Off-Grid Living and the Importance of (Enthusiastically!) Embracing Community

I love this new challenge by @naturalmedicine. The big question this week was, "How does community help you thrive?"

Oh, those Colorado mountains are calling...

Perfect timing for me, as my husband and I are on the brink of fully embarking on a life path toward more self-sustaining and self-sufficient living. It's a path we both have felt the pull to walk for a long time. Unfortunately, although we have many skills and gifts between us for various things, self-sufficient and off-grid living skills seem to have become a sort of "lost art". If we look back 100 years ago, it was just a way of life for many people. But alas, my husband and I have to some extent fallen to the conditioning of consumerism and the grid.
Now, I think the grid has many great uses that we can appreciate. I have no desire to fully embrace a Luddite point of view. Even in this moment I am able to share my experiences and excitement with all of you, compliments in part of "the grid". Our needs are by and large provided for. However, my husband and I both see the holes in the grid framework, and the potential for collapse of the system, though unlikely in the short term of our lifespans, is something we both feel in the back of our minds.

Our goals are to engage in a more connected life, and all that it implies.

To us, it means connecting to the more immediate world around us, connecting to ourselves, connecting to the earth and the wilderness, and building relationships with more fulfilling and enduring sources than what Grid Living can provide. To us, the grid seems fragile and dependent upon certain factors that, in the event of compromise or collapse, could equate to a pretty large amount of personal loss... of health, freedom, even life. To be fully dependent on it is simply not an acceptable way of living for us anymore. Our decision to make plans to move to the woods has a lot LESS to do with us wanting to be weird antisocial mountain hermits and MORE to do with living in a way that ultimately connects and engages us to the world we feel we are slowly missing out on, and disconnecting from the NEED for grid connection. It's almost like a constant itch that I feel I need to scratch... how can we become less co-dependent, and more freely independent, and interdependent? How will we manage to get out to the woods, to a more self-sustaining lifestyle? What will it take? What will life be like when we get there? And how do we integrate our off-grid mountain living BACK into the larger community?
We have made some great steps just in our suburban home, while we figure out the greater details. General prepping, food preservation, learning how to ferment safely (and tastily!), foraging for mushrooms and other wild growing things, even making our own Medicines. In a month from now, we will be helping our friends process their turkeys that they've grown from chicks. We are the kind of people, apparently, who can get excited about anything, so long as we are learning. I'm not hugely stoked to be dispatching these goofy birds. But I am excited to find out what the process will mean for me personally, for my family, for our experience of learning more about the natural world.

This brings me to my next thought, on the power of connectedness, and of community. We were having dinner recently with our local friends who recently bought a plot of land in Cripple Creek. We got caught up in discussion about philosophy, about politics, and about personal freedom, as is par for the course when the four of us cook food together. One big question that came up is our physical dispersement as off-grid peoples. I would like to point out here that I feel "off-grid peoples" is as much a mindset as it is a lifestyle. I do think that there is a common streak in off-grid living of those who desire solitude and freedom. This, I believe, brings a certain stereotype about, as well as a tendency to disconnect from others who may have similar goals and aspirations. However, the current underneath the seemingly hermit-like stereotypes, from what I'm seeing, is that off-grid peoples simply have a much different way of connecting than the typical Westerner. It seems counterintuitive, that as we pick our plots of land to be responsible for, as we cultivate the more physical parts of our lives by working that land, that we disconnect from the rest of society to do so. Isn't part of the point of all of this to become MORE connected to the things around us? Human beings have an innate need to share the things we do, our insights and experiences. How do we do that, while still embodying the off-grid mindset and lifestyle of solitude, and freedom?

I feel the answer is as much a practical one as it is a spiritual one. Not that they need to be separate, mind, but there is more to all of this than our perceived separateness by physical proximity. Thankfully, we have access to the Web, which is a good step to remaining connected, especially now that there are platforms like Steemit for us who care about freedom without censorship. We have our other modern ways of connecting, via workshops, visiting our friends who can share their ideas and knowledge, seeking out new people and new information when we visit local farmers markets or grocery stores. Truly, in today's world, no man or woman is an island. I do however believe that it is crucial that we as off-grid peoples need to take steps to stay connected with the rest of humanity, in compelling and exciting ways, to show those less inclined to the off-grid mindset and lifestyle that it IS an idea worth sharing. Even if we only embrace small parts of it, all things are a spectrum. Urban Homesteading is a thing! I know, because that's my current option. And it's gratifying. It's connecting. It's only limited by our own creativity and open-mindedness. It's, frankly, fun to come up with more ways to embrace off-grid living while living in the suburbs. Here, it's easy in many ways to share these ideas, to embrace community, to take small steps toward off-grid living, that makes it super accessible and attainable to those around us. Sometimes, my friends think its weird that I ferment cabbage in my closet, and sometimes, I inspire someone new to brew kombucha, just by sharing a SCOBY and some instructions. We all have ways of embracing our lifestyles and sharing them with those around us. I talk to lots of people at work nowadays about meditation and the power of breath work as well. I've decided that I am done with playing small and it's far more important to live in a way that inspires and lights up my soul, so that those around me wonder and ask what it is I do differently. In these ways, we can teach each other through excitement, through desire and passion, and through energy. Take that project you were going to hire someone to do for you, and make it a DIY instead. See what happens! Watch your experience and consciousness expand, then teach your neighbor or coworker. Isn't this how it's done? This thing of connection, and community?

Why lose this? Especially in the world we live in now, that seems to be reawakening from a slumber? Why lose connection for the benefit of running to the woods to hide? The answer is, we don't have to lose it. It's not a black and white thing, Full Blown Westerner vs. Mountain Hermit. The idea of a community that thrives and supports thriveful living for individuals is a beautiful concept. We don't have to be globalists to fully connect with the world. We can feel our liberties and our freedoms in off-grid living, while still embracing our community, in connectedness. I feel it will take a certain energy and excitement, but the more I look at the world, the more I see people getting over-the-top enthusiastic for living a sustainable lifestyle and sharing it with those around them... it's inspiring. And It's a vision and a concept that, frankly, I think I'm in love with. I wouldn't want to live another way.

So my hubby and I will continue to plan our off-grid lifestyle, but always with a sense of connectedness to community and excitement for sharing our lives with the world. Please, have a bottle of our new coconut water kefir. Let me give you a jar of lactoferment. Please, share with me in exchange what you learned about yourself or the world around you this week, this moment. Or teach me how to kill and cook a homegrown turkey. In the end, it's sharing and experiencing life together. That's really all we need.

Xx Tree of Life

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