Common Knowledge

Freedom is only Forever

This is about living within our own means without having to go into eternal debt to something which we can not control. Creating Freedom and Abundance. You will find that it's a lot easier to do this together than it would be alone. You don't have to know that much.

Everything you need to know will become common knowledge very quickly and people will often be honored to share with you what little they may know. You will learn more over a cup of Coffee or Tea with some friends in Eden than you might ever be able to learn out of a whole stack of books and magazines.

The land will feed us

The Land will sustain us. The land will give us everything we need. Once you really commit yourselves to becoming one of the Stewards of The Land and then to do what it takes to make it real everything else will follow. If not now when? And if not us, who?

This is not something we are only doing for our own personal success. This is something we are doing for the Earth to create something that can stand free and on its own as a demonstration of what can be done by a sizeable group of committed people with a vision.

Once Eden is built it will live on for thousands of years. Maybe even millions. Until then we will have to take responsibility for anything and everything that might come up. Even questions that are designed to create disruption and division. Not everyone knows how to best play out their  hand.

The Beginning

You don't know how lucky you all are just to even be here now and to be thinking that you might want to get into something like this that is just beginning right now. This may be the one gift that you have been waiting so patiently for. And here it has already been given away and is gone. What a great misfortune. But there is nothing being offered here that is just about your own personal needs anyway so if you don't like the fact that it's already begun to roll how will it be later on when it begins to take off and you are still not ready to go.

You will all be expected to bring something to offer here and that is what we call more than enough and some to share. The people do need a place to live. We know that. They do need some freedom. We will all have that. But what really is good and right? And who will decide? These questions will trip you up every time.

We ask people to ask questions in Eden in a convivial manner. Who has done what deserves what. You know that. And when things are right they feel right and we know that is right and yet there is no such thing as being right in Eden so don't foist that upon us. I do not care to get caught up in such things.

Right Livelihood

Right way of life. Everything else is wrong way of life and wrong expectations lead to wrong destinations. And that will multiply itself into extinction as it is doing right now at break neck speed. That's why we must act soon. And so you absolutely must join us in creating new solutions not digging through all this old baggage.

More with Less

We will also have the right to share in the great satisfaction that will be just one of the many things that will come out of doing all this great stuff. It's not a power trip for life and then you go out with a bang. Here it is the other way around. And a Tree is planted over your grave. Our lives will go into feeding something that will live on in Eden. And if you are not too overly offensive that could be you.

There may come a time when many of our old friends may wish that they had taken the necessary steps to become a part of something like this when they had the chance. But then it will of course be way too late as it is now for so many already who have turned prematurely overripe and then fallen off the tree. This is the Tree of Life. I would think you might want to hang onto this baby for dear life. 

Eden is Not for sale

What we intend to do is to set people up with more than adequate Homesteads in this fine little community. Nothing is being sold here but the fruits of our own labor. But you will have to become real Land Stewards and pledge to support this community and not to allow anybody to disrupt our work. We will not be able to buy the land until we have many contributions and pledges that are backed up by real accounts in the Permaculture Credit Union earmarked for Eden in the business area of the application.

Non-Ownership

We feel that the Earth has been bought and sold as property long enough already to last a long long time. We wanted to do something a little different with this groundbreaking opportunity. It's not about personal success or failure anymore. That must be set aside as well as need and greed. We are the Edenites after all. That does have to mean something. And luckily for all of us it actually does. We are here to build the Ark and to save the Earth.

Since we are among the first generation of Edenites we will be to a large extent the initial benefactors of this uniquely exemplary community at our own great expense. That we can all do much better here than anywhere else is no small thing I have offered to share with you fine folks here. We are to become Benefactors to the World. And it won't have to cost us an arm and a leg. I do hope you like that. Your leg that is.

Why?

We are doing all of this at our own great expense as way of becoming an active part of a living work of Art that would be just one small part of the change we would like to see in the world without forcing anything.

To make this work each of these homesteads will be for people to become the stewards of for life. And most people will have to admit that it is a more than adequate deal for that amount of land. Not even counting the community holdings. And that does have to count big time. These are not just lots. This is an integrated community.

That's why we don't need to bother ourselves with the ongoing problems involved with personal property issues over and over again for the next ten thousand years. We have created something much better for those who really are willing to go all the way with this.

We have all but eliminated the necessity for things like property or inheritance and a lot of other fine things that you don't really need to even think about like probate nightmares and unnecessary delinquencies.

Better for you and the land

What you save in many ways more than pays for your Homestead Contribution. And that is something you can depend upon for life. And it can then be left to your children when you move on.

The first Contrib-Pledges will be as low as Nothing Down and just $380 a month. Nothing is conferred by that except a recognition by the community that you did your fair share and you will have a Homestead and a Farmsite to support your being there to help take care of the land and what this community is about and a voice on the Council.

Not a bad deal. We make our own decisions through a living process of Consensus Democracy. There are many advantages to doing things this way as I have said that will pay for the whole project many times over.

We are a new people with many ongoing Projects. I think you should know that by now. And some of that will run together with having a good time because that is the way we like to do things.

We have a lot of fun. And there will be many work parties on peoples homes and such where people just have a good time building things without any need for any kind of payment. At other times we will use a community based system like Eden Hours to allow for exchanges between people who have different things to offer. And that will allow you to get the help you need when you need it.

We hope to set an example how a lot of other communities could get started who just can't seem to get beyond the initial visionary hurdles. All problems have solutions. That is the real game here. And that means being willing to go with the vision that stands right before us right this very day.

Cooperation comes First. The only thing that can change the world at this time is a new group of creatively generously creative people with an ingeniously positive plan who are able to make some radical changes in the way they do things collectively that would normally be done individually. This will save us a lot of money.

Only a series of clear and decisive actions made by an overwhelming positive group of people who are deeply committed to a new way of living can change the course of human events and the future of Earth if it has one. And that my friends is our first assignment. Glad to be of Service.

I would like to suggest that there should be no need for incandescent lights, in any Sustainable Community, because they are not very energy efficient as we all know.

I would also like to suggest that there should probably be no Flourescent Lights allowed in either, not even the compacts, which all contain poisonous mercury vapors, and that spills out little droplets of poison out into the environment when they break, as they inevitably do, and that floats all over the home and the land, and it never breaks down into an organically useful material.

Therefore it could be said that all lighting systems in the Homes must be LED. And you can now get these at Real Goods. We probably don't really want any NiCad batteries around either, because of the cadmium, which is very poisonous as well.

There should also be no need for CRT or Cathode Ray Tubes, I would say, at risk of sounding too authoritarian, which some old timers, and old computers, and old TVs may still use, and so it may be time now to switch it up to the new LED Backlit screens, on all your Computers and TVs, which are very thin and flat, and use very low power.

It is very much like a Forest that we are planting here on Earth, of Sustainable Communities, where each one is locally self autonomous economically, but with a network of voluntary support that is not for sale, and may or may not be of any value, just like it is with all real relationships. We call this the Emerald Forest of Sustainable Communities.

We are just some of the Kindred Spirits of the Emerald Forest. Nobody owns the whole Emerald Forest. And nobody is in charge of all of that. And all may join the Emerald Forest, who may choose to do so. But they do have to declare their active membership, and show some support for the emerging whole, and with some respect for the roots, and to make some positive connections with some of the other brothers and sister communities all around the world, who may or may not all connect up on the root level.

We welcome the voluntary collaboration of all supportive individuals as well, who are all busy with their own projects and collaborative activities, but that doesn't mean there is no way that you can still plug in. I am sorry if some folks have not yet found a way to do that, but part of that has to do with creating new tools that others can use, and those who can give birth to something real, may be able to help us to give birth to something real.

The results of our various individual efforts and collective work will not be a great big splash of change but will be just rippling little waves that are running through the ocean right now all around the world, that sometimes may run very deep and strong,

The people will see what is possible, as we will welcome qualified individuals to come join us a honored visitors, who have deep roots, and we will continue to promote our ideas in many other ways, and other folks will start wondering, why they haven't done something like this for themselves, in their own part of the world, which just requires a voluntary re-ordering of the underlying natures of our societies in a whole new way, and that may have a lot to do, with working voluntarily, within the natural order of priorities, instead of fighting that like the plague, regardless of our own adolescent desires to put our own magnificent self first, and the collectivization of that, as the all mighty majority, which is dead wrong from the get go, since might does not make right, and that can collectivize in a very dangerous manner, because that is not sound thinking, and that is why that must be rejected.

There are no people who come first before the Earth, with their precious fantasies about need and greed, and they do not eat first. The Ocean comes first, and the fish eat first, and the forests and the wildlife eats first, and the farms and the soil must be allowed to eat first, and then the people may sit down to eat from whatever is left over, who have helped to bring in the harvest, or done the real work involved in some other way.

The whole world will support positively oriented constructive people like us, even though we are changing everything, but only if we can prove that we can generate our own funding, and come up with our own technologies, and generate all the necessary resources, and bring together all the right people, who have the right skills.

Bring us your tools, and your able bodied workers for a change, and those who are ready to give birth, because that is the one thing they will not give us, no matter how much we beg and complain, and so we will not succeed, unless we can earn it, and build it, and then we can sell it, and sell it, and sell it, and sell it, over and over again, without ever losing any of it to these people who will always put Self First and Eden Last.

Let this new approach be just one small part of the many new ways in which we can all help to save the Earth, or to pay it all forwards, by disconnecting from the usual technologies, and these worn out ethics of dominator culture that are all based on need and greed, and the media generated political intrigues that have only obscured all the problems so that they can never be solved, and so these proud and arrogant people can never escape from these worn out slogans of never never land that have never been true.

We need to disengage from the usual politics of self centric need and greed first, and those who are only concerned about their own selves and start putting the Earth First, and start using the right technologies, even if they are not always cheaper.

We only buy things that are beautifully efficient, and will not burn out, for a very long time, and won't even buy anything else, We ill use locally available materials, that don't need to be trucked around or manufactured that much whenever possible, and that will lower our Carbon Footprints, way down to a self sustainable model, for others to learn from, unless they will last a very long time, as in highly durable goods that are worth the trouble of manufacturing.

This is what we call Dark Green.

We are the Darker Greeners, as it might be said, who must now go beyond the simple minded, or even absent minded, ethics of the sixties era politics of Premature Dissolution, which was unfounded and ungrounded, and now we have to turn that around into Selective Re-Integration, of those who are willing and able.

A lot of other people, who have become nothing so far, of any great value, even in their own eyes maybe, may still only be willing to go light green, in their ability to embrace new perspectives, because they need a little guidance from below, but even that would be only if we did all the work, and paid for everything, since they have become accustomed to doing nothing, so let us do not be afraid to make the true distinctions about where the people really are, since we cannot be taken in by any more of these empty promises.

We are like those many others who must learn to rely upon Deeds that have been completed, before they can be credited, even though we keep forgetting about that, due to lazy minded thinking, as only then will that count for anything real among any of us, here within the Emerald Forest.

We believe in Deeds instead of Words, which are way too cheap and never can be allowed to count for anything real among us.

Some may be just finally getting around to thinking about adding a few compact fluorescents, like they were doing us all a great big favor, but as you can see we have already moved far beyond that pitiful point, and we may now regard that as being already almost completely obsolete, before it has even taken hold, and so in this way we intend to go all the way out there, into the Dark Green territories, where the Truth can still be found to be growing wild among the Trees.  - T

- T