Water: More precious than Gold

Chapter Two:

Mister Frog is happiest in a Clean Environment

What is a Community? Is it a loose knit patch of people who just happen to have landed in the same place and have to get along… Or is it something deeper? There is a saying "Good fences make good neighbours" and for Western Society this has proven very much to be the case… But only because the inner boundaries and the innate respect for each other seems to have faded away.

What we have now all lots of regulation determining how to resolve this dispute, that problem, and the noise level of that household. The Soul of Community is drowning in red tape and legality, but it has become so because of people. People have created our society the way it is today, not courts or politicians or solicitors.

And only people can repair the damage. Only people can begin to choose harmony over competition… Instead of keeping up with the Jones' we can decide to help them out a little, and they then help the next person… And so on.

Few realize it, but a good deal of European society still exists on a village level. Despite all the mechanization and huge cities that have erupted like sores on the landscape, the village is still alive and well in many parts of Europe. In Austria there still exist Village Societies that build each other's houses. One person gets married, so everyone in the town converges on the land they will buy, and the house is built in a week.

Of course, this means two things… Firstly that people can still work together, and Secondly that the SKILLS needed to build and create housing are still in the hands of the Village. Both these are essential elements in the creation of Community. The result is a natural energy that ties people to each other in a positive and helpful way… For when the next person gets married, then the village will band together and help once more.

EVERYONE benefits. The individual gets a leg up, the people get to know each other better, a shared sense of community is created and in an atmosphere of fun and enjoyment the whole village reaffirms its ancient connection with the way things "used" to be done. Tradition meets the present in a positive and energetic coupling that makes life better for all.

It is an ancient tradition I have just outlined… And just think about what it cuts out! No bureaucracy to say what can and cannot be done… No builder who divorces you from your own house. No HUGE and Lifelong Mortgage to the BANK! In fact, by living in such a society you are simply MORE FREE. Surely you are also tied to helping the next fellow, but what is the problem with that.

Don’t you WANT to help him as you have been helped? This is the true basis of the successful Village. Mutual sharing to mutual benefit. This is WHY community came about in the first place. What has DESTROYED community is Mutual GREED.

I want more, and I want to do better than you. So I won’t help you, I will COMPETE with you. If I compete successfully, I will get a bigger house, a better car, and more money. This (I therefore believe) buys me a more valuable mate, better children and more respect.

It really is ludicrous, but that is what we Humans in Western Society tend to think. Maybe we need to look at some older models, things proven to work, and let's see how things compare.

Community as we know it in Western Culture comes largely from our shared Celtic Roots, and not so much from the Roman model. The Roman Model is really that of the Industrial Age, and in truth, this is where the breakdown of the village really began. It is the Roman way of thinking, which is "Be Productive! Make Money! Pay Taxes!" that has destroyed the harmony and focus that was the village society.

The Celts, however, had more a focus on prestige and standing having value, rather than money. If you were a good warrior, thus able to defend the village, you were in high standing. If you could heal, and thus able to help the village and the individual, you were held in high standing. Practical things were of value.

In Roman society, it was who you were that was important. The lineage of the Patrician Families (The Royal bloodlines) was the most important thing, and people would do anything to be associated with this. Marriage was a form of ownership, and your house was proof of your standing.

You needed a house in the right neighbourhood, you needed money to demonstrate your value to others. Commerce, Law and Force were the overriding principles that held society together, and the Army was the supreme Being as far as social influence went.

Politics and maneuvering and vicious back biting became hallmarks of the Senate and the Ruling Classes, and no one had value unless they were Roman, and embraced the Roman ideals. Sound familiar? It should… The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire is a book all people should read.

But though Rome conquered the world, where is it now? It lasted a thousand years, but the Celts lasted far longer than this… Tell me then which is the better model… One that won with ruthless efficiency, or the society that has survived despite all the attempts to extinguish its flame?

The symbol of the Celtic people is a powerful one… They carried on the traditions of respect for the land, respect for their fellows for thousands of years. Of course, they also had power struggles and war… Things were not perfect, but overall they lived a life of balance.

Most interestingly, the Celts viewed TIME differently to how we in Western Society tend to view time. The Celt saw time as a progression of cycles where experience can occur. In the West we tend to see time as a linear length of rope that gives us a specific amount of minutes in which to accomplish a set goal. It is not a broad road where we participate with life, but a road that takes us to a specific point.

It is a subtle difference, but the clock driven production, the gaining of specific Goals, these have combined with the most recent phenomenon of recent time to create a surge of greed and aggregation the like of which world has never known. The Industrial Revolution has taken our linear sense of time, and propelled it into a highway to wealth accumulation that has pretty much dispelled our connection with our natural environment.

We work according to the clock, not according to our own sense of purpose. The value of work has been lessened, while the PRICE of work has increased… And a sense of anger and frustration has welled up in the heart of the average person to the point where work is merely a means to achieve goods and pay for services.

Discovery of Self Worth through Expression of Self

Achievement of quality, discovery of limits, the experience of self… all this has been substituted by a pre-set goal of production of product. Our net worth is determined more by the value of our work in the marketplace, rather than the aesthetic of the value of work in itself. That specific and deep satisfaction that comes with working to the natural rhythms of life has been replaced by a sense of need, because the workplace has ceased to be satisfying.

Contrast this with my cat… She loves to hunt Mice. If she catches a mouse or a rat, she is proud of her endeavor. She comes over to show me what she has done, and loves the praise. She is by nature a hunter… But the interesting thing is, when she is hunting... Time becomes nothing. The EXPERIENCE become ALL.

All that matters is the task before her, and time and opinion and anything else but her goal is invisible to her. She is doing what she LOVES, and all her energy and devotion goes into the task. She is rewarded by the goal achieved, but that is not the purpose of achieving… It is her Love of the task that she enjoys.

Compare this to someone doing piece work picking potatoes in a field. People might say "How satisfying it must be to slave in the fields hoeing rows of potatoes?" and find it a bit of a joke, but for some this can be deeply satisfying work… Satisfying not for the work itself, but because the work allows them to liberate their mind, and to dream as they will about the things they would feel to have value to themselves.

It is not necessarily the WORK that is satisfying, but 'many things go with the work… The connection to other workers, the connection to the community of people that shared in your experience … Mostly the freedom and the simple dignity of saying "I have done my bit!" Perhaps this is something that we have almost lost in our current workplace.

Under the old world hardness of life, there was a communication. A sharing of a spirit that only a village and a community can create. People may have had a hard life, but they experienced it with a group of people who knew and understood the process of life, and because of this the bonds formed, and the experiences shared meant that people did not suffer the loneliness that plagues modern society. The experience of working the fields gave people a place inside themselves where they felt strong and confident.

You can't buy that. We try… We go to all the workshops to tell us how to get there, but the most humble peasant often held more self esteem and dignity than the richest New Ager would today. But I cannot emphasize the freedom that comes with simple companionship… Because of all the diseases that plague our society, loneliness and its friend, despair, are the most prevalent.

Loneliness IS a plague. There was a time I recall when I lived in a Penthouse by the sea in a most exclusive suburb of Sydney, Australia. I had a good job, I earned good money, I dressed well… But I got home, and I realized my life had come to the point where I was so alone, so isolated, that I genuinely hoped I had some interesting Junk Mail to read when I opened the letter box at home.

I did not expect anyone to write to me, I did not even hope for someone to come up and say "I Love You." I just worked, earned money, came home and cooked an evening meal, and lived. This was living? If I had not the ability to write and create something within this lonely world of mine, I probably would have gone mad, or taken to drink.

And how many do just this?

If we consider the effects of loneliness on the heart, perhaps we might see that much of the excessive drug use in our society is directly related to the extraordinary sense of isolation we tend to experience in this culture. Our need for aggregation and performance that has become a hallmark of the 20^th Century is the very thing that drives people to extremes in all areas of their lives.

And what an incredible sense of failure we seem to collectively suffer. Despite all the successes of medicine, commerce and despite all the relative wealth we have in comparison to other cultures… Despite all this Western Culture has a sense of hollowness, a sense defined by Mick Jagger when he sang "I can’t get no satisfaction."

But visit someone who lives in a beautiful garden. Visit someone who has a good family about them, who is respected by their community, and who is doing something they truly feel is useful… And there you will find a different energy.

Visiting Rusty Harris on his property is a very pleasing thing to do. It looks as if Rusty is moving ahead with his life… A new House is getting built, a dojo is being completed… The garden is rich and green… The pet kangaroo even seems content. And yet Rusty runs life to his own sense of time, and not a clock. He does not run by "Tic Tock" but by inner rhythms.

Certainly, there are always circumstances where we have to stop and deal with life on someone else's terms… But I had the general sense that Rusty and his family are moving along to a sense of time and proportion that is far closer to the native Celtic Roots of our Western Culture.

You go into town, and everyone knows him. He is respected as a man who does what he believes to be the right thing. He may not always do the "right" thing by other people’s standards, but he does what 'he' believes to be right. There is one incident he mentioned several times to me, and clearly it is a very important issue.

It started with a dispute with a neighbour, a man who has escaped murder convictions and who could be best described as evil. He had been acting improperly towards his neighbours, but worse than this, he was harming animals on his property knowing the cries of pain from the dogs he was slowly killing would cause distress to all about him.

One day Rusty met this man on the road, and told him what he thought. A fight ensued, and essentially Rusty beat the fellow up quite badly, to the point where he needed hospitalization. A degree of calm settled over the entire area after that, but within a few months Rusty had a bad tractor accident.

The Wounding Awakens Rusty to a Truth

Lying there wounded and helpless, he realized the reason for this was a balancing of the scales. He had struck a man in anger, and it did not matter that it was righteous anger, he had harmed another with the intention to hurt. To a degree he was defending his property, but there was also vengeance and frustration behind the actions.

Calmly he accepted the fate, and as the wounds healed he came to understand that life has its scales. We go out of balance in any way, and payment in the form of re-balancing comes back. The more genuine the Soul, the quicker the re-balancing. Instant Karma is gonna get you? I guess John Lennon sang the truth…

It brings to mind the question of fighting. In defence of truth, in defence of the Earth, in defense of a country, in defense of family … Surely these things are worth fighting for. But defending pride, anger… fighting to prove we are simply better than someone else… What purpose does this serve?

It also brings to mind the question of what companies like Ross Mining are fighting for. Really, they are fighting to keep a profit. People are being hurt, physically harmed, the environment is being harmed with Cyanide, and what for? To preserve the profit margins of a Multi National Corporation that has no interest in Australia, its people and the sacred sites of the Aborigine.

How do we fight a company like this? If you beat up their workers, they just hire more… In fact they even hire mercenaries to stop (I Quote) "The Environmental Terrorism" of people disagreeing with them. What can you do in such a circumstance? You go into the field to generate media attention, and hope to affect their shareholding, but the reality of the matter is that many of the shareholders are only interested in the profit margins as well.

So you have to fight them in courts. And to fight them in the courts means you need money… You need money to research where they have failed to follow correct procedure, you need money to support the legion of secretaries and solicitors that have to be paid to commit their time and energy to tracking down the illegalities, and tp prosecute them. You need LOTS of money, even when the solicitors of true justice are on your side and reducing their costs to the bone in order to help the prosecution.

Here is one way people can begin to act as a community, by supporting a legal challenge with some money. It doesn’t take a lot if a lot of people help out… A few thousand readers all chipping in $50.00 allows Rusty to take this matter to the Supreme Court and battle the two year battle to save Timbarra Mountain.

And this is the ONLY way the mountain will be saved. Be certain of this. Life may well run you over with a tractor if you breach its laws of conduct, but companies take more time. You need a Legal Bulldozer to get the message across to them, that their vandalism is no longer wanted.

But what is far more important than this one isolated incidence with Ross Mining, a challenge that sets a precedence of environmental standards in sensitive areas over company profits creates another layer of protection for the environment in general.

Keep in mid that Mining Companies have already been put on notice by the success of protest at Timbarra already. Never before has an environmental protest stopped a Gold Mine. It is a warning to new ventures to make sure their act is clean before they start. But it does not STOP the vandalism…

This issue may well go to the High Court of Australia, and we can expect that it will. Once settled in the favour of the environment and sacred indigenous rights, we effectively create LAW. Similar to the Mabo Decision, Timbarra stands as being the catalyst to enormous change in the way mining procedures are carried out in this country.

Again… No one is against mining. But when you have a company that is leaching two tons of Cyanide into a sacred site, and into a river that flows down as supplies a town with irrigation and drinking water. Well… I think common sense tells us there has to be a better way.

Otherwise we will begin to end up with the madness sweeping America, when companies do things like place Nuclear Power Stations atop the San Andreas Fault. Insanity, you might say? "Profits" will be the answer that echoes through the corporate halls. Deck the Halls with fields of money!

Rusty regrets his intention of harming another human being, but he recognizes that even so, it was something that had to be. In much a same way, he does not relish taking on giant companies in the Law Courts… But he knows it has to be done. Because he is committed to what he believes to be right, people listen to and respect his words.

Check Out Nimbin

You go into the famous Nimbin Museum and there, in the café out the back, you will see many pictures of him on the walls. Why? Rusty has been active and strong in his beliefs, and he epitomizes the beliefs of the town. Protect the environment, create your own life, create a permaculture garden in which to live. Fight for what you believe to be right.

However, how does all this figure into a dialogue on Community? This is the key note of this chapter… the founding and sustaining of Community and community values.

Fighting for what we believe in is the BEST way to create community. Fighting for the rights for our children to attend a school that teaches what we believe to be correct, and not simply a government institutionalized indoctrination to a Nine to Five working life. Fighting for the rights to live a life of fresh food and fresh air… It is through the process of fighting for what we believe in that we become bonded.

But we need support. No man is an island, and no battle is one alone. We need family, we need friends, we need community if we are to succeed in a way that is harmonious and welcoming. Sure a person can fight life and win a higher paid salary, drive a better car, and all of this… But if we think back to our roots, a man would go out to hunt food for his tribe and his family. He would catch food, but it was so much easier when he learned to work as a team with his brothers.

The women would hunt for legumes, mill corn, whatever, but it was so much easier with the help of her sisters. Now, forgetting about gender difference, the result is the same… Working together makes life easier, and the whole can be more successful as the solitary person striving to beat the odds. Ross Mining will only be defeated by a group working together, and community can only be created with a united sense of purpose.

Now, I ask… Would Rusty suffer and fade if he were forced to live in a city where these beliefs were not respected? Well… He would have three choices… Change the situation and bring people onside… Change himself, and forget the ideals, or walk away. I can’t see Rusty walking away, or changing his beliefs to suit others… So he would really only have one option.

And this is what this book is ALL about. Offering YOU the option of changing or at least reviewing the way you approach life, and to consider the benefits of working for the planet, and working within a community of others. But we need to plant the seeds! We need to take time out to allow the thoughts within this book to take hold and grow in the way appropriate for our own nature.

There is an old saying "Live your faith, and you will feed those who need faith. Once they have faith, they will feed you." This was something told to priests being sent to take over a parish as they went on a missionary effort around the world, but if people are deaf to the message from the messenger… Then the message will die. Another way of approaching this is to simply not cast pearls before swine.

I hope I am not talking to Swine… And really if you have come so far, you are higher than this consciousness of "What’s in it for me!" I hope so, at any rate… SO let’s look at the ideal… Let’s look at living in the Garden, of living in the year 50,000 HERE and NOW.

In the words of the John Lennon Song… Let's stop and IMAGINE for just a few moments, and as you imagine, feel how you would FEEL in this situation… ALLOW yourself to walk and touch and smell the future as if it is right NOW. Free your heart, and just accept the images we present to you… and trust that it may not be just imagination. Trust that it CAN be real…

Imagine … The world about you feels good. It feels whole. You can sense the harmony and freedom in the air all about you. You can hear your neighbours children laughing as they play in the sun… You can smell the flowers you have in your front garden. It is good. You feel completely safe… You have noi debts to the Bank. You own everything in your house, and there is food and love for all.

Visitors are welcome. You have one there right now, sharing a bottle of wine and laughing about what happened yesterday. The wood table and the wood floor seem to be alive with memories, and the natural shapes to the houses across the way echo your own. You remember a time when people lived in ugly square boxes, and you wonder how they ever managed.

Your friend suggests a walk… You are walking out your door, and all about you is beautiful housing and nature. Trees and flowers and gardens and richness abound. Imagine how good you feel to know you are a part of this. Imagine what it is like to have your home, to have no mortgage, and yet if someone turns up who is not as fortunate as you… Imagine that all you have to say is "Go to the garden down the way and eat breakfast… Pluck some fruit from a tree and simply enjoy."

Imagine your children laughing, going to a school where they are loved, and cared for by teachers that teach meaningful things. Imagine and see how they now have friends and family all about them, and feel so secure and content. You can go into town, and you know someone will be there to help take care of the children if the car breaks down and you are late getting back. You walk about feeling SUPPORTED. Supported by your friends, your environment and by life.

Is it perfect? Well there is no perfection on this planet… Surely we have to perform some sort of work, to earn our way. But will this still be the burden it once was? Surely here we have a better chance of working in a manner that is harmonious with our nature. Just as surely there will be disputes, as we are all human… But against the backdrop of harmony there is an encouragement to end the dispute more quickly, and to just get on with living.

And now come back to the suburbs and work and schools that fail to teach children to read properly, and employers that don’t care about anything but profits. Walk into that square house that you paid too much for, and see the lack of joy in the pale faces of the children playing video games. And why? Because you have to work in the city to pay a mortgage so that you will be OK in later life? It is like building a Nuclear Power Station on a fault line folks…

WAKE UP PEOPLE! It is BOUND to fail at some point.

Or worse than this… You succeed against the odds, and manage to grow old in a nicely isolated house in a segmented neighbourhood do and saying all the things your neighbours believe to be appropriate. It is NOT living, it is existing.

Without a garden around us, which is as much the PEOPLE that grow in our care as our plants, and other animals… Without this we are on our own. Even as a family we find ourselves divided from each other, and we will suffer loneliness. In our sense of deprivation we will reach out for something to fill the hole we have in our lives… And so will our children! Normally this is meaningless behaviour, drugs, and bad attitudes. It may be better paid jobs and faster cars… But is there really any difference? An old Tibetan saying goes "Filling holes with space" … And this is what Western Culture has largely been about.

But when we stop and grow a garden around us, and this can be as much a garden of Soul as anything else, then we discover we are NOT as alone as we feared. Certainly we are born alone, and we die alone… But need we be so lonely in between?

Community is so important. We need friends… We need to be able to trust those in our world. It is the essential, integral aspect of our lives that we cannot do without. Even a hermit in a cave will talk to himself, or have a pet. Why?… Because we need some way of connecting with others, connecting with life, in order to feel whole. It is more than safety in numbers… It is Spiritual Sustenance to have the energy and love of other people around us.

Without a structured village or community, people seek out community in other ways… through the Internet, through clubs, through shared interest groups. Yet so often these groups are "thin" representations of community. The people do not require someone to be a living breathing member of an organism, but rather, you generally exist within a fairly two dimensional connection. Once you go home, you leave the group behind.

Aboriginal culture had true community. Members of the Bundjalung tribe might only say seven words to each other all day long, but they would all intimately know and sense the feelings and thoughts of all in their tribal group. They knew what needed to be done in order to make their society function, and all did as was required in order to survive.

Each had their own existence, yet each also had a shared existence within the group. Each had their own role, yet this role was flexible and permitted sharing of work, and respect for the role each person played. Elders and children were incorporated into the group, and all served a function that worked for the good of the whole. Quite different to the stratified and isolationist existence most in Western Culture experience as the "norm"…

And this is essentially the problem… What most people consider the "norm" is simply not NORMAL in regard to the patterns of existence that suit we human beings. These patterns are not new, but ancient! Indigenous cultures all around the world can tell us at a glance what is truly appropriate human behavior … All around us are examples of Human Cultures that have existed for thousands of years, and each can tell us a little of what is truly the "norm" for the human experience.

But do we listen? Do we look and pay our respect to these culture that have been in existence far longer than we have? No… It appears that because Aryans have "Won" the race to civilization, as a group they tend believe they now have the right to tell the Human Race how it should be run.

Unfortunately it appears we are only running it into the ground! However, it is never too late to turn things around, but we have to start. We cannot expect government to do anything to help the average person or the planet… Government exists only to feed itself. Running the country itself is almost as a side issue! It is only an excuse to gain the right to exercise power… Concessions are given to people only because of their associations with favourable organizations, and freedoms are allocated largely in relation to the degree of money earned. Look at the OJ Simpson case… The best justice money can buy, as they say. It is not at all a perfect system, not at all, but within it there ARE ways we can help ourselves.

Helping ourselves invariably means working together. Western Culture has for years pretty much taught us to work alone… Even though we may be on a production line with three hundred workers, our job is solitary, and what is more, our job is often isolating. We do not work with other people in a harmonious, communicative manner… We just tend to perform a function, and go home.

GO ON... Get out of the BOX

We live in a box at work, we go home to another box we otherwise call a home. We live within the defined boundaries of shall’s and shall not’s and we live, as the American Writer, Thoreau says: Leading lives of quiet desperation. Living? Eking out an existence is perhaps more accurate.

And we have all these people seeing the doctor and the therapist … Trying to work out the knots of desperation and confusion that echo into the fabric of their lives like some mad, insane pattern that no tailor in his right mind would use. The pieces do not fit, the suit is ugly, and we are unhappy wearing it… But we do! No one told us we can throw that old suit away!

Is there any wonder that in a world where the individual is minimized and the profit margin is maximized … Where communication comes mostly from some emotional android on a TV tube, where the existence of love is unrelated to living, where freedom is a new car and wealth is having something better than the neighbour… Is there any wonder we have a society of people in knots.

We would all do better to spend some time relearning how to tie the Celtic Knots… And ‘not’ just the patterns we see in the pictures… But the general way the Celts stitched their lives together to be in harmony with the seasons and the way the earth worked.

Some would say that the knot of civilization and the general congestion of humanity can only be resolved in the way Alexander resolved the Gorgonian knot… Cut through it. Chop it up and there is no longer a problem. This ruthless, and really very short sighted approach is very ill considered when the overview of families and society are concerned.

The entire idea that we should not drive cars, stop all mining, and lead pure selfless lives dedicated to repairing the planet is a very narrow and confined view that creates only resistance. It offers no solutions. We have a problem, so let’s look at the ways of solving it. And working together, we CAN…

But first we have to know how sick the patient it. What is the "real" condition of society in the West? What does this ‘Western Knot’ produce? We all know it produces corporations out of control… We all know it produces a state where the companies generate the wealth that allows the consumer to consume. We know the companies also create the job and the opportunity for all to earn a living … Yet it also creates a state where these companies become the tail that wags the dogs of government, the people, and the standards of the community.

We are not against companies, or profits… But let’s put them back into perspective. This should be an ASSISTANCE to the Human Race, not the ruling force.

The corporations have powers unto themselves, and generally speaking, their only rule is the Law of Profit. Government might seek to reign in the excesses of Corporate Greed, but it has no desire to remove the desire 'or' the greed, because the rational really is "Greed is Good". Remove the motivation for Companies to expand and grow, and jobs will fail, the economy will subside, and the Government will be voted out.

Greed for wealth creates jobs for workers, which wins votes for government. There are side issues to this that few realize … Did you know it has been stated that the Conservative Governments actually ‘prefer’ a figure of 6% to 8% of unemployment in an economy… Because a lack of jobs drives down wages, which increases profits, which increases the tax base, and reduces inflation. If you ain’t got it, you can’t spend it!

This causes interest rates to drop, which means the average mortgage owner has more money in the pocket, which means they spend more on luxuries, which feeds the companies which feed the tax base of the Government… It is all one big cycle where the Government sees its role merely as a regulatory body, not a driving force.

Once a King or Queen made decisions, and these decisions were based purely on security and wealth… purely on self interest, sure, but self interest for the King or Queen was also (generally) in the best interest of the country.

It was also in the interest of the ruling class to keep people in village society, for this is where the primary production occurred… But the Industrial Revolution moved the power base to companies and away from the ruling classes. At first companies were bounded by national borders, and so could be governed to a degree by government… But as the Multi National emerged as a force in the 20^th century, large scale uncontrolled expansion was the result.

In fact, this principle started two World Wars!

The Growth of the Multi National

Companies began to extend beyond regulatory control, and gain incredible wealth. And then the development of technology created a situation where, for the first time in human history, these corporations could genuinely inflict irreparable harm on the planet.

The proliferation of Atomic Power Stations are a good example of this madness. The populace went along because they were offered jobs, but also because Government sanctioned these new developments.

And there is one large equation that has changed. Population. Population itself is expanding, and as the consumer base extends outwards into untold regions of wealth (especially in the West) people are becoming less and less connected with the nature of community, and more and more involved in the state of acquisition.

Companies are scrambling to meet this demand, and in the rush they are often entirely careless in regard what harm or effect this commercialism is having on environment. Both our human environment and the natural environment are suffering the effects of rampant commercialism.

Companies have come to believe that if they are creating wealth, they are performing a useful function. And they ARE… It is simply a question of the cost of this function. No one wants all the companies to close? No one… We need an economy. Who wants all mining to stop? No one who has any sense would demand this, because we need mining. But what is the cost of all this? How do we balance the human and environment equation as we approach this new millennium?

One good example, and people may laugh, is Microsoft. Bill Gates has done a very simple thing… He created a company where the people that work within it are well cared for. He was one of the first to has child minding centers within his buildings… He was one of the first to offer extended compassionate leave to workers. He even provides better coffee and biscuits to his workers than his competitors do.

Because he looks after his staff, they look after him. He trains them for free, and helps them to better paid positions in the company. Microsoft works within the corporate world, but has kept the human face within its walls. What is more, Bill Gates has created his products for the mass market and made them much cheaper than his opposition. This alone proves he never lost sight of the fact that the people who support him are the families of the Western Nations. Cost down, service up… a simple equation, and now Bill Gates is the richest man in the world.

Consideration, respect, training. In a sense Bill Gates has created more than a business… He has created a COMMUNITY. And you know… He has done very well because of this. You can too!

Curiously, Mining companies have been responsible for helping to re-awaken the sense of community in Western Culture. Mining in out lying areas has meant that companies have had to create small communities in order to attract workers and their families to isolated locations. Mining towns in Central Queensland such as Mount Isa are terrific places to live.

There are lots of facilities, lots of friendly folk, lots to do on the weekend, and there are people about to share your existence. It creates a good vibe. But it also creates large social problems, such as drinking, because people are also very unused to living together in such a close social group.

So let’s go just ONE step further! I promise you it CAN work… Why not create permaculture parks where people can go and eat fruit, walk, play with children, watch nature, and you will see a different culture beginning to emerge. Have mining companies pay their workers even so little as one half day a week to help maintain these facilities, and we will see a whole new spirit enter into the community, because people will be coming back to SHARED EXPERIENCE.

A town can pay a gardener to look after this, and the cost per person would be very low... especially considering the benefits to community and the children.

It is that easy. Less strikes… More production. Less arguments, less alcohol abuse, more harmony and cheaper food for all. In fact a company can sell the locally produced fruit it has paid its workers to grow back to them, and suffer no loss financially while gaining enormously socially and economically in other areas. It is a Win Win situation … Everyone likes that!

Now, let’s look at the reality of what we call urban existence. Let me put it to you the way Rusty does … We have kids dying of drug overdoses and loneliness on the streets of our cities, while in the country we are giving the cows the best Real Estate.

Where ARE we placing our values?

Now there is a large debate that simply states "You earn whatever you receive". If you are low on the socio-economic scale, well fight your way up or live in the muck. It is a competitive system, and if you can’t make the grade, you stay in the dust. Personal responsibility, user pays, and if you can’t cut the mustard (Have you ever wondered what that saying really means?) tough biscuits!"

On the other hand, there are the social workers who would complain the government is not doing enough to help the disadvantaged. They will say that we should be helping to balance society, and keep poverty at a minimum.

Well… I don’t have an answer to the big question of how to treat other people in society, other than to suggest that if a small group of people chooses to help someone, they can make a difference.

If one community chooses to invite a homeless person or two to help out around the property, and in return get free food and lodging, then with dignity we are offering a leg up to someone who may need it. If a community chooses to invite a few homeless children to their property, and shows them an alternative way of life, well with dignity we are offering those who have forgotten they have a choice, a choice to live rather than to die.

All around in rural communities you will find wonderful old people, mechanics, curtain makers, bakers, butchers… You name it. What are they doing? Often these wonderfully talented folk are sitting around waiting to die. Now… Imagine if this resource was given the chance to teach younger people skills they have learned? It helps the young and the old. It is not so complicated… It does not require Government Grants… It does not require large amounts of money.

All it requires is a community that cares enough to offer a hand. It is not offering money, it is not offering anything but an opportunity. People being helped also help out in the gardens… Every one keeps their dignity, and everyone shares in the reward of simply discovering the light in a Human Soul, and helping kindle the fire within.

Governments cannot do this with programs. Hard nosed realists cannot help us with theories of social competition, and how those under the thumb of circumstance should just walk out from under them. Only people can really help people. Only people in COMMUNITY can have the resource and focus that will help other folk, one by one, to a better stage of life.

If there is one community outside every capital city where street kids know they can go to learn some skills, and where a homeless person knows they can go to find some purpose, then we are offering an ALTERNATIVE… Then we have a safety valve. This is the key, the offering of the alternative to the mechanical process of government and the harsh process of capitalism.

It really makes sense…

And if there are two communities… and then Three… and then Four… Why, within a few generations we will have arrived not to the 21^st Century… But the year 50,000.

So this brings us to the best way to FUND a community. We need a way to support workers and create income. Now obviously not everyone is going to leave the cities… They have too great a vested interest in what is happening there.

The essential element, however, is a form of work that can be shared for the betterment of all. Each person will have their personal specialty, but each can help contribute to the whole in a meaningful, useful manner.

Obviously there will be artistic pursuits, and the internet allows people to earn money in remote areas… But not everyone is suited to this. Living in a rural economy we need to find an agricultural solution. And there are several of these on offer which we take up in the next chapter.

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Would you like to know more about the remarkable properties of Water?
Go to: www.silksprings.com