Blog posts

  Resilience 30.11.2020 

Resilience in today’s world can come in many forms. When I consider resilience in my context, it shows itself in jars of homegrown dried beans, it’s a log store full of seasoned wood, compost bays filled with rich, fertile, organic matter for next years growing season. Increasingly, I find resilience in a growing community of friends I’ve attracted through openly sharing my passion for regenerative agriculture, a simpler way of life where I choose my daily tasks and an existence of doing as little harm as possible to others and to the world around me.

Before deciding to dedicate my life to giving my son and generations to come the best possible future, I used to think resilience was running off to the woods and removing myself from a society that I could see was becoming sicker and sicker. Through maturing, I’ve come to realise that that way of thinking was born from resistance, from anger and refusal. True resilience, I now feel, has its roots in and blossoms from community.

Together we are stronger. Sharing skills, knowledge, tools and such. Trading amongst ourselves, rather than being dependent on big industry that is solely interested in infinite expansion and profit; a truly unsustainable system. I quickly discovered that I alone can not provide all that my family needs, but a cooperative of creatives could certainly sustain each other through various crafts and skill sets. Imagine your neighbour a farmer, the other a baker, across the lane lives a seamstress and a carpenter. All nestled amongst a woodland managed sustainably by a woodsman who provides us all with building materials, fire wood and foraged treats. We’d feed and clothe the woodsman in return and each of us would teach their skills to the next generation.

Networks like this would strengthen and develop into beautiful relationships. Circles built up of caring, talented and generous individuals. Curating, working and feasting together, free from the burdens of mortgages, monthly bills and the onslaught of persistent advertisements and conditioning. I’m sure I’m not the only one that holds this vision, which makes me feel all the more hopeful for its manifestation. 

My dream for the future is one that reconnects to our past. Ancient, traditional, indigenous practices brought forward to the modern day, replacing the current pandemics of complacency and consumerism. Where humanity rediscovers it’s place here on earth, striving for homeostasis, finding pride in symbiosis.