Sometimes Life interrupts our daily routine, the way year after year we are kept running on autopilot. Sometimes Life rattles us with shockwaves to force us into a different state of awareness. Sometimes Life introduces us to unspeakable death, challenging us to turn a marginalized existence into a meaningful one. Rarely does a defining time happen--maybe only once in a generation.

What now after the "world changing" events of 9/11? That day saw horrific tragedy. Yet, there could be a far, far worse tragedy to come, following on its heels. We should really be afraid of letting this awful loss come to naught. If nothing of any depth happens in the aftermath--beyond the songs and the flags, the tears and the prayers, and the slogans and the moments of silence-- then we, indeed, have much to fear.

To rebuild the buildings of a city pales in scale compared to that of redirecting our lives in selfless dedication. There can be no greater memorial to those who lost their lives than for us to change ours. Charity can be an easy kind of love and get us off the track. In tracing the footsteps of all the firefighters, police, and other heroes, you come face to face with the hard love based on a commitment to place others' lives ahead of one's own.

At this critical time it is imperative that we realize that any other way of life cruelly shortchanges us. Truly, life-giving love is the path--the only path--worth taking.

Jules Dervaes September 2001

Published in July Issue of 31tenMagazine.com

With headlines about rising food costs, soaring gas prices, and skyrocketing foreclosure rates that reach directly into everyone’s wallets, as well as sobering reports about the state of the earth’s environment, there is mounting pressure for some relief. The question arises: How can an individual or one family cope in such trying times?

When I was confronted with the anxieties of living in the turbulent years of the late 1960s and early 1970s, I started searching for a way out by looking at alternative answers for how best to provide for my family. My desire was for us to be healthy and strong and to be able to live long and happy lives. I believed the only way to achieve this was to learn how to grow my own food and to live a simple lifestyle. This belief would take me on a lifelong journey. From Louisiana to New Zealand, to Florida, and then to Southern California, it was a long, winding, and difficult road.

In 2000, GMOs were introduced into the food chain by large corporations. Perceiving this to be a crisis threatening the health and survival of my family, I reacted radically. To ensure that my food supply was safe, I took matters into my own hands, trying to grow as much of my own food as possible. This project became my “Path to Freedom.”

In the midst of the urban wilderness of Los Angeles County, in downtown Pasadena, with the help of my adult children, I continued to turn my city lot into an urban homestead, fanatically planting every available space to the four corners of our small world. After much manual labor, my property would be transformed into a wildlife sanctuary, a home to citified barnyard animals, and a petite paradise where over 400 species of flora have been grown.

During the summer, up to 90 percent of my family’s vegetarian diet comes from our garden. Not only do we have the assurance of knowing where our food comes from and the satisfaction of having grown it ourselves, we enjoy produce that is unbeatably healthful and tasty. The days of having others sow, grow, harvest, and deliver to the grocery store our family’s food were gone, at least for a large percentage of our diet.

Later, we would further push for more freedom by tackling our energy usage on a variety of fronts. From simple steps such as installing CFLs, using only energy efficient/Energy Star appliances, and not using a clothes dryer, to more radical steps of forgoing electrical appliances altogether and installing solar panels, we reduced our average daily usage from 10.6 kwh to 6.0 kwh and produce much of that energy through our solar panels.

We addressed the transportation energy problem by owning only one car (a 1988 diesel Suburban) for a family of four adults; cutting back on the number of trips made; and learning how to brew biodiesel in our garage from waste vegetable oil. Our fuel costs about $1.00 per gallon. A future step planned is to cut back further on water usage.

What we have accomplished and the freedom we have gained were by way of manageable stages, along with incremental steps, because there is no quick fix. Path to Freedom has taken the vanguard position in order to incite change and to be an example of the possibilities. Today, more and more green options are widely available for the average person. Because not everyone can employ all these extreme measures at once, the question narrows down to: What can you do, where you are, with what you have, right now?

We must start by building on foundational principles in order to construct a bright future out of bleak conditions. A prerequisite principle is that of sacrifice. We must be prepared to sacrifice to achieve results and, also, to stay the course over the long haul, because no dream of any worth can be realized cheaply.

Given the bad news coming from both scientists and economists, a new direction is required, that of living lightly on the earth. We must be willing to cut back—cut back on the amount and type of travel we do; lower the amount of energy we use to heat or cool our houses; and reduce the number of single-use items we buy. Practice thrift: use it up, wear it out, or make it do. In the end, we might just have to do without. By making small sacrifices now, we will be much better prepared to face any difficult circumstances later.

Another principle, worth bringing back from bygone eras, is that of self-reliance or “do-it-yourself.” One of the reasons I started growing my own food was that I wanted the benefits of eating organic vegetables and fruit, but I couldn't afford to buy them in the grocery store. People searching for true stability can find it in the empowerment and fulfillment that comes from learning the basic skills of providing for oneself. The future depends on our developing the old-fashioned virtue of independence and exercising faith in the power of the "common man."

These principles, in order to be implemented, must be backed by passion—the passion of truly, deeply caring for our families and for our home, earth. Because, let’s face it. Our world is in deep, deep trouble and we are the “troublemakers.” We have to make real, difficult changes yesterday. Despite the obvious benefits, we are not going to recycle, compost, or talk our way out of this. Our leaders, being politicians, are not leaders at all but are bound to be followers, who just won’t be there for us in a crisis. So, it’s up to me and you to make the choice of becoming responsible stewards of the earth.

Let’s turn the world right side up. Join us on our journey towards a sustainable present and future. Let’s walk the path to freedom!

© Jules Dervaes 2008. All Rights Reserved

::Field Hand Appreciation :: YS $10 donation. Your support is greatly appreciated.

My expectations--they were reasonable--were to reap at least one ton of tomatoes of all colors and sizes. But Nature spoke to me and said, "This is what you'll have." I couldn't even negotiate. Anyway, she broke the unhappy news to me gently; and I am, for that, grateful.

This year, just in case I had an el bombo summer harvest, I had devised a backup plan. To this day I have continued to plant new tomatoes to replace those which have failed to make the grade. This is due to my stubborn reluctance to throw in the trowel.

Since, as always, nature will have the last word, I fully expect one day to hear that voice, declaring, "No more!" The way it should be. Until then, just maybe I can yet sneak in a fall harvest, bringing in some extra tomatoes under the wire.

So now, I have been thinking more and more about the big picture (No, not Terminator 3!). I am sick and tired of being sick and tired while viewing planet Earth go on its sick and tired way.

FORGET MARS! There is no news out there; in the world, national, state and local news, all that stuff has been said and done before. We are sitting through the most senseless and stupid sequel. On and on it goes. Can't we pull the plug on this junk?

If you missed it the first time, here it is again--what I am now referring to as the REAL Road Map to Peace. Come on for crying out loud. What do you say? Let's get on with journeying down the path!

But, I didn't want to wait; I couldn't wait. Waiting was dangerous. The doomsday clock for the world's food supply would only keep on ticking as I watched, sitting on the sidelines. And, there was the palpable fear that, no matter how minor, any postponement would be the start of the strict, systematic cadence of caution. ("Now, let's be reasonable."... "There's no need to do anything drastic."... "Why do you have to be different?"... "Don't be such an alarmist!")

And, just like that, such a hopeful moment, pregnant with so many wild, hot and uninhibited possibilities, would vanish. My old 'friend' practicality would have once more prevailed as it had done many times before on these forbidding occasions, in order to keep me in line. Oh, but don't you know, one can come to the end of one's rope. So, after having goose stepped for so long in this maddening cultural parade, I chose this instant, this cause, to exchange my marching boots for some gardening ones.

Rather than waste precious time thinking about where we would like to be--sitting on 5, 10, 20 or more acres in the country--we would make a go of it with what we had. But, there were always nagging doubts at every turn. We needed more vegetables. "There is no room here!" We needed more fruit. "There is no room here for trees!" We needed animals. "Surely, there isn't room here for them, too!" The doubts would keep playing their dirge; the question was: Would I dance to their tune?

Being small was going to be one big challenge. Was it 'un-American'? Our appetites tend toward supersizing. It certainly would feel peculiar to be satisfied with less. I can get enviously green over large green spaces. So, how could I happily accept this pathetic, downsized acreage? It would come down to this: Could we make--by hook or by crook--one city lot in the hand worth five such lots "in the bush"? And, down the gauntlet was thrown!

Thinking small has made all the difference in the world. Everything is so tight, which makes for one heck of a busy, stressful situation but one that is, nonetheless, truly rewarding--physically, emotionally and spiritually. A very special bonus is being able to derive a small income from our 1/5th acre city lot. So, today, by working all the angles and leaving no stone unturned, I am beginning to feel just now a small but real sense of independence.

Why can't we all become independent as our farmer-forefathers were before us? The freedom they tasted came from making a living the old-fashioned way; they had to earn it from the soil. The sweat of their daily physical toil brought forth the pure sweetness of another day of standing on your own. It was all in the knock-down, drag-out struggle to get a life.

Independent is as independent does. So, hit the path!

With lines drawn in the dirt, we would proceed to fanatically plant, trying to use every available space--high and low--to the four corners of our small world. And, after the first year in 2001 of gardening for real, were we ever shocked when the final tally showed the harvest coming in at over 2,300 pounds.

Was this a fluke? Had we just gotten lucky and hit a once-in-a-blue-moon jackpot harvest? Yet, I knew we could do more; for we had only scratched the surface of our anemic, worm challenged soil. And, as I began to look around, something incredible was happening. My small place was growing larger right before my eyes, as they searched more intensely for secret, desolate spaces in which to tuck novel plants.

Today, we are continuing to be blessed with good results. Of course, it's a jungle out there; so we also continue to face daily difficulties which keep us always on our toes. And, the weather extremes should always keep us on our knees. (Interesting, isn't it, that the predominant position of gardeners will forever be kneeling, whereas that of modern farmers is sitting?)

This will be the third year of our real reality 'show'--trying to be true survivors and to overcome all sorts of cultural fear factors. Our amazing race is towards the unheralded finish line of self-sufficiency. To us, singing and dancing for fame belong to a world of idle make-believe. What we face every day is the age-old warrior challenge of conquering ourselves in the hope of being one with the creation. In so doing, the practice of dog-eat-dog will get scrubbed.

There is no harder feat which we have had to tackle than that of planning. At first it was a matter of looking ahead to the next day. Soon we were having to figure out what to do for the next season. That was a serious brain strainer but nothing compared to having to think through a plan for the next year. Now that hurts. Too bad there is no kind of Gatorade for a sweaty brain. One day I hope to see clearly a year down the road. Next, I'll go for two, and then for three, ...

Right now, as a far-sighted planner, I'm not yet able to cut the mustard. But I know what I've got to do and that is to keep plodding along, putting one feat in front of the other. For, if I plan to stay on this path, I must plan to stay on the path.

We are what we eat. Not wanting to be GM'ed myself, nor to have GM sons or daughters, I felt the cold, clammy reality of being personally under attack. I knew that I had to protect my family from this mad experiment. Could a society, as advanced as we say we are, turn us into guinea pigs in a lab that is the whole outdoors? Where, oh where, are the controls?

I grew up during the cold war era when people were preoccupied with the fear of nuclear holocaust. At least then that danger was obvious to ordinary people, as no one wanted to be consumed by a radiated fireball.

Now, who wouldn’t want to consume a hearty bowl of steaming rice, a golden ear of corn, a red, ripe tomato? That’s why GMOs are so SINISTER; they speak to our hunger. And they also appeal to our wallets. That combination makes for a lethal one-two knock-out punch. Would resistance be futile?

Railing was never going to put that evil, corrupting genie back into the bottle. And, I was being cornered because I had no other convenient (read: cheap) way of getting genuine food anymore. Even though for many years I had been gardening (I had even killed my lawn and gotten into edible flowers), I hardly relied on these plantings for our "daily bread."

My harvests were always small--like getting a bonus at times, not like having a regular salary. Really, I had only been fiddling around in the garden. My family was tied, as we always had been, to the supermarket, dependent on another to deliver our nourishment to us. Like the mother-and-child relationship, this way was safe and warm.

So there it was. Mama -- the food market. Me -- attached by the traditionally secure and comfortable "umbilical cord" that the city dweller could not cut. Or so I thought, until I took this path.

Collectively, our world--with man in the driver's seat--has similarly been lost, only we are making great time and seeing wonderful, new sights all along the way. Why would we ever stop? We would not even question our direction because our pride would not let us show any weakness. Wouldn't a crash en route get our attention? Surely a horrific tragedy would serve to motivate us to check our position for the possibility of any danger confronting us. Today, we have been given a rare chance to search within ourselves for the hard answers as to why we stand on the edge of an abyss. Consider, then, the following.

As the human race has marched onward, scaling extreme, dizzying heights, mankind has spiraled downward to greater depths of degeneracy. After six millennia our Human Quotient has fallen to its current nadir. Now life is reduced to just ticks of the clock, marking days of futility. The world's been narrowed down to 'I' and the amassed, trivial objects revolving around me, its parochial star. People's relationships are abridged to interfaces, with virtually programmed behavior being of minimal substance. All the while, of humanity's living together in peace, the chance remains absolutely zero.

Our greater, modern society is a gross, consuming aberration, existing on earth only with the aid of, and through the support of machinery. Helplessly hooked up to this artificial life-support, we live at its 'mercy' and are subject to its 'whims' without appeal and with no hope of pardon. This ruling, alien menace controls a people now feeble and submissive, who are showered with goods and entertained religiously to induce contentment in this paradoxical bondage.

We got here by traveling the road to 'the good life.' Making this journey meant ridding our days of each and every pain because suffering was deemed bad. Thus the old ways, being strenuous, were gleefully discarded along the way for laborsaving improvements. And manic science was bent on creating the tools to finally pull off our great escape from all drudgery, AKA work. No prior creation was kept sacred on this phony providential mission to develop the earth, through reconstruction projects, as the site of our very own paradise now. We trashed what was here because we believed we could do better. And more: we boldly trespassed into inviolate space, challenging the prime, closed order. 

Rivaling original perfection was a diabolic scheme born of supreme arrogance, destined to backfire.

With the pursuit of happiness as ease, as rest, there has come a hellish existence full of needless suffering--both random and arbitrary. Our grandiose, pet projects have turned against us by raining down ruin upon, and cancerously devouring, their masters. Those wonder inventions and miracle products that carried the promise of deliverance from present toil bore the power of future destruction. Daredevils, we would take the risk and unleash those evils. With all our supernatural, black magic devices, what we have unwittingly created--and still madly champion--is Frankenstein en masse.

To pristine eyes the wake of progress would be a sewer. Only, in the beginning, we embraced deviant, bastard growth; seduced we were by the sensuous wealth it yielded so readily, so freely. When easy riches bred super fortunes, the eternal quest for the most, latest, flashiest of the invented baubles heated up intensely. Carried by advertising, the buying fever quickly spread to the masses. Burning with desire, we ached to have exotic novelties we never needed before. While deliriously dreaming of prosperity, at the expense of posterity, we would come to swallow the toxic offal which spewed forth from the production, use, and disposal of these modern vanities. 

Through contamination taking place out of sight, on the other side of town, and in an isolated area, our ideal, maiden home was uneventfully, genteelly--yet catastrophically--lost. Pollution would tempt more pollution and the defiling cycle spun out of control. The illusion that the days go on as before is sustained by the magically disappearing filth, all done with ppm doses. We will accept any abuse, even being poisoned to death, if it happens in incremental stages. It is our perpetual tolerance of small changes over time that ensures our adoption of any new home, no matter how foul the conditions. We don't mind the putrid stench when we are no longer able to smell it. What smell?

Our senses, which we could have relied upon, at first, to alarm us--saving us as we 'came to our senses'--now betray us outright. What was our basic, innate guide to personal safety--primitive sensory technology--has been corrupted by increasing exposure to mutant elements and alien states. Presently, it is normal to place ourselves in abnormal danger and to like it. In time we will prefer being in even greater peril. So snared are we in this ever-strengthening chain of perversion that what was previously normal is now felt by us to be silly, stupid, or sick. 

Therefore, we must today war against our own bodies to win life. Instead, since still in ourselves we trust, we sophisticatedly go about the daily grind of killing ourselves--at times instantly, but always, always, slowly. This is the frightening reality; but, to kill the pain of any awful, piercing realization, we reach for the quick relief provided by the mental aspirin denial, a real wonder drug for the proud psyche.

As a civilization we've managed to evict failure along with our guilt from our collective conscience. Despite our shameful record documenting terrible, generic vices, we obliviously conceive ourselves to be, on a evolutionary plane, rising. The belief of our ascent out of primordial sludge and of our advance surpassing ancestral creatures, all retrograde, enables us to be living proof of a natural progression toward superiority. This self-serving creed nurtures a warped, one-sided perspective, a supremacist view of our destiny, which in turn fuels unilateral expectations of our due.

Where once we knew our place and accepted the provisions and obligations of progeny, here was the dawning of the age of naked self-worshipers for whom the world would serve as one colossal amusement park. 

All that changed when we decided that we'd had enough of the unforgiving strictness, the unchangeable standards, and the 'absolute' judgment. So, we attacked the teacher; and we began educating ourselves differently. We set out to make the tools necessary to force nature to change and not us. We struck the blow for liberty in our revolution to overthrow the tyrant who would tax our existence without our approval. Heard round the world is the cry to be free, to be our own masters. Casting off all chains that inherently bind us is confirmation of our ambition for supreme power.

Intoxicated by deep-seated passions, we're unable to discern that beneath the proud chimes of freedom toll the sober knells of requiem.
Ever haunted by the primal specter of dearth, we're obsessed with stockpiling extras upon extras. Excess soothes our fears of want. Large closets, bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, houses--big makes us feel safe. The bigger, the safer; the safer, the happier. Getting more than before feels so naturally good we cannot grasp that, when it is easy and lasting, abundance kills. Scarcity, that old-fashioned, feared harbinger of death, has long ago been replaced in our supermarket world by surplus, the chic twin of a different color.
 
Today, we go to the grave afflicted by the modern plagues of plenty; but, with stomachs bulging, we go smiling. Corralled and fattened up, we serve as prime choices for slaughter. To avoid panic and prevent revolt among us dumb cattle, our 'messianic' medical industry dispenses its bewitching drugs to take the sting out of a cursed, abortive deaths, making them savory for victim and for viewer alike. It's a 'kinder, gentler' holocaust.

Yes, we are heading into an abyss; but, there is a way out. Yet we can not deal with the impersonal, the disconnected, the segmented, or the fragmented. We are who we are, existing in synthesis, forming our integral system; from that there is no escape.

Finally, we will not be able to dodge the hard, piercing, painful truth: IT IS US! Mankind is the apocalyptic problem. From the beginning we ourselves have been the flaw, as we have chosen our own way to live. Only, it was to die for. Now, on the verge of reaping the fruits of self-destruction, our only hope is to be retrained first to act in a totally opposite manner.

Therefore, we must not be thinking in terms of surviving, of our getting through any external crisis, but of changing, of our being reborn to a new way founded on the truth of our fundamentally flawed nature. At this juncture we must struggle to make happen an unparalleled, earthshaking event shift away from our unyielding, barren world. Only with pressing travail will the breakthrough occur.

What is to be expected is a transformation within each of us so radical that, if one looked in the mirror of his soul, he would see a stranger. It is time. 

I am guilty of thinking and talking and not doing, guilty of doing some things that I want to do and avoiding others which I find unpleasant, difficult, or just not ME. Even though I have managed to take a few steps here and there, these actions pale in the face of what still has to be done--the Mt. Everest climb to gain The Summit. At least, now, I have made a map to keep me from getting lost and, also, to remind me that I dare not stay put at any one intermediate camp for long. My course of action is laid out so: 

First, we marginalized our relationship with Nature through increasing isolation brought on by the allure of a rival way of life. The agrarian rhythm began to fade in our souls. Then, perturbed by its imbalances, inconsistencies and inadequacies, we sought to "fix" Nature's problems. It wasn't long before we were using science to put us in the driver's seat. Today, who is there to stop us? "We're Number 1!" In this competition we hope to beat Nature on its turf and, with our line-up of high flying PhDs, show our primeval "nemesis" the door.

In one century mankind has proceeded to devise ways to bind, bend and break Nature at every turn. The elements, we firmly believe, are at work constricting us and, more and more, we chafe at any restrictions which they place us under. We are not a happy lot! ...               
             

A rare moment in history found us standing at the door of a new and better world. The 9-11 attack had opened it a crack. Could we, as one, pry it open further? War has always been THE WAY to get a diverse multitude to rally around the single purpose of survival as a nation. But, inevitably, at the earliest convenience, war's strange bedfellows do split up. It is the revolving wheel of expediency, ever turning. You can bet on it.

With the increase in security, our anxiety gets defused. That knee-jerk unity becomes frayed as, once more, we feel free to pursue our private agendas. The hot, passionate oneness was but a flirtation after all. For, no matter how well we might perform as a team on a field of battle, we still remain, through and through, fiercely partisan, strongly insular, and extremely proud individuals. 

When unity is born solely of necessity, it will last only as long as is necessary. This is not real unity at all but an alliance, a "whether"-vane partnership which forever shifts in the wind of self-interest. Whether or not such a coalition is held together at any one session depends on whether or not each player at the table feels he may hold a winning hand. It is all wheeling and dealing continuously. You do not want to bet on it.

Obviously, you will not find a united body at the UN; neither at the capital, nor at city hall. Churches are a wreck, too. At the core of this large division is, logically, small division. Today, the family, society's basic building block, lies damaged or destroyed because we have raised personal separateness to a gold medal standard. If the pinnacle of life is a lifestyle centered on the single, private self, the glue is gone. We must bust that sophisticated specter of selfishness which haunts our houses, breeding a shrouded terror we do not want to face.

Here in our backyard is the most critical and sacred ground zero. Rebuilding the ruins of razed intimate unity is our job. Home is where the heart is; there, beats the discordant rhythm of divisiveness which, stridently and suggestively, vibrates all across this land. So, look no further. It is home where the path must begin.