I have never felt rooted. I have never believed it possible to feel a sense of place. I learned that the Government “owns” all the land. I learned that the best I could do is “purchase” — that is, go deep into debt with the “help” of the Bank — the rights to use land, misleadingly called “ownership”. I learned that my rights can be revoked and my land seized by simply failing to pay property taxes. In my view, such temporary and vulnerable “land use rights” is a far cry from true “ownership,” setting aside for the moment the utter absurdity of the concept of “owning” any place on the Earth. To rub salt in the wound, the Government unjustly, but quite legally, takes any equity it gains beyond the taxes owed when the property rights are resold. How can anyone feel a sense of belonging on the Earth under those conditions? How has it come about that everyone submits to Government and accepts this state of affairs? Why do so few people raise questions?
My grandparents emigrated from Lebanon, when families there could no longer sustain themselves due to political and economic woes. My mother was born and raised in a U.S. city where her family struggled to keep body and soul together during the Great Depression. She remembers long lines waiting for rations of poor quality food. My father, on the other hand, lived in a tiny, economically pinched rural town, but everyone there at least had a garden, chickens and a pig in their yards; they scarcely knew there was a depression. Once the depression receded and the world wars were finally over, it seemed like boom times were on a roll that might never end. To my young parents, city life seemed far easier than country life, and was certainly more exciting and promising of adventure. Though my father could have known better, food security was no longer considered an issue worthy of concern.
Though my parents “owned” a house in the city, this did not engender a sense of place, since the norm (which my parents religiously followed) was to upsize every few years into a more “fashionable” neighborhood (greater debt) to increase their “social status” in the eyes of their peers. I sadly observed as my parents became virtual bio-robots enslaved by huge debts to soulless jobs that cut them off from the real world of Nature, breathing polluted air, drinking contaminated water, eating junk food, and calling that “the good life”.
While I was growing up, my parents never grew so much as a potted tomato plant on their patio, much less a garden. We seldom ate fresh vegetables anyway – Wonder Bread and the convenience of canned foods reigned supreme! I had no idea what garden plants even looked like, since raising your own food was not on the curriculum of a “modern” education (unless you went on to college and chose to study agribusiness methods of raping the Earth). In fact, schools offered very few practical skills at all – we were successfully “programmed” to be cogs in the industrial machine of modern capitalism. The subtle message of the propaganda called “history” drummed into us in school was that the less we questioned authority and our lot in life, the better for the “stability” of society and ultimately for our “happiness”. The carrot dangling before our noses was the fantasy that we, too, could be “successful” and make a lot of money if we just worked hard enough (and did not rock the boat!)
I had resigned myself to this unreality, believing that those in power called the shots and that the best I could do was to stay under the radar. I scarcely noticed as this deadening worldview seeped into my consciousness from a young age, resulting over time in a numbing powerlessness. My meek acceptance of everyday injustices just felt “normal”.
That is, until I read The Ringing Cedars books about Anastasia, a Russian mystic living in the remote Siberian forest. After studying her ideas, I now understand that my rootlessness and powerlessness stem from the fact that most families around the globe have never had a domain that we can claim in perpetuity on which to sustain ourselves that no one can take away from us. No one in my family has ever experienced a deep and abiding love of the land, of Nature, nor the wonder of the miracle of Life.
Now I clearly see the injustice of having to pay “ransom” for land with the ever-present threat of its seizure for not participating in the economic system as demanded. I clearly see the insidious agenda behind our modern “lifestyles”: the continual enrichment of the wealthy at the expense of the rest of Earth’s inhabitants. The false, human-concocted system of monetary economics has replaced natural, resource-based economics and is designed to keep the common people too impoverished, downtrodden and distracted to ask pertinent questions or to fight back.
Isn’t it curious that those who interpret the Bible literally and try to live according to its dictates have overlooked the model of life presented in its first chapter? They have never cognized that Adam and Eve left PARADISE, which was a GARDEN right here on Earth, where all their needs were naturally met. They have never cognized that we can return to Paradise as we leave behind the addictive pursuit of “knowledge,” which is really overstimulation of the mind obscuring the heart. We can restore the Garden of Eden one garden at a time, learning to become stewards of this beautiful Earth, reconnecting with God through Nature, the manifestation on Earth of God’s Thought.
I know. This proposal sounds too simplistic. Dead-on-arrival.
Except that Russians are already materializing Anastasia’s Dream in their Motherland one garden at a time. Private gardens in Russia produce a whopping 56% of the country’s produce! Citizens are tackling the oppressive sovereignty of their government one unjust law at a time by forming new political parties and campaigns. They are restoring Community, transitioning into living in greater harmony with Nature and one another one cooperative settlement at a time, by taking over and restoring wasteland and abandoned towns. Anastasia’s Vision is even expanding beyond Russia’s borders.
Imagine the possibilities…!
Government bodies, regulations and enforcement are still very much needed to reign in corporate greed for power and prestige and to protect our environment as the world brings about reform to these structures and transitions to something more workable. I am proposing that the Vision for a New World Order begins with the first step: small networked groups throughout the world that serve as working models of our future.