An honest assessment of the current state of affairs in the human world and an exploration of what I see as actionable solutions to the challenges we face.
Nice article. Hooray food forests and Boo Jews. I planted big circles of apples for the paguns after I learned about how the sacred groves of the druids were oaks AND apples. And of course the big columns in churches were later built to mimic trees in sacred groves and the stained glass was to mimic the sun shining through the leaves, etc etc etc. I thought gee yeah that made sense oaks and apples that's like fruit and nuts... Pretty obvious. I'm in far northern California where the Indians lived on acorns and salmon- and they're still alive of course, not to offend them... But yeah our ancestors in northern Europe also lived on acorns and salmon-, not all that long ago .. the oldest poem in the English language goes like this "Heroes of old, when fed with oaken mast, the great trees themselves, in years surpassed." It's very important that folks speak up about the JEW WORLD ORDER and how JEWS DID 911 and 10/7, flagrantly, and also to plant a lot of trees. I've got over a thousand large fruit and nut trees I planted decades ago and it's like the Garden of Eatin, literally. I grow football fields of annual row crops in between and around the trees. It's not that difficult. Look at all the ignerint folks who farm hahahahaha.
I feel your pain my friend, where I went to school in BC substance abuse, violence and degenerative behavior was extreme, and where I went to masonry apprenticeship school in Surrey, BC it was even worse (with hard drug addicts and gang members would try to break into the school at night and harass you on the street etc). Here in Ontario where I live now, the substance abuse may not be as extreme, but other addictions are more exaggerated (such as addictions to digital stimulus, addictions to materialism and addictions to anthropocentric delusions of grandeur).
I feel like the cultural traditions of our pre-statist ancestors (people that lived by place based wisdom, natural cycle grounded and animistic worldviews) regardless of what region our ancestors hail from, can offer an anchor into sanity, healing and finding guidance. The problem is that all indigenous ancestors had traditions that were intrinsically connected to intimate connections and daily interactions with intact ecosystems and specific trees and plants. Having had many of the intact ecosystems degraded or almost completely annihilated (as they are where I live now) it is hard for people to re-discover their ancestral place based wisdom or bring new life to those ways of being and seeing given the living library (the forest) that provided that knowledge is not available in the same way that it was for our ancestors.
I will be expanding on that in my presentation at the R-Future conference in my talk about Bio-cultural Refugia.
Basically I think we need to not only plant seeds for medicine trees and plants to become an ecosystem, but also plant cultural seeds in traditions tied to those ecosystems to become a 'cultural food for the soul forest' (if you will). Those types of multi-faceted nourishment and learning (offered in a cultural refugia nested within a food forest refugia) can help to offer people something far more fulfilling, joyful and compelling than any drug high, and that can help people stuck in the patterns of modern addictions to be fully nourished and supported to unfold their true potential. Through creating those multi-faceted gardens and sanctuaries for regenerative traditions to be re-born and invented we can begin to turn the tide and provide the salve for the soul that heals the wounds which lead to addiction.
Thanks for reading, sharing and thank you for the thoughtful comments.
“Place based wisdom”, that is a profound, concept. To stay our best we need to be where we really are. connected to the beings all round us. where we were made to be. not in fantasy. It is absolutely the way forwards. I wish you the best and look forward to you endeavors.
Well. We need to pull the plug. No paying federal taxes for a few years and put energy into cleaning the soils and growing healthy food. We need big centers where we can go to learn what we are missing. Especially in Electronics and magnetism. Everyone working to implement bullet trains north south east west. Allow payments in trade. For food, clothes, . There is lots to work on right now. Municipal taxes should be enough for communities. Baseball football!?! That’s up to them.
While I acknowledge that the transnational central banking cartel (the BIS, IMF and their subsidiary central banking racketeering operations) are the tools that are used to perpetuate massive inequality, suffering, theft and various forms of enslavement (debt slavery etc) even if we got rid of them all at once, you would still have billions of human beings that are dependent on an extractive, parasitic and ecologically devastating agricultural, energy and manufacturing infrastructure and thus the solutions I proposed in my essay above are an important part of the equation for formulating "the antidote".
Very well-written overall, Gavin. Indeed, the problem is not just a few psychopaths that need to be replaced, but systemic. The system itself needs to be replaced.
Thanks for taking the time to read what I put together, thank you for your kind words and for sharing your thoughts.
Yes I agree, and if one looks at the "system" as a 'garden' and the "few psychopaths" as 'weeds' or 'pathogenic organisms' the transition to a food forest solution can be applied both literally and metaphorically (to provide a framework for actionable solutions that we as individuals can apply in our lives and communities).
The transition to a food forest design from the modern conventional gardening approach (when it comes to cultivating preferred food and medicine plants/fungi) creates a growing environment in which all the ecological niches in that growing space have been filled by choice edible and medicinal species (leaving no room for those plants that are considered by some to be "weeds" to set up shop). Additionally, "food forests" (which emulate the same attributes present in a mature forest ecosystem, except they contain mostly species that provide either food or medicine that is preferred by humans specifically) having such a diverse range of organisms (both microscopic and macroscopic) create conditions where pathogenic organisms are not able to thrive and over power healthy plants (because they have to compete with myriad microorganisms that are beneficial to and exist symbiotically along with plants). In essence, the diversity, decentralized self replicating nature and adaptability of the members of a food forest garden are much more resilient against competitors, parasites and diseases. The members of a functioning food forest are symbiotically connected on many levels. It begins through their roots (where they are connected via the networks of mycorrhizal fungi that allow them to exchange and share resources with those in need and warn each other about approaching threats to their community) and it extends to the way certain species develop long term mutually beneficial relationships with each other, adapting to meet the other's needs, through a process called symbiogenesis). Another characteristic of the food forest is that each member of the food forest is capable of spreading seeds that increase the abundance and medicine offered to the many organisms that call that forest home.
The modern conventional garden (or farm) on the other hand is an expression of a dominant adversarial relationship with nature that most people and institutions in the west have. It involves tearing into the living soil through constant tilling, destroying it's structure (to mine it's nutrients for short term gain at the cost of long term fertility and stability) and planting monocultures of plants in exposed soil in strait rows (fragile groups of often genetically frail domesticated species). These are in effect spaces that invite aggressive pioneering soil-repairing plant species that people often call "weeds" and create a situation that is a buffet for "pest" insects, pathogenic fungi and disease causing microorganisms, inviting them in from far and wide due to the lack of diversity present in that growing space). These are places where humans fight endless wars against "bad guys" and "enemies" of their fragile monoculture via chemical warfare, genetic modification and other detrimental and degenerative practices (which end up undermining the quality and nutritional value of the resulting harvest).
We can take the comparison of these two ways of creating growing "systems" and apply it to the relationship between everyday human beings and the few psychopaths that seek to prey upon and parasitically feed on the unsuspecting many. Those that embrace the way of the monoculture (conforming to 'social norms' and complying with what ever they are told by 'authority figures') are like the rows of hybridized tomato plants being grown in endless fields or in hydroponic greenhouses (standing along with countless others that are behaving in the same way, existing without any meaningful symbiotic connections to the community of life that allows their wild ancestors to thrive and adapt and provide the seeds for their being born). These people living in the way of the monoculture (people who embrace a role as "consumers", allow themselves to be distracted by materialism, always looking to external centralized institutions or individuals to be told what is true and what is not divisive adversarial propaganda that points fingers at "bad guys" and "enemies" which funnels their creative energy into futile artificially generated conflicts between beings of the Earth) this leaves them wide open as targets for parasites looking to feed on fragile monocultures of people.
The one who lives their life like member of a food forest however is symbiotically connected to the diverse community of life they live amongst. They are resilient against disease by the virtue that each member of the community they are intrinsically connected with offers their own unique defense against pathogens, and so the total sum of their resilience is like the bundle of sticks that cannot break (as opposed to the single stick that can be snapped in two when enough pressure is applied). Those who live their life like a member of a food forest do not have an adversarial relationship with their fellow beings, they forge alliances where ever possible and become resilience and adaptable enough to co-exist alongside those they cannot forge alliances with through their own ingenuity and through emulating their elder species. The people who choose to embody this way of being are not susceptible to the same parasites and diseases that the people who follow the way of the monoculture are, in fact, beyond being resistant against psychopathic parasites, "weeds" and societal diseases they become fractal embodiments of the change they wish to see in the world, seeds that set down roots (and begin to replace and render obsolete the parasitic systems that have built up around them). These people become the seeds that can regenerate not only the land, but the very essence of the human spirit, outcompeting the parasites by providing a framework more appealing and efficient than their monoculture machinations, inviting many to shed their monoculture ways and instead become part of a symbiotic community of life guided by integrity, courage, love and having access to perpetual abundance.
There are some people that believe if were just to get the "right" people in power that they would be able to "punish/remove the bad guys" and make everything better. I would content that this is the same attitude behind the conventional gardener or farmer (thinking if they hammer the "bad guy" plants/insects with enough punishment, in the form of chemicals and gene splicing, they can be the "good guys" and triumph over the "bad guys". This is of course a fallacious and delusional view point that only serves to degrade the quality of the end product, profit large corporations selling chemicals and breed "super-bugs" and "super-weeds" (chemical resistant organisms).
Similarly, punitive measures being applied by top town governmental systems (regardless of what ideological wrappings they have and who is sitting atop such a system) are not effective long term solutions as threatening someone to behave how you want them to only remains effective as long as the threat and ability to act on the threat does, and even then industrious and inventive people will wind a way to circumvent said punitive measures if they really want to. Incentivizing behavior that helps to regenerate the landscape is at least a step in the right direction, as perhaps after being bribed to do something for long enough by the government the people doing it will begin to see the long term intrinsic benefits offered to their own lives by engaging in said actions. Though in my opinion I think that real lasting change must be birthed from within and set down roots in how it is applied in our local communities first and foremost.
Thus, in the end, I feel that the most permanent and systemic change cannot and will not be brought about via any top down policies (whether they are punitive or incentivizing) but rather must originate from within. The societal changes that set down roots and persist through the millennia begin with seeds planted by individuals that are living and embodying the change they want to see in the world, embracing radical authenticity and starting fractal chain reactions in our collective that spread outwardly in all directions.
In essence, it is the seed that rises from within that is born from living the way one wants the world to be, which readily self sows and sets down roots far and wide. Individuals embodying the intrinsic abundance, developing their unique gifts with purpose and embodying the joy that results from living with integrity, compassion, courage and generosity provides an incentive more enticing than any government bribe (or threat) for others to follow suit. These are people living like a member of a functioning ecosystem, each embracing their own unique gifts and offering them in service to better their community. They show other people a way of living that heals the broken parts within us, heals the land around us, begins to bind our shattered, artificially homogenized communities of unique individuals together again and offering True Wealth for all and creating an societal, economic, agricultural and psychological environment in those communities that is inhospitable to parasites that thrive on our dependence on centralized systems.
Well like the analogy of ‘storming the gates’, I’m getting the idea that the old ‘castle’ has to go. The perception, energy and emotion they convey is holding it all in place. Even if successful in implementing sane people, it would just manifest as a majestic vessel once again and the occupants would again be better than the people they work for. I’m afraid the ideology has to go.
I agree and the most effective long term strategy to make that so is to completely withdraw our support to refuse to be castle builders, to starve the castle builders, the occupants and allow the castle to crumble back into dust. While the frail castle and all the delusional ideologies that are associated with it crumble and wither we will plant the seeds for something more decentralized and regenerative to grow along side it, until one day, the food forest will grow on the dust and bones of the castle as well.
Well-said overall, Gavin. And you're very welcome :)
About monoculture, it is indeed a good metaphor for our current human culture as well. And not only is it not at all new, it's basically tired, old bric-a-brac left over from....Leviticus 19:19:
“‘Keep my decrees.
“‘Do not mate different kinds of animals.
“‘Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.
“‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material."
We clearly dispensed with most of the rest of Leviticus long ago. (Except of course for the rabid fundie homophobes who selectively cling to Leviticus 20:13 like cherry-picking modern-day Pharisees, but that's another story, and I digress.) So why are we clinging to this utterly outdated and outmoded practice so strongly? Because it is a metaphor and microcosm for our larger hyper-standardized and homogenized culture, that's why (despite our culture's utterly empty claims to value diversity....right).
As above, so below.
There are some times and places when monoculture makes a bit of sense, provided the crops are rotated. (Both literally and metaphorically, again.) But permaculture and food forest generally wins, hands down. With flying colors. And tilling? That is indeed essentially trading short-term gain for long-term pain.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Sorry I missed this until now.
I do not mean this an an antagonistic way, but I am curious if you were to take a step back and attempt to look at the following statement from the perspective of the non-human members of the ecosystems we depend on to survive, would you say that "there are some times and places when monoculture make a bit of sense" is an anthropocentric attitude?
I elaborate on what I see as anthropocentrism (and explore it's impacts on the more than human world in detail) in the following article which I recently published.
I see a correlation between the 'parasitic' overlords and the mindset, the principles, of many of their most loyal victims.... the ones that seem to not be able to 'see or hear' .... have no ability to think critically and no access to credible knowledge. we have more than overlords to overcome....
Hi Nance, I appreciate you taking the time to read my post and share your thoughts.
Indeed, there are a great many that have had their intuitive and critical thinking capacities crippled through long-term conditioning. Many of these individuals seem to wait with bated breath for the mass media to spoon feed them what they are supposed to believe and support next. It is sad to witness, but I do not feel this is due to something that is innate in those individuals, but rather it is due to a stamping out (or rather a dampening) of the innate light that they possessed within when they were born. Thus, I feel we can break this cycle of parasites feeding on ignorant, intuitively handicapped and seemingly 'blind' parasitic hosts through changing the way we raise the young ones (to cultivate, nurture and fan the flame of the innate spark within rather than stamping it out).
We do have more than the parasitic individuals and their institutions/corporations that sit atop the current socio-economic order to overcome... we have the tremendous momentum of countless generations of programming to overcome and the blinding veil that is thrown over the eyes of those new souls arriving on Earth to overcome as well. It is a veil which is woven by the threads of the dominant world view in our modern culture that covets intellectual and physical prowess and sees compassion as weakness, a culture that has us always reaching towards some distant material destination (or obsessing over youth) while never being grateful for the infinite blessings in the present moment and a culture that attempts to commodify and market every facet of the natural world, while never teaching the young to revere and give back to that natural world that gives to much to us. We must endeavor to break this cycle of forcing a veil of lies and expressions of the ego onto the young ones and instead nurture them to embrace that which comes naturally. In doing so, we can cultivate the cure for a world dominated by parasites and filled with unknowing parasitic hosts.
Thank you for the excellent response to my short comment... my mind swirls around with so many thoughts in response, I am not sure where to start first... but one major obstacle extinguishes my hopes... and that is the fact that any knowledge we impart to our friends, our family... it's just so hard to fit on a 2"x3" screen... and brains that seem to be shrinking down to the same size due to environmentally-induced mental illnesses and learning disabilities... and now, it seems, we may not have a very large future population base to worry so much about... but yah, one must first take responsibility for themselves and do it well before any saving of others can even be hoped for. People need first to break away from their crazed desire to be 'knowers' (without learning) and 'havers' (without doing) replace it with a humble desire to learn and do ... a school system based on teaching the humanities and a skilled-trade as a prerequisite for 'higher' education might be a good start.
I agree the humble genuine desire to know and do (while being willing to put blood, sweat and tears into that endeavor) is a powerful step each of us can take (and help to cultivate in the young ones (though in my experience their curiosity, compassion and humility is innately present, so it is less about cultivating and more about nourishing that which is already present to unfold).
We can become seeders and propagators of compassion through exercising our free will with grace and in the interest of helping our fellow beings unfold onto their highest potential. We can be like milkweed plant that sends its seeds aloft upon the breeze of the changing seasons, where they are carried to find a home in new fertile soil... serving to provide nourishment, spreading exponentially in all directions.
Since darkness is not a substance, but rather the lack of a substance (that substance being light and/or love) it is much easier to make the darkness disappear via becoming a source of light in each of our actions than it is for those that worked tirelessly for decades to propagate the shadows of darkness to engulf much of the human world as they do now. All things move in cycles and the time we now find ourselves living in is the darkest hours of the night proceeding the time of the breaking dawn.
We are now called to align ourselves with the most powerful creative force of this universe (light and love) and align ourselves with the irrepressible regenerative nature of the living planet that sustains us (while helping the young ones to do the same). In doing so, healing, abundance and lasting fulfillment can become the norm (one individual, one household and one community at a time).
.... and you identified that which I believe to be at the core of the problem. That being lack of any real compassion in all level of human relations. It has come to be totally vilified. I still remember when having some compassion for others was expected, even if it had to be merely feigned or one was considered inhuman, cold and heartless. Maybe it because it is not in the nature of the 'parasite' to (consciously) be a 'host', even if it is only to extend kind thoughts and a desire for others to do well.
Current state of affairs?https://softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Elite_theory/Degradation_of_elite/les_wexner_and_mega_group.shtml
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB894240270899870000
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1438391043238469634.html#google_vignette
https://archive.org/details/911-missing-links-full-length
Mihop not Lihop: https://www.globalresearch.ca/speculation-mark-hamas-attack-allowed-close-book-palestine/5836029
https://archive.org/details/mcpbooks
https://www.afrocubaweb.com/mossadjfk.htm
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Their-Bankers-Persian-Gulf/dp/1453757732/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.AoyfWge7KwfKmBncTfg3-w.-iQ2UvpgrjF_jt7d131N-WFEfzWq7bEPdM98bkqqzxs&dib_tag=se&keywords=9781453757734&linkCode=qs&qid=1735696735&s=books&sr=1-1
https://archive.org/details/we-thought-they-were-white
https://www.haaretz.com/2014-10-18/ty-article/.premium/the-most-powerful-jew-in-the-world/0000017f-ea28-d639-af7f-ebffe41b0000
Nice article. Hooray food forests and Boo Jews. I planted big circles of apples for the paguns after I learned about how the sacred groves of the druids were oaks AND apples. And of course the big columns in churches were later built to mimic trees in sacred groves and the stained glass was to mimic the sun shining through the leaves, etc etc etc. I thought gee yeah that made sense oaks and apples that's like fruit and nuts... Pretty obvious. I'm in far northern California where the Indians lived on acorns and salmon- and they're still alive of course, not to offend them... But yeah our ancestors in northern Europe also lived on acorns and salmon-, not all that long ago .. the oldest poem in the English language goes like this "Heroes of old, when fed with oaken mast, the great trees themselves, in years surpassed." It's very important that folks speak up about the JEW WORLD ORDER and how JEWS DID 911 and 10/7, flagrantly, and also to plant a lot of trees. I've got over a thousand large fruit and nut trees I planted decades ago and it's like the Garden of Eatin, literally. I grow football fields of annual row crops in between and around the trees. It's not that difficult. Look at all the ignerint folks who farm hahahahaha.
My entire neighborhood except a very few , has become addicts , but i am rooting for ya.
I feel your pain my friend, where I went to school in BC substance abuse, violence and degenerative behavior was extreme, and where I went to masonry apprenticeship school in Surrey, BC it was even worse (with hard drug addicts and gang members would try to break into the school at night and harass you on the street etc). Here in Ontario where I live now, the substance abuse may not be as extreme, but other addictions are more exaggerated (such as addictions to digital stimulus, addictions to materialism and addictions to anthropocentric delusions of grandeur).
I feel like the cultural traditions of our pre-statist ancestors (people that lived by place based wisdom, natural cycle grounded and animistic worldviews) regardless of what region our ancestors hail from, can offer an anchor into sanity, healing and finding guidance. The problem is that all indigenous ancestors had traditions that were intrinsically connected to intimate connections and daily interactions with intact ecosystems and specific trees and plants. Having had many of the intact ecosystems degraded or almost completely annihilated (as they are where I live now) it is hard for people to re-discover their ancestral place based wisdom or bring new life to those ways of being and seeing given the living library (the forest) that provided that knowledge is not available in the same way that it was for our ancestors.
That is why I feel that what i describe in the post above pertaining to planting community food forests has to be part of the solution in conjunction with what I talk about in this essay: https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/germinating-the-ancient-seeds-within
I will be expanding on that in my presentation at the R-Future conference in my talk about Bio-cultural Refugia.
Basically I think we need to not only plant seeds for medicine trees and plants to become an ecosystem, but also plant cultural seeds in traditions tied to those ecosystems to become a 'cultural food for the soul forest' (if you will). Those types of multi-faceted nourishment and learning (offered in a cultural refugia nested within a food forest refugia) can help to offer people something far more fulfilling, joyful and compelling than any drug high, and that can help people stuck in the patterns of modern addictions to be fully nourished and supported to unfold their true potential. Through creating those multi-faceted gardens and sanctuaries for regenerative traditions to be re-born and invented we can begin to turn the tide and provide the salve for the soul that heals the wounds which lead to addiction.
Thanks for reading, sharing and thank you for the thoughtful comments.
“Place based wisdom”, that is a profound, concept. To stay our best we need to be where we really are. connected to the beings all round us. where we were made to be. not in fantasy. It is absolutely the way forwards. I wish you the best and look forward to you endeavors.
The answer is already here and the key issue is jurisdiction.
Look no further 👇
https://www.universal-community-trust.org/uct-treaty-full/
Well. We need to pull the plug. No paying federal taxes for a few years and put energy into cleaning the soils and growing healthy food. We need big centers where we can go to learn what we are missing. Especially in Electronics and magnetism. Everyone working to implement bullet trains north south east west. Allow payments in trade. For food, clothes, . There is lots to work on right now. Municipal taxes should be enough for communities. Baseball football!?! That’s up to them.
"An Antidote"??? The antidote, perhaps? Read "The Lost Science of Money".
While I acknowledge that the transnational central banking cartel (the BIS, IMF and their subsidiary central banking racketeering operations) are the tools that are used to perpetuate massive inequality, suffering, theft and various forms of enslavement (debt slavery etc) even if we got rid of them all at once, you would still have billions of human beings that are dependent on an extractive, parasitic and ecologically devastating agricultural, energy and manufacturing infrastructure and thus the solutions I proposed in my essay above are an important part of the equation for formulating "the antidote".
Wow wow wow - so much here to read, chew on, digest & assimilate.
Thank you, Gavin. 🙌♥️👏
Thanks for reading and for the thoughtful comment San :)
Very well-written overall, Gavin. Indeed, the problem is not just a few psychopaths that need to be replaced, but systemic. The system itself needs to be replaced.
Greetings Ajax the Great,
Thanks for taking the time to read what I put together, thank you for your kind words and for sharing your thoughts.
Yes I agree, and if one looks at the "system" as a 'garden' and the "few psychopaths" as 'weeds' or 'pathogenic organisms' the transition to a food forest solution can be applied both literally and metaphorically (to provide a framework for actionable solutions that we as individuals can apply in our lives and communities).
The transition to a food forest design from the modern conventional gardening approach (when it comes to cultivating preferred food and medicine plants/fungi) creates a growing environment in which all the ecological niches in that growing space have been filled by choice edible and medicinal species (leaving no room for those plants that are considered by some to be "weeds" to set up shop). Additionally, "food forests" (which emulate the same attributes present in a mature forest ecosystem, except they contain mostly species that provide either food or medicine that is preferred by humans specifically) having such a diverse range of organisms (both microscopic and macroscopic) create conditions where pathogenic organisms are not able to thrive and over power healthy plants (because they have to compete with myriad microorganisms that are beneficial to and exist symbiotically along with plants). In essence, the diversity, decentralized self replicating nature and adaptability of the members of a food forest garden are much more resilient against competitors, parasites and diseases. The members of a functioning food forest are symbiotically connected on many levels. It begins through their roots (where they are connected via the networks of mycorrhizal fungi that allow them to exchange and share resources with those in need and warn each other about approaching threats to their community) and it extends to the way certain species develop long term mutually beneficial relationships with each other, adapting to meet the other's needs, through a process called symbiogenesis). Another characteristic of the food forest is that each member of the food forest is capable of spreading seeds that increase the abundance and medicine offered to the many organisms that call that forest home.
The modern conventional garden (or farm) on the other hand is an expression of a dominant adversarial relationship with nature that most people and institutions in the west have. It involves tearing into the living soil through constant tilling, destroying it's structure (to mine it's nutrients for short term gain at the cost of long term fertility and stability) and planting monocultures of plants in exposed soil in strait rows (fragile groups of often genetically frail domesticated species). These are in effect spaces that invite aggressive pioneering soil-repairing plant species that people often call "weeds" and create a situation that is a buffet for "pest" insects, pathogenic fungi and disease causing microorganisms, inviting them in from far and wide due to the lack of diversity present in that growing space). These are places where humans fight endless wars against "bad guys" and "enemies" of their fragile monoculture via chemical warfare, genetic modification and other detrimental and degenerative practices (which end up undermining the quality and nutritional value of the resulting harvest).
We can take the comparison of these two ways of creating growing "systems" and apply it to the relationship between everyday human beings and the few psychopaths that seek to prey upon and parasitically feed on the unsuspecting many. Those that embrace the way of the monoculture (conforming to 'social norms' and complying with what ever they are told by 'authority figures') are like the rows of hybridized tomato plants being grown in endless fields or in hydroponic greenhouses (standing along with countless others that are behaving in the same way, existing without any meaningful symbiotic connections to the community of life that allows their wild ancestors to thrive and adapt and provide the seeds for their being born). These people living in the way of the monoculture (people who embrace a role as "consumers", allow themselves to be distracted by materialism, always looking to external centralized institutions or individuals to be told what is true and what is not divisive adversarial propaganda that points fingers at "bad guys" and "enemies" which funnels their creative energy into futile artificially generated conflicts between beings of the Earth) this leaves them wide open as targets for parasites looking to feed on fragile monocultures of people.
The one who lives their life like member of a food forest however is symbiotically connected to the diverse community of life they live amongst. They are resilient against disease by the virtue that each member of the community they are intrinsically connected with offers their own unique defense against pathogens, and so the total sum of their resilience is like the bundle of sticks that cannot break (as opposed to the single stick that can be snapped in two when enough pressure is applied). Those who live their life like a member of a food forest do not have an adversarial relationship with their fellow beings, they forge alliances where ever possible and become resilience and adaptable enough to co-exist alongside those they cannot forge alliances with through their own ingenuity and through emulating their elder species. The people who choose to embody this way of being are not susceptible to the same parasites and diseases that the people who follow the way of the monoculture are, in fact, beyond being resistant against psychopathic parasites, "weeds" and societal diseases they become fractal embodiments of the change they wish to see in the world, seeds that set down roots (and begin to replace and render obsolete the parasitic systems that have built up around them). These people become the seeds that can regenerate not only the land, but the very essence of the human spirit, outcompeting the parasites by providing a framework more appealing and efficient than their monoculture machinations, inviting many to shed their monoculture ways and instead become part of a symbiotic community of life guided by integrity, courage, love and having access to perpetual abundance.
There are some people that believe if were just to get the "right" people in power that they would be able to "punish/remove the bad guys" and make everything better. I would content that this is the same attitude behind the conventional gardener or farmer (thinking if they hammer the "bad guy" plants/insects with enough punishment, in the form of chemicals and gene splicing, they can be the "good guys" and triumph over the "bad guys". This is of course a fallacious and delusional view point that only serves to degrade the quality of the end product, profit large corporations selling chemicals and breed "super-bugs" and "super-weeds" (chemical resistant organisms).
Similarly, punitive measures being applied by top town governmental systems (regardless of what ideological wrappings they have and who is sitting atop such a system) are not effective long term solutions as threatening someone to behave how you want them to only remains effective as long as the threat and ability to act on the threat does, and even then industrious and inventive people will wind a way to circumvent said punitive measures if they really want to. Incentivizing behavior that helps to regenerate the landscape is at least a step in the right direction, as perhaps after being bribed to do something for long enough by the government the people doing it will begin to see the long term intrinsic benefits offered to their own lives by engaging in said actions. Though in my opinion I think that real lasting change must be birthed from within and set down roots in how it is applied in our local communities first and foremost.
Thus, in the end, I feel that the most permanent and systemic change cannot and will not be brought about via any top down policies (whether they are punitive or incentivizing) but rather must originate from within. The societal changes that set down roots and persist through the millennia begin with seeds planted by individuals that are living and embodying the change they want to see in the world, embracing radical authenticity and starting fractal chain reactions in our collective that spread outwardly in all directions.
In essence, it is the seed that rises from within that is born from living the way one wants the world to be, which readily self sows and sets down roots far and wide. Individuals embodying the intrinsic abundance, developing their unique gifts with purpose and embodying the joy that results from living with integrity, compassion, courage and generosity provides an incentive more enticing than any government bribe (or threat) for others to follow suit. These are people living like a member of a functioning ecosystem, each embracing their own unique gifts and offering them in service to better their community. They show other people a way of living that heals the broken parts within us, heals the land around us, begins to bind our shattered, artificially homogenized communities of unique individuals together again and offering True Wealth for all and creating an societal, economic, agricultural and psychological environment in those communities that is inhospitable to parasites that thrive on our dependence on centralized systems.
Well like the analogy of ‘storming the gates’, I’m getting the idea that the old ‘castle’ has to go. The perception, energy and emotion they convey is holding it all in place. Even if successful in implementing sane people, it would just manifest as a majestic vessel once again and the occupants would again be better than the people they work for. I’m afraid the ideology has to go.
I agree and the most effective long term strategy to make that so is to completely withdraw our support to refuse to be castle builders, to starve the castle builders, the occupants and allow the castle to crumble back into dust. While the frail castle and all the delusional ideologies that are associated with it crumble and wither we will plant the seeds for something more decentralized and regenerative to grow along side it, until one day, the food forest will grow on the dust and bones of the castle as well.
Yes I like it.
Well-said overall, Gavin. And you're very welcome :)
About monoculture, it is indeed a good metaphor for our current human culture as well. And not only is it not at all new, it's basically tired, old bric-a-brac left over from....Leviticus 19:19:
“‘Keep my decrees.
“‘Do not mate different kinds of animals.
“‘Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.
“‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material."
We clearly dispensed with most of the rest of Leviticus long ago. (Except of course for the rabid fundie homophobes who selectively cling to Leviticus 20:13 like cherry-picking modern-day Pharisees, but that's another story, and I digress.) So why are we clinging to this utterly outdated and outmoded practice so strongly? Because it is a metaphor and microcosm for our larger hyper-standardized and homogenized culture, that's why (despite our culture's utterly empty claims to value diversity....right).
As above, so below.
There are some times and places when monoculture makes a bit of sense, provided the crops are rotated. (Both literally and metaphorically, again.) But permaculture and food forest generally wins, hands down. With flying colors. And tilling? That is indeed essentially trading short-term gain for long-term pain.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Sorry I missed this until now.
I do not mean this an an antagonistic way, but I am curious if you were to take a step back and attempt to look at the following statement from the perspective of the non-human members of the ecosystems we depend on to survive, would you say that "there are some times and places when monoculture make a bit of sense" is an anthropocentric attitude?
I elaborate on what I see as anthropocentrism (and explore it's impacts on the more than human world in detail) in the following article which I recently published.
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-anthropocentrism-bright
I would value hearing your thoughts on what I put together in the article linked above.
Thanks again for the thoughtful and candid comment.
I see a correlation between the 'parasitic' overlords and the mindset, the principles, of many of their most loyal victims.... the ones that seem to not be able to 'see or hear' .... have no ability to think critically and no access to credible knowledge. we have more than overlords to overcome....
Hi Nance, I appreciate you taking the time to read my post and share your thoughts.
Indeed, there are a great many that have had their intuitive and critical thinking capacities crippled through long-term conditioning. Many of these individuals seem to wait with bated breath for the mass media to spoon feed them what they are supposed to believe and support next. It is sad to witness, but I do not feel this is due to something that is innate in those individuals, but rather it is due to a stamping out (or rather a dampening) of the innate light that they possessed within when they were born. Thus, I feel we can break this cycle of parasites feeding on ignorant, intuitively handicapped and seemingly 'blind' parasitic hosts through changing the way we raise the young ones (to cultivate, nurture and fan the flame of the innate spark within rather than stamping it out).
We do have more than the parasitic individuals and their institutions/corporations that sit atop the current socio-economic order to overcome... we have the tremendous momentum of countless generations of programming to overcome and the blinding veil that is thrown over the eyes of those new souls arriving on Earth to overcome as well. It is a veil which is woven by the threads of the dominant world view in our modern culture that covets intellectual and physical prowess and sees compassion as weakness, a culture that has us always reaching towards some distant material destination (or obsessing over youth) while never being grateful for the infinite blessings in the present moment and a culture that attempts to commodify and market every facet of the natural world, while never teaching the young to revere and give back to that natural world that gives to much to us. We must endeavor to break this cycle of forcing a veil of lies and expressions of the ego onto the young ones and instead nurture them to embrace that which comes naturally. In doing so, we can cultivate the cure for a world dominated by parasites and filled with unknowing parasitic hosts.
Thank you for the excellent response to my short comment... my mind swirls around with so many thoughts in response, I am not sure where to start first... but one major obstacle extinguishes my hopes... and that is the fact that any knowledge we impart to our friends, our family... it's just so hard to fit on a 2"x3" screen... and brains that seem to be shrinking down to the same size due to environmentally-induced mental illnesses and learning disabilities... and now, it seems, we may not have a very large future population base to worry so much about... but yah, one must first take responsibility for themselves and do it well before any saving of others can even be hoped for. People need first to break away from their crazed desire to be 'knowers' (without learning) and 'havers' (without doing) replace it with a humble desire to learn and do ... a school system based on teaching the humanities and a skilled-trade as a prerequisite for 'higher' education might be a good start.
I agree the humble genuine desire to know and do (while being willing to put blood, sweat and tears into that endeavor) is a powerful step each of us can take (and help to cultivate in the young ones (though in my experience their curiosity, compassion and humility is innately present, so it is less about cultivating and more about nourishing that which is already present to unfold).
We can become seeders and propagators of compassion through exercising our free will with grace and in the interest of helping our fellow beings unfold onto their highest potential. We can be like milkweed plant that sends its seeds aloft upon the breeze of the changing seasons, where they are carried to find a home in new fertile soil... serving to provide nourishment, spreading exponentially in all directions.
Since darkness is not a substance, but rather the lack of a substance (that substance being light and/or love) it is much easier to make the darkness disappear via becoming a source of light in each of our actions than it is for those that worked tirelessly for decades to propagate the shadows of darkness to engulf much of the human world as they do now. All things move in cycles and the time we now find ourselves living in is the darkest hours of the night proceeding the time of the breaking dawn.
We are now called to align ourselves with the most powerful creative force of this universe (light and love) and align ourselves with the irrepressible regenerative nature of the living planet that sustains us (while helping the young ones to do the same). In doing so, healing, abundance and lasting fulfillment can become the norm (one individual, one household and one community at a time).
.... and you identified that which I believe to be at the core of the problem. That being lack of any real compassion in all level of human relations. It has come to be totally vilified. I still remember when having some compassion for others was expected, even if it had to be merely feigned or one was considered inhuman, cold and heartless. Maybe it because it is not in the nature of the 'parasite' to (consciously) be a 'host', even if it is only to extend kind thoughts and a desire for others to do well.
Well said, I explore one of the sources of the coldness and heartless mentality you describe further in this new article https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-anthropocentrism-bright
I also offer some sign posts that can hopefully help guide those with the courage back onto a path with a heart <3