Monday, February 21, 2011

urban homestead urban homestead urban homestead

Yes, we are in no way urban. And I am, in general, in no way sympathetic to protests. But is calling attention to something that is outrageous a protest? It is probably part of it.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. Here is what I want to say:

If you care about ANYTHING, anything at all, be it your health, your kids & family, your community, your country, your planet, spirituality, loving kindness, anything, you need to be growing food where ever you are and whatever else you are doing. You need to consume less (of everything). You cannot buy your way to being green, or being an involved parent, or being healthy, or being spiritual, or any of the rest of it. You have to work that out every day. You need to cook your own food, wipe your own a**. You need to spend your time, your actual time, with those who are most important to you, not off somewhere else saying it is really "for them".

It isn't.

It doesn't matter what you call yourself, or what anyone else calls you. If you are looking to be admired, you are already lost. Go back, take down your mirrors, and start again.

You will fail. You will succeed. You will laugh (mostly at your mistakes) and you will cry (also mostly at your mistakes). This is called life. This is called living.

Pay little to no heed to institutions, and less to anyone trying to sell you anything. Learn to be quiet enough to hear all the help the universe offers to you.

Do it where you are right now. No waiting until anything. There is always a way. Find it.

Be good to yourself, and to those around you, and let no one abuse you or abuse those around
you.

Love.

Have fun.

And dance to the tune of urban homestead urban homestead urban homestead.

No organization, no institute, no trade marks, no nothin' needed -- except folks doing their really real concrete productive things of course.

Dare to be nobody. Aspire to be small. See what you can give without anybody even noticing.

Etc.

6 comments:

Kate said...

"Dare to be nobody. Aspire to be small. See what you can give without anybody even noticing."

I like this. I think I've come around to this way of thinking in the last several years. I don't want to be known, except deeply by a self-selected few. It's a tricky dance to learn how to efface oneself while believing wholeheartedly in the value (for others) of what one is doing and learning. But I'm trying.

Heather Jefferies said...

Fun it is. Fun, beautiful, real, forgetful (and I mean forgetful in terms of those things that would eat me alive if I let them) and utterly grounding. Even in the sadness, failure and self-doubt (of which I have plenty).

I hadn't given much thought to being small though. I do find myself hiding. I hide because I'm afraid someone might find out and make me stop, or something like that, I'm not sure entirely. I know I have every right to do the things I'm doing because the town I live in never thought to make them illegal (it grew from farming community to wealthy bedroom community too fast for that) but I'm still afraid I of making any soft of protest at all lest somebody take away what I've managed to make in my own back yard. Maybe those are feet of clay. Either way I certainly have no intention of stopping.

Wendy said...

Do it where you are right now. No waiting until anything. There is always a way. Find it.

I felt like it ought be repeated ... and repeated and repeated ... because I hear so many people with so many excuses as to why they "can't" and so few people who are just willing to "find a way."

clairesgarden said...

I am an urban homesteader, I live in an urban homstead, I spend my time urban homesteading.
I think they got my hackles up.....

Joan@CopperCreeker said...

forget the labels and just 'do it'.
it's like the word artisan that is so popular now. *snicker*snort* i make artisan cornbread now just as i did when i learned how by helping my mom and grammaw when i was old enough to know how to not get burned. much of our food is artisan prepared. whoop-T-doo so many people want to put labels on things to get extra$$$ or to put fancy name to something simple but good.
i do understand and i'm really not making light of the uproar, i just feel to many get caught up when it's best to pull up your big girl bloomers and get on with it.

Amy McPherson Sirk said...

Yes, Yes! I love this post. Here we have what we call the Not-So-Urban-Farm because we grow lots of fruits and veggies on a 1/3 acre lot in a very small town. Same techniques as urban homesteading, different location. Thanks for the great post. Very well said.