Six Degrees of Preparation

So we were there in the greenhouse yesterday at my farming class, the dozen or so of us around the center tables, each with two trays of plant cells filled with farmer and educator Lynn Pugh's hand-mixed planting soil. Some of us simply want better home gardens, some have already started new farms, and some are heading in the community garden direction. We all had little tiny broccoli seedlings to transplant into individual cells, a total of about 2000 of them in four different varieties. Lynn told us the objective and left us to our own devices to figure out a process. And sure enough, in true group dynamic style, a few leaders emerged, a small disagreement erupted, and eventually we all settled in to the meditative action that shaking roots free and tucking them gently into new homes inspires.

And as we stood there, comfortably warm in the enclosed space as a gentle rain, a chorus of frogs, the bleeting of goats and the discordant calls of chickens and guinea hens beyond provided a soundtrack, we did the inevitable. We started to talk. Sharing observations. Finding commonalities. Provoking thought. And revealing ourselves, little by little, broccoli by broccoli.

As I drove home, my mud-caked boots on old newspaper beside me, I thought of that scene in the greenhouse and how we were helping Lynn prepare for her spring CSA. How we were preparing to take what we were learning there and bring it home to our own gardens and on our own farms. And how we were, ultimately, preparing for the future.

And that brought me back to the book I've been reading, The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook, which is actually sort of a fun read, if you can imagine it, and one of the most practical-knowledge-packed books on the topic I've read yet. I think the review excerpted on the back cover is spot on:

"This book is like a Swiss army knife. Sharp. Simple. Very practical. Extremely useful. Full of survival tools, which you may need in five minutes or five years from now."

--Dr. Valentin Yemelin, climate scientist at the United Nations Environment Programme/GRID-Arendal, Norway

The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide is written in a lively style by Albert Bates, the Director of the Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology and the EcoVillage Training Center at The Farm in Tennessee where he teaches sustainable design, natural building, permaculture and restoration technology to students from more than 50 nations. I'm learning some new things about growing, preparing, and storing food, and creating energy, and preparing a short-term survival kit. In fact, this is one of the best books for giving truly useful information on a wide range of survival topics in a concise format.

Listen, I'm not so sure how much any of us can do, and if climate change ever approaches the worst-case-scenario of a six-degree Celcius change (10 degrees Fahrenheit) as predicted in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2001 report, we're pretty doomed and bringing our own bags to the market just ain't gonna' cut it. But just because we can't move the dial down individually (and may not even be able to do so collectively--who knows?) doesn't mean we can't find some ray of hope to rally around, some "six degrees of preparation" on which to focus.

For me, my efforts are starting to center around the power of human connectivity, specifically shared knowledge. In fact, I've started discussions with some older residents in my city to brainstorm ways to formulate a "transfer of knowledge" initiave, where "each one can teach one," an older generation member matched up with an eager-to-learn younger generation member (and I'm not talking adult and child here--I'm talking 75-year-old and 35-year-old!) How to can, how to sew, how to garden, how to cook, how to repair things, how to build, how to heal--this information has skipped not one but two and three generations and it's time to save it from being lost forever.

And so, as I think about that broccoli yesterday, and our collective hands pressing soft soil around food that will one day feed others, and our bodies shoulder to shoulder, and our breath warming the enclosed space we shared, I think about how very easy it is for strangers like us to come together and create something new, something bigger than ourselves, something valuable. And I wonder, yet again, how else and where else I can be part of this in my ever-evolving daily life.

Is it any coincidence that I woke up to the New York Times' Travel section's article about the amazing community of Serenbe, just south of Atlanta? It always seems to call to me, doesn't it?

Oh, and did I mention that I've already signed up for this workshop at the upcoming Georgia Organics Conference?

Workshop 4 - Urban Homesteading:
Eating and Living Off the Grid

Jules Dervaes, Path to Freedom

Since 2001, Jules Dervaes and his family have been living a protest- Path to Freedom-against corporate control of the food supply. They now grow over 6,000 pounds of produce annually on a onefifth acre residential lot in Pasadena, Ca.Their project incorporates alternative energy, transportation, and back-to-basics practices. Mr. Dervaes will present steps individuals can take where they are and with what they have, to become independent and live as responsible stewards of the earth.