#I love the CONCEPT of being handy and doing farm stuff but in practice I know nothing

[officialnaturalnatures-blog]

The Next Thing

The last two blog posts have spoken of the projects (the Farm and Tours) that NaturalNatures has planned for the future. Still, just because we have put those goals as something for the future, does not mean that we are not now working on them. It is important for any goal to start with the preparations and the work from the early moments of its conception.

Over the past year, I have been studying more Eastern philosophy and thought (seeing as I spent most of my educational career just looking at Western thinkers). While studying, I came across a passage from the I Ching, “Good people nurture character with fruitful action.” This got me wondering, what are the fruitful actions that we at NaturalNatures have been putting into the world to help realize our goals, and also what fruitful actions can I take to nurture a more loving character?

There may be some hippie vibes to come, so open up that mind with me as we consider how to better nurture those goals and character traits we wish to realize in each of our lives.

One of the biggest efforts (or fruitful actions) we have taken over the last year was the Great American Road Trip that Alex, Vlad, and I took together. This road trip was first just planned as a great escape from life before having to reengage with the world again upon our return. It turned into much more. We met people from all walks of life, and we learned the different struggles (be they financial, social, physical, or spiritual), as well as some fantastic successes (creation of a life off-grid after working as a miner, the persistence to bring food and friendship to refugees, living a life that the person had crafted). It was a trip that taught us about ourselves, our own limits, and what may be honorable goals for the future. I won’t go on about the road trip much longer. If you want to learn more about the lessons learned on the road, most of the other blog posts deal with that.

Since the formulation of the ideas for the Farm and Tours, we have taken further steps. A big one is just expanding our online presence (something that I honestly struggle with, I never was a big social media fan before, or technology fan really). But there is much more that goes into preparing for the future we have crafted. Of course, our resources are fairly limited at the moment, with two of us close to bankruptcy, and little in the way of reliable transportation. Sacrifices are part of the order to make a new reality in the world though, and there is still much that can and is being done.

As a student of the written word and mathematics, my first preparation for any task is research. This includes breaking down the resources that will be needed and calculating what funds would be needed to procure these resources (if you are curious as to the results of this research, you can check out the tables on our Help Us page). This may be the simplest of the research to be done, the other research deals with looking at the actual operation of the two goals themselves.

Thankfully, for the tours we have hours upon hours of hands-on research to turn to. The number of leave-no-trace campfires we have built, the countless meals we prepared on the road, and the large map resources as well as first-hand experience with traveling through all of the 48 contiguous United States, leaves us with a wealth of knowledge to draw from. It is the Farm that is taking more second-hand research.

Research for the farm has included reading a significant portion of Rodale’s All-New Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening. For being an encyclopedia, it is quite the enjoyable read, with lots of handy information regarding composting, creation of planting beds (whether they be raised or double-dug), the types of plants that would do well in the Colorado Rockies, disease, creating a full-functioning habitat, and much more. Another piece of the farm is the ability to be self-sustainable, and be green—both of these elements would be more easily accomplished if the Farm were to have its own ways of creating electricity for light, water pumps, and cooking (cooking over propane or an open fire is good and all, but it does release more carbon into the atmosphere than absolutely necessary). In order to prepare for working on creating renewable forms of electricity, I have been studying Practical Electronics: A Complete Introduction, and have been practicing the experiments that it lists in the book. We’ll be aided with the fact that Alex has many years’ experience in construction.

All of these are the tangible aspects of what goes into accomplishing our goals of creating a roughnecking tour company and a commune farm. Just as all goals have those tangible realities affixed to them, but then there are also the intangible parts of goals. Sometimes goals can be almost entirely intangible: show greater love to others, overcome negative thoughts, support my friends/family in better ways, etc.

The goals of the Farm and Tours come with their own intangible aspects. For the Tours, we want to be able to be a unifying force among those who are on the tour. This means learning to work well with others, to hear the concerns of others and work with them to overcome those concerns. It also means needing to understand how to diffuse conflict and help with the creation of new ways to overcome obstacles. We have all had the opportunity to work on these skills throughout our lives. Alex, Vlad, and I got an extra heavy dose when we took the road trip together. It is hard to speak for the others when it comes to the intangibles, so I will speak solely from my experience for the remainder of the post.

The particular difficulties that arise with a roughnecking tour company, I have had the opportunity to prepare for by having a supervisory role at a moving company for 3 and a half years, oftentimes being responsible for 6-8 guys at a time, and upwards of 15. Moving is hard work, just like living out of a tent and hiking every day is. Both cause vacillating emotions when the physical body grows tired. Those are reactions that I am able to sense and diffuse as they are developing.

Another item that will be important to both the Farm and the Tours is the effort to put another’s needs above one’s own. This is especially important to us, seeing as we don’t want these things for us, we want them for others. We don’t want to create the Tours or the Farm and then pick and choose who gets to be a part of them, we want to be able to open them both up to whomever may find interest in them. When it comes to skills to develop, this is a particularly difficult one. It involves inviting the people that are already in one’s life to ask you for help at any time, and being ready to give that assistance at the drop of a hat. It is work in its own way, work to put the lives of others before the life of the self.

I in no way claim to be perfect at this, or claim to ever be able to be perfect at it, but I am trying every single day to do better. Mostly it is done by action, with doing whatever any friend or family member may ask of me, but then there are also elements of study and searching involved, and this is where the hippie vibes come in.

Since I was a kid I have struggled with anger and depression. Neither of these attributes are good to have when it comes to being a person who hopes to provide a space of Love for others. It is a difficult thing to face and overcome one’s own shortcomings, but I’ve found some methods that I’m working on integrating into my life, so that the future I’m hoping to get to share with others can be realized.

This includes taking time for meditation. There are many ways to meditate, personally I like to be outside, and oftentimes I like to spend some of the time on my head, it requires that both my mind and body are synchronized. Sounds ridiculous, but it seems to help my personal head space, maybe it’s because my hard head needs some extra pressure to get the good stuff through. I also listen to the 528 HZ frequency while working during the day, this frequency is one known as the Love frequency, and helps me keep away frustration. On top of that, I also turn to study. Outside of the reference texts, I’m also reading Siddhartha and The Essential Confucius, two books of and about Eastern philosophy that focus on refining the self.

All of this may sound like very little, but I hope that it counts as fruitful action. For the ideal self and the goals we have made for the future are things we feel are worth putting fruitful action into. I hope that others will see and believe that there is reason to strive towards the goals of creating a new intentional community and a roughnecking tours company, because they are not goals that we wish to keep to ourselves, but rather goals we want to share.