The Secret to Surviving

Despite what we have believed. Surviving isn't done alone.

We have now entered the very beginning of deep mid-winter. The time of the year when the luster of the holidays has worn off. The distraction of beginning new routines has settled in and the grooves of the winter routine are not just firm tracks in the snow now, but they are nearly boring. The romance of a new season has become normal and mundane almost as the gray sky parts for only a moment to remind us that either the moon and stars are above or that the sun does exist.

This is the time of year when we begin to hear the deep aches that winter brings. The desire first comes in tiny doses and then sometimes when the wind is whipping against the house and begging us to stoke the fires, we hear them so loudly they nearly frighten us. This is the moment when the darkness has lasted too long and the cold feels like it has finally sucked the summer away from us for long enough that we nearly forget we will ever taste the sweetness of a tomato from the garden again.

The thing is though that as we discussed in our paid subscriber email about wolves, I shared a quote from Katherine May from her chapter on Wolves in Wintering where she says “A little craving might actually be the rallying cry of survival.” And it has sat with me since I reread this chapter in the book for that newsletter last week especially as we passed through the Wolf Moon and entered this next chapter of winter. I thought of the aches and desires that come. The cravings that bring us such itchy feelings like the wool sweater we have on our shoulders. I kept thinking about them in new ways.

I thought about those cravings so much that I pursued making it happen to gather some friends for a full moon gathering with some friends. I needed connection with my friends, it was one of the pursuits I committed to since leaving Instagram, where many of us had met. We gathered to celebrate the moon and also blow out candles to celebrate a few birthdays including mine (it’s today 1/17 by the way :) ). We began with a night ski and enjoyed climbing hills, chatting about life, and gliding down while finding the humility side by side. Then before dinner, we toasted and howled in honor of the wolf moon. We didn’t howl alone though. We howled as a group of women at the moon we couldn’t see but trusted was there because of the faint pink light left on the fresh snow that night. If you haven’t ever howled with a group of your girlfriends, I do suggest this. To hear our voices together echoing against the walls we warmed amongst but also knowing just how it would have carried outside too like a pack of wolves feels animalistic and wild. A call that resounds our connection and desire to survive. All of us are different with nearly a decade between us but I felt I was watching what true community is and just how it doesn’t just fill the aches winter can bring to the surface but how it is how we are designed to live as well.

If you haven’t read it, Suzanne Simmard wrote the book Finding the Mother Tree. It may be one of the most important books since Sand County Almanac or Darwin’s book on Evolution because she proves not only that survival of the fittest isn’t a true statement in nature, but that we are designed to be connected. She writes in the book:

“Ecosystems are so similar to human societies—they’re built on relationships. The stronger those are, the more resilient the system. And since our world’s systems are composed of individual organisms, they have the capacity to change. We creatures adapt, our genes evolve, and we can learn from experience. A system is ever changing because its parts—the trees and fungi and people—are constantly responding to one another and to the environment. Our success in coevolution—our success as a productive society—is only as good as the strength of these bonds with other individuals and species. Out of the resulting adaptation and evolution emerge behaviors that help us survive, grow, and thrive.”
- Suzanne Simmard , Finding the Mother Tree

This has gotten me thinking even about how I design a landscape. I don’t ask how this field of little bluestem or common milkweed will function alone. Instead, I ask who they need with them in order to thrive. So I build a network of plants that are time, bloom, and nutrient-stacked so their survival isn’t something I am in charge of anymore, they will do it together as a community. I design it so they can evolve and survive together. The Common Milkweed needs a field of blooming wildflowers from June to August to attract the monarch to lay the egg on their leaves where the caterpillar will feed. This is just one example, but every time I think of one plant I never think of it in a solitary way. I think of the way it will interact and work with its entire community. Every layer of it from humans to the butterfly to the trees and vines around it. So why do we believe we are meant to survive alone?

In the study of Permaculture, everything is connected. When designing a system I am constantly looking at how it will create a closed loop/cycle of resource sharing that lowers our work as humans, but also the pressure on nature. Nothing acts alone according to Permaculture because if it does it won’t be long-lasting and it may take more resources than necessary, which defeats the cycle itself. It must be connected in order to survive. In a similar idea, just this week I heard at a conference I was at about how the Amish come together at the beginning of every year and all decide what they will each grow so they don’t overlap with their offerings. They ask each other’s strengths and weaknesses and allow the focus of what they can provide the greater community to be clear and direct. This idea felt very Permaculture to me; connected and using resources of all kinds mindfully. Most all they worked together as a community to do this. They now will work smarter, more effectively, and with a clearer sense of intention and belonging than if each growing everything alone.

I have always advocated for gardens to be planted in community groups. The resiliency and health of your garden when done with polycultures and companion planting will yield better plants, high yields, less work, and healthier soil. The garden has taught me the importance of community and diversity.

The more I have read about nature and the more I pay attention the more I learn exactly what Simmard stated above, but I also see that many times the things we crave most in the depths of winter can be remedied with a little bit of intentional connection. The connection of a hike with a friend, sharing a simple meal with your neighbor, a regular phone call with a loved one, a chance to volunteer, a visit to the local book store or your favorite restaurant or coffee shop. Our world of social media has falsely made us believe we are connected and not alone, but the truth is that it has actually used a short-lived dose of dopamine to make us believe this but not actually fulfill it. Instead, it only creates a stronger ache and desire to be more intimately connected to the community, but it leaves us not looking to do that because we aren’t able to identify clearly just why we feel so isolated, sad, and longing. I believe social media has made it clearer than ever that the strongest desire as humans is to feel a sense of belonging and connection and it has thrived off this desire only to leave us further isolated and alone than we began when entering it. We then step into the falsehood that self-sufficiency means we have control of our survival and the cycle can become vicious to lead us into filling the gaps of our aching and desire for connection with things and the unnecessary rather than the thing we need most: each other.

What if this year we stepped away from believing we are connecting on social media? What if we stepped away from the scrolling of news and headlines to instead look closer to the things happening just out our doors and windows in our local communities? What if we volunteered to coach a kids’ sports team even if we don’t have kids? What would happen if we filled those 4-8 hours you probably spend on a social platform a week with even a meet-up of some friends every other week to have soup or grab a coffee in person? What if we headed to a local hike meetup through the conservation district near us? What if we looked at local issues more intently than the national ones? What if we started asking how we can share resources like childcare for our neighbors or baking bread for a friend when we already are making one? What would happen?!?! How would we feel? Is there a chance we would feel connected? Is there a chance we would begin to see the world differently?

More than ever slipping away from Instagram I am seeing the outcome even in just a few weeks. I still have an account. I have stopped in for a moment here and there, I won’t lie but the more time I slip out of the rush of the scroll the more I don’t see its value. I realized I was using it falsely to make me feel connected and valued. The truth is our value isn’t determined by anyone, but how connected we feel to our community will make us feel and ache for that approval far less. When you hug a friend in person and they truly hear and see you, you realize someone liking or commenting on a photo means is nice but not nearly as connective as that in-person connection with a friend for a few hours.

If we are to survive (maybe emotionally more than anything) the years ahead of us with shifting politics, climate change, and the monster of consumerism that is leading to such rapid decline of our earth, we must defy the belief social media is how we connect. We must choose to pour into our communities, which we can define as nature, our neighborhoods, schools, friends, workplaces, and local businesses/makers/artist/farmers.

I wonder what would happen if we decided to be together instead? Instead of filling the loneliness with the things ads on a social platform tell us we are lacking, we instead fill them by gathering around tables. We engage more intimately with friends and neighbors. We narrow our circles to the people right there in front of us and invest. Invite each other into the mess and the undone of our lives realizing that it doesn’t change the way it makes us laugh and in fact it may be the thing that allows us to do it more easily. Maybe we write real letters. Maybe we share what we have an abundance of. What if this act of looking at abundance leads us along the way to finding the cure to the cravings and aches winter presents to us in ways that in the past have felt uncomfortable? That in some way we learn the real thing we are aching for is also the thing that will allow us to survive and endure even the harshest seasons of winter in nature and life and it’s been there all along just waiting for us. That very thing — our community.

“A little craving might actually be the rallying cry of survival.”
- Katherine May, Wintering

How to Build Off-Line Community Better This Winter

Before anyone begins asking, how do I find community? I am answering the question. In our world, as adults it can feel challenging, so I am giving some ideas and thoughts, which I have learned doing myself:

• Start Being Curious:
  The thing I have learned as an adult is we stop being curious. We are constantly worried about looking stupid or silly. I have met a few people in the last 3-5 years who have shown me otherwise. They are great at making connections and friends and making people feel comfortable because they lead with curiosity in their conversations. They ask real questions about someone’s life and so on. They will strike up a convo in line at the grocery store over an orange and find out someone’s life story. Be like that! Never have I seen them get shut down. People want to connect so lead with the questions.

• Be Humble:
  To play off the above making friends sometimes we feel we need to give someone a resume, the truth it most people don’t care about your career or the things you have accomplished, those make for interesting stories, but aren’t qualifiers. Give someone a humbling antidote about yourself when maybe you felt silly. Create vulnerability through humility.

• Take online relationships offline:
  The best part of social media is finding like-minded people. That’s it. So use that part of it and then find a way to take that connection offline from there. You might be amazed how quickly that relationship feels really personal and amazing. Most of my friends have come from Social Media, but most of us no longer interact there as much as we do in person.

• Step Across the Road:
  No matter the ages of your neighbors, pursue relationships with them or at least a kindness where you can discuss the weather and day or call them up for sugar. Sometimes you get lucky and make a best friend you never would have anticipated if you hadn’t just taken the first step.

• Volunteer or Join a Board:
  I think outside work it is really important to connect with like-minded individuals so volunteer for a non-proft, coach a sports team, man the desk at an art gallery on a weekend for a few hours, or become a member of a board for a group you believe in. Activism can bring you closer to people you may want to be surrounded by. Some amazing relationships have come from being on a board and volunteering at a local outdoor school and more. Even if you don’t have kids, I highly suggest volunteering at local schools and more, you will find some amazing connections with the kids as well! They need adults who aren’t their parents to be a unique role model for them.

• Shift Your Routines:
  We started a few routines of places we show up. What results is we get to know the people there on those days. So for instance, maybe it is going a routine workout class or maybe going to the farmer’s market every Saturday or even the same restaurant every other week or so. Make a point then to have those curious conversations and just be super nice and easy to talk with. You will find friends!

• Take on a new hobby:
  Locally there are a lot of things to get into such as XC Skiing, Gardening, downhill skiing, hockey, curling, etc. All of these can feel scary to jump into if you are new but EVERYONE was new once. Remember that thing about humility? Yeah, time to use that again. Step out of your comfort zone, be a humble beginner, and someone will be excited to help you when you join a group or lesson.

• Find a great communal local news source:
  I don’t advocate for local news but I do think there is some validity and gift to it, but we have a local issues paper that is awesome, but also small-town newspapers can be absolutely delightful. Shift your news cycle a little for bit. For instance, I get one email from a national paper with a rundown of happenings, but that’s it. I don’t even read much. I also get the Good Newsletter which is really nice. Finally, I then get the local issues newsletter that is called The Ticker for us. Many cities have something similar. Find those and focus your attention there. Don’t use the Apple News app. In some instances, ignorance is really bliss.

In what ways do you suggest getting connected with friends and your local community?

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On my mind this week

Outside of the news of the world and the above convo about community, here are a few things on my mind this week that I have been listening to and doing:

• Wine Growing:
  I truthfully am slowing down dramatically this year on drinking. It became a bad habit of regular drinking not a lot (1-2 glasses every few days) and I plan to not do it much this year after all the health statements have emerged, but I also just noticed it doesn’t help my brain or sleep patterns at all. That said when I do drink I am intentional about it and it must be a specific sort of thing. In this case, it is natural wine and beer made in specific practices. There is a lot of crap in our wines and beers they aren’t required to disclose, which I could go on and on about. Instead, I have been listening to this podcast lately called Beyond Organic Wine and though it is about wine, there is a LOT about our agricultural systems, a lot about regeneration, and more. It’s a great podcast worth a listen if you are interested in this industry even as a consumer.
  

• Invisible Things:
  I recently just discovered this book by Andy J. Pizza who is an illustrator and I LOVED the idea of it. Basically he draws all these things we never think of as being a physical object or having a human characteristic to it. I got the book for our son for his birthday because he loves things like this. I am hoping to start doing some family drawing off of the idea of drawings feelings or things like this. I think it would be really great for kids but adults too!
  

• Raving About:
  I needed some new socks and I hunted the internet. I had some Bombas but never really loved them to be honest. I just got these ones from Organic Basics and I am obsessed. They are really comfy, cozy, and snug in the right ways!
  

• The Garden:
  In my class right now for my certificate, I have to think through the dreams of where I want things to go with my garden and the land. It has been a big thing but it is fun to dream about. I am thinking about this sort of design and using golden ratios for our garden beds as well as more dead hedge and living fencing systems.

• Turning 38:
  Today is my birthday and I am so feeling excited about it. This last year involved a lot of shifts in who I am, a lot of healing, and a lot of doors closing to open new ones. I have not ever felt so confident in who I am or content with life. I think there are many reasons for that, but I am excited to pursue this year ahead of me and enjoy the ride along the way.
  

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