Self sufficiency?

Posted: Thursday December 10, 2009 by Nick in Blogs

Self Sufficiency?

Some thoughts inspired by Pam’s recent rantings and Mary’s perenial ravings!

The media enjoy the Self Sufficiency/Good Life clichés, and we’ve been happy to go along with them up to a point, but is this really what IET is about?

Its hard to write this without sounding slush, but here goes.

The ethos is not about me me me. It is about us us us, thru the shared medium of food and towards a sustainable, survivable future.

We need strong communities to weather the tough times that we believe are coming. We need to re invent the collective skills of community.People that can rise to the challenges of the future without waiting for “the powers that be” to do the thinking and acting for us.
For that we need to take risks, to learn to ,not always, ask permission, to step out of comfort zones risking embarrassment or worse in order to do what we know is right and necessary.

Initiative taking, leading by doing, generosity and sharing, these are keystones.

So you will not find IET campaigning for allotments,” git orf of moi land” is not us.
You will find us sharing land, looking for new ways to be giving and receiving.

There is some pain in learning to share, but a lot more to gain. This is as much a campaign about behavior change, a cultural shift, as it is about growing leeks.

So yes we worry about peak oil, and global warming but we dream of a future where we might have to work harder and live on less but have fuller lives and fuller hearts.