Imagine...

 Imagine all the people/Sharing all the world..." --John Lennon

When we take an honest look at what is happening in our world today, these words from John Lennon's iconic song may seem like a bad joke. As the idiot Lennie says to his keeper George at the end of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, "Tell me about the rabbits, George!"

But let's engage our imaginations anyway, but this time grounded in the grim reality we can no longer avoid: the incremental erosion and collapse of Glomart, our fossil-fuel-based global industrial civilization and money-based market economy, coupled with the ongoing, fossil-fuel-driven overheating and destabilization of Gaia, our vital biological support system. So again, imagine...

=if suburbanites and small landholders everywhere started reaching out to each other to form neighborhood Garden Guilds, where they met periodically in convivial gatherings (e.g. potluck dinners or work parties)  to share local knowledge, skills, and ideas about growing their own food and other ways to increase the resilience and collaboration of their own neighborhoods;

--if these Garden Guilds, from the outset, were jointly sponsored by Master Gardener organizations, disseminating research-based knowledge from land-grant universities about best gardening practices for each particular bioregion, and by local city governments, through their public (i.e. non-exclusive) neighborhood organizations--to enable information-sharing among Garden Guilds and to enforce guidelines that ensure inclusiveness and promote and social and ecological awareness and responsibility (i.e. the three ethical foundations of Permaculture design: Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share);

--if, within these Garden Guilds, special efforts were made to inculcate and practice universally recognized core ethical values, such as compassionate sharing of surplus with the needy, elderly, or landless population, and tolerance of religious, political, and ethnic diversity--

What would be the beneficial consequences for societies as a whole? These migt include the following:

• less isolation and paranoia within urban, suburban, and rural communities;
• greater food security for everyone;
• lifelong education with intrinsic rewards for children and adults alike (e.g. new friendships, fresh, home-grown vegetables year around, greater awareness of the natural world, less reliance on Glomart consumerism ("You are what you own") and more on personal empowerment ("You are what you do");
• contiguous clusters of well-organized neighborhoods, already accustomed to cooperative efforts, to provide mutual aid in response to climate-related catastrophes and to fend off external threats such as predatory drug gangs, crime, or deranged militias as the larger social infrastructure becomes more and more chaotic, authoritarian, and fragile; 
• the proliferation of a life-affirming ethos of Earth Care, People Care. and Fair Share to offset growing divisiveness and hate-mongering by opportunistic demagogues in the service of corporate oligarchs...

None of this can be imposed from the top down without creating resistance and resentment (which hateful demagogues will only too readily capitalize upon, as long as isolated suburbanites remain glued to commercial television and social media).

But the seeds of such a future can--and must--be sown in the ground under our feet, both literally and figuratively.  So I invite all of you to join us in the Garden Guild Network, as we collaborate to grow gardens, grow community, and grow awareness.

--

-