Week 5: You are part of something bigger

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together

Hi! I'm Jo, writing from Heart & Soil homestead, a 1-acre homestead in the Far South of Cape Town, South Africa. Every week I share inspiration and education for your growing journey. Thanks so much for reading!

Welcome to Ten Things from Ten Years on our homestead, where I’ll be reflecting on major tipping points framing our time on the farm. This is week 5, where I reflect on connection with family, community and beyond.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together

African proverb

I took this picture from Chapman’s peak last week- Our homestead is somewhere in the red highlighted dot. A tiny dot in a tiny dot in a tiny…

You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you can’t be human on your own.

Frederick Buechner

You're part of something bigger. 

Connect with your community, your city, the world. Isolation breeds perfectionism; community creates resilience. When you're imagining your home, think about how your homestead will interact with other people, and give time to that process.

I've met people who want to disappear - to be utterly self-sufficient in a rural area, to live completely outside "the system," believing the way to improve the world is to make their footprint almost invisible, and to be untouched by a difficult world. In fact, a couple of years ago, in our street, all the members of one church group actually did decide to completely disappear.

While it’s natural to have perspectives on things, and to want to do better, there’s also a danger of becoming cynical as we get better at what we do. This is not specific to homesteader-types. It’s just hard to connect with our neighbours if we get too attached to a certain way of life that we’re convinced is absolutely right. That is, if we’re too deeply attached to our homesteader or [fill-in-the-blank] identity.

As I've spent more time homesteading, I've felt more deeply that we are all connected, and these connections mean we cannot grow alone. Suffering anywhere affects us all. Excessive consumerism by segments of the world’s population affects us all. If we can improve our own sustainability practice by 50% but help 100 others improve theirs by 10%, the collective impact is much greater than achieving 100% perfection in isolation.

I don't think we're meant to decide on one answer to the world's problems and simply act on it alone. I think we're meant to make slow progress together - to try something for size, practice, improve, then invite someone else to take our practice one step further. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions, and we certainly haven't found the perfect way to live.

When we find beauty and peace and share it, it grows.

For example, we are linked to many of our neighbours: we have a door between our neighbours and us and our kids can move freely between properties, another neighbour comes over to study maths with my dad, one neighbour has overseen many of our building projects. Another lent us their car when we were without one. Another has taught our son magic. And so on, and so on. Living shoulder-to-shoulder to a low-income neighbourhood has also enriched our lives rather than detracted from it.

You only are free when you realize you belong no place - you belong every place - no place at all. The price is high. The reward is great.

Maya Angelou

As we choose and accept our place in the world, with its limitations and our own blind spots, we are less concerned with individual achievement and more concerned with connection and growth.

Here’s to striving together for better. Have a great week. Tell me about your connections, I’d love to hear!

Workshops

2 Aug 9-10:30 Veg growing workshop
6 Sep 9-10:30 Veg growing workshop
13 Sep 9-10:30 Dairy Goat workshop

I’m slowing down a little on topic-related workshops for this year, but if you have a company group or a group of family or friends that you’d like to learn composting, growing, chicken rearing, sourdough baking, cheesemaking or some other topic, let me know. It could be a fun way to connect with colleagues, friends and family.

Kimchi days….

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