Archive for December, 2009
What if we stand the notion of ownership on its head? What if I do not own the barn, but instead it owns me, or better, we own each other? What if I do not view it as my right to kill mice simply because I can, and because a piece of paper tells me I own their habitation? What if, because their habitation is near my own, I am responsible for their well-being? What if I take care of them and their community as the grandfather ponderosa outside this window takes care of me, and as before that the stars soothed me? This relationship of mutual care doesn't mean that none shall die, nor even that I won't kill anything, nor eventually be killed; it simply means we will treat each other with respect, and that neither will unnecessarily shit where the other bathes. The bees, too, stand in my purview, and so it becomes my responsibility to make sure, to the best of my abilities, that they can sustain their community. The same can be said for the communities of wild roses, native grasses, trees, frogs, mosquitos, ants, flies, bluebirds, bumblebees, and magpies that, too, call this their home. We all share responsibility toward each other and toward the soil, which in turn shares responsibility to each of us. What if all of life is not what we've been taught, a 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short' competition to see who may own or kill the others before the others can own or kill them? What if we don't need to live our whole lives alone? What if life is a web of immeasurably complex and respectful relationships? What if the purpose–even the evolutionary purpose–is for each of us to take responsibility for all those around us, to respect their own deepest needs, to esteem and be esteemed by them, to feed and feed off of them, to be sustained by their bodies and eventually to sustain them with our own?
– Derrick Jensen, from A Language Older Than Words
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Belated happy solstice, everyone!
Since the “Let’s Go” has been and still is such an important part of our lives, I’ve resurrected those posts. They can be found here :
Turning a passenger Vanagon into a camper
Recent Posts
- Goats for sale! ALL SOLD!
- Harvest time is so beautiful…
- Three Turkens and a Welsummer
- Sephira
- Sweet Maud and her tiny little peeps
- New goat house almost ready!
- Darn moles and voles? Darn helpful, actually.
- Lammas 2011: harvesting alliums and hoping for exotic tomatoes
- “Goat crossing”
- Heeler dog: possibly the most important animal on a small farm
Recent Comments
- Winnie on Harvest time is so beautiful…
- Peter on Saris Bones bike rack front-mounted on a Vanagon
- Lynn on Saris Bones bike rack front-mounted on a Vanagon
- Kelly Lomax on New goat house almost ready!
- Kelly Lomax on Who we are
- Peter on How to breed dairy goats
- lucien on How to breed dairy goats
- Janet on Sephira
- Peter on Learning to grow tobacco in Oregon
- sean on Learning to grow tobacco in Oregon
Categories
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- Vanagon Stuff 2006-7
- What Are Your Days Like?
- Working Dogs
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