The Heart of the Home

The kitchen is the heart of my home. It’s the hub of the domestic wheel. Since it’s where the woodstove is, this time of year, it’s where everyone gathers. And, everything of any importance takes place there: meals get prepared, recipes shared, bills paid, horse grains mixed, tinctures made, messages exchanged; kombucha brewed, coffee sipped and books read.


Sometimes I take for granted that the kitchen is the living heart of my home. That is, until someone reminds me. And, invariably, that reminder comes in the form of them telling me how “old fashioned” or “cozy” it is.

I’ve got generations of memories of the kitchen being the command post of the home. My grandmother’s kitchen was alive with conversation, cookie baking and ironing. We did our homework in the kitchen while she stirred the soup kettle over the woodstove. There were knitting projects by the rocking chair in the corner and grandpa read his book at the kitchen table while dunking cookies in coffee.

It’s not much different at my place. And, I forget that this is “old fashioned” or “cozy.” To me, it’s normal.

Every now or then, a well intentioned friend tries to bring me up to speed by reminding me that most modern homes center around the TV or home entertainment center. Folks in these households gathers around the television to eat (if you can call the consumption of processed junk-foods eating), nap, and veg out. This sounds de-vitalizing to me. I get an impression of people who are eviscerated and socially alienated.

My kitchen is vitalizing. People are animated and active. And, they are socially engaged with one another through lively conversation and shared projects. Things get done and company gets kept. Quality time isn’t scheduled — it just happens naturally.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics LS American Time Use Survey (A.C. Nielsen Co.), American households spent 5 hours and eleven minutes per day watching TV. Compare that to the 0.55 minutes that, according to the same survey, people spend in their kitchens per day. That’s right. Americans spend less than one hour a day in the heart of their home: the place where food — the nutritional foundation of human fuel — is prepared.

Americans spend more time engaged in passive distraction than active self-nourishment.

My kitchen is where we cook and eat; stack firewood; hang culinary herbs to dry; make floral elixirs; grind flour; dry wool socks and mittens; grow sprouts; and visit. It’s the first place people head when they come in the house. And, it’s a commercial-and-propaganda-free-zone: nobody is extolling the virtues of sugary breakfast cereals, weight loss programs, or celebrity trivialities.

I cleaned a horse bridle by the kitchen woodstove today. And, when I got it done, I hung it from the lamp so that everyone could look it over. I did yoga in the kitchen today—early in the morning before the press of activity took over. I read for a while in the kitchen this afternoon—after I had meditated by the woodstove while re-kindling a dwindling late-day fire.

Maybe it’s because I don’t have a TV. Or, maybe it’s because my kitchen opens into all of the surrounding rooms. Or, maybe it’s because my kitchen is huge — like a healthy, fit heart that pumps vitality into the whole rest of the body.

Whatever the reason, I want it stay this way. I want the kitchen to remain the living nerve-center of my life. I want it to remain the domestic command post, the hub of the household wheel. It feels right that the really important things in life — good food, good friends and good times — all take place there.

I don’t want to come up to speed and be “modern.” I don’t want to lay on the couch and watch TV. I want to stir a soup kettle and make real, living memories.

Stuffing the Stockings with Less Stuff

It is easy to get caught up in holiday consumerism. It's not unusual for people to find themselves spending money on decorations, or rushing through thrift-stores searching for something, anything!, to get for friends and family. We like holidays because they offer us ritual, connection with people, and something to celebrate. But, even when the ritual involves buying unnecessary, excessive presents, we can find ourselves participating in that ritual—and it may not necessarily be a ritual we would have consciously chosen.


So how does one celebrate the holidays without breaking the bank, or giving in to the rituals of consumerism? Simple. Develop new rituals. This year, you don’t have to rack up credit card debt or get swept up in the season’s commercialism. Instead, consider creating holidays that instill more meaning into the season and encourage more sharing, laughter, creativity, and personal renewal.

According to the National Retail Federation, shoppers spent a total of $441.97 billion during the 2008 holiday season. 40% of Americans start their holiday shopping before Halloween. According to the Nilson Report, Americans’ credit card debt, by the end of 2008, reached $972.73 billion, up 1.12% from 2007, with the average credit card debt per household totaling $8,329. These numbers point to the urgency of our revisioning consumer habits. What if—instead of buying “stuff” for holiday gifts—we gave gifts of time, gifts of experience and gifts of charity?

Gifts of time include things like babysitting, car washing, a month of taking out the garbage, doing the dishes, shoveling the snow, cleaning the cat box, dog walking or pet sitting, or a hiking trip. When I was a young mother, my best friend always gave me one day of child-care a week. Oh, how I looked forward to that day each week when I could have “my own” time!—a respite from the demands of parenting two active toddlers.

Gifts of experience include things like an offer to teach a skill such as canning, ballroom dancing, knitting, or swimming. I often give my horsy friends a gift certificate for a dressage lesson. Or, I gift them with an afternoon of hiking and wildcrafting in the backcountry.

Gifts of charity might include a donation to a cause in the name of a family member. Some families make gifts to charities and then present family members with a coupon or card indicating the gift was made in their name. Or, you could support a homeless shelter or protect an acre of rainforest. You could designate an amount of money to donate to charity and let your children pick which causes will receive it. Older children can research organizations that match your family’s values.

And, of course, there is the option of homemade gifts. Homemade salsa, jam and baked goods all taste much better than their commercial counter-parts. Include, of course, the recipe. Or, you can mix tins of dried, wildcrafted teas such as lavender, mint or rose hips. Include a mesh tea strainer. One of my favorites is a mix of lavender, rose petals and clover.

Being creative and keeping your mind focused on the real meaning of gift-giving will help you keep the culture's "buy more" influence at bay. Keep in mind, too, that the efforts you make to curb your holiday spending now will free up more cash for the coming year. And that's the best holiday gift you can give yourself and your family.

Sticking it to The Man

Glen W. Bowersock hit the nail on the head when he observed that:

"From the eighteenth century onward, we have been obsessed with the fall (of the Roman Empire): it has been valued as an archetype for every perceived decline, and, hence, as a symbol for our own fears."

I agree.

The parallels between the collapsing US Empire and Ancient Rome are staggering. The Roman Empire was brought to its knees through a confluence of factors, notably a decline in moral values, environmental degradation and associated health problems, political corruption, unemployment, inflation and military spending.

Not much has changed in a couple of thousand years.

The Romans lived in one of the most stratified societies in history. Around 1% of the population controlled the government, military and economy. The remaining 99% – commoners, slaves and others – were largely silent.

We’ve been silent, too, until recently. The Occupy Movement is the voice of today’s 99%.

George Monbiot likens our contemporary eco-social denial to Faustus’ pact with the devil, selling his soul for twenty-four more years of living “in all voluptuousness.”

He feels that self-initiated change can’t be sufficiently effective. “What is the point”, he says, “of cycling into town when the rest of the world is thundering past in monster trucks?”

Monbiot is an advocate of a top-down solution.

I disagree. The top–the 1%–don’t really care if the planet burns up. There’s probably money to be made on the biggest fire sale on Earth. The 1% doesn’t really care about sustainable futures. Their game is about profit. If change is going to come, it’s going to be from the bottom-up.

The bottom–the 99%–is beginning to draw a line in the sand.

In his 2006 book, Endgame, Derrick Jensen reminds us that if we don’t put a halt to it, mainstream culture–The Man–will continue to eviscerate the vast majority of us and to degrade the planet until it collapses.

Jensen’s not a lone wolf. There are plenty of people saying this. And, it’s not even a particularly recent theme.

Herbert Marcuse, for example, sang the same song in the late 1960′s in An Essay on Liberation when he argued that traditional conceptions of human freedom have been rendered obsolete by the development of advanced industrial society–the elite Corporatocracy.

It’s time for us all to draw a line in the sand. It’s time to realize that there really isn’t any fixing the corporate whore that we call the government.

As Marcuse wrote, “The Great Refusal takes a variety of forms.”

One form is the Occupy Movement.

Another form is something I call unplugging from The Man. Scott Nearing put it succinctly when he wrote that he:

"must reduce wants and even needs to a minimum; wherever possible, serve myself, raise and prepare my own food, wash my own clothing, do my own building and repairing, maintain the best of health to avoid the heavy costs involved in sickness, keep down such fixed costs as rent, interest and taxes; never borrow and take on interest slavery, but always pay cash; build up a capital reserve sufficient to cover a full year of unemployment, and be prepared for emergencies."

There are dozens of ways to pull the proverbial plug. We can all do it differently and still make a collective impact. We can even do it incrementally and progressively as we get more comfortable with new lifestyle behaviors.

There’s no point in expecting The Man to change. It’s not going to happen. The corrupt system works for him. He’s getting richer and fatter. So, we have to find a way to wave goodbye to The Man who’s never paid more than lip service to any of our attempts to pursue “life, liberty and happiness” anyway.

The more we unplug, the more we’ll find ourselves, in the words of Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown, Coming Back to Life.

I’ve done a lot of unplugging and I don’t feel as if I’ve given anything up. I feel, conversely, as if I’m liberated from things that I never really needed in the first place. I feel as if I’m coming back to life.

Martin Heidegger’s big idea was that most people get so lost in das Man (The Man) that they never really examine their lives and, consequently, they don’t know themselves. Totally exteriorized, they’re easy to enculturate, to condition, and to propagandize. It’s easy for The Man to keep people subdued in the golden handcuffs of convenience, comfort and consumer goods.

But, one day the handcuffs start to feel tight. They might even chafe the wrists. A bubble-priced home is suddenly under-water. The warranty wears off the new SUV while paychecks can’t keep pace with rising food and fuel prices. Workers get furloughed and their kids can’t afford college. Many start to wonder, Is this the American dream?

A few realize that they’ve been lied to while The Man has laughed all the way to the bank. That’s when they might decide to draw a line in the sand—to Unplug from the Man—and march to the beat of a different drummer. This is the threshold of Transition.

In order to unplug we need to change our thinking. This is huge: much bigger than most people realize. Most people, in fact, have no real idea what they’re thinking. They’re on remote control, auto-pilot, creatures of habituated behavior that hasn’t been examined in decades. Like Pavlov’s dogs, they’re fully conditioned robots.

Unplugging begins in the head. We have to mentally unplug before we can physically unplug. I’m talking about making conscious decisions to change deeply entrenched patterns of behavior. Let’s look at a couple of examples: 


Every time people run out of an item, they automatically assume that they need another one. The same is true of things that get broken, lost or worn-out. The meme is that everything has to be replaced: always, forever.

This is simply not true. We already have enough stuff in our garages, attics, cellars and storage sheds to patch-in for anything that really needs to be replaced. The first question, though, is, “Do we really even need this item?” Chances are, we don’t. Chances are, we already own a dozen other items that can do the same task. Next step: use one of those.

If, however, the answer is that we really do need the item, the question becomes, “Do we have anything with which to ‘make do’ in place of this item?”

My Grandmother was a master of making-do. I thought of her the other day when I needed a small embroidery hoop. Mine had gone missing and I wasn’t about to buy another one. How could I make do? What would Grandma have done? After a bit of thrashing around, I seized upon the idea of using the ring from a lid of a wide-mouth canning jar and a rubber band. Worked just fine!

But to pull this off, we have to stop the automatic impulse to go get it and, instead, cultivate an impulse to create it. We have to replace buying with making. After a person switches to this type of thinking, it’s not only liberating–it’s downright fun! We’re the artists of our own lives–lives that truly belong to us, not to The Man.

While we’re talking about changing our minds, we need to look at how we view people.

Do we fire our snow-shoveler (even though he’s given us 20 years of loyal service) because a new guy will do it cheaper? Or, do we let our experienced teachers get laid off and be replaced by rookies because they’ll work for no benefits? Do we evict our tenant with whom we have an informal rent-control agreement in order to raise the rent on a newbie?

This happen every day of the week. But people aren’t objects. Let me say that again: people aren’t objects.

There’s more to our business relationships than business. There is humanness. We’re human beings first; landlords, tax payers, and property owners second.

Do you remember where your grandfather worked? Everybody in the shop knew each other back then–and each other’s children. They cared about each other’s families. They were community. If someone fell into hard times, everyone passed the hat. If a neighbor couldn’t pay the rent, solutions were found by which he could remain in his home and work it out.

They guy who plowed the snow was part of the family–he got a big box of cookies for the holidays and a rag-doll for his child. Sure, people watched their pennies. But, that wasn’t all that they watched. They knew they needed each other and that their community was only as strong as the weakest member.

This is going to require a big shift in the head. Contemporary Americans feel justified in getting the cheapest–no matter the hidden cost of the so-called bargain. We have to start looking at the big picture again. Enlightened self-interest needs to replace simple self-interest.

Marcuse called it choosing not to participate in one-dimensional society. I’m calling it unplugging from The Man. No difference.

It’s about becoming truly free. Seeking liberation from a system that’s choking the life-blood out of our humanness.

Once we’ve made up our minds to unplug, we need to map out a blueprint for doing it. There’s a lot to do and we can only do a bit at a time. So, jump in wherever works best for you–but keep at it. Keep unplugging one step at a time until you start to feel free. Fewer bills, less rushing around, better health and more happiness!

The Good Life: Bridging Heaven and Earth

Making Friends with Vishnu

The concept of sustainability has always been there—right from the beginning. Every Wisdom Tradition has its own ways of reminding us to honor the Earth, to Love each other and to value the lives that we are given. Nonetheless, we, too often, have a “better idea” and rush headlong into unconscious, entrenched, egoistic patterns. Let’s take time out for a minute and see what one of the oldest Wisdom Traditions in the World has to say about sustainability. More specifically, let’s see what Vishnu brings to the discussion.

Brahma is the first member of the Hindu Trinity, Vishnu being the second and Shiva, the third. Brahma is the god of creation. Shiva is the god of destruction. Destruction and creation go hand in hand. They are like two sides of a coin. For example, the destruction of morning is the creation of noon and the destruction of noon is the creation of night. This chain of continuous destruction and construction maintains the day. Similarly, the destruction of childhood is the creation of youth and the destruction of youth, the creation of old age. In this process of birth and death the individual is maintained. Vishnu is the god of maintenance.

The gods representing creation, maintenance and destruction, are essentially one and the same. They, however, appear quite differently. We love to dance with Shiva. We are seduced by creation. We are excited by starting projects--feeling the surge of juicy creativity. We’ll work for a week to plant a garden and, later, fail to weed it.

We feel just as powerful when we are destructive. Destroying something gives us a sense of closure—of power. We’ll till that same garden, weeds and all, under in late Fall. We might even mumble something about “taking better care of it next year”.

So, we begin. And, we end. And, we begin. And, we end. It’s a cycle that is highly unsustainable. But, it’s also a pattern that is indigenous to our species. Our egos thrive on the excitement of beginning and ending. Maintenance is a whole different matter. It’s boring. No adrenaline. No bells and whistles. So, poor Vishnu—the god who holds everything together--gets forgotten.

All of our creation and destruction is wreaking havoc with the Earth. We are filling landfills with our destruction, depleting resources with our creation. We buy too much and we throw too much away. We are too industrial and too wasteful. It’s time for us to make friends with Vishnu, god of maintenance, to create a cycle of sustainability.

How sustainable is it to spend a lot of money on expensive seeds and bedding plants to build a garden and then let it be taken over by weeds—only to be tilled under in the Fall? Vishnu wants us out there weeding, mulching, watering, and tending. He wants the plants to be cared for so that they can grow into food.

Vishnu wants us to maintain everything. He wants us to maintain our lives: everything from our gardens to our interpersonal relationships. It’s time to make friends with Vishnu. He is the god at the very heart of a sustainable lifestyle! There are so many places, daily, that Vishnu’s presence would abet deeper sustainability. Let’s look at just a few:

· Mending: Nobody mends anymore. When we hear the word, it conjures up ideas of our grandmother, sitting in her rocking chair, darning socks. Grandma would be pretty shocked at today’s response to a worn sock—that is, to just throw it away and go buy new ones. Sewing on buttons, fixing small tears, and reinforcing frayed seams all extend the life of clothing exponentially. I know, I know. The argument against mending is that you don’t have time. A family of four spends an average of $2,850 a year on apparel and apparel services, according to the federal government's Consumer Expenditure Survey. Too many times people chuck a piece of clothing because of minor damage that can easily be corrected with a needle and thread. It behooves one to learn how to sew, as this simple skill can save you lots of money, even without owning a sewing machine. If learning isn't an option, even paying a seamstress to mend your clothes will save you money, as repairing clothes is cheaper than buying new. And, there is the issue of not supporting sweatshops—where so much clothing is currently manufactured.

· Garden Care: Here is some really basic gardening advice: don’t plant more than you can reasonably weed, water, harvest and tend. Garden plants are not knick-knacks. They are living entities that depend upon their caregivers for continued life. Well done, a garden is a work of art—a thing that is beautiful to behold. Badly done, it is tragic. Weed-infested beds, pest-destroyed leaves, dry and withered stems break Vishnu’s heart. There is a lot of hype out there right now about “growing your own food”. I do it. And, it means that I spend a lot of time with Vishnu. I weed. I water, I harvest. I tend. A garden is a great lesson in, literally, reaping what you sow!

· Menu Planning: This is an area that can save a family big money. And, a lot of time, as well. The simple act of sitting down and figuring out a week’s worth of cook-at-home dinners, where ingredients can be shared over the course of several menus is really economical. And, not running to the store daily to “pick up” needed ingredients for meals is a time, money and gas saver. Most people find that by planning, and shopping for, menus on a weekly basis reduces their grocery bill exponentially. Sure, it’s a little more time spent with Vishnu, but it reaps rewards on many levels. Grocery shopping with a plan limits pricey impulse purchases and return trips to the store for forgotten items. Planning ahead also helps avoid the 5 o’clock “what’s for dinner?” question that too easily leads to the answer, “let’s go out to eat.” You can also plan for inexpensive foods that take a little longer but save money, like dry beans that need to be soaked overnight.

· Consolidating Errands: Speaking of trying to eliminate those return trips to the store for forgotten items…! Vishnu wants us to consolidate our errands. He is a whole lot happier when we are not running back and forth to town to “pick up” this and that. Even if you bicycle to town and back like I do, it’s still not time efficient to run back and forth constantly. I try to advance plan my trips to town so that appointments, errands, shopping needs and so forth are all consolidated. A trip to the dentist gets combined with Farmer’s Market, mailing out my package at the Post Office, returning a Library book and picking up some green tea at the spice shop. This takes some forethought and some list building: the stuff that Vishnu thrives on! I’ve learned to rely on a little notebook that I keep shoved in my pocket to jot down “to dos” that can be consolidated later in the week. This also slows the pace of life. Not everything is an emergency! Things happen more organically and naturally—and, I often find that they happen exactly at the “right time” in the bigger picture.

· Day Planning: I have found that by sitting down in the morning with a piece of paper and pencil can save me a lot of time throughout the rest of the day. First, I make a master list of what I would like to accomplish that day (no attachment to the outcome, though!). Then, I move the items around into clusters that naturally go together. Can I combine a couple of “to dos” into a melded activity whereby both are getting done at roughly the same time through careful planning? Am I, for example, able to tele-conference with my editor at the same time I water some new transplants in the garden? Or, how about listening to an important podcast while filling the food dehydrator? The other day I experimented with seeing how many yoga asanas I could incorporate into my posture while weeding the garden. It was really neat! I cross things off my day list as they get done. Sometimes everything gets crossed off. Not that often, though. But, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I stay focused throughout the day, allowing more to get done with less hustle. With some practice and Vishnu’s guidance, anyone can become a master of time!

· Home Repairs: This point speaks for itself. Doing home repairs saves money, time and eventual deterioration. This is the easiest place to see Vishnu in action. Plugged drains, loose shingles, sagging porch rails, peeling paint are all calling out to Vishnu. Without his intervention, they will soon be in rot and ruin. There is so much information these days, too, about “how to” do the various repairs. There is a Wiki on everything—many complete with video instruction! There is something incredibly liberating about fixing your own faucet. And, many times, it’s not that hard! Sure, it takes a little time. But, if you do the math, it actually saves you time. A plumber, for example, would easily cost you $150. to fix a leaky faucet. If you earn $15./hour, that means that you have to work ten hours to pay him/her. Did fixing it yourself take ten hours?

These are some simple, elementary ways to start making friends with Vishnu. You will find that the better friends the two of you become, the more Flow you access in your life. Things get easier. Time opens up. Money is saved. Resources are not wasted. Energy needs are reduced. Living well is spirituality in action. It is an integration of the spiritual principles of simplicity, integrity and mindfulness with day-to-day lifestyle practices. The bridging of Heaven and Earth!

Sherry L. Ackerman, Ph.D. is the author of The Good Life: How to Create a Sustainable and Fulfilling Lifestyle. The book springs off from her 22 years of living on a back-to-the-earth commune in Central Vermont and offers practical ideas for not only surviving--but flourishing--in today's challenging conditions.

Philosophical Musings on the Juxtaposition of the Words "Commercial" and "Food"

So, how did it happen? How did we all get complacent enough to accept the phrase "commercially produced food" without even blinking an eye? How did Uncle Sam go from advising the US public "to garden" to later telling the US public "to shop". And, not just to shop, but to shop for food.

Food is the hub of the wheel. It's the one thing that we all have in common: we all have to eat. And, we are what we eat. Recent statistics regarding the number of people with early onset cancer, degenerative disease, diabetes and dementia all point to a decline in the quality of our food. "Commercial" anything is about profit, not quality. So, when food becomes a profit motive, a lot goes out the door.

Some of the things that fly out the door are health, money (yours, not theirs), environment and energy. Big Agriculture is unconcerned about the environmental carnage left behind by pesticides, GMO crops, soil depletion or erosion.Big Agriculture is unconcerned about how much fuel it takes to run those mega-machines to produce, harvest and transport crops. And, Big Agriculture doesn't care how much food costs you and your family. They care about directing profits to already rich corporate interests.

Most of the food in your supermarket travels thousands of miles in trucks or planes to get from the farm to the shelves. Think about how much fuel us used to transport those items. What kind of impact does that have on the environment? When you purchase food at the store, you’re also paying for the cost of shipping, packaging and storing that food. What kind of impact does that have on your wallet?

While organic foods have grown in popularity, many commercially available foods are still sprayed with pesticides, herbicides and preservative formulas to prevent disease and spoilage. The USDA currently allows "57 trace pesticides" in foods labeled organic. Are you scared (or angry) yet? Not only can these chemicals pose health risks to you, they also impact the environment through air and water pollution.

The concept of "commercial food" really gets at the heart of the differential identified by Scott Nearing. Nearing made a clear distinction between "use production" and "market production". Use production is when you produce something (in this case, food) for your own household's use. Market production, obviously, is producing for sale on the open market. Nearing argued, and I agree, the "use production" was, in the Big Picture, the most efficient and effective economic model.

By growing and preserving your own food, for example, you’ll save money. Food grown from seed costs a lot less than store-bought. By preserving your harvest you can reduce the amount of food you throw away due to spoilage. There is no packaging. There are no middle managers. In addition, you can save the seeds from the fruits of your plants and replant them next year. By following these practices you could feed yourself indefinitely.

Food that you grow yourself just tastes better. Food in markets, even health food stores, is often in cold storage for up to a month before being sold. Fresh food is more nutritious and has better flavor than the stuff that comes from the store.

I grow my own food. I "get my groceries off the ground". When I walk through my garden and cut fresh greens for salad--and eat them no more than an hour later--the benefits of Nearing's "use economy" are evident. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that I can buy at a market (even a Farmer's Market) comes close to the level of quality that I can produce right outside my window.

It's my vision that more and more people will wave goodbye to "commercial food" and replace it with a "use economy" model. If Uncle Sam won't tell us to GARDEN anymore, we'll just do it ourselves!

Unplugging from The Man, Part 5

As we get deeper into Unplugging from the Man, we invariably come face-to-face with our addiction to petroleum. Sure, we like to sit around and do the "ain't it awful" with our peers, but we keep using gasoline. Classic addiction: I'll stop tomorrow. And, tomorrow never comes.

So, what's the solution? Stop pumping!! It's that simple.

The average American household spends $385./month on gasoline. That is almost $100./week. Even with the recent surge in gas prices, consumption has only reduced by 0.7%. We all know that we are past peak oil. We all know that our three wars are contingent upon our lust for oil. Yet, our societal behavioral changes seem to lag behind our knowledge. We are suffering from cultural cognitive dissonance.

Let's look at some practical things that we could do, easily, to stop pumping and start Unplugging:

(1) Bicycle: Get a bicycle, equip it with a basket for carrying groceries. You'll be getting heart-healthy at the same time you stop stressing about escalating gas prices. You'll slow down. You'll notice more things along your route. And, you will no longer be held captive by the oil barons. Bicycling is good for the Planet, good for your health and good for saving money.

We all think that we don't have time to bicycle places. It's just a head trip. Recently, my partner needed a large bunch of mint to put in his recipe for the evening meal. So, I hopped on my bicycle and went a couple of miles down the road to a large pond, where both peppermint and spearmint grow abundantly along the south shores. Within a few minutes, I had filled my bike basket and was peddling back home, enjoying the fragrance of fresh cut mints. My more conventional neighbors asked me, “How do you find the time to do these things?” Let’s take a look at this, though, for a minute. I can bicycle eight miles per hour even on a bad day. That puts my transportation time at roughly fifteen minutes. The actual wildcrafting takes about ten minutes, including the time spent watching some ducklings learning to bob for fish, bringing my total time investment to about twenty-five minutes. This is roughly ten minutes less than it would be to drive into town and go to the market. There are no hidden time costs such as parking, waiting in a checkout line, or having to go to a second store because the first one didn’t have it. My mints were super fresh, didn’t require any packaging or gasoline use, and didn’t create any auto emissions. So, we do have time to bicycle places!

(2) Ride Share: How hard would it be to share rides with others? Sure, it involves some planning, but that's about it. Planning means that you will be talking with your neighbors and colleagues. And, what's so bad about that? Wouldn't that be community? Have you ever gone to your son or dauther's sporting event and noticed that all of your neighbors are there, too--and that you all fired up your own, individual gas guzzling machines to drive down there?

Commuting just 15 miles each way to work can cost as much as $ 2,264 per year at current gas prices. Sharing the ride with just one other person can cut your commuting costs in half. Think of all of the more interesting things that you could do with that extra thousand dollars!

(3) Consolidate Errands: Again, a little planning can go a long ways. Instead of firing up your rig to run into town and back every day of the week, designate one day as "errand day". Train yourself to get sufficiently organized to do everything that you need to do in a single trip to town: groceries, errands, meetings and appointments. Make lists. Work around already existing commitments. If, for example, you have a weekly Wednesday afternoon appointment or meeting, go into town a little earlier on Wednesdays and also do your shopping and errands.

We are so incredibly used to instant gratification that this will make us uneasy for awhile. We are used to running into town to pick up a single lag bolt, right? Or, a bottle of olive oil? Once, though, the savings start to show up in the household budget, we'll be really excited about the whole list-making and planning process! There is real money (and time) to be saved here.

(4) Walk, Ski, Snowshoe: You will be surprised how fit you will get in a very short time by making this lifestyle change. When you feel like a trip to town just to "get a java" at the local coffee shop, ski in. Walk. Snowshoe. Or, bike. It makes the outing even more fun than it would have originally have been. Maybe you could invite a friend to share the foot-transport with you.

Of course, we keep pumping because we think, erroneously, that we "don't have time" for alternative forms of transportation. But, why are people in the most technologically advanced civilization in the world starved for time? One of the hooks that keep people locked into the consumer culture is the lure of convenience. We are told that convenience frees up time. This looks good on paper, but when inspected more closely, it doesn’t quite ring true.

Convenience does, superficially, create more time. But those conveniences are expensive and, in the long run, require people to work more hours to make more income to pay for them. In other words, people end up working more hours—thereby having less available time—to make enough money to pay for convenience. The final product of convenience is time famine. There’s something wrong with this picture.

Harvard economist Juliet Schor, in The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, argues from statistics what I have figured out from experience. According to Schor, American’s work increases by one day each year. Averaging only sixteen hours of leisure a week after jobs and associated travel and communication responsibilities, working hours are longer than they were forty years ago. This, in large part, traces back to our addiction to gasoline. It strikes me that by dealing with our gasoline addiction--which is really a "convenience addiction"--we will be freed up to enjoy more leisure. And, that's a pretty nice perk for Unplugging from the Man.

Author’s Note: This blogpost was the fifth in a series of articles about Unplugging from the Man. Stay tuned for more suggestions and ideas about achieving personal freedom.

Unplugging from The Man, Part 4

So, we've made up our minds to Unplug from The Man. We want to loosen the noose and pursue personal freedom. Our wrists are chafed from the golden handcuffs and it's time to shake them off. We are in Transition and we need to continue to hammer out our blueprint for liberation. In Part 3 of this series, I put forward some good preliminary ideas for starting to Unplug. But now, in this Part, let's go deeper:

* Get rid of your TV. It has to go. It's that simple. The TV keeps you shackled to the Establishment. It programs you as to what to buy, what to think and what to say. It's subtle, but it's there: the hidden agenda. TV watchers stop thinking for themselves. A slow, incremental exteriorization happens. The advertisements get to even the most vigilant. It is subliminal and insidious. Don't tell me, either, that "there are a lot of good programs on TV". For every "good one", there are a dozen "bad ones". You are just rationalizing. Take a deep breath and pull the plug.

* Park your car. Get a bicycle, equip it with a basket for carrying groceries and you've got your Transition transportation. You'll be getting heart-healthy at the same time you stop stressing about escalating gas prices. You'll slow down. You'll notice more things along your route. And, you will no longer be held captive by the oil barons. Bicycling is good for the Planet, good for your health and good for saving money. Freedom!

* Say goodbye to your phone. You read that right. Get rid of your landline. Nobody needs one anymore. And, nobody really needs a smart phone, either. Sure, they're fun, but they're also expensive (not to mention that they track your whereabout and, starting in 2012, will issue daily "terror alerts" from the White House. Seriously.) Try Google Phone for a pleasant--free!--surprise! You can get your own number. It has voicemail, caller ID and call forwarding. And, all calls within the US are free.

* Support alternative news. The US is currently among the most propagandized nations in the world. The commercial, corporate news sites don't really report "news" anymore. It's, instead, a steady stream of ideology funded by vested special interests. The independent, alternative news sites are the only operative venues of real, uncensored information. Support them! Let's not let them die from malnutrition. Without them, we will be proverbial sheep.

Unplugging from The Man is an essential component of our own personal versions of Power Shift 2011. It's going to mean adjusting to some changes, but the sweet taste of freedom is worth it!

Author’s Note: This blogpost was the fourth in a series of articles about Unplugging from the Man. Stay tuned for more suggestions and ideas about achieving personal freedom.

Comments from a Reader

I found The Good Life, by Sherry Ackerman, an absolute must read, absorbing, and thought provoking. She sheds a ray of hope, through her grounded experience, into a world that is anything but stable. This is a book for those of us who live to work, racing to buy the `stuff,' that is sure to bring us lasting happiness, security, and prestige; only to find, once acquired, the magic is gone because these things were only fleeting desires, not sustainable necessities. Ackerman encourages us to question our values, and take a closer look at how we spend our time and energies. Must we rape the earth of all its resources to satisfy our selfish lusts to gain more stuff, stuff that has buried us in empty promises of pleasure, and left us with huge debts, foreclosed homes, lost jobs, and not enough time to know our loved ones? Wouldn't it be better to slow down and become at peace with the nature surrounding us, to share earth's bounty with all of its inhabitants, and be a responsible part of a restored balance that was intended all along? Yes, it's possible, with you and me, together, one step at a time. This book starts us down a path where each of us can lay down our own stepping stones, which together can pave a way to a new sustainable good life where we have everything we need and the time to enjoy it.

Review of The Good Life by Wanda Shapiro

This is a great book and it's an important book. By defining so succinctly The Good Life, Sherry Ackerman blazes a trail through a very dense forest. She weaves history, philosophy, and her own life story into a narrative that feels effortless despite the gravity of the subject matter. Every chapter is packed with both inspiration and education and at the end of each chapter Ackerman provides a list of practical suggestions which ground the reader in the reality of their own choices. Without malice or arrogance, she characterizes the status quo, explains how we got here, and posits a future well within any individual's grasp.

Rich with references that both educate and illuminate, The Good Life includes a bibliography that will keep curious readers busy for years and from an academic perspective this work is a masterpiece. You would think Ackerman would need more than 190 pages to explain how to create a sustainable and fulfilling lifestyle but she manages that and so much more.

Thankfully for all of us there are people like Sherry Ackerman who have always been ahead of their time. And considering the dire state of affairs at hand, we should all thank her for sharing her Good Life.

The Forward: by Greg Joly

Here is the Foreword, by Greg Joly, to my new book, The Good Life: How to Create a Sustainable and Fulfilling Lifestyle

"The good life is more than a yearning for the good, the
beautiful, the true. It includes decision, will, determination,
and effort, individually and collectively, to be clear
regarding the theory as well as successful in practice…
aiming at that integration of thought, the word and deed
which is the expression of wisdom and the basis of
serenity and inner peace."

—Scott Nearing—

Where does the human heart find its greatest repose and happiness? Within the maelstrom of consumer fetishism and consumptive excess, or in a principled life whose actions are measured in the industrious accumulation of daily joys? The answer arrived at to this inquiry will tempter the reader’s response to this book. If your answer is the former, then your consumerist education by mass-media advertising is complete. If you answer the second, or even yearn for such a life, then this book will provide a clear hearted story of how individual self-introspection twinned with the labor of the hands can fulfill not only one’s personal needs, but also healthfully effect other’s lives, be they human, animal or mineral. And in this saga of Ackerman’s sub-zero mornings in mid-winter Vermont, hours spent in the tending and gathering of foodstuffs for family and attendant beasts, the quiet satisfaction of a child thanking her for his upbringing by not only discerning her actions but also decoding the principles she employed to teach him, and the pasture beauty of a night with Saturn jewelling Mt. Shasta skies, you will find an individual intelligence searching to plan, build, struggle with, re-envision, strengthen and variously evolve a humane good life. Through this book, Ackerman weds the work of the hands with the considerations of the mind. She demonstrates the useable vitality of philosophy by taking Heidegger, Plato and Sartre out to the wood shed and using them to sharpen the tools properly. They take an edge and as with any well-cared for tool the work goes easier and with greater purpose.

How better to view a book than as a useful tool? I view this volume as a practical course in radical stability through voluntary simplicity. Freedom cultivated through a consideration of the tensions between conditioning and consciousness. The late-Empiric United States juggernaut that threatens to complete its subconscious terminator-like mission can only be turned from its Apocalypse by the concerted response of communal individualism, what Victor Turner terms an independent domain of creative activity. Does this seem woefully inadequate to meet our present situation? Certainly, but what other course is left to us? And what other course could fulfill our visions beyond a welter of market necessities, collateralized debt obligations and the stagnation of enforced unemployable redundancy. To this end Ackerman unthreads the beliefs which drive our internal calculus concerning time, money and wealth, then proceeds to examine how she reconstructed her own internal mindscape so as to be able to see the “world” more clearly and thus be able to interact with it on a deeper and more health-fulfillling manner. Yes, yes, I here you say, but what does he mean? Take horse bedding. The expense of it. The faults inherent in various materials. Now take the keenness of a self-disciplined thinker who has incubated a program of rational thought. Ackerman sees the waste paper generated at a local college, carts the “waste” home, beds her horse in it who voids his waste onto it and which she then cures into the world’s true gold--compost. If we cannot find such creative ways of dealing with our daily “wastes”, then we will allow the juggernaut to carry us into the chaotic abyss of environmental collapse. In the exercise of urine mindfulness, Ackerman shows us how to see where we are so that we can decide what direction is truly in the best interest of ourselves and nature, rather than what is economically expedient.

Thoreau observed: Is not the poet bound to write his own biography? We do not wish to know how his imaginary hero, but how he, the actual hero, lived from day to day.”—October 21, 1857. Excepting the gender, how well this applies to Ackerman’s work. Here we have an honest, forthright, detailed, considerate philo-manual biography which provides the reader with not the good life, but a good life. This is not a manual as to how to live your life, but a concordance of ideas and processes by which you can envision a new lifeway in a practicable manner; a culturing of the soul that provides us the possibility of a transformed social structure just when the horizon seems, if not downright uglified, bleak. Dumas wrote: The soul forms its own horizon. Sherry L. Ackerman has revealed the astro-mechanics of her journey so as to assist us in our own cross-grained, yet ultimately rewarding, life-long epoch traversal.

—Greg Joly

Maynard Hollow, Vermont
May Day 2010