Stories collected along the way. Little gems of memory, of possibility returning. Passed along, again and again. Stories don't expire so long as they are carried and told.
If I read enough of your Substack posts, will I eventually garner the courage to let go of this capitalistic mess and take the trust fall?...one can hope. In the "mean" times, thank you for this ray of hope Adam.
In my experience, there must be a fall. Without fear, which comes in to remind me of what's been lost on the daily, I get nervous that I am staying within the bounds of safety and security. But I have a sense that everyone is taking little trust falls every day---into relationships that have no interest payment other than trust. My work is to pick out these moments and hold them up, saying, 'Look, in our bones we know how to do this."
Your words (I always listen and very much like to hear your voice) feed what should be fed. What we must feed. They feed me too.
There is such a deep loneliness, that we are living in now. And I don’t think there is another way then to understand again how much we are given. By the butternut squash, the lamb, the leaf - dropping trees that keep us warm with their wood … keep us housed too. By the deer, that feed us through their beauty and speed and strength, which we see … which I just saw this morning.
Thank you too for this. For this strange space where people meet, in this weird disembodied way, that despite the lack of actually meeting, offers some togetherness around what we have been given, around what we are given. That is great healing for the heart too. For me it is.
I enjoy reading your super idealistic blog whenever it comes out. This one caused me to have some pretty strong visceral reactions. I started this morning with a memorable comment gleaned from a Guardian article. A man who was pretty much nomadic and living on very little income up until about age 50 says he discovered after getting a full-time permanent job how “money is an excellent insulator” and that the lack of money makes one very vulnerable. I have friends who in their early years of being settled down tried to live without the cash economy. When they had a child they realized they needed money for medical care and school and all the other necessities of raising a human being. I’m also curious at your resolve not to use your food for trade or barter. If you were managing numerous transactions such as the one with the welder, how would you keep it clear in your head to which people you needed to randomly gift food? The randomness of it makes me nervous even just thinking about it. And it only works as a garnish on it otherwise well remunerated life no? Thanks for the food for thought.
Hi Karen. Just a stranger here listening along. I understand your reactions. I recognize them in my own. For me (maybe not for you) the taste of that welling up against these longings here to be outside the walls of capital is maybe, if not fear itself, something bile-ish of similar elemental salts. It seems a matter of our training. What the steel-geared night laughs at as idealism or utopia is maybe the beaver’s first stick into the current. Long before dam, long before any rise in blessed water levels of our sheltering Sea-come-home there is just a single eddy, if that in the dwindling creek.
Dougald Hine suggests that the early signs of a world ending is when the future it once guaranteed no longer seems to hold any certainty at all. I think Camus was right when he suggested that utopia was anything in contradiction to reality. Both the end of money and the security of the future promised by money seem at odds with reality. The question is from which way is the wind now rising? Is it more idealistic to begin to live in a world beyond the one dying or to continue living tightly bound to promises whose fault lines open a bit more each day? I don’t know. I continue to bleed the hours of my life into work I find more and more without art and against so many of my dreams—wage-earning as they say—because I love my dear ones and because I, too, suffer from long stretches of periodic blight in my imagination of what might be. Yet there are moments, usually at dusk or dawn, when the light here is just right and I can see the bars of the cage, see the meadow through the empty keyhole and taste something not This. It is at those moments when the radio in the attic of my soul crackles a bit and a frequency briefly overcomes the static with music that is like a home I never knew. Elseway is Out There. At those moments, beneath that music, in that light, I begin to wonder, as I look again at the hinges rusted to bars on the cell, if that gate is actually locked. This station of Adam’s is a harmonic of that frequency. I meet you here and say I get your questions…but still…
I struggle at the juncture/crossroad you so eloquently describe Andrew. For me it feels like one of my feet is firmly planted in the dying capitalistic quagmire and the other foot is reaching for the raft of "what might/can be." Alas, this is no way to live but likely out of fear, pride, greed, and other sins, I haven't been able to place both feet in the raft as Adam has done. Instead I come to his Substack in the hopes of gleaning wisdom and gaining courage. Thank you for this comment Andrew, your way with words is always such strong medicine.
Respectfully, I don't think Adam has placed his feet in a " raft "( I definately understand though why one would phrase it like this). His feet are on solid ground. I see he is somebody living in reality. Struggling to do so in a time where there is a powerful, deep confusion instead of human culture. If we can shift the focus from having anthropocentric modern (....) life ( ? ) as a reference to the actual not human-made world we still live in and will always live in, a world that is bigger than us, ( if we can do so just a bit) it becomes clear that the anthropocene is the fictional raft... that obviously does not float. It does not belong to this world. Thats why it is so ugly.
Just to say that all of this (in my experience) is an impossible thing to do. Kind of. Impossible. To live in and navigate this insane colonial thing... as we have to ...while all while understanding that it is insane, made up, and going down, as it should. Pretending to forget while remembering ...sometimes too much for somebody like me.
The vulnerability that arises on the periphery of the story of management and control makes me nervous every day. Nearly six years in, I'm still alive. More assuredly so in the presence of those nerves, from what I can tell. I don't know what to say other than that I will keep trying to invite other folks who have insulation within the current state of things to remove a bit of it. I recently went for an icy river dunk, and I was glad to have companions by my side. I've never once regretted jumping into cold water after the fact.
I just came across the documentary film about you Adam and the farm. I'm looking forward to reading more here. Your idea seems simple and complex at the same time. But, I have learned so much in the past several years about how to think more deeply beyond what seems so necessary on the surface. I had not realized that so much of this is just another strategy to get needs met. I am on a journey to uncover and learn to invest in what truly satisfies. When you say this, "If I share the extra from my garden with you, your capacity for memory becomes my savings account. I literally lay my life in your hands, and, by extension, in your mind and your heart" it sounds like you've discovered a way to move beyond just meeting needs for sustenance into meeting needs for belonging, partnership, and connection. It's beautiful really. Thank you for being willing to move in this world as if you actually belong to the one beyond. I feel encouraged to grow my capacity to do likewise.
I am internally indented to you for sharing your thoughts with us so random-giftily. I will not forget it. I will pass it on.
Stories collected along the way. Little gems of memory, of possibility returning. Passed along, again and again. Stories don't expire so long as they are carried and told.
If I read enough of your Substack posts, will I eventually garner the courage to let go of this capitalistic mess and take the trust fall?...one can hope. In the "mean" times, thank you for this ray of hope Adam.
If you read enough of these missives, I suspect that you will increasingly see the shift less and less like a fall. XxX
In my experience, there must be a fall. Without fear, which comes in to remind me of what's been lost on the daily, I get nervous that I am staying within the bounds of safety and security. But I have a sense that everyone is taking little trust falls every day---into relationships that have no interest payment other than trust. My work is to pick out these moments and hold them up, saying, 'Look, in our bones we know how to do this."
Thank you Adam.
Your words (I always listen and very much like to hear your voice) feed what should be fed. What we must feed. They feed me too.
There is such a deep loneliness, that we are living in now. And I don’t think there is another way then to understand again how much we are given. By the butternut squash, the lamb, the leaf - dropping trees that keep us warm with their wood … keep us housed too. By the deer, that feed us through their beauty and speed and strength, which we see … which I just saw this morning.
Thank you too for this. For this strange space where people meet, in this weird disembodied way, that despite the lack of actually meeting, offers some togetherness around what we have been given, around what we are given. That is great healing for the heart too. For me it is.
Thank you Adam.
Bless you and the flock that feeds you, Marko.
Thank you, Mr. Wilson.
I am grateful to know that this one landed on real ground somewhere.
I enjoy reading your super idealistic blog whenever it comes out. This one caused me to have some pretty strong visceral reactions. I started this morning with a memorable comment gleaned from a Guardian article. A man who was pretty much nomadic and living on very little income up until about age 50 says he discovered after getting a full-time permanent job how “money is an excellent insulator” and that the lack of money makes one very vulnerable. I have friends who in their early years of being settled down tried to live without the cash economy. When they had a child they realized they needed money for medical care and school and all the other necessities of raising a human being. I’m also curious at your resolve not to use your food for trade or barter. If you were managing numerous transactions such as the one with the welder, how would you keep it clear in your head to which people you needed to randomly gift food? The randomness of it makes me nervous even just thinking about it. And it only works as a garnish on it otherwise well remunerated life no? Thanks for the food for thought.
Hi Karen. Just a stranger here listening along. I understand your reactions. I recognize them in my own. For me (maybe not for you) the taste of that welling up against these longings here to be outside the walls of capital is maybe, if not fear itself, something bile-ish of similar elemental salts. It seems a matter of our training. What the steel-geared night laughs at as idealism or utopia is maybe the beaver’s first stick into the current. Long before dam, long before any rise in blessed water levels of our sheltering Sea-come-home there is just a single eddy, if that in the dwindling creek.
Dougald Hine suggests that the early signs of a world ending is when the future it once guaranteed no longer seems to hold any certainty at all. I think Camus was right when he suggested that utopia was anything in contradiction to reality. Both the end of money and the security of the future promised by money seem at odds with reality. The question is from which way is the wind now rising? Is it more idealistic to begin to live in a world beyond the one dying or to continue living tightly bound to promises whose fault lines open a bit more each day? I don’t know. I continue to bleed the hours of my life into work I find more and more without art and against so many of my dreams—wage-earning as they say—because I love my dear ones and because I, too, suffer from long stretches of periodic blight in my imagination of what might be. Yet there are moments, usually at dusk or dawn, when the light here is just right and I can see the bars of the cage, see the meadow through the empty keyhole and taste something not This. It is at those moments when the radio in the attic of my soul crackles a bit and a frequency briefly overcomes the static with music that is like a home I never knew. Elseway is Out There. At those moments, beneath that music, in that light, I begin to wonder, as I look again at the hinges rusted to bars on the cell, if that gate is actually locked. This station of Adam’s is a harmonic of that frequency. I meet you here and say I get your questions…but still…
I struggle at the juncture/crossroad you so eloquently describe Andrew. For me it feels like one of my feet is firmly planted in the dying capitalistic quagmire and the other foot is reaching for the raft of "what might/can be." Alas, this is no way to live but likely out of fear, pride, greed, and other sins, I haven't been able to place both feet in the raft as Adam has done. Instead I come to his Substack in the hopes of gleaning wisdom and gaining courage. Thank you for this comment Andrew, your way with words is always such strong medicine.
Respectfully, I don't think Adam has placed his feet in a " raft "( I definately understand though why one would phrase it like this). His feet are on solid ground. I see he is somebody living in reality. Struggling to do so in a time where there is a powerful, deep confusion instead of human culture. If we can shift the focus from having anthropocentric modern (....) life ( ? ) as a reference to the actual not human-made world we still live in and will always live in, a world that is bigger than us, ( if we can do so just a bit) it becomes clear that the anthropocene is the fictional raft... that obviously does not float. It does not belong to this world. Thats why it is so ugly.
Just to say that all of this (in my experience) is an impossible thing to do. Kind of. Impossible. To live in and navigate this insane colonial thing... as we have to ...while all while understanding that it is insane, made up, and going down, as it should. Pretending to forget while remembering ...sometimes too much for somebody like me.
It's good to hear your harmonic word-craft Andrew, your bone-deep longing spilled over in words.
The vulnerability that arises on the periphery of the story of management and control makes me nervous every day. Nearly six years in, I'm still alive. More assuredly so in the presence of those nerves, from what I can tell. I don't know what to say other than that I will keep trying to invite other folks who have insulation within the current state of things to remove a bit of it. I recently went for an icy river dunk, and I was glad to have companions by my side. I've never once regretted jumping into cold water after the fact.
I love how it shows that value isn’t just about money, it’s about the trust, care, and memory we build with each other.
It makes me wonder if I’m paying enough attention to the “dents” I leave in other people’s lives, and the ones left in mine.
It’s like learning to see generosity and effort as something that truly sticks, not just numbers in an account.
I just came across the documentary film about you Adam and the farm. I'm looking forward to reading more here. Your idea seems simple and complex at the same time. But, I have learned so much in the past several years about how to think more deeply beyond what seems so necessary on the surface. I had not realized that so much of this is just another strategy to get needs met. I am on a journey to uncover and learn to invest in what truly satisfies. When you say this, "If I share the extra from my garden with you, your capacity for memory becomes my savings account. I literally lay my life in your hands, and, by extension, in your mind and your heart" it sounds like you've discovered a way to move beyond just meeting needs for sustenance into meeting needs for belonging, partnership, and connection. It's beautiful really. Thank you for being willing to move in this world as if you actually belong to the one beyond. I feel encouraged to grow my capacity to do likewise.