Small Revolutions: Voluntary Simplicity in Devon

Free Book Download: Plan B 2.0 - Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble

Every now and then you come across a book and you want to buy everyone you know a copy of it. This is one of those books.

We know what the problems are for the planet. Now it's time to get behind a solution.

Written by the president of the Earth Policy Institute, Lester Brown, it's an examination of the problems we face right now and how we can make the transition to a new economy which is sustainable - without overshoot, without collapse - and solving third world poverty at the same time.

I haven't read it all yet, and I will review it when I have finished it, but so far this book does what no other book I've read so far has done: it's putting together all the solutions we know we already have, and envisioning them on a planetary scale.

It is big picture stuff. It's about solutions and not problems.

More than ever, we need a shared vision which we can buy into collectively - at all levels - because too many of us just feel like 'individuals doing our bit' which can be lonely sometimes, and frustrating when we see the prevalence of the problems.

More than ever we need the hope and the optimism that we can really bring about change in a cogent and structured way. This book shows how it could all knit together in a plan for a new economy - Plan B.

Whether you buy a copy of Plan B 2.0 - Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble or you download chapters for free it's a book I think will be very important.

I'll try and review it in the next two weeks, but you can dip in and out of it and judge for yourself by visiting the Plan B 2.0 minisite at the Earth Policy Institute.

From the conclusion of Walden

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.

In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness." (Conclusion, Walden)

I read this this morning, I realised that I have passed that invisible boundary. In the projects I'm undertaking like the voluntary simplicity book, and our plans for leaving the city, the plans for building our own straw bale house. Somehow, everything seems to coalesce, arrange itself serendipitously around us.

Just one example, we are thinking of moving to Dorset. We want to be close to the sea, we want the coutnryside, and we want dogs.

Not two days ago a friend phoned me up and asked if I could do some house sitting for him. In Dorset, in a cottage about 100 yards from the sea, looking after two labradors for a week.

This will mean we can explore and see if the county will be a good place to live and one that will make us happy.

Last night I had a little revelation. I realised that I have started living my dream.

And my job is to just keep moving in that direction and have the courage to do the things I know will make me happy.

Caring for My Farmers

Like many people nowadays, we get an organic veg box.

The fruit and vegetables are sourced as locally as possible, often within 50 miles, and the produce is seasonal. Our supplier also never flies in produce - if they source anything from abroad it comes in by ship. And the farmers get fair prices.

But what I really love about getting a veg box, is that I don't have to visit the supermarket so often.

In supermarkets we are targeted left, right and centre with offers, temptations, frippery.

Last week I saw a woman rattle and shove about a box of kiwi fruits, delivered from over 2000 miles away, like it was rubbish. She simply wanted to choose a different punnet from the cardboard box below. It was her careless attitude about the food which rattled me.

Why? In Not On The Label, I read about farmers being driven about of business to push food prices lower and lower.

Affordable food is a great thing, but it shouldn't be at the expense of the farmers with the supermarkets taking all the profit.

The big supermarkets, like mafia (my words), twist the arms of these producers until they buckle - making them fund special offers, subjecting them to the silliest of quality controls which simply amounts to how the vegetable or fruit looks, and nothing to do with its nutritional content, or the chemicals put on it.

When I get my veg box, I know my farmers have been paid well. And that's the way I think of them: my farmers.

Because if I don't help look after them, why should they care about looking after my food?

Fair trade applies at home as well as abroad.

Cookery and Caring

It's late and I can't sleep.

In a good way.

Earlier on this evening something happened. I went into the kitchen of our shared house and started scrubbing and I did that (Saturday evening no less) for a couple of hours.

I started off deciding to clear one or two things and then it snowballed. I actually enjoyed myself. What I found under the clutter and sticky mess was a beautiful kitchen which had been neglected.

Sometimes the act of caring for something and taking one or two steps forward is enough to make a tangible change.

So I couldn't sleep and I wanted to enjoy the kitchen.

So I snuck down with my copy of Laurel's Kitchen (heartily recommended, I've linked to Abe Books so you can search for a yellowed secondhand copy) made a cup of tea and slathered toasted home made wholemeal bread with peanut butter and organic honey.

When you pick up Laurel's Kitchen, it's like a balm. There really is something spiritually calming and homely and warm about the book.

And I came across a quote I wanted to share with you.

"For we still can change our direction. We can, if we choose, reverse the trend away from healthful living, if we just start with ourselves and patiently begin to undo the long years of conditioning to which we have been subjected. Then changes in one's way of eating can become, most delightfully, just the beginning of a transformation of one's entire life." - Carol Flinders, Berkeley 1976, Preface to Laurel's Kitchen.

It's a rich message and it can apply to a lot more than food.

But food is a good place to start.

[picture borrowed from Culiblog archives]

Free Book to Download: Ecology Begins at Home

I first got this book sent to me in 1995 by the author himself, who was kindly sending the books out for free and in return asking only for voluntary donations.

Ecology and Voluntary Simplicity go very closely together and much of what Archie Duncanson talks about is what is just beginning to enter the mainstream culture now.

He talks about saving energy, using less, reducing, re-using, recycling, keeping our food miles down by eating food produced locally and closer to home, taking personal responsibility for doing our bit in the world.

He's now published the book online, and although the illustrations are new (I really liked the stick men of the original book!) it's the same book that I know and love. And I recommend it above any single book you could buy on ecology today.

I think it is fantastic that Archie is so selfless in promoting his message without thought for personal gain.

If you enjoy it, please link to this free book and help get more people engaged and interested.

This is the very essence of the ethos of my Small Revolutions Blog, small changes snowball, and the more people we can engage and inspire, the more and faster and better we can transform the world.

Because I really believe we can change the world, and Ecology Begins at Home was one of the first inspirations for that.