Nothing has every answer. But growing teaches you to ask better questions: Who am I? What am I here for? How can I contribute?

Circling back to week one, I wrote that I was often guilty of deferring happiness to some future date when some specific thing happened - only to find, like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, it never materialised the way I expected.

Homesteading, and farming more generally, doesn't bring peace or relaxation. It's just normal life with some of the quotidian complaints of urban life removed. If we're still not at peace, it dawns on us that this is at least partially an internal struggle, not an external one - but an internal struggle that can be grappled with.

Homesteading, even on a small scale, can show us how to slow down enough to see that we are not victims of events - that we have enough, that there is abundance, and that we can support our kids on their journey without jumping into distant future scenarios. We can stay present to who our kids are, and who we are, right now.

In the silence, we can ask basic questions about our identity, individual and collective. These questions connect us to everyone who has asked similar questions over thousands of years. Only when we see that our basic needs are met can we then see that the contradictions, inequalities, and messiness will never be fully resolved - and that gets us to a deeper set of questions, reflections, and possibilities.

These are expansive and explorative, and we can spend a lifetime figuring them out.

Here are links to the previous week’s emails:

1. Slowly does it. Everything takes time, and when you give things sufficient time, they become beautiful. Small consistent actions create abundance.

2. Small is beautiful. You don't need a huge plot to create something meaningful. Do what you can afford - there's plenty of room for exploration and growth.

3. Values over perfection. Lean into what matters most, but don't drive your family crazy with idealism that doesn't match your reality. Connection trumps perfection.

4. Stay open to change. Allow life to shift your trajectory. Learn as you go, and be willing to take unexpected paths that teach you more than you planned.

5. You're part of something bigger. Connect with your community, your city, your world. Isolation breeds perfectionism; community creates resilience.

6. Understand universal needs more deeply being gentle with yourself and being gentle with your plants are similar processes of understanding needs.

7. Focus on the soil. Soil is a metaphor for life - it takes time and many different elements working together to create something that sustains growth.

8. Embrace the whole cycle. Life, death, animals, seasons - managing space for the benefit of all who live in it becomes a practice in stewardship.

9. Health is complex. It's more than just eating homegrown food. Pay attention to all dimensions - sometimes perfectionism becomes its own kind of illness.

10. Nothing has every answer. But growing teaches you to ask better questions: Who am I? What am I here for? How can I contribute?

Workshops

Grow our newsletter

If you are enjoying our newsletter, consider forwarding on to someone in your community. If you received this from a friend, you can sign up here