The Forest Journey - way of life

Without belief nothing matters..
The first belief or stimulus is that of survival. When survival becomes too easy, feelings take priority. These feelings, like honor of a Samurai, so powerful that they can break the need for survival. Feelings evolve into stories and these stories can chain and break us
or bring us to the tallest mountains
or they can change the world for the better..
But what is better?

Our Current World People Control.. People Dominate.. and to what end? Technology has given us many positive improvements, but has also offered us the ability to destroy almost all of the diversity on this planet. To an engineer, an automobile can be an impressive piece of technology, but when we look away from the diversity in the microscale to the domination of it in the macroscale it can lose it's luster. Look at satellite imagery and one would find a criss cross of roads dissecting a good portion of the ecosystems on land. Our society, the network that now exists among all civilizations, is like a bundle of controlling creations. Our ancient fathers stories of conquest and their feelings of greed have set us towards this path. A lot of people are caught up in this dominating story, so much that even their survival is now linked to domination.
Control and civilization are not necessarily evil,
but domination I would argue is.

Are We Too Late? Are we too late trying to stop this dominating story and do we need control to prevent a catastrophe?
Climate Change!
Pollution!
Natural Resources Running Out!
Nuclear Weapons!
Genocide!
You can sit here and debate these overwhelming issues, but it is my hope we don't have to.

Hope This is about where we should start trying to talk about hope. I have hope in the people we see everyday. Hope that if these people really saw the truth then they would make changes. I say "really" because too often people see truths watered down and/or can't relate to them. Showing people that there is a path not to be born and die in domination is the goal.

My whole point is that we don't have to dominate to create diversity.

You could weigh the scales of domination versus those of diversity. Most of us have time and are away from seemingly desperate situations to make these choices. We can decide to live in a way as not to be a part of the dominating trend and instead create non-dominating diversity. It is beautiful to think about living in and creating a non-dominated area. Our products and art do not have to dominate. We do not have to dominate to eat, sleep, urinate, receive medical aid, and to have fun. We don't have to! How do we do this then?

The Journey of Non-Domination Our domination over the natural world has led to many of the social problems we have today. Look at the genocide in Darfur caused from desertification of herder land leading to an assault on farmers for land. Our journey first starts with nature.

One can go through this life working with society, but one can soon find the cold slap of reality. A reality that shows that our pushes for a better world lead most of the time to compromises. Compromises that make it just that much harder to make future changes.

The top-down approach, thinking that politicians help us, is flawed in compromises. It is my belief that with with no compromise of the masses we can make soceity better. Most of the time the bottom-up, grassroots, approach doesn't have the masses and is often riddled with compromise. People still hold the chains that bind them to the dominating story of soceity. We can't make true change until we break those chains and don't give into compromise. One could argue that we need compromise to prevent catastrophe, but I believe there is another way.

We could try to change the world in the shadows. Becoming super ninjas we could stop the onslaught to the environment, but it is an endless battle without the masses which can lead to burnout, risk, fear, and personal compromises.

So where does that put us? What can we do?

It is the ground itself that I seek answers from.
Natural Truths Natural diversity has grown, declined, and changed throughout time. Lets look to Ireland for an example on what we can learn from nature. I will start with hope. Ireland was covered by great ice caps. This ice waned and then came back at least six times. Each of these times the plant and animal ecosystems were obliterated. I find hope in that, despite destruction, life can come back, grow, and diversify. This shows that as living beings we too can come back, grow, and diversify. When we seek the truth in how nature is able to do this we can find the willpower to do this ourselves. Of course, people these days are not that in touch with nature. When the Tsunami of 2004 came across the Indian Ocean the animals in the area sensed the danger and fled, but most people were not aware of these signs and about 300,000 people died. The humans that did flee were the indigenous inhabitants and were in touch with nature.

The first people arrived on Ireland about 9,000 years ago in which Ireland was about 95% forest. Eventually small-scale farming occurred and in time from this bogs were formed from the abandoned farms. These first people actually increased the diversity of the area. Destruction of a common habitat led to the creation of a rare habitat in that area. The next wave of Europeans, who arrived later to Ireland, wiped out the dense forests completely and brought some new species over. The overall effect was a loss of native biodiversity and their diverse ecosystems. Utter destruction of a habitat, or domination, doesn't need to happen.

Kind of like the squirrels who plant nuts that become trees, we find ourselves putting plants in the ground. Unlike the squirrels the more fertilizer, pest control, and irrigation systems the more controls we put in place.
Most of the time the more controls we put in place the more that environment will look less like a wilderness and less natural. This leads to a loss of native biodiversity almost all of the time. Of course it also feeds most of us. One can observe a seperation between our societal infrastructure and that of an ecosystem. Cities are like large ant piles, but most cities don't have an equilibrium with the surrounding ecosystems. Our meddling has caused imbalances in nature.

Imagine All the People Once some of us have broken the chains of the domination story, we can join together to build a better world. The ground holds the key. The story of non-domination and diversity can start with sustainable building blocks.

Recreating technology in a truly 100% sustainable and environmentally friendly way will take creativity. We are blessed with knowledge though. Creating building blocks for a new culture is a challenge, but if we accomplish this then we can create a pure foundation. We can place this foundation in a location that doesn't dominate or destroy ecosystems. Imagine living in this community and working to create some modern advances in medicine, food, and tools in a sustainable way. This foundation gives people an oppportunity to rethink the social structures and deal with demons and addictions of the old world. Some might say we are dreamers, but we are not the only ones.

World Problems Creating this new culture doesn't isolate us from the world. A dominant trend in modern society is to be judged by and to desire:

What most really want though is:

I believe people will flock to a place that gives them these opportunities. Those that come might have mental issues and bring with them old societal problems. A nurturing community can work through these problems in different ways. A social environment that comes together and heals.

A human mind can be a tangle of feelings that at times can contradict one another. Taboos aside, people want to be touched, but they also want to be left alone. More and more people are turning toward an individualistic lifestyle, but working apart from one another leads to these societal problems directly and indirectly. Even people that are together can be cut by the individualistic society surrounding them. Racism, sexism, imperialism, ableism, ageism, homophobia, and classism all fit into individualism. Not saying a lone hermit has these traits, but individualistic nations happen to. A nation might be seemingly attacked by another nation and might develop a hatred for them, but the existence of the nation is in itself an individualistic concept. If you disagree you can tell it to the innocents killed and refugees. A non-dominating culture needs to be a center for peace. Violence leads to more violence until everyone is dead. Peace and the art of fighting without fighting take intelligence. The best way to counter a destructive vision is with a constructive one, seeds of mass creation.

It is communication that builds hierachy. Your tone of voice, the words you use, and feelings you convey judge whether you are projecting a dominating or non-dominating vibe. Todays society most often forms a pyramid of hierachy. Dominating vibes sending ripples through people. All people in the pyramid enslaving themselves.

What if you flipped the pyramid? Anarchy is bliss when people are not flawed. Old world addictions and problems must be dealt with before we gain equilibrium for humanity. A flip of the pyramid is a transitional system at most. Systems and structures only have power from the culture that inhabits them. Most American cities are fast pace, thus most people go over the speed limit when driving. For people to have fears and desires is natural. These fears and desires can be manipulated by people and their surroundings. The human flaw exists from the manipulations of the dominating story. The story of domination has sunken itself into nearly every crevice. Some people are so swept away by it that they lose their perceptions. Some people just feel that something is wrong. People trying to break away from the story by television, drugs, and other addictions are in fact sinking themselves deeper into the domination story.

Inspirational Culture A pure foundation needs an inspirational culture for humanity to evolve. What vibes and feelings would we need to convey to create an inspirational culture of non-dominating diversity?

Some that come to mind:

Sustainable building blocks creating a foundation that doesn't dominate natural ecosystems plus an inspirational culture will ignite a movement that the world has never seen before. Free from the toils of the past our minds will be able to focus on technological and communication breakthroughs that are rooted in a pure foundation. People free to work together for the betterment of the universe. Guilds of scientists fixing the environmental problems. Communities fixing the social problems.

One thing I have learned from humanity is that nothing that we write down or can plan will be ensured.
We just have to believe.

Non-Dominating Diversity When the bonds of the domintating story are broken then you will realize the beauty you were searching for is inside you all along. With leastness, the ability to bring yourself away from the material world, you can find a new portal in which your senses, your creativity, and willpower increase. Besides survival the emotional mind has a purpose of creating stories. To shift our stories to ring of non-dominating diversity is very possible. The strength that leastness provides for me gives me hope that non-dominating diversity will inhabit the minds of humanity.

Wake up, believe in yourself, bring diversity, fight against domination, and enjoy life.

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If you want to be a part of this way of life email me: bre {at) theforestjourney .com

Even though this website is hosted on a server powered by wind energy and that I created using an off-grid solar system, how the website exists is against this new way of life. I am working on it, but thought the message was more important than the source.