Power-with, everything together

I’ve been what we call an activist all my life. I wouldn’t necessarily use that word to describe myself but it’s the mainstream word we have that translates best. Since I was small, I’ve been involved in actively and consciously turning the wheel of life towards collective wellbeing. I have taken action, drawn attention, fostered conversations.

Food is a very perfect place to start if you want to make change in the world because it is connected to everything, and everyone needs it, and we need to engage with it multiple times per day. Plus, most people enjoy it. It gets into our bodies (literally and figuratively) and supports the changes we want to see in the world.

We, in this household, have eaten a very conscientious diet of mostly whole, organic, local foods since we established ourselves as a family. We also do not have any forbidden foods (even those that cause reactions are not forbidden). Thing is, most processed foods just don’t taste very good if you have been eating fresh and lovingly prepared food. Love, it’s an important part of diet. Care, is important. It’s an important part of the health of our food.

Over the years, I’ve driven across state lines to buy organic grains from farmers struggling to survive because their product was so expensive. People couldn’t understand why it was necessary to pay more. Now, lots of people do understand. And still, lots of people don’t. Our food budget has always been small, and our other budgets tight as well. But food needed to be purchased, and how we spent our money on food was something we could control. While our physical health is impacted by the food we ingest, our collective ecological,social, spiritual, and economic health is also impacted by our food choices. These impacts are even more pervasive to our overall wellbeing.

I’ve never needed to force anyone to eat the way we do, and yet, through relationship (and eating together) we have influenced lots of people’s engagement with food systems over the years.

Healing our world has a lot more to do with learning to engage differently than it does with forcing specific actions. Force, is the mainstream familiar way of accomplishing a goal. So, no matter what we accomplish through force- we’ve have not succeeded in deeper change. A peaceful and well world is only available through relationship. With ourselves, each other, Earth, and whatever we consider sacred.

Power-with, everything together.

Under the cover of Winter

Last night during our Listening to Legends before story conversation we discussed how often we hear Winter talked about as a time of rest and how much hard work it also entails.

To those living with modern conveniences, like central heating and food from the store ( all good things!) it might be hard to recognize how much work goes into winter-time in a more historical sense. While Winter may be a valuable time to rest the body in a modern context, it’s important we not confuse that with what we as humans have historically experienced. Each of us can, will, and should have different relevant seasonal shifts. Winter seems to be a time of inhale, a time of dreaming and moving at a different pace. And, even as we inhale oxygen it works within our bodies- it has a purpose and a function. Much is happening unseen.

Around here in the depths of Winter, we are expending tons of energy and there is lots of activity, and the more we align ourselves with a nature-centered life, the more this becomes true. Kelsi has plenty of extra chores, done in the cold and wind and snow, to care for the animals. David and I and the children have extra physical chores related to heating our home with a woodstove. There is the clearing of snow and ice, preventing freezing pipes, tending to extra layers and laundry, extra cleaning because people are indoors more. Not to mention the normal work associated with running households, like cooking and cleaning. While the cold makes me wish we could cuddle under blankets reading all day, if I didn’t do all the work to facilitate a cozy space- we would not be very comfortable.

Winter is also sometimes considered a time to do less joining and socializing- however, I find that our strong social relationships are needed in the depth of Winter just as much if not more so than other seasons. These relationships keep our spirits up, and we support each other through creative problem solving and sharing of resources.

Rest, is setting down one activity for another. This, we definitely do as we attend the relevant work of each season. Come Spring I will rest my snow shoveling and pick up my tasks in the garden.

I would say that high Summer is the most leasierly season we experience around here. Food is abundant and can be eaten directly from Earth with little preparation. We spend so much time outdoors, I rarely need to do more than tidy up the indoor spaces.

Winter is a time of unseen work. Work in the dark, work under the snow in burrows, in the depths of tree flesh, in the patience of the seed. Winter is a time for dreaming forward plans, And, it is Winter’s example that reminds me how much we can do while No One notices, and it seems nothing is happening - even when it’s hard.

Spiced Sweet Potato and Peanut Soup

This recipe uses produce all from our Buyers’ Collaborative, Constellation. It’s warm, quick, and very easy to use up leftovers for lunches.

Envisioning an Economy of Care

“That future can exist only when we understand the universe as composed of subjects to be communed with, not as objects to be exploited”

- Thomas Berry, The Great Work

Money isn’t the only currency. We understand other forms of capital. Social capital, for example, is valuable in exchange for belonging or influence. The most powerful and widely circulated currency on the planet, though, we pervasively dismiss and overlook. We even try to avoid it, avoid giving, receiving, and claiming it. We try to avoid needing it and participating in its economy. Even though, it’s the very currency that enables life. The currency of care is the greatest currency in the universe. It’s so valuable that it’s too expensive for a money-based economy - and so we rarely pay for it. However, in a culture that idolizes financial capital, this has led to us undervaluing care and forgetting how to use it as a medium of exchange. We struggle, now, to remember our mutuality.

Several weeks ago, in a group of future-tenders studying the way forward, we started creating a shared vision for the future. We all want something better more sustainable, and more peaceful- but what exactly does that entail? What does it look and feel like to be there? In each person’s vision, the future we were seeking had a guiding value of care. And, we acknowledged that making that care available now was largely cost prohibitively. Financial costs made care that might be given organically too expensive, and using a different medium of exchange requires practice. There are ways to bypass the financial systems, but these require our engagement in the very ways that we’ve been conditioned against. So much so, that sometimes we don’t even recognize the opportunities to share care that are available to us.

In the midst of this ongoing conversation about care, I was lucky enough to attend an ecology talk with Tom Wessels, acclaimed ecologist, professor, and author, at one of my favorite care currency exchange locations, Northern Bay Organics. During the talk, Tom Wessels mentioned something about Lichen that perfectly illustrated the economy of care. Specifically, the example gives us something to mirror as we practice remembering how to participate in the ecological economy. Lichen are complex life forms made possible through the partnership of two organisms, a fungus and an alga. Some lichen actually have two Cyanobacteria (algae) and a fungus. These two to three entities work in partnership, algae providing a mechanism for food to meet the needs of the fungus and fungus providing protection, resiliency, and expansion otherwise inaccessible to the algae alone. Together, they create a lifestyle that benefits them both. The fungus and algae partnered in lichen exchange sugar and minerals in reciprocity. But, that’s not all. Their relationship is not of benefit to only themselves. Together, through their relationship, they produce “extra” care that can be shared with their ecosystem. This could be through the redistribution of minerals absorbed from the air and then released into the soil when it rains; or, through the creation of habitat and nest-building materials while they patiently degrade rock into soil over centuries; or, with the protection of tree and rock surfaces from harsh weather. The algae and fungus that come together in the relationship of Lichen do so when resources are limited, and the most efficient method of survival is cooperation. By organizing themselves to share resources, they create conditions that benefit themselves so much that they become a benefit (care) to the whole world around them.

This is not a metaphor for how we as humans can better share resources. This is the reality of ecological economics. Money, and creating financial profit is a terrible waste of energy, skill, and resources. Actions that double alchemize efforts, energy, and resources into more sustenance are economical. According to Oxford Languages, economical is defined as giving a good value or service in relation to the amount of money, time, or effort spent. Most of us are not living economically. When resources run short, our cultural conditioning tells us to limit care and collect more financial capital to buy more resources. This pattern has undermined the very skills we need to organize sustainable systems, heal ourselves and Earth, and address the inter- conflicts of our times. It is inefficient because it is extractive in every context. As Tom Wessels explains in his talk The Ecology of Coevolved Species (New England Forests), mature ecosystems are energy efficient. The systems within the ecosystem have self-organized to use the least energy and provide the most benefit, to themselves, other systems, and the ecosystem as a whole. If they do not do this, something remains out of balance.

Humans are not naturally energy inefficient. For the majority of human history, humans have behaved like any other part of the ecosystem. Our enormous waste of resources as modern humans indicates something is out of balance. And, that something in our recent history changed. Darcia Narvaez, PhD., Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Notre Dame, says that what has changed is that we are missing our evolved nest.

“The evolved nest or evolved developmental niche (EDN) is the ecological system of care provided by families, teachers, and communities that align with the maturational schedule of the child, satiating the evolved needs of infants and children, allowing them to flourish and develop compassionate spiritualities. The EDN consists of soothing gestation and birth, on-request extensive breastfeeding and positive moving touch (no negative touch), a welcoming social climate, self-directed play with multiple aged mates, warmly responsive nurturing from mother and others, nature immersion and connection, and healing practices to repair miscommunication or hurts. Well-nested children and adults demonstrate social and moral flexibility, adapting to situations and others with emotional and spiritual intelligence. “ (Evolved Nest)

Over time, we have become accustomed to not having our evolved nest, however, we have not evolved to not need the support it provides. In place our our evolved nest culture of collective care, we have something else we organize around. The current mainstream culture that acts as a lymphatic system for the collective human body, and organizes our behaviors is not energy efficient. It does not cultivate wellbeing. This would indicate it is a rather new form of organization. One that we can adapt to mutuality within the collective human body and the body of creation.

We cannot adapt our culture without considering the environmental context. When there is an imbalance in our bodies or an ecosystem, it is best to support an environment that allows the organisms within the ecosystem to self-organize. Human culture, just like all other cultures, organizes around survival needs. The first most universal need is food. Northern Bay Organics and our small buyer’s collaborative, Constellation, are both offering an opportunity to practice more efficient methods of meeting our food needs. Both of these programs braid money, time, and energy that would have been spent inefficiently into efforts that have multifaceted benefits. By organizing together we can provide better food, for less energy spent, and in a way that supports individual bodies, community care, financial resources, and Earth. However, for most people this is a theory not an embodied understanding. We need to meet people's needs in a way that encourages them to practice. If we keep showing up together, we will develop relationship and build intimacy. These are the skilled behaviors required to organize more efficient and sustainable systems for ourselves and the whole of Earth.

Maxims to guide interdependence:

Wasting resources indicates an imbalance and a new or changing organizational system

When imbalance occurs, seek energy efficiency through cooperation

We align with oppressive systems when we don’t alchemize resources into more care

Oppressive systems lead to death (They overindulge without reciprocity, and eventually, they kill themselves through domination)

Mutualistic systems thrive

Everything evolves through cooperation

Care is valuable

Care is compound energy expenditure that compounds sustenance

Care braids resources efficiently and fosters more life.

Bibliography

Berry, Thomas. The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. Crown, 2000.

Nest, Evolved. “The Evolved Nest.” The Evolved Nest, n.d. https://evolvednest.org/nine-components-overview.

New England Forests. “Tom Wessels: The Ecology of Coevolved Species,” July 3, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCAvBmY7ZgA.