Back by popular demand, Nathan Brown joins us for a second guest appearance to take us on another fascinating journey to Dancing Rabbit Eco-Village in NE Missouri. During this show, we will focus upon: What Nathan loves about his life at DR; Personal growth work that he does; and his business as a business consultant/coach, and how his business ties into his life at Dancing Rabbit. Nathan’s work/play serves and promotes The Great Turning from our current Industrial-Corporate Age toward the formation of a Life-Sustaining Age. Nathan Brown is a eco social entrepreneur, healer, & social change activist living at Dancing Rabbit Eco-Village.

Tune in on September 2, at 4:00 p.m.!

Sean recently got himself 70 acres of land with two friends to start a food forest / farming community called The Good Life Farm, and it sounds like quite an exciting prospect. We toured the property, and I met his comrades Melissa and Garrett. (I also found out that I had met Melissa’s sister Ellen at Dancing Rabbit earlier in the year when the Burning Kumquats made a visit. What a small world! I love the intermingling of circles that I have encountered while living at DR.)

Over the visit, I had the chance to see a local natural builder’s light clay straw home in the works. It was a two floor timberframe beauty with fantastic woodwork, with materials coming from the surrounding land. Inside was an utterly gigantic masonry stove, complete with a little pie-baking oven along the back side. Gorgeous. It was inspiring to see. My exposure to natural building projects had thus far been limited to Dancing Rabbit, so it was great to see projects in a different part of the country.

Other visit highlights included eating roadkill deer meat. (It’s not too uncommon to find and eat roadkill, although of course your average Joe probably wouldn’t be into it. But as long as the condition of the animal is sound, it’s good eatin’. Really.)

We met up with Chris of EcoVillage at Ithaca to share stories about her community and my own, which was fun. It’s always a welcome opportunity to talk with folks from other intentional communities. (And I found out that I’m not the only one that doesn’t like ‘EcoVillage’s’ name.)

I contemplated if I would enjoy living near Ithaca throughout the trip. There are tons of great people, lots of local foods, natural building, permaculture, etc. stuff happening. Plus it’s more like my type of environment what with the greater wealth of wooded land. But towards the end of the three days, I realized how much I had come to appreciate northeastern Missouri. There’s something appealing about being in the middle of nowhere. I’m not sure if I could really explain it. Maybe it’s that I love the complete absence of city lights in the distance, which is not the case in this area of upstate NY.

Anyway, good times.

I’m not psyched about either of these terms, but I can’t think of anything better to use, so alas… Tomorrow, I am headed back to the outside world (a.k.a New Jersey, in this case) for the holidays. It’s usually pretty challenging to re-acquaint myself with the outside world. With it comes a totally different routine, different modes of transportation, different daily activities, and a different culture.

After living at Dancing Rabbit for over a year and half, I can assuredly call it my home. (I am, after all, building a cob house here.) I feel very at ease here and comfortable with my routine and familiar with my responsibilities. I enjoy the flow of life here. I don’t experience this same flow being outside of Dancing Rabbit. I feel much more scattered, and more often than not, lethargic, too. The holidays are a typically frantic time, too, what with most of everyone running around madly for some reason or another.

It’s challenging to not get caught up in it, and to avoid the bombardment of pop culture and advertisements and automobiles. The lack of fresh(er) air and nature and all of those good things makes quite a difference, too.

Off I go… to the outside world…

The Superheroes headquarters is the Possibility Alliance community in La Plata, Missouri, which I visited a few times last year. I’m a big fan of what is going on down there: the community is completely petroleum-free, car-free, and electricity-free. I’m very inspired by this living model and the folks who live there, Ethan, Sara, and others.

Anyway, the Superheroes are super inspiring folks – the rides occur once or twice a year and they are totally unplanned – once they hit the road, they decide where to stop day by day. They help folks in exchange for nothing. This is activism at its finest. I could wax poetic about the whole concept, but it feels more genuine being able to actually talk about it. Maybe later.

Although, I had the chance to sit down with Ethan, who lives at the Possibility Alliance and co-founded the Superheroes movement. We had a great talk – about sustainability, radical simplicity, the balancing act of trying to live simply, and trying to bridge the gap between different alternative groups and communities – and it resulted in this article that I wrote for Planetsave.com: Superheroes Bike Across Missouri and Provide Public Service. I’ll write a second article about the Possibility Alliance itself.

Hopefully I’ll be able to go on next year’s ride. I really wanted to make this one ever since I heard about it last year, but the cob house has been taking all of my time, ya know. Next year, for sure!

IC.org has a new blog dedicated to news about, yes, intentional communities. Check it out.

I’ve grown quite accustomed to the culture here at Dancing Rabbit, and I take for granted what most first-time visitors are surprised by and unfamiliar with about life here. It didn’t take very long to get comfortable and settle in, and it’s easy to forget that this micro-culture does not exist outside of Dancing Rabbit. Lots of the things I now am used to doing (or not doing, for that matter) might not continue once I leave here.

I am expecting something of a culture shock when I re-enter the “outside world” (a.k.a, the mainstream, or whatever else you want to label it). There are some things I trying to prepare for, and there are others that I will have to wait to experience. Food, for example, is one thing that I have been dwelling on. Living at Dancing Rabbit, the majority of the food (especially produce) I eat is locally grown, and pretty much 99% of everything is organic. I’m simply not going to be able to eat the same types of foods when I get back to NJ, and it’s one of the things I will miss most. I am trying to prepare for it by taking some Sandhill sorghum and dried (organic) soybeans (to make tofu and other goodies) back with me. Of course I will have to resort to buying things like produce from the supermarket.

There’s a lot of things I absolutely have not missed that I will be faced with, too. Driving, television, advertisements, etc. I’ve been in a vehicle maybe half a dozen times since April, and not once have I myself driven anywhere. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to get anything done without a car in the suburbs. I’m going to bike as much as I can, as I did last summer, but there will most certainly be times when I must drive to visit friends or do other things. Television, billboards, and ad-pollution are aspects of everyday life that I’ve loved living without, but avoiding stuff like that anywhere else is nigh impossible.

It’s going to be an interesting trip.

So. Onto the book. The Long Emergency deals with the issue of peak oil and the global energy crisis, especially the not-too-distant energy problems the US will soon encounter. As you may or may not know (or may or may not fully accept), the US (and the rest of industrialized civilization) is totally dependent on cheap energy, especially in the form of oil (and its byproducts). Again, as you may or may not know, oil is a finite, nonrenewable resource. That means the end to supplies is coming at some point. As Kunstler (and many other authors, scientists, etc.) claims, the end of cheap oil is near.

There’s this little theory called peak oil that claims that oil production increases until it reaches a maximum plateau (or peak), after which production will terminally decline, never to increase again. Now, this oil peak poses many problems. Once production decreases, supplies decrease, and prices skyrocket. Can you imagine paying $5, $10, or $15 per gallon of gas? We may not be so far off.

Many scientists claim that we are at that peak, or are very quickly approaching it. (The global oil peak, that is; the US surpassed its peak back in 1972, for example). This poses serious problems for the world at large.

Everything we do depends on oil. Everything. It’s not just transportation, it’s manufacturing, food production, each and every facet of everyday modern life. Without oil, we cannot drive to the food store to pick up our groceries. Without oil, there would be no groceries shipped from across the globe to our store shelves. Without oil, industrial agriculture, with its dependence on petroleum-derived fertilizers and petro-powered farm machinery would cease to exist.

What about alternatives to oil? Unfortunately, there is no alternative source of energy that can replace the sheer power of oil. Many of the “alternatives” frequently touted in the media would never make it themselves without oil. Many alternatives require huge inputs of energy to produce, like ethanol, and even solar and wind power. (Just think: solar panel manufacturing requires the energy of oil.)

Without getting too far into this peak oil stuff (there’s plenty out there on the subject), I will just say that The Long Emergency does a fine job painting a very realistic picture of the US, post-oil. And Kunstler does a good job detailing how the US will deal with sudden energy starvation, and in particular, his in-depth look at how each region of the US will fare without cheap energy is especially enlightening. (The US southwest could never be inhabited without the energy of huge inputs of oil, for example.)

We are facing a bumpy future, and this book does a commendable job of detailing all of the different factors involved in how we came to be so dependent on oil, and how we might (or might not) make it without cheap energy in the days of peak oil and beyond.

The art of greenwashing.

Sigh!

…In ESCAPE From SUBURBIA director Greg Greene once again takes us “through the looking glass” on a journey of discovery – a sobering yet vital and ultimately positive exploration of what the second half of the Oil Age has in store for us.

Through personal stories and interviews we examine how declining world oil production has already begun to affect modern life in North America. Expert scientific opinion is balanced with “on the street” portraits from an emerging global movement of citizen’s groups who are confronting the challenges of Peak Oil in extraordinary ways….

It is at times like these when I just have to laugh about this culture shock. I’m sure there’s plenty we don’t know or understand about each other.

(Although, as a footnote: I must mention that Dancing Rabbit does have very good relations with the outside community and we frequently invite locals to the community for tours, meals, etc. So we are certainly not isolated from the surrounding area.)

There are plenty of books, essays, etc. on topics of civilization, climate crisis, peak oil, population overshoot, etc., and how all of these problems are connected and related to bigger issues. However, there are few films or movies that attempt to draw an overarching picture of this web of social issues that we are faced with as a globalized civilization. But What a Way to Go seems to do just that:

“If film and television have a role to play in our society, if they are capable of helping important social change, if they have a part in the transformation of human society, then T.S. Bennett and Sally Erickson have fulfilled that purpose. What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire is the culmination of the “big social issue documentary” genre of Michael Moore’s films, or An Inconvenient Truth, and particularly of the “using ironic 50’s footage” sub-genre, such as The End of Suburbia. It deals with the same issues, but follows them deeper, all the way to the root of the problem in the Agricultural Revolution. Along the way, it hits all the important points: peak oil, mass extinction, climate change, overshoot, and the stories that keep us on the path to self-destruction.”

Sounds great. It’s a very low budget and independent affair, but I hope it gains some attention. Here’s one of two trailers for the film:

There’s only one weekend a month when something resembling actual traffic starts to stream through Rutledge, and you can bet these vehicles are all en route to the Dog and Gun. People drive in from all over Missouri, Iowa, and elsewhere for what must be the biggest, greasiest, golf cart-crowded flea market in the midwest.

The Dog and Gun takes place in a gigantic open lot at the far end of Rutledge once a month throughout the entire summer. Many families tow their ATVs, golf carts, motorscooters, etc. so that they are not burdened with the prospect of actually walking around the market. Up and down the aisles these individuals and families drive, frequently creating mini traffic jams, the likes of which cannot be known outside of this Mid-western microcosm. It’s not uncommon to see ATVs towing trailers filled with families. And the smell of fumes must be more prevalent here than anywhere else on actual town roads.

There is a definite and very tangible mini-culture within the gates of the Dog and Gun, and all types of interesting characters are to be found wandering about. The crowd consists of lots of old farmers, burly hunters (with guns over their shoulders, no less), Mennonite families, and rural families. It’s a crowd you don’t really get to see everyday. (Or maybe you do, but I am definitely not used to it.)

The wares are many, including plenty of illegally sold dogs (owners sell the collars, and the dogs come with them), guns and rifles, chickens, goats, rusty tools, rusty cookware, clothing, old trinkets undoubtedly dug up from people’s basements and attics, elk jerky, knives… oh my!

It’s a sight to see. I went today with my friend and we marveled at the people and the goings-on. It’s a trip, no doubt. I think the Dog and Gun is deserving of some kind of cultural study.

• Ishmael (Daniel Quinn)
  
• My Ishmael (Daniel Quinn)
• The Story of B (Daniel Quinn)
• Beyond Civilization (Daniel Quinn)
• Against Civilization (edited by John Zerzan)
  
• A Theory of Power (Jeff Vail)
  
• The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (Thom Hartmann)
  
• Against Empire (Michael Parenti)
  
• The Assassination of Julius Ceaser (Michael Parenti)
• Fast Food Nation (Eric Schlosser)
• Guns, Germs, and Steel (Jared Diamond)
  
• The Island (Aldous Huxley)
  
• Brave New World Revisited (Aldous Huxley)
  
• Endgame (Derrick Jensen)

…Etc.