Thanksgiving, a Manifesto, and a Name Change

I was at bit of a loss of what to say this week with regards to Thanksgiving. Gratitude is usually a theme in this blog, so it seems a little silly and redundant to have a Thanksgiving special, if you will.

While I’m thinking about this, I’m sitting in my sister’s house in Boulder. It’s cold and rainy outside. My feet are freezing, but still, I’m using a computer made of precious metals and materials in a house kept reasonably warm and lit with fossil fuels, having just fed myself with food that came from a huge system of production that is really a miracle of human development in many ways, and I realize that it may finally be time. I’ve been contemplating changing the name and focus of my blog for a while now, but haven’t seemed to be able to find the right direction and inspiration for it.

I was thinking about Thanksgiving’s history, especially with regard to Native people, specifically the Wampanoag people. I was thinking about meat consumption, and how many turkeys grown in our highly unsustainable (yet effectively productive) industrial food system are going to be eaten today. I was thinking about my own dependency on fossil fuels in so many ways. I was thinking about Donald Trump. I was thinking about HydroQuebec and the Northern Pass in New Hampshire, and then I finally got up the gumption to read about the Keystone XL pipeline and the Standing Rock Sioux people. Now I figure its time for me to be more transparent with my goals.

I will now be writing more clearly from my perspective as a Permaculturist. I believe, as Daniel Quinn does, that much of our (developed nations’) perspective on nature and the environment in based in a cultural myth of separation and “otherness,” that we are the end result of evolution and therefore are responsible for the ultimate domination and dominion over the earth.  I believe we are part of the earth, and therefore beholden to its rules and regulations. I believe that the best way forward to global environmental and human health is through energy descent, population descent, and holistic, ecologically based design of those systems that sustain us. I believe that we must change ourselves; we must reshape our inner landscapes in order bring about a shift in our cultural paradigm telling us the earth belongs to us. We belong to the earth.

As I am hoping to continue my dispatches from my personal inner landscape, so, too, will I be talking about the outer landscape. I believe that there exists and co-creating between humans and landscapes, and I stand by John O’Donohue’s perspective as stated in an interview with Krista Tippet:

“I think it makes a huge difference when you wake in the morning and come out of your house. Whether you believe you are walking into dead geographical location, which is used to get to a destination, or whether you are emerging out into a landscape that is just as much, if not more, alive as you but in a totally different form. And if you go towards it with an open heart and a real watchful reverence, that you will be absolutely amazed at what it will reveal to you…that landscape [isn’t] just matter, but that it [is] actually alive. What amazes me about landscape, landscape recalls you into a mindful mode of stillness, solitude, and silence where you can truly receive time.” (Taken from THIS transcript)

So. I will be writing about the inner and outer landscapes, and about ways of “receiving time.” Therefore, I will be renaming this blog: “Receiving Time: Observations of the Inner and Outer Landscapes.” My hope is that I will be able to bring in some alternative perspectives on the subject, but we’ll just have to see.

In the meantime, thank you again, to all my wonder friends and relatives for love and support. Thank you to the people and systems (sustainable and not) that keep me alive, healthy, and comfortable.

And a toast to the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Molly