videos165: Finding Excitement Creating a Life-Sustaining Society
March 15th, 2010
Lavender farmer Dana Illo and her partner Catherine Johnson will infect you with enthusiasm. They’ve turned their initial response to resource declines from “it’s horrible and overwhelming” into “we can create new ways of doing.” Dana is bringing Dragon Dreaming to her community. This organizing model starts by having a group totally buy into a specific dream, like being locally food self-sufficient. Then in every cycle of implementation, members Dream, Plan, Do and — just as importantly — Celebrate! Why not have fun while we build community and security? Listen to Audio.
The ecovillage movement is gaining a lot of traction and in some surprising forms, says Diana Leafe Christian, the author of Finding Community: How to join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community. Drawing from ecovillages worldwide, she describes many examples of these “human-scaled, full-featured settlements.” Ecovillages aim to integrate human activities harmlessly into the natural world and be sustainable indefinitely. To succeed, they need to have multiple centers of initiative (e.g., business enterprises), and support healthy human development (like cooperation and having fun). (
What if future leaders became sensitive to local environmental and social issues before stepping into leadership roles? Tanya Narath describes nine day-long events in the Leadership Institute for Ecology and the Economy’s program: Students visit a watershed for ecological context; tour an organic farm (sustainable agriculture); take a walking tour from which students’ urban design ideas are presented to the mayor; explore social issues like racial injustice, homelessness, and poverty; consider water ecology, local economy, transportation and land use. (
Tour the century-old organic Chaffin Family Orchards where even the animals are “farm hands.” Visit chickens in their egg-mobile, scratching for bugs and pooping fertilizer in the heirloom stone-fruit orchards. Goats chomp off low branches from the olive trees, so no fuel or human labor is needed. This certified predator-friendly enterprise includes 200 acres of olive trees plus various fruit and nut trees; sheep, goats, broiler and egg-laying chickens. They distribute only locally through fruit and meat CSAs (community-supported agriculture), growers markets and a farmstand, providing fresh foods that burst with flavor and nuance. (
What if the food system benefited local producers, nourished nearby people, and built a stronger community? Krishna Singh Khalsa of Eugene, Oregon wants to turn the food system on its head. He wants it to be run by, and for the benefit of, ordinary people — not corporate profit. He’s exploring models of local cooperative, entreprenuerial organizations where people provide the labor, share and hire resources, caretake the land, use all of nature’s abundance, support farmers and food producers, distribute food so that no one goes hungry, and build strong social bonds. Empower people, not profits! 
Rather than follow the customary American dream, Tammy and Logan sold their home and car, and moved to a bikeable/walkable neighborhood in Sacramento, California. After reading Derrick Jensen’s writings, this couple used Your Money or Your Life as a means to get out of debt and, they feel, regain their lives and their future. While they recount the psychological challenges of facing a future of declining resources, the catalyst that continues to move them forward is a dream of living in an affordable tiny house within a supportive community. (rowdykittens.com). Read in 
Taped in late 2005 before Peak Moment began, this conversation feels eerily prescient about the effects of the 2008 financial collapse. William Stewart reflects on the shadow side of the fossil fuel bonanza, which enabled hyper-individualism and mobility that have shredded our connections to community and place, along with increased violence and dysfunction. Likening our oil-dependent culture to an addict who must first bottom out, he suggests there may be a silken lining after collapse: the possibility of more communal and connected ways of life.
The corporate capitalist system is destroying people and the planet. Can we imagine alternatives? Ravi Logan and Jason Schreiner’s model is based on valuing our interrelatedness and interdependency within the natural world. It replaces profit-driven with cooperative enterprises, and emphasizes a balance between local self-reliance and bioregional networks, with some global structures to meet global needs like telecommunications. They describe applying permaculture principles like the zone approach in on-the-ground projects in Eugene, Oregon. (
Former truck driver Bill Wilson tells an insightful story about the energy packed in a gallon of gas — which we won’t always have in cheap abundance. Now a permaculture educator, he sees permaculture as a viable, realistic way to use nature to provide the abundance we really need — harvesting sunlight, food, wind, water and more. Can you guess what the magic stuff is that we all can’t live without? (No, it’s not oil.)
Kris Holstrom’s off-grid permaculture farm at 9000 feet high is living proof that food can be grown nearly anywhere. Managing with a very short growing season and water constraints, she and her interns have created magic. Tour the sun-warmed, insulated greenhouse where greens are grown year-round. It’s home to a waterfall and pond with fish, trellises for grapes and seedlings, artwork for the soul, and mushrooms growing from straw. The outside garden offers herbs, berries, greens and prayer flags. Kris sees herself as a steward of the land, and delights in sharing it with kids and interns in a spirit of love and reciprocity. Listen to