The revolution is happening.
Well, it has the potential of happening.
And I feel a bit scared.
I am facing an opportunity to step into what I have been professing to be my dream! (Careful what you wish for, hehe). Less than two months after my return to the native land, and I have already found and met a group of people who speak the language of permaculture, who share visions of organizing into ecovillages. They speak the language of permaculture and they agree that it is essential that we begin to learn, how to grow our food, and how to grow... socially, together.
I've been thinking about socio-political organization for at least ten years now. I've been talking about egalitarianism, and community-living for almost as long. Yesterday, as I sat in the living room of a fellow visionary and discussed the potential of the ''Institut de desurbanisation'', I gradually came to feel the significance of my conclusions.
The idea would be to live communally, in the city, while preparing for a transition to the ecovillage. We'd be learning several skills to regain some autonomy, like sewing, knitting, canning, brewing, fixing and renovating the house, etc. That's exactly what I've been ranting about for the past six months!
But the thought of actually doing it: living and working together, makes me a bit dizzy. Have I grown to comfortable in my individualistic modern ego?
The truth is, I don't know these people as well as I know the friends I have had over the past fifteen years. With my old friends I have sweated and fought (most of us played soccer together), won and lost, cried and laughed. We have witnessed and supported each other through idyllic and horrendous love stories, through break-ups, confusions, joy and dreams... We have been through so many changes together...
Now there is a brand new group of people I could be moving forward with. We could be entering a new phase of change together. We could create change!
But we don't know each other yet.
And is that even what scares me the most?
Or is it the thought of eventually leaving the city? No more world-music parties, no more impromptu meeting at the pub for a drink, no more sitting in a café with my laptop, no more dance classes, no more théâtre, no more daily multiculturalism.
Do I want to retreat from all of that?
In the name of energetic autonomy, in the name of food security, in the name of building an example of what could be...
In the name of every human being who is being oppressed, beaten, starved, raped, and forgotten... just because they live on a land where natural resources are being extracted... In the name of voluntary simplicity... of anti-consummerism... In the name of indigenous people in Northern Canada, who are watching their last frontier getting drilled and destroyed by the oil industry...
In the name of fresh water and the hundred of animal species who have gone extinct over the last fifty years... In the name of heavenly Pacific islands, which are now slowly sinking under raising levels of ocean waters... In the name of ghettoized populations being plagued with pollution emanating from irresponsible industries and the spread of landfills (it's called 'environmental racism, look it up)...
In the name of my Cuban, Mexican, and Salvadorean amigos, of Palestinians and Israelites, of Syrians, Russians, Tibetans... in the name of my neighbors in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve... In the name of PEACE, in the name of Love for this planet and all the wonders it has gifted us with...
In the name of Life, simply.
Out of fear that we'll end up blowing each other up for fear of scarcity?
I am trying to re-trace the line of thought that brought me here today.
In the course of my political, environmental and philosophical studies I have come to consider most wars and injustice as symptoms of deep-seated unconscious fears (that stem from the illusion of separation). Fear of lacking. And from that fear, the sprouting of greed, lies, violence.
Peace doesn't mean the absence of struggle or dialectic. But it does mean the end of violence.
In the course of my study I have come to value egalitarianism as an ideal to strive for, if we are to develop a sustainable peace. And I have come to value wildness as the necessary source for creativity to keep flowing.
I'd like to eat food that is wholesome. I'd like not to depend on the industry for my sustenance. I'd like solar and wind power to replace the nuclear.
We're not mature enough, as a species, to make use of such powerful a tool.
We must learn how to live together.
About this clown
- Ève
- I often feel that we're all spinning slowly... like a mirror ball. Yes, we are all mirrors to each other. And so, it is the Light between us that I hope to help reveal and celebrate. /// J'ai souvent l'impression que nous sommes une boule disco qui tourne lentement. Nous sommes tous des miroirs pour les uns les autres. C'est donc la lumière qu'il y a entre nous que j'espère contribuer à souligner et à célébrer.
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