Agrarianism, Spirituality, and Myth – Some Questions

I’m going to get a bit philosophical today. No gardening advice, no pictures of the achocha fruit or the chickens. You’ve been forewarned.

Last week I read Michael Bunker’s book Surviving Off Off-Grid: Decolonizing the Industrial Mind. I tried to talk several other people into reading it, because I’d love to have a conversation about  this book and several others I’ve read recently. I imagined lively talks about philosophy and spirituality and sustainable living, all accompanied by a few beers and some home-made pizza (caramelized onion and feta cheese – yum).

Unfortunately, people weren’t very excited about my suggestion because I didn’t do a very good job of explaining why the book was especially important to me, (and maybe because I left out the part about the beer and pizza). I think I told them it was a book about a family that moved back to the land in a somewhat radical way, but it was much, much more than that. Since my error probably means that my offline friends won’t be reading the book any time soon, I thought I’d try again with you, my online acquaintances. Maybe we can get that conversations started. Or not. Perhaps you need to be a geek of a certain sort to find this kind of thing interesting. Anyway…

Here’s why I think the book is important:

Michael Bunker and a group of like-minded people came together to form the foundation of a new tribe, a sustainable community that, like the Amish and Mennonites, has a very good chance of surviving almost unchanged even if the global economy were to collapse entirely (which seems more likely every day).  The value of Mr Bunker’s book is not that he described a way of life on the land that is more respectful of nature and more sustainable, although that’s important. The thing that matters most is that he recognizes the power of myth – especially the power of the unacknowledged myths that most of us unconsciously live by. Because we don’t question the most basic ideas that govern our society, we’re trapped into wishing things were different, but we can’t quite find a way to change our lives in a truly meaningful way.

I think there are many people in the world who, like myself, would like to belong to a sustainable agrarian community like the one Mr. Bunker and his neighbors are building, but we haven’t figured out how to make it happen. So we try to make our city life more sustainable, grow a bigger garden, get rid of the car, hang out with like-minded people. But the desire for community still nags at us, even though it always seems unattainable.

I believe that a lot of people in modern America feel almost as anxious as a duck that’s been separated from its flock – in the background of our consciousness is a need to belong to a community, a tribe. We want something more than a group of friends with similar interests, or a career that lets us work beside other with the same education or skills. This anxiety may be present, but not always acknowledged, even in those of us who enjoy living a fairly solitary lifestyle. We enjoy our own company, but we sense that something else is needed. But how do we find it?

If we’re Christians, and if we can accept Mr. Bunker’s somewhat radical interpretation of the bible, we might gather a few friends and neighbors together and use his blueprint, just as he presents it in his book. I suspect that this is entirely possible, and it may be exactly what many people are looking for.

However, for some of us, the bible isn’t the right source of inspiration for this kind of radical change in our lifestyle. That’s certainly true for me, and I’ll talk about that more a bit later.

But I am now convinced that we can’t build the foundation of a new, sustainable community without a story of our own. It doesn’t need to be the same story that Mr. Bunker and his community chose for themselves, but there must be a story.

Why is a story, or, more correctly, a mythology, so important? Why can’t we simply find other people who would also like to live a sustainable lifestyle, and join together with them on a plot of land, or buy or build houses next to each other, and build a new community? It’s certainly been tried before, and on rare occasions it has even worked. But very few communities of this type have survived more than one generation, and they often fail after just a few years. And besides, most of us can’t even talk our spouse or partner into making such a radical lifestyle change, let alone finding 5 or ten other families who’ll help us build a new community.

A truly sustainable community built around homesteading and organic practices and integrated agriculture or permaculture requires hard work. The greater society whispers that it’s “too much work,” that “it’s weird,” and “un-American.” (Ever try doing something as simple and rational as giving up sugar? Then you know how hard your friends and family can work to keep you from doing things differently. And how hard it is to oppose them.)

As Mr. Bunker suggests, we live in a world in which we’re bombarded by stories every day, from TV, movies, the radio, school textbooks, the Internet – and each one of those stories helps to perpetuate the mythology of our culture, to create, in Mr. Bunker’s words, the “colonized mind.” But exactly what is that mythology that so pervades our airwaves? What is it that we believe, exactly, and why? Where did our common ideas come from?  Most of us never question the things we accept as true, because we don’t choose the stories we’ll live by, even if we truly believe that we’re “progressive” or “enlightened.” We tend to accept the hidden ideas that, intentionally or otherwise, keep us from questioning the status quo in radical ways — pervasive stories constantly remind us that there is great value in being “normal,” as it is defined by our debt-driven society. We must not color too far outside the lines.

There’s another reason why a story is important–a story can act as the catalyst for a new community. Octavia Butler, (one of the authors who were recommended by the readers of the Green Wizard forum), suggested in her Parable novels that people are naturally distrustful of each other–especially during a time of crisis. The characters in her novels transformed their natural distrust into a common purpose by adopting a particular story. In fact, she seems to suggest that the need for community is so strong that almost any story will do, even if most of the people in the group don’t believe it at first. But without a common purpose built into a powerful story, people will remain apart. Stories are a form of magic.

We need that magic, because we have to be able to imagine a thing before it can be brought into existence. Creating a community where none existed before is a huge creative project — so huge, in fact, that many of us can’t see how it would be possible to make it happen. Stories and myths and celebration and song can help us imagine a new world. And once enough of us imagine it, we can build it. Or that, at least, is what I now believe.

As Joseph Campbell suggested, if we want to change the world, we need a new mythology.

What myths could we embrace with that kind of enthusiasm if we can’t, for one reason or another, accept Mr. Bunker’s radical interpretation of the bible. Or the bible itself? What myths can we use in place of the unacknowledged myths of consumerism, global interventionism and debt?

Could we take a cue from the modern-day Druids, and write a new mythology that feels as timeless as the earth? What new traditions would we want to create? What grand purpose would our stories point to; what kinds of behaviors would our mythology encourage and discourage; how would our new mythology help us relate to the world around us? And, how many new stories could be written, and how many new tribes could come into existence, if the idea catches on? If that happened, how would our world change?

If you’re still reading this, you must find this idea somewhat interesting. What do you think? If you helped write the stories that become the foundation of a new community — the kind of community you would enjoy living in — what kind of stories would they be? What stories from other writers, both ancient and modern, do you feel have that kind of power? Which words of wise women and men from the past would you want to include?

Here are a few of the things that would be important to me:

First, I do feel rather strongly that any new mythology should be written by more than one person. When people come together around a story that’s written by just one person, (Scientology and L. Ron Hubbard comes to mind), some rather weird things seem to happen. A mythology needs to be complicated enough, and even contain enough contradictions within it, to allow each new generation to interpret it in new ways. This is the equivalent of the need for diversity in genetics – without this diversity, a tribe might become too rigid in its beliefs and this could make it hard for them to adapt as the world changes.

I would want our stories to revolve around two creatures whose lives are intricately entwined with ours – the honey bee and the earthworm. The way we care for these creatures will determine the fate of human life on earth, so I believe we need to elevate them to the sacred. There should be a provision for celebrating our relationship with these creatures, (it would be nice to include mead in the celebrations for the bees). People with a strong affinity for these creatures might become important spiritual leaders of the tribe.

There are many ancient stories and traditions that celebrate bees. We could borrow some of those traditions, or write new ones of our own.

I don’t know of any cultures that honor the earthworm, but it’s easy to imagine that they commune with the ancestors and with the spirits of the earth, so if we can’t find ancient stories or traditions, we could certainly come up with new ones. Which would, naturally, require a certain sense of humor and a willingness to take ourselves less seriously than normal. Perhaps mead would be helpful in the writing, too.

I would like to borrow the words of wise men and women who have shown a deep understanding of human nature and who honor the relationship of humans with other creatures of the earth. And we shouldn’t shy away from including stories or sayings that may contradict other parts of our compiled mythology, because contradictions are an important part of life.

A few questions we might want to ponder:

• What story or group of traditions and ceremonies would be powerful enough to allow a small permaculture-oriented or integrated agriculture/agrarian community to continue through generations, no matter what happens in the outside world?
• How could that story be large enough, and encompass enough truth, so that the members of the community could use it as a way to determine if their own actions and plans are in keeping with the greater purpose for them and the community as a whole?
• How could the story be made be interesting enough, and complicated enough, so each person and each generation can interpret it in new ways to fit the changes that are inevitable in life?

I do hope that, if you think any of this is worth thinking about, you’ll read Mr. Bunker’s book so you can see what he and his neighbors have been able to do, using the power of myth. If you would like to play with this idea, please suggest some ways that we could work together as a group. I’d also like to know if you were persuaded by Mr. Bunker’s arguments about the un-sustainability of city life. I have learned in this last year that I can’t grow enough food on a small city lot for even one person, which means that I can’t grow enough for my neighbors, either. And they’re not even trying to grow their own. That convinced me that Mr. Bunker was right – we can’t survive in the city if the trucks stop running. If you disagree, please let us know why.