Cumberland Plateau

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Implementing Open Source Ecology in The Village on Sewanee Creek

Open Source Ecology, which aims to provide the blueprints and instructions to build the 50 most essential machines for civilization, promises to be one of the great industrial shifts in the coming decade. The promise of industrial manufacturing in garage and tool-shed not only permits low-cost solutions, but independence and security in the event of disaster.

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The 19th century industrial revolution eliminated the cottage industry through the development of assembly lines and division of labor. In the globalized economy, Western consumers have become dependent on imports to sustain our consumer lifestyle. Many products are no longer manufactured within the United States and other developed nations. While not an intrinsically bad system, the era of self-sustainability has gone by the wayside. Gone is the simple life, replaced by global supply chains and logistics solutions to get your toothbrush from the other side of the world.

The first taste of a return to the good life is exemplified by the excitement over the 3D printing revolution. For example, a company which aims to provide the next generation of manufacturing, 3D Systems, has had its stock price double due to investor expectations. The same excitement that surrounds the ability to manufacture your own custom plastics with 3D printers is magnified by Open Source Ecology, which provides the DIY designs to build everything from your own tractor to making construction bricks from compressed earth. The ability to have a plasma cutter, bioplastic extruder, and dimensional sawmill at your disposal offers the prospect of a rebirth of cottage industries. Manufacturing will only be limited by your imagination, not for the lack of tools or material. Your open source induction furnace will largely eliminate material constraints.

Sawmill
The open source movement is expanding into the physical realm but like the online sector, open source is only as strong as its community of contributors. The movement not only relies on its network of designers and prototypers, but communes and clubs to build and test the machines. One such community is the Village on Sewanee Creek, a sustainable community on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee.  The property development has weekly projects where villagers come together as a group to build chicken coops and biochar gasifiers to support a self sustaining community. Groups like these are part of the development and the success of Open Source Ecology

For example, the Village on Sewanee Creek recently ran into a hitch when their tractor began to malfunction.  Open Source Ecology now provides the designs and instructions to allow the village to build a tractor of their own. One that they can fix on site should problems arise and made from materials locally available. The village not only brings together likeminded people interested in tinkering, fabricating, and sustainability, but roots its community weekly projects such as building an open source tractor.  Open Source Ecology will succeed best in a permanent setting where the community is already project oriented and dedicated to self-sufficiency.

Find out more about the Village on Sewanee Creek here.

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Our Local Currency, An Alternative to Barter in Tennessee

Here, on the Southern Cumberland Plateau, there have been a number of recent attempts to establish a barter community.  One uses Face Book to publish barter opportunities, but it has become just an online yard sale.  A local farmer’s market accepts food stamps and engages in some barter.  Craig’s List offers a section for barter.  Old time rural residents of Grundy, Marion and Franklin Counties have been adept for years at striking good barter bargains.  But the fact remains that barter is difficult.  Matching two needs to two haves occurs rarely and usually with a lot of unsatisfying compromise.  All advanced civilizations rely on some form of universal currency to grease the wheels of commerce and stimulate trade within the economy.

And what of “the economy”?  How’s it going out there?    Even a casual observer will notice that “the economy” is increasingly distant.  Globalization has expanded the marketplace for goods, services, finance, labor and everything else far beyond our reach or control.  One impact of globalization is that it seems the only export growth sector for America is jobs, especially those that are high paying, manufacturing or high tech.  For several decades we have been told that America is a service economy and that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing as long as you have a high paying job and can buy cheap things imported from China or India.  That makes you feel pretty wealthy.

Service economies function on lots of credit and lots of consumption.  That worked pretty well as long as the housing bubble and easy credit pumped up our false sense of prosperity.  When that popped, we bailed out the big banks and wall street investment firms with trillions of dollars of inflation generating fiat cash.  Oh yeah, that wasn’t a one-time thing as promised.  We’re still doing it.

Meanwhile, the government keeps telling us that inflation is low and under control.  But those of us not on food stamps have noticed a big difference in the cost of our every day expenses, things like groceries, gas, health care and insurance.  Meanwhile, tried to get a new loan for a house lately?  That huge cash infusion into the banking industry doesn’t seem to be trickling down.  Wonder where all that money went?  It’s still in the toilet and someone forgot to flush.  Can you imagine the inflationary impact if it had actually gone into our consumptive economy?

But the real elephant in the room is the US Dollar’s status as world currency tied to the petrol dollar.  There have been rumblings for some time that it’s time to change that.  In early 2012, Russia began selling oil to China without the intermediary US dollar.  The dike is cracked and many informed people believe it will take more fingers than we have to keep it plugged.   How many guns, fighters, tanks, air craft carriers and military bases will it take to force the world to continue using an inflated dollar?  When the dike fails and another currency becomes the global currency (Can you say Renmimbi or how about Yuan?)  what will become of the good old $US?   I have a framed 100 trillion dollar note from Zimbabwe on my book case as a reminder of what happens to all currencies when there is too much of them floating around to represent the value of their underlying goods and services.  Ever wanted to be a trillionaire?  Just move to Zimbabwe and you can enjoy that status.

These are just some of the reasons we have been considering alternative currencies for a long time.  We believe in proactively preparing for things.  We believe in being self-sufficient. And, there are many more benefits to stimulating the local economy by keeping cash circulating locally.  For a quick look at the benefits and how local currencies can work, take a look at this short video.

Surprisingly, there is nothing illegal about printing your own currency and there are a number of very successful examples of local currencies in the USA.  BerkShares in upstate New York are one of the most successful.  Here is a list of local US currencies.  You will note that, while there are several, they are still uncommon.

We think we have a unique approach to implementing the Sewanee Dollar at the Village on Sewanee Creek.  It can work initially in a very small economy based on systems already in place.  Over time, we hope to grow our economy and the benefits of participation to encompass business transactions in a much larger area.  Interested?  Inquire Here.

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FEAR DEFINES YOU

FEAR

You may not want to accept the fact. It’s not the ONLY thing that defines you, but it does define you.

Notice the little things that motivate your behavior. There is a reason everyone is familiar with the carrot/stick metaphor. We DO things either out of desire or fear. Both define us because fear and desire are the two prime motives for thoughts that lead to action.

Many years ago, I received a piece of advice that stuck. “Never run away from things you fear or dislike, only toward things you want.” In the context of career advice, it made sense. When we react out of fear or negative feelings, we are apt to make knee-jerk, thoughtless moves that are self-destructive, leading nowhere positive. Moving toward positive goals is generally the course that results in a steady, upward climb.

You have probably heard similar advice. Having learned to reject fear, we try to reject the notion that we might be motivated by it. Pride says, “fear and negative emotions don’t drive me”. Don’t kid yourself. It’s there. Sometimes for good reason. Thank God, most people have the sense to move away from a rattling snake.

We fear things we don’t know. Recently, I attended a meeting where a bright, aggressive young attorney at the top of his game was directing the discussion. Suddenly, he stopped in mid-sentence to warn me that a tiny spider had strolled across my shoulder and disappeared behind my back. I shrugged. “I guess I’m part of its habitat.” Later I thought, how interesting that a guy with so much self-confidence in his world would be freaked out by a tiny spider. Apparently spiders don’t live in his world. They do in mine, and I hardly give them a second thought.

Today, I mentioned to my friend, Joe, that I’m writing about fear. Joe doesn’t live in the attorney’s world. I’ve never seen Joe in a suit. His world is horses, dogs, hunting or trapping raccoons in the back woods of the Cumberland Plateau. He grew up with critters of all kinds, knows them intimately and is their master. There’s not much in the outdoors that he’s afraid of. But Joe acknowledged that he would crumble if he had to leave his world for my other friend, the attorney’s. He acknowledged that everyone must deal with fear. Then he proceeded to tell me how his rugged father had taught him at a young age to deal with fear.

Near their home was the remains of an old strip mine, with a deep, blue-hole pond, maybe ninety feet deep. Joe’s family was dirt poor, so a swim in the blue hole was a good substitute for a bath. At a very young age, his Dad brought him to a cliff above the edge of the pond, dove in and swam to a rock in the center, where he climbed out to sun himself. Calling back to Joe, he commanded him to jump in and swim to him. Joe cried, “Daddy, I don’t know how to swim. I’m scared.” The gruff reply came, “Do you think I would let you drown? Leave your fear in the mud and get over here!” Trusting in his father, he leaped in, flailing like a puppy and found that he could, in fact swim. By focusing on reaching the rock where Dad was, he managed to leave his fear in the mud. “That’s how I learned to swim”, Joe beamed.
“But, you know, fear will kill you”, he said. “If you tense up, you drown”.

“Absolutely! I know that’s true”, I responded. I used to surf some good-sized waves on Oahu’s famous North Shore. A wipe-out can feel like you’re being tumbled in a monstrous washing machine where you have no idea which way is up. I learned early on to just relax. The wave soon passes. Then it’s usually easy to get to the surface to get a gulp of air. Sometimes you barely get a breath before being pummeled again by the next wave. Relax and go limp again. It too will pass. But if you panic, you waste valuable strength and oxygen. Fear will literally kill you. Or, it can kill the joy of life. It could have kept me from surfing, the one thing I enjoyed more than anything else.

English: Daniela Freitas doing a barrel roll a...

Banzai Pipeline during competition on the North Shore of Oahu,Hawaii. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Surfing large waves, it’s not just the fear of drowning that can kill you. At the point of take-off, you paddle to match the speed of the wave. Suddenly the bottom drops out and there is a moment of decision. Take one more quick stroke, commit, jump to your feet and drive down the face of the vertical wave . . . or pull back if your take-off is too late and too critical. Hesitate at the moment of decision and you’re likely to free-fall and be eaten by the wave. At a powerful break like Hawaii’s pipeline, that could mean an encounter with a razor-sharp coral head, just inches below the surface followed by tons of crashing, churning water. Is there fear? Hell, yes! Manage it. It’s all in the mind-set. Picture yourself driving hard down the face of the wave toward an exhilarating bottom turn. Take that last stroke with confidence and power. Allow yourself to think of free-falling, out of control? Fear, hesitation, panic and an over-the falls experience are sure to follow.

In situations where fear is a natural reaction, ignoring or denying it doesn’t change the fact that it’s there. You can’t manage something that you won’t acknowledge exists.

A few years ago, I witnessed a subtle, yet extreme example of denial. I was speaking to a group of preppers who were interested in joining a bug-out colony. Incidentally, the Village on Sewanee Creek is not a “bug-out colony”. I prefer to think of it as more of a “bug-in community” where long-term commitment to building a better, more self-reliant life replaces fear. I started my talk with an observation that attendees had probably come out of fear. One of the group took offense and became animated, even angry. His point, “I am motivated entirely out of positive desires to protect my family. Because I am prepared, I am fearless and calm in the face of danger.” His anger was telling. Turns out, he had a small business selling survival food storage items. None of us wants to think that we are motivated by fear. He ended his rant by observing that people don’t buy out of fear. A positive sales approach is more effective. And, of course, he was right. But, underlying the rant were two kinds of fear in the room.

First, it was clear from the discussion that followed, that these would-be preppers were petrified of a world they saw disintegrating around them. They looked forward to poverty, famine, social chaos, roving gangs of rioting thieves, cataclysmic climate change, tyranny, nuclear war, EMP’s, chem-trails, UFO’s, TEOTWAWKI and a myriad of other real or imagined threats. And they were seeking the safety of “like-minded” people who would band together in a time of crisis for protection. Tell me again that the prime motive was not fear?  Give me a break!

There was a second, more subtle, insidious kind of fear demonstrated that day.  Peering through the vigorous denial, was a palpable fear of fear itself.  I had called a spade a spade and was prepared to talk about it, reveal it and deal with it.  The objecting man was afraid that he might lose sales if the topic turned to fear.  Fear runs deep, denied or unnoticed.  Even when we project our most confident, happy selves, there are legitimate things to fear, to avoid.  When anger or other negative emotions bubble to the surface, fear often lurks in the depths of the soul.

As for me, I freely admit that, like the crowd I spoke to that day, there have been times when, absorbed in thoughts of what is wrong with this world, I have stared petrified down the vertical face of a violent wave as the bottom drops out of my deepest fears.  But as I visualize myself taking control and driving to a better place, fear evaporates, turning into an adrenaline rush.  That is the essence of my quest to become self-sufficient, independent of things that go bump in the night.  Better still, when I learn new skills, conquer new, unfamiliar worlds and open myself to creative expression, I am exhilarated by a sense of well-being and oneness with the natural world that God created and intended for me to enjoy.