-
·
What’s Wrong With You?
Short answer: nothing. There’s a quiet lie that does more damage than the loud ones because it doesn’t shout. It just sits down next to you at the end of a long day and says: everyone else has this figured out. What’s wrong with you? I saw it on display the other day in our…
-
·
A waking dream
On cutting free what was never yours to carry I had a sort of waking dream today. It was a most amazing experience. I had been reading the news and, as is pretty common these days, felt a panic attack coming on. I used a technique I’ve learned to focus on the physical sensations in the…
-
·
So be it resolved…
From the edge of 2017 Rarely has a year been as hated as 2016. The poor thing; so unfairly accused. After all, all 2016 did was provide 365 days. It was up to us to fill them. Each day, we had a choice: to be resolved, to live our convictions or to let it slide.…
-
·
Live the experiment
Daily Reflection 2025-05-21 I want to coin a new term: larva brain. We talk about our reptile brains; this is like that but different. The larva brain is a sort of layer over top of the organic brain. These larva are parasitic, feeding off the electricity of a brain that’s freaking out. It’s the larva…
-
·
The goal isn’t the goal
Daily Reflections 2025-05-19 It’s a rainy morning. We had a gorgeous day yesterday and I spent most of it in the garden preparing beds for planting so I’m a bit stiff and sore this morning, but in a good way. And I have a few thought rattling around. I read a great piece by Jennifer…
-
·
Permission to be Seen
On barbs, bravery and belonging My dad turned 93 last week. He’s been sober for about sixty of those years, with a gap in the middle that started about the time I came along. The drinking hadn’t always been a problem. It came on in his thirties, the way these things sometimes do. Pressures started…
-
·
Putting out fires vs. planting more trees
Every action you take has an energy signature. Some actions have a “buy now, pay later” quality; they leave you with an energy debt. They short-change what is necessary now and postpone it until later. Not only do they leave you with an energy debt, there is always, as it were, an interest charge. Taking…
-
·
Fair Share Ethics
May 14, 2025 We’re all in this together. I am perpetually surprised at how hard it is to convey a simple idea to people who can only think in complicated ways. The idea at the core of the Lifeboat Academy is just such an idea. We think of it as the farmastery experience. Once you…
-
·
What does it mean to belong?
What if the problem isn’t ownership — but disconnection? Ben Kadel examines what happens when stewardship structures ask people to give long-term care to land and community without allowing that care to return as security, continuity, or future capacity. Drawing on the logic of healthy land-based cultures — where stewardship and livelihood were inseparable —…
-
·
Learning to unlearn
Business as Usual and the Antidote Jul 14, 2025 I’m often surprised at how hard people make things for themselves. For example, we treat sociocracy as some complicated, arcane rule-based system when it’s actually amazingly simple. Sociocracy basically says “do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.” Simple. To do that, we lean…
