Full Description
“I have seen that community and a close relationship with the land can enrich human life beyond all comparison with material wealth or technological sophistication. I have learned that another way is possible.”
– Helena Norberg Hodge
Consumptive, globalized society is founded on delusional understandings of Earth’s capacity, ecological limits, and metabolisms. There are far more enjoyable, meaningful, and sustainable ways to exist, and we can practice futures of shared sufficiency in the already-turbulent present. As we relearn the practical, providential skills needed to reclaim our labor and live well in an era of endings, we can begin to create material and conceptual containers for vital new-old cultures. We can revillage.
Revillaging puts the theory of how to be-long into practice, in our places. We take what we learn from traveling (literal travel, and metaphorical travel through literature and discussions) and learn how to adapt these lessons to our unique circumstances in place.
A village is how we humans and non-humans live together. The scope and range of a group of people is determined by availability of energetic input. In revillaging, we consider the essential needs of our communities and lost skills needed to meet them with a grounded, realistic view of our entanglement with the Earth and in the midst of a wounded planet, and fractured culture.
Revillaging is a sandbox for experimentation. We do not have to build from scratch, but as our conditions rapidly change, and as we try to unearth old knowledge, there will plenty of trial and error. We can create microcosms of different ways of being that can serve as example and inspiration to others doing parallel work. Each of these will fit into a mosaic of diverse and unique ways of adapting to change and attempting to be-long.