from deep in childhood to disassociate from our vast capacities for empathy and trust. In western society girls are allowed to feel but learn to devalue their experience, abandon in part their inner worlds, and accept a more or less powerless position. Boys are raised with no safe place to feel, learning early that sensitivity and compassion trigger harassment and violence. Arriving at adulthood numb and mostly in our heads, we create systems of economy and power that behave pathologically. We turn the living into the dead, cutting off our childhood sense that the world is alive and full of consciousness. The last edens on earth are chopped into "board-feet", entire mountains become cubic yards of coal, living animals in factory farms become "units". And we turn the same numb industrial efficiency on each other, as in the historic extreme of Jews in boxcars termed "cargo". "Well, that's war!" we say when other people's children are blown up by NATO. "Well, that's business!" we say as species and entire ecosystems go extinct. All of that can only go on as long as we are totally shut down. If you try to open to it, if you allow yourself to feel the horror of it, you find you can't go on participating without trying to draw a mental map of escape.
learning from deep in childhood to disassociate from our vast capacities for empathy and trust. In western society girls are allowed to feel but learn to devalue their experience, abandon in part their inner worlds, and accept a more or less powerless position. Boys are raised with no safe place to feel, learning early that sensitivity and compassion trigger harassment and violence. Arriving at adulthood numb and mostly in our heads, we create systems of economy and power that behave pathologically. We turn the living into the dead, cutting off our childhood sense that the world is alive and full of consciousness. The last edens on earth are chopped into "board-feet", entire mountains become cubic yards of coal, living animals in factory farms become "units". And we turn the same numb industrial efficiency on each other, as in the historic extreme of Jews in boxcars termed "cargo". "Well, that's war!" we say when other people's children are blown up by NATO. "Well, that's business!" we say as species and entire ecosystems go extinct. All of that can only go on as long as we are totally shut down. If you try to open to it, if you allow yourself to feel the horror of it, you find you can't go on participating without trying to draw a mental map of escape.
We have come to imagine ourselves as independent from nature. We are the humans and that over there is nature. We can study it and find it interesting, or beautiful or worthless. But we somehow think our fate and that of nature are unlinked. Only problem is, we are nature.
I've spent much of my life trying to envision some way humans can live without destroying each other and the living systems of Earth. I had a dream as a young teenager of defecting from consumerist society. The 80s punk music I listened to proclaimed the dead end of industrial civilization and it's rebellion against the disconnected aimlessness of modern America spoke to me. I wanted no part of the blind march toward a better school to a better job to a better retirement to a better grave plot. I imagined a life of radical self-reliance. I trained in primitive living skills and especially took interest in wild edible foods. I dreamed of wandering off to Alaska or somewhere as remote and living off the land. Before I could gain the skill level and confidence to actually do that, the "real world" in which I needed money to function closed in on me. I also couldn't bear the loneliness of my dream- I wanted to be in relationship with people, not to hide away somewhere and one day die alone. I was a villager without a village. I put all this aside and joined the work force for many years. Still, at factory jobs I puzzled all day with how my spirit, and as far as I could tell everyone else's, was being numbed through boredom and silenced so that we could bring home a paycheck. One day while working at a high-end furniture factory I had a crisis. I was working with mahogany I suspected was being poached out of Peru and asked myself, "what am I doing here? Is this something I can believe in, shredding the last rain forests to make end tables for the rich to set lamps on?. I can't get these hours of my life back. If I die tonight would I feel satisfied with this being my last day on earth?" I quit and began working as an artist. I felt I was using my time a little better but still was at a loss as to what could be done to avoid calamity on this earth we were stressing beyond it's limits.
When I was introduced to permaculture years later a big piece of that puzzle filled in. Permaculture has been called the cutting edge of ten thousand years of technology. It's more than a method of growing food: it's a world view, a thought framework for creating regenerative human culture. Permaculture is about relationships. It's about observing the patterns and connections that make nature work and applying these ecosystem dynamics to consciously designed landscapes. I think permaculturists and others who are re-envisioning our current model of civilization are involved in some of the most important work on the planet right now. If there's a way for people to provide a descent life while aiding the regeneration of nature, permaculture provides a design strategy and tool box to create it. Permaculture challenges us to discard our belief in scarcity and embrace an ethic of abundance. America has converted 40 million acres of diverse and abundant wild landscapes to irrigated lawns. The ornamental lawn is on every level an unsound land use, guzzling energy, water, labor and chemicals to grow grass no one can eat. What if even a portion of this land was converted to low maintenance, self regenerating perennial food landscapes? What if urban trees bore fruit and nuts? How about city sheep trimming our parks? What if we redirected the kind of technological innovation that built atomic bombs, fracking or drone warfare and channeled our best minds into creating regenerative and liberating technology for repairing the environment or empowering democratic movements? There's a lot of work to do to redesign civilization so that it has a future. By re-localizing and democratizing food, energy, building, water storage and distribution, and decision making we could begin to design a saner world. I don't know if it's too late to avert the many possible collapse scenarios that look more probable every day, but taking some charge of the production of some of our basic needs in a way harmonious with nature is something any person can do to lighten our planet's load. And the most important effect our efforts can have is the ripple effect caused by decolonizing our minds, remembering what really matters, unleashing our ingenuity for the well being of all.
What this website and the events it promotes are really about is the imperative I think we all have to seek our dreams and share what we love. Another way of understanding world events such as war, poverty and environmental destruction is to see these as expressions of a chronic and widespread unhappiness. The urge to deprive each other and destroy each other and nature is really no different on the global scale than the urge of an abusive family member to harm his or her children or partner. Similarly, as children or a partner might learn to never speak about what they witness at home, we all collude to not really see or feel what's happening to our world. Somehow we've convinced ourselves that in a world of mind blowing abundance there's not enough for everyone. Somehow though we're all born playfully connected to the life around us, we come to believe humans are by nature competitive, selfish and profoundly alone. Our global crises are the sum of billions of people unable to live the life they were born for, wasting untold talent and insight while stuck behind plows, desks, machines, and machine guns. One important way we can change the world is by finding what ignites us, what delights our souls and sharing it, inspiring others to do the same. It's time we become, and raise our children to be, "free range people", as author William Powers put it. So this is our family's venture into gathering the financial resources we need while doing what we love. Thank you for your interest and support.
I've spent much of my life trying to envision some way humans can live without destroying each other and the living systems of Earth. I had a dream as a young teenager of defecting from consumerist society. The 80s punk music I listened to proclaimed the dead end of industrial civilization and it's rebellion against the disconnected aimlessness of modern America spoke to me. I wanted no part of the blind march toward a better school to a better job to a better retirement to a better grave plot. I imagined a life of radical self-reliance. I trained in primitive living skills and especially took interest in wild edible foods. I dreamed of wandering off to Alaska or somewhere as remote and living off the land. Before I could gain the skill level and confidence to actually do that, the "real world" in which I needed money to function closed in on me. I also couldn't bear the loneliness of my dream- I wanted to be in relationship with people, not to hide away somewhere and one day die alone. I was a villager without a village. I put all this aside and joined the work force for many years. Still, at factory jobs I puzzled all day with how my spirit, and as far as I could tell everyone else's, was being numbed through boredom and silenced so that we could bring home a paycheck. One day while working at a high-end furniture factory I had a crisis. I was working with mahogany I suspected was being poached out of Peru and asked myself, "what am I doing here? Is this something I can believe in, shredding the last rain forests to make end tables for the rich to set lamps on?. I can't get these hours of my life back. If I die tonight would I feel satisfied with this being my last day on earth?" I quit and began working as an artist. I felt I was using my time a little better but still was at a loss as to what could be done to avoid calamity on this earth we were stressing beyond it's limits.
When I was introduced to permaculture years later a big piece of that puzzle filled in. Permaculture has been called the cutting edge of ten thousand years of technology. It's more than a method of growing food: it's a world view, a thought framework for creating regenerative human culture. Permaculture is about relationships. It's about observing the patterns and connections that make nature work and applying these ecosystem dynamics to consciously designed landscapes. I think permaculturists and others who are re-envisioning our current model of civilization are involved in some of the most important work on the planet right now. If there's a way for people to provide a descent life while aiding the regeneration of nature, permaculture provides a design strategy and tool box to create it. Permaculture challenges us to discard our belief in scarcity and embrace an ethic of abundance. America has converted 40 million acres of diverse and abundant wild landscapes to irrigated lawns. The ornamental lawn is on every level an unsound land use, guzzling energy, water, labor and chemicals to grow grass no one can eat. What if even a portion of this land was converted to low maintenance, self regenerating perennial food landscapes? What if urban trees bore fruit and nuts? How about city sheep trimming our parks? What if we redirected the kind of technological innovation that built atomic bombs, fracking or drone warfare and channeled our best minds into creating regenerative and liberating technology for repairing the environment or empowering democratic movements? There's a lot of work to do to redesign civilization so that it has a future. By re-localizing and democratizing food, energy, building, water storage and distribution, and decision making we could begin to design a saner world. I don't know if it's too late to avert the many possible collapse scenarios that look more probable every day, but taking some charge of the production of some of our basic needs in a way harmonious with nature is something any person can do to lighten our planet's load. And the most important effect our efforts can have is the ripple effect caused by decolonizing our minds, remembering what really matters, unleashing our ingenuity for the well being of all.
What this website and the events it promotes are really about is the imperative I think we all have to seek our dreams and share what we love. Another way of understanding world events such as war, poverty and environmental destruction is to see these as expressions of a chronic and widespread unhappiness. The urge to deprive each other and destroy each other and nature is really no different on the global scale than the urge of an abusive family member to harm his or her children or partner. Similarly, as children or a partner might learn to never speak about what they witness at home, we all collude to not really see or feel what's happening to our world. Somehow we've convinced ourselves that in a world of mind blowing abundance there's not enough for everyone. Somehow though we're all born playfully connected to the life around us, we come to believe humans are by nature competitive, selfish and profoundly alone. Our global crises are the sum of billions of people unable to live the life they were born for, wasting untold talent and insight while stuck behind plows, desks, machines, and machine guns. One important way we can change the world is by finding what ignites us, what delights our souls and sharing it, inspiring others to do the same. It's time we become, and raise our children to be, "free range people", as author William Powers put it. So this is our family's venture into gathering the financial resources we need while doing what we love. Thank you for your interest and support.
