Family Homesteads
Many people support the idea of a self-sufficient family homestead. Earlier this year, I wasn't sure it was true, so I visited Russia myself last August. To see how many villages have appeared there, to see how pure and intelligent the children are, how pleased the local governments are, how the idea has been nationalised in federal law, how it's pushed the national agriculture program towards biodynamic, organic and ecologically-clean production, how it's enabled their country to be self-sufficient and free from national debt, how it's brought them diplomatically closer with their neighbours in the East, how totally joyful the people are, especially in the villages but also in the cities... I have no doubt this is a growing phenomenon. It has unsurpassed potential to improve our lives.
A little plot of land, no more than a few acres. A modest little home that provides the basic needs of its family. Water, food, shelter, a clean place to sleep, an small income and interested visitors. A place where they live securely for generations in a row. Where children grow up in a beautiful, love-filled environment. Where grandparents and great-grandparents can rest easy, happy among the souls of their ancestors and descendants.
It's true that not everyone likes the idea. It makes some people angry. They say it's not possible. But the idea doesn't go away. I've seen it with my own eyes. The children who were conceived, born and raised on these homesteads aren't going to disappear. I think more people will like the concept once they see and feel it in practice. The economic flow of the planet, away from polluting industries and towards ecological cleanliness, suggests this kind of simple, natural settlement will become more popular in the future.
It's a very simple idea. A lovely piece of Earth where the family feels most at home, surrounded by familiar plants and pleasant memories. I think everyone should have the opportunity to create such a homeland. It's such a great pity that our country pays for nasty things like coal mines and aircraft carriers. I think maybe we could start creating homesteads instead, one by one, to stop consuming so much energy and start cultivating the earth again.
I count myself among those who are implementing that opportunity. For lack of a better word, we call ourselves the Vedruss. It refers to the prehistoric civilisations, descendants of Atlantis, who remember the dream of a harmonious planet Earth. Not everyone remembers, but some people do. It's really important that we work together to improve our strategy and actually realise some of the wonderful things we'd like to see.
The Homestead Act
Our current effort is to implement the Homestead Act in Australia and the United States. It is an act of parliament which provides a piece of land to any citizen who wants to grow food for their country. In Australia, it is part of the Australian Produce Train, a collection of infrastructure and agricultural policies to help us become the food bowl of Asia and develop our dry rural inland into a flourishing and pleasant place to live.
The government and media are not yet talking about the Australia Produce Train, but they will be. The Abbott government called it Inland Rail, a freight line from Melbourne to Brisbane, construction of which begins in 2016. Angus Taylor, the Liberal member for Hume where I intend to settle, published a report on the great potential of rail to increase our exports and revive our rural areas. Andrew Forrest, influential businessman, conducted the initial negations of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) designed to increase our export potential by eliminating tariffs, simplifying biosecurity (quarantine) requirements and introducing a graphic seal denoting Australia as the place of origin. He is now investing heavily in agricultural business in Western Australia, and has started talking about large-scale irrigation schemes to develop the land further. Gina Reinhart is also investing in agriculture, as are leading foreign investors in Australia. The policy and the funding is in place to greatly expand our rural capacity.
Yet at the highest levels, politicians and businesspeople are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to actually increase our exports. They're pouring money into GMO research, new irrigation schemes and advertising. They've funded community grants and prizes for local citizens. They've set up tax-free funds for farmers to put money away for bad years, and are trying to make finance (debt) more easily and cheaply available. Yet we cannot expect all the solutions to come from the top down, our busy politicians. We cannot sit around consuming information and without producing original ideas among ourselves.
The plan we are developing is to form a settlement of smallholder homesteads. Small farms to grow food for our nation. Family-sized farming enterprises, on a few acres each. Small enough that people can take close care of the soil, plants, animals, microbes, fungi, the whole ecosystem. Small enough that people can live among fellows, not isolated on large acreages. Large enough that they can grow a serious garden and produce a modest, family-sized surplus to contribute to the national supply.
It begins with a group of interested, dedicated people. Then we discuss the idea with local village associations. Then we present an amendment to change the Local Environmental Plan (LEP) to allow for 3-acre subdivisions with rights-of-way in between. My informal discussions with a planner at Goulburn Mulwaree council suggest it's likely to be possible within or adjacent to one of the existing towns in that area, Tarago, Taralgo, Laggan, Marulan, Bungonia, Binda and so on.
The standard of competency and dedication among our residents will be high. Not insulting, aggressive people partaking in fleshly desires and addictions, but disciplined, impressive individuals and families who can demonstrate knowledge and responsibility. Small towns and local councils are very keen to attract population and economic growth. Federally funded regional associations also have budget allocations to implement ideas that will enhance rural population and economy. Again, the policy is already in place to make this happen, it's up to us to rise to the occasion.
Practically every government publication, department and all major parties support increasing our agricultural output, improving soil quality and enhancing our rural society. The question is not so much whether this project will go ahead so much as when. The future of our country depends on the realisation of these targets. Quite simply, the cushion of resource-funded privilege will not last forever. The time is coming for us, as a nation, to turn our attention to primary production. It secures our future prosperity. Politicians and businesspeople know it.
Despite this intention, statistics indicate that our regional population is dwindling, the mining boom is closing, irrigation schemes are failing, farm debt is rising, property value is falling, salinity and erosion are increasing. How is Australia to become the food bowl of Asia like that? Here we enter with a simple idea: give a piece of land to anyone who wants to take care of it, grow food for their family, raise lovely intelligent children, and contribute everything they can to the national food supply of our country.
With the trial settlement, we aim to investigate and demonstrate what is possible in the Australian environment. It will have plots of at least 3-acres with rights-of-way in between. Water infrastructure is clearly a priority, and careful rainwater capture and grey water recycling likely a necessity. Ideally there will be a river nearby, yet this causes its own difficulties in times of flood. Nevertheless, all challenges can be overcome. The establishment of this kind of settlement is very important for the prosperity of our country. It allows sensitive, strong and intelligent people to think about land care, make scientific breakthroughs in horticulture, water and manufacturing. It relieves the pressure on urban infrastructure and increases our food supply.
In Russia, the Homestead Act now exists. It was drafted and introduced to the government by the coalition of pure villagers who founded their settlements following the plan in the Ringing Cedars. One hectare plots each surrounded by a hedge, separated by 4m lane ways, arranged around a central village green, with woods, rivers and lakes being held publicly. Any Russian citizen can now receive a hectare of land for their perpetual use, as long as they show they've been using it after 5 years. The program begins in the Far East region, as a way to promote development of those remote areas, which are cold in winter, warm in summer, plenty of water and ecologically pristine. The interactive website where citizens choose their future home lands is visible here: наДальнийВосток.рф. The name means, "To the Far East".
The Russians aim to produce all their own food by 2020 (coming up soon, isn't it?). Announced last week, they also intend to become the leading supplier of ecologically clean produce to the world. They have already banned GMOs, recognising value-markup and increasing demand for naturally-bred heirloom varieties. If we want to sell food to China, we've got some serious competition on our hands. The Russians are setting the standard very high, and their successful village settlements are a significant part of it. These settlements allow people to produce a wide variety of horticultural products with no irrigation or fertiliser. It costs the Treasury practically nothing to produce food like this. Labour is free, because the people are simply taking care of their own homes. There are no costly burdens like tractor subsidies, diesel imports, phosphorous, lime, farmer welfare, drought assistance, genetic research, or irrigation infrastructure. People are naturally inventive. We just need the opportunity to go forth and create, and a nod of support from the authorities.
The Russians have the successful experience of the dacha summer houses, quarter-acre allotments on the outskirts of cities which were given during Soviet times to many people, in order that they spend the four months of summer growing food which was preserved and stored in cellars so it would last as long as possible into the winter. In the 1990s, some crazily large proportion of potatoes were grown by individual families on their small dacha plots. One figure says 90%, I'm not sure if I can believe it. In any event, the effect of millions of small gardens has been noticeable on their national food supply and thus their leading policy for increasing agricultural production is to expand that system, now providing 2.5-acre plots in the Far East for people to grow food and establish a self-sufficient way of life. Providing land is a cheap way for the government to stimulate high-quality, ecologically pure produce.
If we want to excel in this international market, we should seriously consider providing similar opportunities here in Australia. Let anyone try, who is willing to walk onto a dry, dusty paddock and turn it into a productive garden. Homestead allotments cost the taxpayer practically nothing. We'll be asking for less than a hundredth of a percent of the total agriculture budget, a mere smidgin compared to the millions, even billions being poured into broad-acre agriculture programs, complex high-tech solutions, and anti-competition subsidies of industries which would otherwise be contracting and making way for more profitable and viable enterprises.
In 2015-6, Beef gets $161,248,000; Farmer welfare gets $117,430,000; Horticulture gets $86,396,000; Dairy gets $56,246,000; Wool gets $54,500,000; Chemicals get $31,721,000; Wine gets $30,843,000; and so on. Plus $216,931,000 for overall primary industries research. Take note where this investment is headed. Large-scale, generally monoculture, highly mechanised, high-debt, large farming enterprises dependent on annually bought patented seed stock, imported fertilisers, irrigation, fuel and machinery. It is not a viable path of development. The results are salinity, erosion, debt, pollution and poor-quality produce. It will not allow us to compete with high-quality producers in Russia or elsewhere. To establish a trial settlement, I recommend a budget of $1,000,000, with the leftovers to be returned or invested in a subsequent project.
Australia's competitive advantage rests in our intelligence (education), our ecological cleanliness, our huge land area, our strong credit rating, and healthy democratic system. It is madness to undermine our reputation as an ecologically pure producer and force farmers into further debt. We're not that poor. Australia should support individuals to use a little bit of land to create something of high quality. Actually I think will support that. It's just up to us to ask the right questions to the right people. With support and a working example, we aim to pass an act of federal parliament that provides this opportunity to any willing citizen: A plot of land to grow food for our nation. The Homestead Act.
Amid the innovation buzz of smooth-talking Turnbull, we might add that homesteads are the perfect place to experiment and develop better techniques for growing plants, building techniques, manufacturing as well as developing knowledge as historians, teachers and health-carers. The potential of this idea to enhance our country is unparalleled.
I would really love you guys to support this project, too. I hope we're not in an oppositional rut over the less important lifestyle issues. That was partly my bad for leading in with critique rather than presenting a positive idea first. Yet equally, criticism can be useful to refine and strengthen our views. I gladly welcome critique of this idea. I greatly value intellectual rigour and want to remove as many flaws as possible in these early stages. That which is false should fall away. It will. I'm not attached to any of these ideas, simply wishing to find what is best for all of us. As soon as a better idea comes along, I'll be on it.
I am totally committed to making Australia a wonderful place to live. I don't like being second best, I like to be the best. So I will do everything necessary to make sure Australia emerges into this new millennium as a prosperous, upstanding, responsible, clean, pleasant, honourable and friendly nation, with many lovely people, a thriving ecology, beautiful and useful gardens, and families that radiate happiness and joy. A centre of knowledge and learning, a prized destination for travellers and a quality of produce unsurpassed on the entire planet. That's the place I am going to raise my children, so my job is to create that before they can be born.
These smallholder farmers, free of debt or risk of dispossession, will feel confident to invest their time and energy into their homesteads. They will be a real hotbed of energy and life. Once gardens are established, we will have a solid mode of primary production. Significantly, it will be independent of imported products or finance. A truly Australian enterprise.
Vedrussiya
The village I visited in Russia is called Vedrussiya. It began fifteen years ago, and now has about 200 residents. Before they moved in, it was unused agricultural land. Irregular wheat fields, or meadows mown occasionally for hay. The rainfall is 750mm. Their wells are deep, about 20m in some places. There are a few springs around the area, with a dip pool and a dam to catch the runoff. It started with a bunch of people building the public house, which is now the village school. Then they chose plots nearby and started planting gardens and building houses. The local government loved the idea and helped them subdivide all the plots. Land is very cheap in Russia. A hectare plot in the village now costs about $5000. Back then, it would have been much, much cheaper. If they like you and you don't have enough money, you can still live there.
More people slowly began to join. They had gatherings on the weekends where everyone helped build the public building and camped out. It's only 30 minutes from Krasnodar, a city of more than a million people, with an international airport. They lived in tents while they built their houses. They watered their plants by hand or not at all. In August, there were so many tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, grapes and watermelons. The watermelons were the best, all the time there was someone cutting up another and giving pieces to anyone nearby. Old plum trees dripped with fruit all over the ground, and thickets of blackberries had started to take over the old fields. In one house, Kristina and Igor were preserving huge jars of tomatoes, and had many potatoes, beetroot, onions and turnips stored for the winter.
They live truly on the land. Each evening we danced barefoot on the dusty earth. It was the summer festival, after all. Traditional folk dances led by a Vedic Russ elder. A circle of partners, one man with one woman, many different dances and changing partners frequently. Each person aware of how to conceive children, and the importance of these traditional dances to find one's perfect soul match, comparing the feel of each partner so that everyone finds their perfect love.
I saw five homesteads. Each beautiful, interesting, humble, simple, extremely connected with the Earth. A special happiness, as if sun rays touched them extra gently. The couples with children particularly radiant. The mother and father so incredibly in love with each other, it melted my heart. They'd built the house together, tended the garden together, conceived their little daughter there, given birth to her together in the house. Dimitri told me in Russian, "I took her from the water myself." They spoke very little English, only a few people who helped by translating.
Dima's garden had plenty of watermelons and tomatoes. There were fruit trees but the apples were still small. A nut orchard hadn't yet matured, still saplings. Plenty of grapes, too, and very delicious blackberries. I'm not sure about vegetables. He said if he had enough water to wet the plants, he'd be a millionaire farmer by now. Instead they only get enough water for the house and the family. He makes his little money by giving tours to the nearby dolmens, large stone structures from Vedruss times. Inside the dolmen, a person would go before their death, and have the stone cover placed over them. They meditated their soul in and out of their body many times as they died, preserving themselves eternally in that place, to transmit information to people who came and listened.
It was a very powerful feeling being at the village. It was the loveliest thing I'd ever seen. The most beautiful women and men, the most intelligent children. Such a free-thinking, civilised and healthy place. But at the same time there was a deep discomfort and foreboding rising within me. Because I could tell, even so far away, how remote Australia is from such a way of life. I woke every morning with the sunrise, exercised, bathed in cold water, wandered in the fields picking berries and thinking to myself, "What is the most important thing to take back to my people in Australia?"
Simply, it is the idea of the Family Homestead. This self-sufficient plot of land. Creating that quality of garden around us is the most important thing.
But it's also the concept of Family, the true and full meaning of this word. In Russian, the family homestead is called родоое поместье, rodovoye pomestye. The people said that phrase very often, it was one of those that I recognised when I heard it. They referred to each of their homes as a rodovoye pomestye. Literally it means something like "Place of Eternal Family". Род, rod, is translated as family, stock, sort, clan, kin, kind, ancestry and similar words. It's meaning is somewhere in among there. I asked a few of the villagers what it meant and their answer was rather interesting. I heard the same thing from two different people, that "Rod" in ancient times was the name for God, that this connection between ancestors all the way back to the origins of humanity, and then forward through us in the present moment to all our descendants in the eternal future, this connection was synonymous with the Creator. The Family Line is what creates life, what creates worlds, the supreme force of the universe. The birth of a human and the birth of the universe are the same thing. The Big Bang is a metaphor.
There's a video where they asked me how I liked the festival, as feedback for other people who might like to come. I didn't want to appear on the video because I was feeling grumpy at the time. I couldn't help being kind of mad that these guys were excelling so splendidly at life, and meanwhile back in Australia, even the very best ecovillage and regenerative movements were arguing, bickering, poisoning themselves and fornicating all their vital energy into oblivion. I was having a little tantrum at the universe knowing the challenge that lay ahead of me. Look at how I am if you like. It's here, youtu.be/PTarCuic9po?t=8m50s. What did I say? "You can't stop this thing. We have to stop wasting our time, and start building these things ourselves."
The Ringing Cedars
The Ringing Cedars series is fiction, that is definitely true. The Americans even translated the title incorrectly, since the Siberian pine is a pine tree, not a cedar. The Russians all acknowledge it as a fictional series, the villagers who campaigned for the Russian Homestead Act, as well as the people who left their polluting technocratic jobs to plant gardens, build houses, conceive pure children and found entire villages based on the ideas in the books. In the seventh book, the author includes his letter to the President in which he calls it a "fictional series of books".
Fiction is reality that hasn't happened yet. The Harbour Bridge was fiction until people decided to build it. They wrote about it, they drew it, and then they built it. Australia was a fiction for centuries before it was mapped. New South Wales was a fiction before Arthur Phillip arrived with his Union Jack. They talked about it for years in the British parliament before deciding to go for it. A whole bunch of convicts were almost sent to Africa. Then James Matra, the exiled American loyalist, wrote a fanciful proposal to settle the East coast of Australia, develop primary industries and create a military outpost of the British empire. It caught the attention of the politicians, and the proposal was carried through into reality, but not as he'd planned. New South Wales was to be a penal colony, instead of the new land of opportunity with large land grants for him and his friends, as requested.
These things are obvious, but important to keep in mind when considering ideas about our future. The Ringing Cedars offer a series of fairy tales about a possible future. There's a profound simplicity and beauty to them. Anastasia, the main character of the Ringing Cedars, presents an image about the future of the planet where life improves for every person, where there is far more love, more joy, more freedom. Where plants and animals thrive and humans exist as supreme beings in their natural homelands. All the stories end with the boy and girl falling in love, creating a wonderful home, getting married, having children and growing more and more beautiful with every passing year.
The Ringing Cedars aren't a design schematic or policy proposal. They're written like novels. But it doesn't mean we can't replicate thes nice aspects of them in real life. The novels inspired real policies like the one that recently passed in Russia. The fanciful stories present a possibility. If people like the ideas, they might just become real. Thriving rural villages, parents who love each other very much, children who grow up without financial burdens or toxic environments, free to improve themselves and enjoy a perfect natural environment. The end of polluting industries, the end of wars. All up, the completion of our planet as a flourishing garden home, with more love and more joy.
They're basically fairy tales. But who ever said fairy tales aren't important to shape the character and culture of a society? I, for one, am convinced by what I saw in Russia. It was a more pleasant environment than anywhere I've ever been before. I can't be satisfied until I create something just as lovely over here.
History Re-written
In the Ringing Cedars, there are also many stories about the past, describing the origin of money, the building of the pyramids, and descriptions of an entire civilisation that has been wiped from the historical record. I classify these stories alongside other oral or folk ethnographies, and subject them to the same level of cross-referencing, logical deduction and the consultation of my intuition.
A reality we must cope with is that many written records have been lost. Many of them were burned in infamous library purges, such as the one by the Romans at Alexandria. All subsequent literature has been subject to the censorship and selective publication of the ruling parties. When studying ancient cultures, one must therefore learn to cross reference many different sources and employ a large degree of logical, practical thinking. People in ancient times experienced the same feelings and emotions we do today, clear from a plethora of stories detailing love, joy, sadness, friendship, anger, vengeance, alliance, forgiveness and so on. So we can imagine how interactions took place. Therefore we can piece together some of this history using our rational thought.
I am yet to find any information that contradicts what Vladimir says Anastasia says about Vedruss history. Quite to the contrary, those stories successfully explain many discrepancies in the archaeological record and concurs with oral histories I've heard first hand, preserved by people loyal to their ancestors and the continuation of knowledge for their descendants.
The story about humans as barbaric cave dwellers refers to some, but not all, of the human population. In the long history of humanity there have been several global catastrophes where many societies lost much of their population and livelihood. Geologists record these as ice ages, climate changes, tsunamis and so on. They are recorded in some old maps and carvings, but people sometimes doubt the authenticity of those sources. It can also be traced by ice-core samples and rock analysis, as well as carbon dating for organic material. These techniques also have their limitations, and are not always accurate. Piecing together the true stories requires cross-referencing of many different trusted sources to see how they are compatible. Which do people trust more? A scientist funded by a commercial entity with vested interest, reliant on a tenured income to pay off his mortgage? Or a respected tribesman of a remote population, staunchly loyal to the preservation of their people's history? I'm not convinced either way. I put all the stories side by side and see how the fit together.
Multiple primary sources
Unlike the previous commenter, I don't use television as my source of history. My main sources are fieldwork and ethnography conducted by myself or trusted scholars, some of whom are employed by universities, and some of whom are not. Most of my fieldwork is undocumented and will never be published. I didn't get signed permission slips from my anthropological "informants". Instead I became friends with people, shared in their missions, and participated in their favourite activities. My most useful friendships were with people from the Hopi, the Putomayo, the Maya, the Warlpiri, Arabunna, Papua and Siberia. I met them during my time at university and afterwards. Some of this fieldwork was sponsored and reported to my professors, the rest was "off the record" and proved to be by far more effective and interesting at gleaning useful information about the origins of man.
I searched for things to help my people in Australia. I sensed from an early age that something was wrong, and I travelled to the corners of the globe to piece together what had happened and why. It's clear to me that we exist on the very tip of a long and degenerate history, and have suffered extraordinarily by leaving our ancestral lands. (Mine are in the British Isles and Northern Europe.) We're still coping with our arrival here in Australia. We've forgotten the importance of the family line, the link between ancestors and descendants, and how to live self-sufficiently in little village settlements.
Most other places still remember the village. Many folks in Russia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and South America grew up in villages, or had parents and grandparents who did. It means that when individuals in that society decide they want to return to the land, become self-sufficient, cultivate a garden and raise a family, there's an established culture to support them. Local councils don't have a problem with people building their own houses or settling nearby one another. In Australia, unfortunately, local councils have this idea of individual houses on enormous properties, based on the early pastoral settlements. It makes it really difficult for people to move to the countryside when they want to grow a garden. It's produced complex half-measures like rural landshares and multiple occupancy, as well as significant stress among urban people who are unable to escape and realise the eminently practical ambition of growing their own food and contributing their surplus to society.
Some of the friends I made have unbroken family lines going back millions of years, migrating only to avoid huge natural disasters. I mean they retained their culture and their stories. My family lost ours when we took up Christianity in the British Isles, for example. Their history is much older than most of the tribes that Cook, Phillip and the other British explorers found here, though I have a feeling that several Australian groups have memory going much, much further back than we currently realise. It's a little inconvenient to the Anthro 1001 introduction course about 60,000 years of history, homo erectus morphing into homo sapiens, and so on. But it's hard to alter that story now that so many people have built careers and theses taking it as a foregone conclusion. Unfortunately, inconvenient truths tend to be ignored. Whatever happened to curiosity and academic integrity? One needs to keep tenure to pay off that mortgage, and still enjoy tipples and nibbles. Don't want to rock the boat. Yet a moment's rational thought will show that the hundreds of thousands of seemingly impossible megalithic structures around the world were not build by violent, wandering cave men.
Natural disasters
It takes time to establish a clear story. One has to cross-reference many different sources, examine any ulterior motives, and assess character and integrity. I am of course also subject to this scrutiny, which is why I am so clear about my motives and open about my projects and aspirations.
I first heard about successive global catastrophes in the context of the Pueblo civilisations of North America, in a university class on pre-Columbian history. During gigantic natural disasters, these people climbed into their underground public halls, called Kivas. They spent some time down there, only emerging when the outside was safe. It seems they sometimes went without food or water, and sometimes only a few people survived. The events killed every one else above the ground, and each time led to a "new world". The Pueblo counted back five times at least, and dated these events roughly corresponding to the last few climatic changes. My professor had more in his slides than is available on the Internet, but you can find some info by searching about grandmother spider emergence myth. There are many other creation stories like this from around the world. I learnt a lot from comparative mythology studies like Joseph Campbell, Francis Huxley and Graham Hancock. Like Megre, these guys sometimes wrote their stories as fictional accounts, tales or novels.
Nevertheless they correspond in parts to real events. The most recent period of rapid climate change is called the Younger Dryas (11,600 years ago), and was accompanied by large water movements, volcanic activity, ice melts and freezes over a 20 year period. Ice core samples show a 10 degree warming in Greenland in a decade. There is no single correct story available on the internet about what exactly the causes and effects of this period were. There are several ideas and most of them are compatible with each other, all suggesting that many areas became unviable to live, were flooded or frozen, and dislodged any people living there.
But these effects didn't touch every part of the world. Secluded, protected zones like the deep forests of Siberia, the Amazon, the Tibetan highlands, the Guatemayan highlands, and the inland deserts of Australia and the Americas, have large natural buffers from ocean movements, providing certain safe havens from climatic threat. Some people were able to forecast the changes and therefore lead their people to safety.
I heard the Pueblo story, it sounded interesting but was a bit hard to fully comprehend. None of us in the class, nor the professor, was really able to conceive what these stories actually referred to. Then I heard the Great Earth Shaking story. My interest renewed. It was written down in the 1950s at a mission in Western Australia by a woman called Elizabeth Durack. It is told by Indil, son of Bundich and I will reproduce it verbatim here:
"A very long time ago, the people lived in this land and there was a great plenty. But since the great earth shaking, which they say happened according to traditional legends handed down from generation to generation, the whole face of the country underwent a great change in appearance. Where there will hills before the great shaking there were now plains. Where there had been plains, they had become hills.
"Also, after this great shaking there were fearful rushes of a great wind, accompanied by smoke and dust. These lasted some considerable time, perhaps a day and a night, or even longer. The men, women and children were in a bad way because of the foul air, in fact lots of them died from the effects. Then, all of a sudden a very strong wind came and revived all those who had survived, blowing away the foul air and smoke.
"All of a sudden, there was a great shock a several claps of thunder, and great waters rushed all over the land. The remnants of the people and the animals were on the high ground, and so escaped the big water. After a little while, the strange big water rushed back, and left stranded large quantities of fish, many of which they had never seen before, jumping all over the land below, the elevated ground on which the stood. Now that this great big lot of big water had gone back, they all went down from the elevated ground, gathered as many of the stranded fish that they could carry, and took them back onto the high ground, made a fire, cooked them and made a good feed. For this they were really pleased, as food was not easy to get after the upset the country had experienced.
"There was one thing that puzzled them greatly, and Indil insisted on this. That was, that the sun did not rise and set in the same direction as it did before. Instead of rising in the North and setting in the South, which he swore it did, according to what he'd been told by his elders, it now rose East and set West." Two sources. Add the Torah, with its garden of Eden followed by a flood, and we have three ancient sources concurring.
Then I met the Guatemayan highlanders (different to the classic-period Mayans, a short-lived group around 900AD). They talked about six worlds, and how 21/12/2012 is the threshold of a new one. They mentioned that this world has been overtaken by a hypnotic trance, and that the prevalent destructive behaviour must come to an end. They said the world population rose and fell in cycles, but that we would not be dying out this time, instead entering a new era of harmony and planetary prosperity. They showed us techniques for personal health and meditation to help us think more clearly. At that point I had four independent sources.
Then I met a man from the Putomayo, one of the most intact Amazon tribes. And everything concurred again. His singular message was that a critical turning point has occurred, we have escaped catastrophe, and a planetary harmony is now possible where we live as brothers and sisters, mindful of the link between our ancestors and descendants. He demonstrated techniques to access our intuitive memory, to move through time and space with our thoughts, feelings and emotions, in order to understand a lot of information very, very fast. He was the most adept telepathic communicator I've encountered so far. And he confirmed all the information of the others.
These people are super interesting because they lived for so long outside technocratic society. They don't hold all the answers on their own, none of us do. But they offer a critical counterpoint to Western orthodoxy that is really useful to gain a bit of self-awareness. These isolated pockets of civilisation retained the knowledge of former ages, through meticulous preservation of stories from generation to generation. Some individuals remember the civilisations called Atlantis, the one called Lemuria, the one called Mu. The ones that built enormous structures in the Andes, at Arkhaim and elsewhere. Not all the individuals. But some of them.
Recreating the world
At each global catastrophe, most of the human population died. Yet the ones who forecast it, or lived in protected areas, managed to survive. These people emerged from their safe houses, preserving to a greater or lesser extent the memory of what had preceded the catastrophe. Some of them travelled through the world to sow the seeds of civilisation again, in an attempt to complete the dream of a flourishing planet. Among the scattered remnants of human society, they shared seeds, ideas and stories.
The locals saw them as super humans, sometimes erroneously attributing them to extraterrestrials. They spawned followings, Krishna, Shiva, Vishnu, Zeus, Athena, Thor, Enlil, Enki, Bunjil, Baiame, all the pantheons of polytheist tribes. They were recorded in artefacts, inscriptions and religions as creator gods, culture heroes, or primordial beings. Artefacts like Father Crespi's Ecuadorian gold tablets and the Olmec heads. Even a story from one South Australian tribe that describes a blonde-haired goddess in whose footsteps sprung flowers and herbs, written from an oral account in the early 1900s. We can imagine how these interactions went down.
Here is a group of people who had lived through the Great Earth Shaking. They've suffered an extraordinary trauma, brain damage from several days of unconsciousness, lost almost all their relatives, their land, and practically the whole natural environment. They wander a barren landscape looking for meat and fresh water, as grasses and prickly shrubs began to take hold and slowly regenerate the soil. They wear animal pelts or cloths of woven grass. There is not enough timber to build many structures, or to fire forges for metal. Without much shade, their skin gradually darkens, adapting to the sunlight.
One day, there arrives a group of people tall and slim, with pale skin. Their hair is long a wavy, the men with large beards and moustaches. They are woodland people whose melanin is not used to prolonged sun. They have travel in large wooden boats with sails of hemp and flax, often for several years at a time. Their mission is one of discovery and diplomacy. They wear cloths of tightly woven fabric, embroidered with fanciful, colourful designs. They eat the young shoots and roots of shrubs, and produce dried berries, nuts and mushrooms from pouches of woven cord. They delight in fresh water, especially from springs. They sing joyful songs about their journey and play on wooden flutes. The locals—astonished by their sudden appearance—join in the singing.
The visitors carry other fascinating goods. Pressed plant oil is a particular favourite. Several artefacts are exchanged, to be found ages later by archaelogists and recorded as the results of trade. Most fascinating, however, are the seeds of rare and useful plants that are given to the locals, along with instructions about how to make them grow.
These strange visitors were born and grew up in an abundant natural environment, with plenty to eat and drink. They had lots of free time to think and learn, develop skills and travel throughout the world, the descendants of Atlantis. Parties travelled to many different places. They built structures to demonstrate techniques. They combined physical dexterity with mental focus to produce impressive megaliths.
The Vision Council
After meeting these individuals, I was invited to a series of three conferences which gathered such ambassadors from many different traditions to share information and establish a common Earth-wide history. These were big moments, because suddenly I had dozens of independent sources all agreeing on several key points.
Humanity once existed in a pristine, beautiful state. Then we fell under the spell of malicious people, who manipulated us and caused a lot of destruction throughout the world, almost bringing it to complete collapse. They built temples, initiated secretive orders and followings, instigating massive inter-generational hypnosis and taking us away from nature. Once the programs were unleashed, there was a chaotic ripple effect. Being thus able to forecast the future, the ones who originated these behaviours only needed to tweak them here and there, in order to control huge populations.
Such imbalance ought to have brought our downfall, but nonetheless here we still are. Something has balanced the destructive tendency with an equal and opposite force of creation. Unlike the previous several worlds, we seem to have escaped the catastrophe this time unscathed. Something profound has happened. That is the practically universal message from all of my friends. We now have the opportunity to complete our planet.
I trust my sources because they demonstrate a clear loyalty to their ancestors and their descendants. They talk about how to create a harmonious society, how to stay individually healthy, how to be a responsible father, mother and member of the community. They are sure that they belong here on the Earth, they feel happy and comfortable on this planet, and enjoy nature immensely. They acknowledge the wayward behaviour of most people. They don't insult, or display self-importance. They are willing to sacrifice every material possession for the integrity of their history and purpose.
The message is to share all this information with whoever may benefit from it. We are all to compare notes and harmonise the discrepancies. It's why I go to the trouble of typing out a long message like this one, because it's important for us to understand our history as a human civilisation. I welcome new information that you have gathered. Together we'll put it under scrutiny and decide whether it changes the story or not. I'm interested in truth, not attached to what I currently understand. Let's be very clear however that the personal derision of me is of no use to anybody, neither is it particularly useful simply to say you don't believe something and therefore it's not true. We're not operating in the realm of belief here, but of practical, demonstrable facts.
One difficult hurdle to cross is to understand that the television specials, the childhood storybooks or primary school geography about ooga booga cave men are not accurate. It's a simplification which doesn't take into account the full scope of human history. That's not a problem until you get people later in life getting angry about new information which adds more elements to the story. We're comfortable with the Egyptian pyramids, but not the hundred thousand equivalent megaliths in practically every country of the world, including underwater and in now uninhabitable places. It's gotten to the point where there are now people occupying university chairs who just ignore new archaeological information as it arises. These new discoveries don't actually invalidate their own work, yet still attract derision. They are victims of Pride.
Of course I've copped my fair share of this and have had to get used to it. I strategise about how to share this information, but can't always avoid feeling like a bull in a china shop. I mean, I went pretty far from my hometown of Sydney and gathered some pretty obscure information compared to straightforward Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking technological culture.
I was 22 years old at university in New York City, scarcely in contact with anyone in Australia. I spoke to my father once a week or so, and that was all. I'd made a Facebook account a few months prior, but didn't have many connections there. Some of my friends in Brooklyn were going to Burning Man and before that, a conference in Mexico. We'd been hosting workshops and ayahuasca ceremonies with medicine people from north and south america, and India.
One of them tells me I should definitely go to the conference in Mexico, it's really important to have an Australian person there. I tell all my professors I'll be gone for a week and get on a plane to Mexico City. I catch a bus for four hours outside the city, then walk up the main street of this small town, buy a tarpaulin to sleep under and a cup of fermented corn drink. I ask a man where Temictla is and he drives me in the back of his ute another 30 minutes out of this small town. He drops his children off at his place, and I get into the cabin where we start chatting. He's never met an Australian before.
The next day the conference opens, with about 200 people around a gigantic fireplace. There are many ornate outfits, handwoven and feathered, as well as several large conch shells, which are joyously blown together in a scintillating harmony. Delegates from various nations are invited to come forward and give their reflections on their journey. I, too, am invited, and given a feather to hold. It must have been almost two feet long. I speak in Spanish, and repeat the words of my Arabunna friend who'd been meditating in the central desert for years to prepare a message for the world. I say we're all together in our appreciation of the Earth, and that all people are connected, even across vast oceans.
The weeklong conference begins, with many fruitful interactions. We plant seeds, celebrate traditional dances, handcrafts, and enjoy vegetarian food. There is a council of nations where we sit around and talk at greater length about what's happening in each of our countries. A collective image forms about a way of life suitable for every tradition and every culture. It is based in the Earth, with no person controlling or coercing any other. Plants are food, animals are friends. People are equal, and money is false. There was a group of film-makers there who included some footage in their video here vimeo.com/81271573
Obviously without being able to address every doubt and query of everyone reading this, suffice to say that it's not all coming from the Ringing Cedars.
Homecoming
I probably should be less critical of what you guys are doing. I was trained at university in an atmosphere of scathing critique, where we had to revise our views by the minute to take a new viewpoint into account. Coming from many different countries and backgrounds, we exchanged with facts, trying to avoid rhetorical flourish. It might not be pleasant but it's rigorous and inspired by a serious search for the truth. In anthropology, the big difficulty was to make rational conclusions without relying on written sources. Original ethnography is like a flickering apparition, one relies on feelings and a huge amount of independent calculation and thought to determine its value or its truth.
In this age of technological distraction, independent thought is sometimes hard to come by. It makes one wonder, why is it so difficult to find a quiet place to think? There always seems to be some obligation, debt, requirement or regulation to attend to in the name of technological advancement and development. It prevents us from asking the most basic question in the first place. Is technological development really what we want? I am quite sure that living things are the solution to many of our problems. I mean plants, animals, fungi, microbes, insects and so on. Observing and existing in close contact with living things helps us think clearly. Metal, stone, cement, asphalt, plastic not so much.
I was attracted to the fields of permaculture and regenerative agriculture because they seem to have a similar goal to me. I prefer these circles because the people have real experience living on the land, with plants and animals. I don't like the Eco Kin's group that the other fellow posted a few days ago. They are more high-minded and outspoken, with little practical experience.
Now, after a few years of research and fieldwork in Australia, I'm delivering my findings which are not without their criticisms. I was aware of your work in this field, and I stand by my comments that there has been no change in policy, or significant social or economic shift as a result. If you offer some specific examples, I will of course include them in my research. I would love to see specific positive examples.
At this point, however, my reading of many government documents indicates the main strategy for developing rural areas is currently focused on increasing debt, chemicals, irrigation, and subsidies, with practically no reference to any regenerative techniques, or creating the conditions for love to flourish in families. The notable exception I have found so far is a program in the Southern NSW rural development body to enhance farm diversity. Maybe you have something to do with that, it sounds great. The government documents also use the word "sustainable" fairly often, which I take as a positive indication that they are interested, theoretically, in a more natural approach.
I really don't mean to offend you. My intention is to improve Australia, and I think yours is, too. I'm a little concerned about the commenters' reluctance to accept criticism and quickness to attack me rather than the ideas, but I think we can overcome this and cultivate a useful mode of communication. Please include specific examples in your response that can contribute to our collective research and understanding. Obviously I come from a anthropology background, so I prefer terms like grazing in the woods rather than "silvopasture", but I know how to look up words so it doesn't bother me much.
I'm a little concerned at the general low standard of behaviour in this country. Our parliament is a shameful example. I cannot fathom those bickering, childish people are actually directing the development of this country. It's clear we have to put a better idea together ourselves. The best idea I've found is to give a piece of land to anyone who wants to grow food and a family. I say again, I welcome criticism of this idea, so we can refine and perfect it.
It's probably better if we can find a functioning relation of critique and intellectual discussion. It seems we all aspire to influence the development of our country, to reduce degradation and establish protocols, policies and examples of regenerative techniques. Maybe we can strengthen each other's ideas by sharing information.
Creating the future
The purity of one's ambition determines its likelihood to come true. The ambition to grow a garden, build a house, and raise children in a loving, comfortable, naturally self sufficient environment is a very pure one. And very simple. It's eminently possible and doesn't hurt anyone. It benefits our country very much, of course looking after the soil, and also making pleasant communities, ensuring our national security, and most importantly, raising the next generation to be far more adept, healthy and intelligent. This is my main motivation, to make this possible for myself and others. I will do whatever is most useful to provide this opportunity and bring it closer to the present moment.
Final note, the Commonwealth of Australia was a fiction until the states agreed to federate. The discussion about the future of our nation occupied several years of business and politics. Famously, Western Australia joined at the last minute, and New Zealand pulled out. Legislation must be the most fantastic example of fiction that becomes reality. We design something, talk about it, write it down in a special book, and then it happens in real life.
But the Commonwealth of Australia Act 1900 (UK) didn't all come true. New Zealand still appears in the text. So what's the status of that? I would take them as a state if they wanted it. Maybe in the future...
Many people support the idea of a self-sufficient family homestead. Earlier this year, I wasn't sure it was true, so I visited Russia myself last August. To see how many villages have appeared there, to see how pure and intelligent the children are, how pleased the local governments are, how the idea has been nationalised in federal law, how it's pushed the national agriculture program towards biodynamic, organic and ecologically-clean production, how it's enabled their country to be self-sufficient and free from national debt, how it's brought them diplomatically closer with their neighbours in the East, how totally joyful the people are, especially in the villages but also in the cities... I have no doubt this is a growing phenomenon. It has unsurpassed potential to improve our lives.
A little plot of land, no more than a few acres. A modest little home that provides the basic needs of its family. Water, food, shelter, a clean place to sleep, an small income and interested visitors. A place where they live securely for generations in a row. Where children grow up in a beautiful, love-filled environment. Where grandparents and great-grandparents can rest easy, happy among the souls of their ancestors and descendants.
It's true that not everyone likes the idea. It makes some people angry. They say it's not possible. But the idea doesn't go away. I've seen it with my own eyes. The children who were conceived, born and raised on these homesteads aren't going to disappear. I think more people will like the concept once they see and feel it in practice. The economic flow of the planet, away from polluting industries and towards ecological cleanliness, suggests this kind of simple, natural settlement will become more popular in the future.
It's a very simple idea. A lovely piece of Earth where the family feels most at home, surrounded by familiar plants and pleasant memories. I think everyone should have the opportunity to create such a homeland. It's such a great pity that our country pays for nasty things like coal mines and aircraft carriers. I think maybe we could start creating homesteads instead, one by one, to stop consuming so much energy and start cultivating the earth again.
I count myself among those who are implementing that opportunity. For lack of a better word, we call ourselves the Vedruss. It refers to the prehistoric civilisations, descendants of Atlantis, who remember the dream of a harmonious planet Earth. Not everyone remembers, but some people do. It's really important that we work together to improve our strategy and actually realise some of the wonderful things we'd like to see.
The Homestead Act
Our current effort is to implement the Homestead Act in Australia and the United States. It is an act of parliament which provides a piece of land to any citizen who wants to grow food for their country. In Australia, it is part of the Australian Produce Train, a collection of infrastructure and agricultural policies to help us become the food bowl of Asia and develop our dry rural inland into a flourishing and pleasant place to live.
The government and media are not yet talking about the Australia Produce Train, but they will be. The Abbott government called it Inland Rail, a freight line from Melbourne to Brisbane, construction of which begins in 2016. Angus Taylor, the Liberal member for Hume where I intend to settle, published a report on the great potential of rail to increase our exports and revive our rural areas. Andrew Forrest, influential businessman, conducted the initial negations of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) designed to increase our export potential by eliminating tariffs, simplifying biosecurity (quarantine) requirements and introducing a graphic seal denoting Australia as the place of origin. He is now investing heavily in agricultural business in Western Australia, and has started talking about large-scale irrigation schemes to develop the land further. Gina Reinhart is also investing in agriculture, as are leading foreign investors in Australia. The policy and the funding is in place to greatly expand our rural capacity.
Yet at the highest levels, politicians and businesspeople are scratching their heads trying to figure out how to actually increase our exports. They're pouring money into GMO research, new irrigation schemes and advertising. They've funded community grants and prizes for local citizens. They've set up tax-free funds for farmers to put money away for bad years, and are trying to make finance (debt) more easily and cheaply available. Yet we cannot expect all the solutions to come from the top down, our busy politicians. We cannot sit around consuming information and without producing original ideas among ourselves.
The plan we are developing is to form a settlement of smallholder homesteads. Small farms to grow food for our nation. Family-sized farming enterprises, on a few acres each. Small enough that people can take close care of the soil, plants, animals, microbes, fungi, the whole ecosystem. Small enough that people can live among fellows, not isolated on large acreages. Large enough that they can grow a serious garden and produce a modest, family-sized surplus to contribute to the national supply.
It begins with a group of interested, dedicated people. Then we discuss the idea with local village associations. Then we present an amendment to change the Local Environmental Plan (LEP) to allow for 3-acre subdivisions with rights-of-way in between. My informal discussions with a planner at Goulburn Mulwaree council suggest it's likely to be possible within or adjacent to one of the existing towns in that area, Tarago, Taralgo, Laggan, Marulan, Bungonia, Binda and so on.
The standard of competency and dedication among our residents will be high. Not insulting, aggressive people partaking in fleshly desires and addictions, but disciplined, impressive individuals and families who can demonstrate knowledge and responsibility. Small towns and local councils are very keen to attract population and economic growth. Federally funded regional associations also have budget allocations to implement ideas that will enhance rural population and economy. Again, the policy is already in place to make this happen, it's up to us to rise to the occasion.
Practically every government publication, department and all major parties support increasing our agricultural output, improving soil quality and enhancing our rural society. The question is not so much whether this project will go ahead so much as when. The future of our country depends on the realisation of these targets. Quite simply, the cushion of resource-funded privilege will not last forever. The time is coming for us, as a nation, to turn our attention to primary production. It secures our future prosperity. Politicians and businesspeople know it.
Despite this intention, statistics indicate that our regional population is dwindling, the mining boom is closing, irrigation schemes are failing, farm debt is rising, property value is falling, salinity and erosion are increasing. How is Australia to become the food bowl of Asia like that? Here we enter with a simple idea: give a piece of land to anyone who wants to take care of it, grow food for their family, raise lovely intelligent children, and contribute everything they can to the national food supply of our country.
With the trial settlement, we aim to investigate and demonstrate what is possible in the Australian environment. It will have plots of at least 3-acres with rights-of-way in between. Water infrastructure is clearly a priority, and careful rainwater capture and grey water recycling likely a necessity. Ideally there will be a river nearby, yet this causes its own difficulties in times of flood. Nevertheless, all challenges can be overcome. The establishment of this kind of settlement is very important for the prosperity of our country. It allows sensitive, strong and intelligent people to think about land care, make scientific breakthroughs in horticulture, water and manufacturing. It relieves the pressure on urban infrastructure and increases our food supply.
In Russia, the Homestead Act now exists. It was drafted and introduced to the government by the coalition of pure villagers who founded their settlements following the plan in the Ringing Cedars. One hectare plots each surrounded by a hedge, separated by 4m lane ways, arranged around a central village green, with woods, rivers and lakes being held publicly. Any Russian citizen can now receive a hectare of land for their perpetual use, as long as they show they've been using it after 5 years. The program begins in the Far East region, as a way to promote development of those remote areas, which are cold in winter, warm in summer, plenty of water and ecologically pristine. The interactive website where citizens choose their future home lands is visible here: наДальнийВосток.рф. The name means, "To the Far East".
The Russians aim to produce all their own food by 2020 (coming up soon, isn't it?). Announced last week, they also intend to become the leading supplier of ecologically clean produce to the world. They have already banned GMOs, recognising value-markup and increasing demand for naturally-bred heirloom varieties. If we want to sell food to China, we've got some serious competition on our hands. The Russians are setting the standard very high, and their successful village settlements are a significant part of it. These settlements allow people to produce a wide variety of horticultural products with no irrigation or fertiliser. It costs the Treasury practically nothing to produce food like this. Labour is free, because the people are simply taking care of their own homes. There are no costly burdens like tractor subsidies, diesel imports, phosphorous, lime, farmer welfare, drought assistance, genetic research, or irrigation infrastructure. People are naturally inventive. We just need the opportunity to go forth and create, and a nod of support from the authorities.
The Russians have the successful experience of the dacha summer houses, quarter-acre allotments on the outskirts of cities which were given during Soviet times to many people, in order that they spend the four months of summer growing food which was preserved and stored in cellars so it would last as long as possible into the winter. In the 1990s, some crazily large proportion of potatoes were grown by individual families on their small dacha plots. One figure says 90%, I'm not sure if I can believe it. In any event, the effect of millions of small gardens has been noticeable on their national food supply and thus their leading policy for increasing agricultural production is to expand that system, now providing 2.5-acre plots in the Far East for people to grow food and establish a self-sufficient way of life. Providing land is a cheap way for the government to stimulate high-quality, ecologically pure produce.
If we want to excel in this international market, we should seriously consider providing similar opportunities here in Australia. Let anyone try, who is willing to walk onto a dry, dusty paddock and turn it into a productive garden. Homestead allotments cost the taxpayer practically nothing. We'll be asking for less than a hundredth of a percent of the total agriculture budget, a mere smidgin compared to the millions, even billions being poured into broad-acre agriculture programs, complex high-tech solutions, and anti-competition subsidies of industries which would otherwise be contracting and making way for more profitable and viable enterprises.
In 2015-6, Beef gets $161,248,000; Farmer welfare gets $117,430,000; Horticulture gets $86,396,000; Dairy gets $56,246,000; Wool gets $54,500,000; Chemicals get $31,721,000; Wine gets $30,843,000; and so on. Plus $216,931,000 for overall primary industries research. Take note where this investment is headed. Large-scale, generally monoculture, highly mechanised, high-debt, large farming enterprises dependent on annually bought patented seed stock, imported fertilisers, irrigation, fuel and machinery. It is not a viable path of development. The results are salinity, erosion, debt, pollution and poor-quality produce. It will not allow us to compete with high-quality producers in Russia or elsewhere. To establish a trial settlement, I recommend a budget of $1,000,000, with the leftovers to be returned or invested in a subsequent project.
Australia's competitive advantage rests in our intelligence (education), our ecological cleanliness, our huge land area, our strong credit rating, and healthy democratic system. It is madness to undermine our reputation as an ecologically pure producer and force farmers into further debt. We're not that poor. Australia should support individuals to use a little bit of land to create something of high quality. Actually I think will support that. It's just up to us to ask the right questions to the right people. With support and a working example, we aim to pass an act of federal parliament that provides this opportunity to any willing citizen: A plot of land to grow food for our nation. The Homestead Act.
Amid the innovation buzz of smooth-talking Turnbull, we might add that homesteads are the perfect place to experiment and develop better techniques for growing plants, building techniques, manufacturing as well as developing knowledge as historians, teachers and health-carers. The potential of this idea to enhance our country is unparalleled.
I would really love you guys to support this project, too. I hope we're not in an oppositional rut over the less important lifestyle issues. That was partly my bad for leading in with critique rather than presenting a positive idea first. Yet equally, criticism can be useful to refine and strengthen our views. I gladly welcome critique of this idea. I greatly value intellectual rigour and want to remove as many flaws as possible in these early stages. That which is false should fall away. It will. I'm not attached to any of these ideas, simply wishing to find what is best for all of us. As soon as a better idea comes along, I'll be on it.
I am totally committed to making Australia a wonderful place to live. I don't like being second best, I like to be the best. So I will do everything necessary to make sure Australia emerges into this new millennium as a prosperous, upstanding, responsible, clean, pleasant, honourable and friendly nation, with many lovely people, a thriving ecology, beautiful and useful gardens, and families that radiate happiness and joy. A centre of knowledge and learning, a prized destination for travellers and a quality of produce unsurpassed on the entire planet. That's the place I am going to raise my children, so my job is to create that before they can be born.
These smallholder farmers, free of debt or risk of dispossession, will feel confident to invest their time and energy into their homesteads. They will be a real hotbed of energy and life. Once gardens are established, we will have a solid mode of primary production. Significantly, it will be independent of imported products or finance. A truly Australian enterprise.
Vedrussiya
The village I visited in Russia is called Vedrussiya. It began fifteen years ago, and now has about 200 residents. Before they moved in, it was unused agricultural land. Irregular wheat fields, or meadows mown occasionally for hay. The rainfall is 750mm. Their wells are deep, about 20m in some places. There are a few springs around the area, with a dip pool and a dam to catch the runoff. It started with a bunch of people building the public house, which is now the village school. Then they chose plots nearby and started planting gardens and building houses. The local government loved the idea and helped them subdivide all the plots. Land is very cheap in Russia. A hectare plot in the village now costs about $5000. Back then, it would have been much, much cheaper. If they like you and you don't have enough money, you can still live there.
More people slowly began to join. They had gatherings on the weekends where everyone helped build the public building and camped out. It's only 30 minutes from Krasnodar, a city of more than a million people, with an international airport. They lived in tents while they built their houses. They watered their plants by hand or not at all. In August, there were so many tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, grapes and watermelons. The watermelons were the best, all the time there was someone cutting up another and giving pieces to anyone nearby. Old plum trees dripped with fruit all over the ground, and thickets of blackberries had started to take over the old fields. In one house, Kristina and Igor were preserving huge jars of tomatoes, and had many potatoes, beetroot, onions and turnips stored for the winter.
They live truly on the land. Each evening we danced barefoot on the dusty earth. It was the summer festival, after all. Traditional folk dances led by a Vedic Russ elder. A circle of partners, one man with one woman, many different dances and changing partners frequently. Each person aware of how to conceive children, and the importance of these traditional dances to find one's perfect soul match, comparing the feel of each partner so that everyone finds their perfect love.
I saw five homesteads. Each beautiful, interesting, humble, simple, extremely connected with the Earth. A special happiness, as if sun rays touched them extra gently. The couples with children particularly radiant. The mother and father so incredibly in love with each other, it melted my heart. They'd built the house together, tended the garden together, conceived their little daughter there, given birth to her together in the house. Dimitri told me in Russian, "I took her from the water myself." They spoke very little English, only a few people who helped by translating.
Dima's garden had plenty of watermelons and tomatoes. There were fruit trees but the apples were still small. A nut orchard hadn't yet matured, still saplings. Plenty of grapes, too, and very delicious blackberries. I'm not sure about vegetables. He said if he had enough water to wet the plants, he'd be a millionaire farmer by now. Instead they only get enough water for the house and the family. He makes his little money by giving tours to the nearby dolmens, large stone structures from Vedruss times. Inside the dolmen, a person would go before their death, and have the stone cover placed over them. They meditated their soul in and out of their body many times as they died, preserving themselves eternally in that place, to transmit information to people who came and listened.
It was a very powerful feeling being at the village. It was the loveliest thing I'd ever seen. The most beautiful women and men, the most intelligent children. Such a free-thinking, civilised and healthy place. But at the same time there was a deep discomfort and foreboding rising within me. Because I could tell, even so far away, how remote Australia is from such a way of life. I woke every morning with the sunrise, exercised, bathed in cold water, wandered in the fields picking berries and thinking to myself, "What is the most important thing to take back to my people in Australia?"
Simply, it is the idea of the Family Homestead. This self-sufficient plot of land. Creating that quality of garden around us is the most important thing.
But it's also the concept of Family, the true and full meaning of this word. In Russian, the family homestead is called родоое поместье, rodovoye pomestye. The people said that phrase very often, it was one of those that I recognised when I heard it. They referred to each of their homes as a rodovoye pomestye. Literally it means something like "Place of Eternal Family". Род, rod, is translated as family, stock, sort, clan, kin, kind, ancestry and similar words. It's meaning is somewhere in among there. I asked a few of the villagers what it meant and their answer was rather interesting. I heard the same thing from two different people, that "Rod" in ancient times was the name for God, that this connection between ancestors all the way back to the origins of humanity, and then forward through us in the present moment to all our descendants in the eternal future, this connection was synonymous with the Creator. The Family Line is what creates life, what creates worlds, the supreme force of the universe. The birth of a human and the birth of the universe are the same thing. The Big Bang is a metaphor.
There's a video where they asked me how I liked the festival, as feedback for other people who might like to come. I didn't want to appear on the video because I was feeling grumpy at the time. I couldn't help being kind of mad that these guys were excelling so splendidly at life, and meanwhile back in Australia, even the very best ecovillage and regenerative movements were arguing, bickering, poisoning themselves and fornicating all their vital energy into oblivion. I was having a little tantrum at the universe knowing the challenge that lay ahead of me. Look at how I am if you like. It's here, youtu.be/PTarCuic9po?t=8m50s. What did I say? "You can't stop this thing. We have to stop wasting our time, and start building these things ourselves."
The Ringing Cedars
The Ringing Cedars series is fiction, that is definitely true. The Americans even translated the title incorrectly, since the Siberian pine is a pine tree, not a cedar. The Russians all acknowledge it as a fictional series, the villagers who campaigned for the Russian Homestead Act, as well as the people who left their polluting technocratic jobs to plant gardens, build houses, conceive pure children and found entire villages based on the ideas in the books. In the seventh book, the author includes his letter to the President in which he calls it a "fictional series of books".
Fiction is reality that hasn't happened yet. The Harbour Bridge was fiction until people decided to build it. They wrote about it, they drew it, and then they built it. Australia was a fiction for centuries before it was mapped. New South Wales was a fiction before Arthur Phillip arrived with his Union Jack. They talked about it for years in the British parliament before deciding to go for it. A whole bunch of convicts were almost sent to Africa. Then James Matra, the exiled American loyalist, wrote a fanciful proposal to settle the East coast of Australia, develop primary industries and create a military outpost of the British empire. It caught the attention of the politicians, and the proposal was carried through into reality, but not as he'd planned. New South Wales was to be a penal colony, instead of the new land of opportunity with large land grants for him and his friends, as requested.
These things are obvious, but important to keep in mind when considering ideas about our future. The Ringing Cedars offer a series of fairy tales about a possible future. There's a profound simplicity and beauty to them. Anastasia, the main character of the Ringing Cedars, presents an image about the future of the planet where life improves for every person, where there is far more love, more joy, more freedom. Where plants and animals thrive and humans exist as supreme beings in their natural homelands. All the stories end with the boy and girl falling in love, creating a wonderful home, getting married, having children and growing more and more beautiful with every passing year.
The Ringing Cedars aren't a design schematic or policy proposal. They're written like novels. But it doesn't mean we can't replicate thes nice aspects of them in real life. The novels inspired real policies like the one that recently passed in Russia. The fanciful stories present a possibility. If people like the ideas, they might just become real. Thriving rural villages, parents who love each other very much, children who grow up without financial burdens or toxic environments, free to improve themselves and enjoy a perfect natural environment. The end of polluting industries, the end of wars. All up, the completion of our planet as a flourishing garden home, with more love and more joy.
They're basically fairy tales. But who ever said fairy tales aren't important to shape the character and culture of a society? I, for one, am convinced by what I saw in Russia. It was a more pleasant environment than anywhere I've ever been before. I can't be satisfied until I create something just as lovely over here.
History Re-written
In the Ringing Cedars, there are also many stories about the past, describing the origin of money, the building of the pyramids, and descriptions of an entire civilisation that has been wiped from the historical record. I classify these stories alongside other oral or folk ethnographies, and subject them to the same level of cross-referencing, logical deduction and the consultation of my intuition.
A reality we must cope with is that many written records have been lost. Many of them were burned in infamous library purges, such as the one by the Romans at Alexandria. All subsequent literature has been subject to the censorship and selective publication of the ruling parties. When studying ancient cultures, one must therefore learn to cross reference many different sources and employ a large degree of logical, practical thinking. People in ancient times experienced the same feelings and emotions we do today, clear from a plethora of stories detailing love, joy, sadness, friendship, anger, vengeance, alliance, forgiveness and so on. So we can imagine how interactions took place. Therefore we can piece together some of this history using our rational thought.
I am yet to find any information that contradicts what Vladimir says Anastasia says about Vedruss history. Quite to the contrary, those stories successfully explain many discrepancies in the archaeological record and concurs with oral histories I've heard first hand, preserved by people loyal to their ancestors and the continuation of knowledge for their descendants.
The story about humans as barbaric cave dwellers refers to some, but not all, of the human population. In the long history of humanity there have been several global catastrophes where many societies lost much of their population and livelihood. Geologists record these as ice ages, climate changes, tsunamis and so on. They are recorded in some old maps and carvings, but people sometimes doubt the authenticity of those sources. It can also be traced by ice-core samples and rock analysis, as well as carbon dating for organic material. These techniques also have their limitations, and are not always accurate. Piecing together the true stories requires cross-referencing of many different trusted sources to see how they are compatible. Which do people trust more? A scientist funded by a commercial entity with vested interest, reliant on a tenured income to pay off his mortgage? Or a respected tribesman of a remote population, staunchly loyal to the preservation of their people's history? I'm not convinced either way. I put all the stories side by side and see how the fit together.
Multiple primary sources
Unlike the previous commenter, I don't use television as my source of history. My main sources are fieldwork and ethnography conducted by myself or trusted scholars, some of whom are employed by universities, and some of whom are not. Most of my fieldwork is undocumented and will never be published. I didn't get signed permission slips from my anthropological "informants". Instead I became friends with people, shared in their missions, and participated in their favourite activities. My most useful friendships were with people from the Hopi, the Putomayo, the Maya, the Warlpiri, Arabunna, Papua and Siberia. I met them during my time at university and afterwards. Some of this fieldwork was sponsored and reported to my professors, the rest was "off the record" and proved to be by far more effective and interesting at gleaning useful information about the origins of man.
I searched for things to help my people in Australia. I sensed from an early age that something was wrong, and I travelled to the corners of the globe to piece together what had happened and why. It's clear to me that we exist on the very tip of a long and degenerate history, and have suffered extraordinarily by leaving our ancestral lands. (Mine are in the British Isles and Northern Europe.) We're still coping with our arrival here in Australia. We've forgotten the importance of the family line, the link between ancestors and descendants, and how to live self-sufficiently in little village settlements.
Most other places still remember the village. Many folks in Russia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and South America grew up in villages, or had parents and grandparents who did. It means that when individuals in that society decide they want to return to the land, become self-sufficient, cultivate a garden and raise a family, there's an established culture to support them. Local councils don't have a problem with people building their own houses or settling nearby one another. In Australia, unfortunately, local councils have this idea of individual houses on enormous properties, based on the early pastoral settlements. It makes it really difficult for people to move to the countryside when they want to grow a garden. It's produced complex half-measures like rural landshares and multiple occupancy, as well as significant stress among urban people who are unable to escape and realise the eminently practical ambition of growing their own food and contributing their surplus to society.
Some of the friends I made have unbroken family lines going back millions of years, migrating only to avoid huge natural disasters. I mean they retained their culture and their stories. My family lost ours when we took up Christianity in the British Isles, for example. Their history is much older than most of the tribes that Cook, Phillip and the other British explorers found here, though I have a feeling that several Australian groups have memory going much, much further back than we currently realise. It's a little inconvenient to the Anthro 1001 introduction course about 60,000 years of history, homo erectus morphing into homo sapiens, and so on. But it's hard to alter that story now that so many people have built careers and theses taking it as a foregone conclusion. Unfortunately, inconvenient truths tend to be ignored. Whatever happened to curiosity and academic integrity? One needs to keep tenure to pay off that mortgage, and still enjoy tipples and nibbles. Don't want to rock the boat. Yet a moment's rational thought will show that the hundreds of thousands of seemingly impossible megalithic structures around the world were not build by violent, wandering cave men.
Natural disasters
It takes time to establish a clear story. One has to cross-reference many different sources, examine any ulterior motives, and assess character and integrity. I am of course also subject to this scrutiny, which is why I am so clear about my motives and open about my projects and aspirations.
I first heard about successive global catastrophes in the context of the Pueblo civilisations of North America, in a university class on pre-Columbian history. During gigantic natural disasters, these people climbed into their underground public halls, called Kivas. They spent some time down there, only emerging when the outside was safe. It seems they sometimes went without food or water, and sometimes only a few people survived. The events killed every one else above the ground, and each time led to a "new world". The Pueblo counted back five times at least, and dated these events roughly corresponding to the last few climatic changes. My professor had more in his slides than is available on the Internet, but you can find some info by searching about grandmother spider emergence myth. There are many other creation stories like this from around the world. I learnt a lot from comparative mythology studies like Joseph Campbell, Francis Huxley and Graham Hancock. Like Megre, these guys sometimes wrote their stories as fictional accounts, tales or novels.
Nevertheless they correspond in parts to real events. The most recent period of rapid climate change is called the Younger Dryas (11,600 years ago), and was accompanied by large water movements, volcanic activity, ice melts and freezes over a 20 year period. Ice core samples show a 10 degree warming in Greenland in a decade. There is no single correct story available on the internet about what exactly the causes and effects of this period were. There are several ideas and most of them are compatible with each other, all suggesting that many areas became unviable to live, were flooded or frozen, and dislodged any people living there.
But these effects didn't touch every part of the world. Secluded, protected zones like the deep forests of Siberia, the Amazon, the Tibetan highlands, the Guatemayan highlands, and the inland deserts of Australia and the Americas, have large natural buffers from ocean movements, providing certain safe havens from climatic threat. Some people were able to forecast the changes and therefore lead their people to safety.
I heard the Pueblo story, it sounded interesting but was a bit hard to fully comprehend. None of us in the class, nor the professor, was really able to conceive what these stories actually referred to. Then I heard the Great Earth Shaking story. My interest renewed. It was written down in the 1950s at a mission in Western Australia by a woman called Elizabeth Durack. It is told by Indil, son of Bundich and I will reproduce it verbatim here:
"A very long time ago, the people lived in this land and there was a great plenty. But since the great earth shaking, which they say happened according to traditional legends handed down from generation to generation, the whole face of the country underwent a great change in appearance. Where there will hills before the great shaking there were now plains. Where there had been plains, they had become hills.
"Also, after this great shaking there were fearful rushes of a great wind, accompanied by smoke and dust. These lasted some considerable time, perhaps a day and a night, or even longer. The men, women and children were in a bad way because of the foul air, in fact lots of them died from the effects. Then, all of a sudden a very strong wind came and revived all those who had survived, blowing away the foul air and smoke.
"All of a sudden, there was a great shock a several claps of thunder, and great waters rushed all over the land. The remnants of the people and the animals were on the high ground, and so escaped the big water. After a little while, the strange big water rushed back, and left stranded large quantities of fish, many of which they had never seen before, jumping all over the land below, the elevated ground on which the stood. Now that this great big lot of big water had gone back, they all went down from the elevated ground, gathered as many of the stranded fish that they could carry, and took them back onto the high ground, made a fire, cooked them and made a good feed. For this they were really pleased, as food was not easy to get after the upset the country had experienced.
"There was one thing that puzzled them greatly, and Indil insisted on this. That was, that the sun did not rise and set in the same direction as it did before. Instead of rising in the North and setting in the South, which he swore it did, according to what he'd been told by his elders, it now rose East and set West." Two sources. Add the Torah, with its garden of Eden followed by a flood, and we have three ancient sources concurring.
Then I met the Guatemayan highlanders (different to the classic-period Mayans, a short-lived group around 900AD). They talked about six worlds, and how 21/12/2012 is the threshold of a new one. They mentioned that this world has been overtaken by a hypnotic trance, and that the prevalent destructive behaviour must come to an end. They said the world population rose and fell in cycles, but that we would not be dying out this time, instead entering a new era of harmony and planetary prosperity. They showed us techniques for personal health and meditation to help us think more clearly. At that point I had four independent sources.
Then I met a man from the Putomayo, one of the most intact Amazon tribes. And everything concurred again. His singular message was that a critical turning point has occurred, we have escaped catastrophe, and a planetary harmony is now possible where we live as brothers and sisters, mindful of the link between our ancestors and descendants. He demonstrated techniques to access our intuitive memory, to move through time and space with our thoughts, feelings and emotions, in order to understand a lot of information very, very fast. He was the most adept telepathic communicator I've encountered so far. And he confirmed all the information of the others.
These people are super interesting because they lived for so long outside technocratic society. They don't hold all the answers on their own, none of us do. But they offer a critical counterpoint to Western orthodoxy that is really useful to gain a bit of self-awareness. These isolated pockets of civilisation retained the knowledge of former ages, through meticulous preservation of stories from generation to generation. Some individuals remember the civilisations called Atlantis, the one called Lemuria, the one called Mu. The ones that built enormous structures in the Andes, at Arkhaim and elsewhere. Not all the individuals. But some of them.
Recreating the world
At each global catastrophe, most of the human population died. Yet the ones who forecast it, or lived in protected areas, managed to survive. These people emerged from their safe houses, preserving to a greater or lesser extent the memory of what had preceded the catastrophe. Some of them travelled through the world to sow the seeds of civilisation again, in an attempt to complete the dream of a flourishing planet. Among the scattered remnants of human society, they shared seeds, ideas and stories.
The locals saw them as super humans, sometimes erroneously attributing them to extraterrestrials. They spawned followings, Krishna, Shiva, Vishnu, Zeus, Athena, Thor, Enlil, Enki, Bunjil, Baiame, all the pantheons of polytheist tribes. They were recorded in artefacts, inscriptions and religions as creator gods, culture heroes, or primordial beings. Artefacts like Father Crespi's Ecuadorian gold tablets and the Olmec heads. Even a story from one South Australian tribe that describes a blonde-haired goddess in whose footsteps sprung flowers and herbs, written from an oral account in the early 1900s. We can imagine how these interactions went down.
Here is a group of people who had lived through the Great Earth Shaking. They've suffered an extraordinary trauma, brain damage from several days of unconsciousness, lost almost all their relatives, their land, and practically the whole natural environment. They wander a barren landscape looking for meat and fresh water, as grasses and prickly shrubs began to take hold and slowly regenerate the soil. They wear animal pelts or cloths of woven grass. There is not enough timber to build many structures, or to fire forges for metal. Without much shade, their skin gradually darkens, adapting to the sunlight.
One day, there arrives a group of people tall and slim, with pale skin. Their hair is long a wavy, the men with large beards and moustaches. They are woodland people whose melanin is not used to prolonged sun. They have travel in large wooden boats with sails of hemp and flax, often for several years at a time. Their mission is one of discovery and diplomacy. They wear cloths of tightly woven fabric, embroidered with fanciful, colourful designs. They eat the young shoots and roots of shrubs, and produce dried berries, nuts and mushrooms from pouches of woven cord. They delight in fresh water, especially from springs. They sing joyful songs about their journey and play on wooden flutes. The locals—astonished by their sudden appearance—join in the singing.
The visitors carry other fascinating goods. Pressed plant oil is a particular favourite. Several artefacts are exchanged, to be found ages later by archaelogists and recorded as the results of trade. Most fascinating, however, are the seeds of rare and useful plants that are given to the locals, along with instructions about how to make them grow.
These strange visitors were born and grew up in an abundant natural environment, with plenty to eat and drink. They had lots of free time to think and learn, develop skills and travel throughout the world, the descendants of Atlantis. Parties travelled to many different places. They built structures to demonstrate techniques. They combined physical dexterity with mental focus to produce impressive megaliths.
The Vision Council
After meeting these individuals, I was invited to a series of three conferences which gathered such ambassadors from many different traditions to share information and establish a common Earth-wide history. These were big moments, because suddenly I had dozens of independent sources all agreeing on several key points.
Humanity once existed in a pristine, beautiful state. Then we fell under the spell of malicious people, who manipulated us and caused a lot of destruction throughout the world, almost bringing it to complete collapse. They built temples, initiated secretive orders and followings, instigating massive inter-generational hypnosis and taking us away from nature. Once the programs were unleashed, there was a chaotic ripple effect. Being thus able to forecast the future, the ones who originated these behaviours only needed to tweak them here and there, in order to control huge populations.
Such imbalance ought to have brought our downfall, but nonetheless here we still are. Something has balanced the destructive tendency with an equal and opposite force of creation. Unlike the previous several worlds, we seem to have escaped the catastrophe this time unscathed. Something profound has happened. That is the practically universal message from all of my friends. We now have the opportunity to complete our planet.
I trust my sources because they demonstrate a clear loyalty to their ancestors and their descendants. They talk about how to create a harmonious society, how to stay individually healthy, how to be a responsible father, mother and member of the community. They are sure that they belong here on the Earth, they feel happy and comfortable on this planet, and enjoy nature immensely. They acknowledge the wayward behaviour of most people. They don't insult, or display self-importance. They are willing to sacrifice every material possession for the integrity of their history and purpose.
The message is to share all this information with whoever may benefit from it. We are all to compare notes and harmonise the discrepancies. It's why I go to the trouble of typing out a long message like this one, because it's important for us to understand our history as a human civilisation. I welcome new information that you have gathered. Together we'll put it under scrutiny and decide whether it changes the story or not. I'm interested in truth, not attached to what I currently understand. Let's be very clear however that the personal derision of me is of no use to anybody, neither is it particularly useful simply to say you don't believe something and therefore it's not true. We're not operating in the realm of belief here, but of practical, demonstrable facts.
One difficult hurdle to cross is to understand that the television specials, the childhood storybooks or primary school geography about ooga booga cave men are not accurate. It's a simplification which doesn't take into account the full scope of human history. That's not a problem until you get people later in life getting angry about new information which adds more elements to the story. We're comfortable with the Egyptian pyramids, but not the hundred thousand equivalent megaliths in practically every country of the world, including underwater and in now uninhabitable places. It's gotten to the point where there are now people occupying university chairs who just ignore new archaeological information as it arises. These new discoveries don't actually invalidate their own work, yet still attract derision. They are victims of Pride.
Of course I've copped my fair share of this and have had to get used to it. I strategise about how to share this information, but can't always avoid feeling like a bull in a china shop. I mean, I went pretty far from my hometown of Sydney and gathered some pretty obscure information compared to straightforward Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking technological culture.
I was 22 years old at university in New York City, scarcely in contact with anyone in Australia. I spoke to my father once a week or so, and that was all. I'd made a Facebook account a few months prior, but didn't have many connections there. Some of my friends in Brooklyn were going to Burning Man and before that, a conference in Mexico. We'd been hosting workshops and ayahuasca ceremonies with medicine people from north and south america, and India.
One of them tells me I should definitely go to the conference in Mexico, it's really important to have an Australian person there. I tell all my professors I'll be gone for a week and get on a plane to Mexico City. I catch a bus for four hours outside the city, then walk up the main street of this small town, buy a tarpaulin to sleep under and a cup of fermented corn drink. I ask a man where Temictla is and he drives me in the back of his ute another 30 minutes out of this small town. He drops his children off at his place, and I get into the cabin where we start chatting. He's never met an Australian before.
The next day the conference opens, with about 200 people around a gigantic fireplace. There are many ornate outfits, handwoven and feathered, as well as several large conch shells, which are joyously blown together in a scintillating harmony. Delegates from various nations are invited to come forward and give their reflections on their journey. I, too, am invited, and given a feather to hold. It must have been almost two feet long. I speak in Spanish, and repeat the words of my Arabunna friend who'd been meditating in the central desert for years to prepare a message for the world. I say we're all together in our appreciation of the Earth, and that all people are connected, even across vast oceans.
The weeklong conference begins, with many fruitful interactions. We plant seeds, celebrate traditional dances, handcrafts, and enjoy vegetarian food. There is a council of nations where we sit around and talk at greater length about what's happening in each of our countries. A collective image forms about a way of life suitable for every tradition and every culture. It is based in the Earth, with no person controlling or coercing any other. Plants are food, animals are friends. People are equal, and money is false. There was a group of film-makers there who included some footage in their video here vimeo.com/81271573
Obviously without being able to address every doubt and query of everyone reading this, suffice to say that it's not all coming from the Ringing Cedars.
Homecoming
I probably should be less critical of what you guys are doing. I was trained at university in an atmosphere of scathing critique, where we had to revise our views by the minute to take a new viewpoint into account. Coming from many different countries and backgrounds, we exchanged with facts, trying to avoid rhetorical flourish. It might not be pleasant but it's rigorous and inspired by a serious search for the truth. In anthropology, the big difficulty was to make rational conclusions without relying on written sources. Original ethnography is like a flickering apparition, one relies on feelings and a huge amount of independent calculation and thought to determine its value or its truth.
In this age of technological distraction, independent thought is sometimes hard to come by. It makes one wonder, why is it so difficult to find a quiet place to think? There always seems to be some obligation, debt, requirement or regulation to attend to in the name of technological advancement and development. It prevents us from asking the most basic question in the first place. Is technological development really what we want? I am quite sure that living things are the solution to many of our problems. I mean plants, animals, fungi, microbes, insects and so on. Observing and existing in close contact with living things helps us think clearly. Metal, stone, cement, asphalt, plastic not so much.
I was attracted to the fields of permaculture and regenerative agriculture because they seem to have a similar goal to me. I prefer these circles because the people have real experience living on the land, with plants and animals. I don't like the Eco Kin's group that the other fellow posted a few days ago. They are more high-minded and outspoken, with little practical experience.
Now, after a few years of research and fieldwork in Australia, I'm delivering my findings which are not without their criticisms. I was aware of your work in this field, and I stand by my comments that there has been no change in policy, or significant social or economic shift as a result. If you offer some specific examples, I will of course include them in my research. I would love to see specific positive examples.
At this point, however, my reading of many government documents indicates the main strategy for developing rural areas is currently focused on increasing debt, chemicals, irrigation, and subsidies, with practically no reference to any regenerative techniques, or creating the conditions for love to flourish in families. The notable exception I have found so far is a program in the Southern NSW rural development body to enhance farm diversity. Maybe you have something to do with that, it sounds great. The government documents also use the word "sustainable" fairly often, which I take as a positive indication that they are interested, theoretically, in a more natural approach.
I really don't mean to offend you. My intention is to improve Australia, and I think yours is, too. I'm a little concerned about the commenters' reluctance to accept criticism and quickness to attack me rather than the ideas, but I think we can overcome this and cultivate a useful mode of communication. Please include specific examples in your response that can contribute to our collective research and understanding. Obviously I come from a anthropology background, so I prefer terms like grazing in the woods rather than "silvopasture", but I know how to look up words so it doesn't bother me much.
I'm a little concerned at the general low standard of behaviour in this country. Our parliament is a shameful example. I cannot fathom those bickering, childish people are actually directing the development of this country. It's clear we have to put a better idea together ourselves. The best idea I've found is to give a piece of land to anyone who wants to grow food and a family. I say again, I welcome criticism of this idea, so we can refine and perfect it.
It's probably better if we can find a functioning relation of critique and intellectual discussion. It seems we all aspire to influence the development of our country, to reduce degradation and establish protocols, policies and examples of regenerative techniques. Maybe we can strengthen each other's ideas by sharing information.
Creating the future
The purity of one's ambition determines its likelihood to come true. The ambition to grow a garden, build a house, and raise children in a loving, comfortable, naturally self sufficient environment is a very pure one. And very simple. It's eminently possible and doesn't hurt anyone. It benefits our country very much, of course looking after the soil, and also making pleasant communities, ensuring our national security, and most importantly, raising the next generation to be far more adept, healthy and intelligent. This is my main motivation, to make this possible for myself and others. I will do whatever is most useful to provide this opportunity and bring it closer to the present moment.
Final note, the Commonwealth of Australia was a fiction until the states agreed to federate. The discussion about the future of our nation occupied several years of business and politics. Famously, Western Australia joined at the last minute, and New Zealand pulled out. Legislation must be the most fantastic example of fiction that becomes reality. We design something, talk about it, write it down in a special book, and then it happens in real life.
But the Commonwealth of Australia Act 1900 (UK) didn't all come true. New Zealand still appears in the text. So what's the status of that? I would take them as a state if they wanted it. Maybe in the future...