What is your relationship like with our dear (only) Mother Earth?
Do you regularly commune with nature via walks in the woods? Get your hands in the soil growing your own food?
Do you know the names of the flora and fauna around where you live?
OR -----
Do you only ever source your food from a store? Do you observe more of the natural world on a screen than in person?
Do you adore puppies and kittens, but don't really know what animals live around you, or how the hell they manage to survive despite the seemingly endless human quest of destruction?
Most of us would say that we care about the Earth. But, can you really care about someone if you don't really know them? Don't really know what they need to survive and thrive? Or care more about your wants than their needs?
What are you doing to address climate change? Environmental destruction? Over-consumption? The horrifying atrocities of the industrial food complex?
Small shifts in your consumption habits ARE NOT ENOUGH!! Recycling and using cloth shopping bags is not enough!
Do you believe that our MOTHER is DYING?? If so, then WTF are you doing about it?
I believe that RE-LOCALIZATION is the key. Production of necessities, such as food, clothing, shelter, medicine, etc. need to be taking place within close proximity of where they are being consumed/utilized.
SACRIFICE is also key.
We need to release the WANT for the superfluous consumer products, ESPECIALLY food products that have NEGATIVE NUTRITIONAL VALUE --- as these are toxic on ALL LEVELS. Why do we continue to use precious resources to produce huge volumes of POISON in the form of carbonated sugary liquids, garbage candy, fried potatoes and corn, etc.etc.etc.
Are you thinking... "HANG ON A SECOND!! If I want to eat a fucking Snickers bar, I'll goddamwell eat a fkn Snickers bar!!"
REMINDER: We are in an emergency situation. In emergency situations, sacrifices must be made.
What would the drawbacks be for a complete ban on all junk-foods? Um. Hmm. uhhhh.. um. Oh ya, decrease in profits for shareholders. Aside from that, think of the hundreds of millions of pounds of GARBAGE that wouldn't be created, or the thousands of tons of greenhouse gases that wouldn't be pumped out into the environment?
Hey, I'll fuck up a pint of Ben and Jerry's faster than most people blink, but, it doesn't do ANYONE any good, especially not the Earth.
So what am I doing?
For the past 4 years, I've been learning how to cultivate vegetables organically, I've been learning how to build, fix, sew, preserve, ferment, forage (recently I've introduced crickets to my diet. Yup, live crickets).
More recently, I acquired about 100 acres of land on the east coast of Canada, where I will participate in local community gardening groups, forest-rehabilitation programs, fish and wildlife conservation, etc. The land that I occupy will become, for lack of a better term, a "hippy commune", with cabins, a main house, a barn/workshop/recording studio, an art and pottery-shed, gardens, orchards, ponds, etc. Across the road from the largest fresh water lake in the province, and short drive to beautiful beaches, both ocean and lake. In the winter, the sledding hill is an epic 1/4 mile run from the chalet on the hill down to the farm house.
My goal is to participate in a community of people working together to provide as much as we can for ourselves, and others (I want to create a "meals on wheels" program, where we grow food, cook it, and bring it to members of the community, and share a meal and conversation with them).
Food, clothing, shelter, MUSIC, ART, LOVE.
Who's with me?