Now it’s On.
by jess - January 28th, 2011It has been a while since we updated our blog, and maybe a reintroduction is in order. Our writing will come through several voices, including: Jeffery, CharDe, Jess, J and Bob. As the spirit moves them, other Tierra Lucero team members will likely contribute. Tune in as frequently as you like to hear different perspectives from the same collective.
Jess here.
It seems to still be January. The air is filled with a dry chill and talk of full-body cleanses, which means a little time remains to reflect on the past year and to dream a little bit about this one.
In mid-summer 2010, I met Bob and J and was energized to hear of folks actively working on solutions that were at the forefront of my own mind but which I had no clue how to pursue. Shortly afterward, I fell into helping manage the Taos Farmers’ Sunday Market, and just like that, I was absorbed into the crew. This is not a group of people who get up with dawn’s light to harvest and huck vegetables to and fro all day, take breaks to milk goats and fix equipment, and spend the remaining hours planning ways to give more things away, in order to secure their own personal wealth. In fact, they reach into their own pockets to keep things running. These are people I have come to believe in.
At the risk of sounding over-dramatic, it feels like there is an awakening taking place. Each time we talk, I am bowled over by this group’s agreement on the ugly situations we are facing in our world. Even more fortunate, I think, is the pervasive optimism that creeps into the most unlikely conversations, refusing to allow us to dwell on the dark future we see and instead using this as fuel for innovating new ways to avert these disasters. The more I think about what drew each of us away from our previous lives (and we are all strangers here, in some sense), the more grateful I become that we awakened when we did. None of us are from self-reliant families who live sustainably off the land. We all have had to dismantle a good bit of the structure we grew up within.
It’s a natural progression, it seems. Sometimes it begins by realizing that if some produce is “organic” and isn’t covered in pesticides, then produce without that label might well be. That makes one consider the other horrors done to food before it reaches the store, where we purchase it in good faith that the producers want to sell healthy food – after all, they’re vegetables. Vegetables are supposed to be good for you. If you can’t trust that, should you trust that the (fill in the blank here… shampoo… pacifiers… medicine…) you buy is not doing more harm than good? Pretty soon, it becomes clear that things we buy pass through so many hands and miles and processes that trying to unravel each product’s history is impossible – unless it’s got fewer hands and miles and processes to pass through.
Now, it’s on.
And IT is exactly what’s propelling us in a new direction . . . or an old one, really. Trace backward from any current mess of credit or unemployment or food and fuel costs and you reach the same cause: corrupted power. Removing the power means reeling in the slack between ourselves and our needs. The more we can provide for ourselves, the more flexible our lives become… Like a tree that bends with the wind, a more self-reliant lifestyle can adapt to and weather a sudden disturbance.
Our “organization” is just a handful of people pooling our determination to see a future for ourselves and our people. Alone just won’t cut it. Personally, this is an acceptance I came to kicking and screaming. And again, I am grateful for whatever switched on this light for me. Now I see that growth – both in the ground and in the spirit – is more immediate, fruitful, and transformative within a community.
We begin this year with love for our fellow man. Poised to defend our human rights by creating community-based independence. Assured that the time to live is now.
The unraveling has begun.
