06061 Migration and Stability

Voluntary Migration

In my own 60 years of life, I have lived in 17 different cities in eight different states and provinces in two different nations. My migrations were all voluntary and mine is not an unusual story.

If an event is about to happen in your life, permaculture says “design your approach to the happening, whatever it may be.”

Voluntary migration is a major life event. It should never be approached casually.

Migration changes the relationships and networks and geographies you have in your present place and brings in new relationships, networks, and geographies to your life. Some of your old connections and relationships may be lost or abandoned, either intentionally or simply because it is more difficult than you expected to maintain a long distance relationship.

Migration involves risk. An appropriate design for migration will determine all of the risks and the advantages for a migration and weigh those pro’s and con’s in making the decision.

One reason for migrating is that your government (local, regional, state/provincial, nation) may be so toxic that it may be better to get out from under its domination than to try to adapt in place. Voting with your feet has a long and honorable history as a way of dealing with oppressive regimes.

Some places should probably be abandoned because of the risky or particularly fragile nature of their regional ecologies.

Involuntary Migration

Involuntary migration is a major life event driven by upheavals and calamities, either in your personal life and household or in the community in which you live. These crises can cause post traumatic stress syndrome and other physical and mental issues that may aggravate the general problem and negativity of the situation.

Involuntary migration can rarely be planned when it occurs. It is most often a rapid and sometimes panicked response to a situation that spirals out of control. The best that one can do is to make a general plan for the hazard of involuntary migration, as part of your design for resiliency. See section 9 for more information on preparations for evacuations and “bug-outs.”

Migration Lifestyle (Nomadic)

Some people choose migration as a lifestyle. They plan to move at regular intervals. They may or may not rent a home when migrating to a new place. They may have a mobile home (RV, boat, van, bus), or a set of camping equipment, or they may use networks such as World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms — http://www.wwoof.org/ — or Couchsurfing — http://www.couchsurfing.org — to find casual temporary housing while in an area. Some strategies that people use in such lifestyles include —

• Minimal personal possessions,
• Seasonal activities
• Shared resources
• Regional networks of support

Voluntary nomads often have a trade that is easy to practice on-the-road, as a way of earning living.

Stability

When faced with trouble, the American frontier ethos was always to “pull up your stakes, pack up your stuff, and move somewhere else.”

The grass would be greener there. The climate would be better. There will be more money. There will be more stuff. It will be better stuff. The people there will be more interesting, beautiful, and handsome. I will be more interesting, beautiful, and handsome if I go there.

At one point in my life I thought I felt trapped in a small town in rural Oklahoma that was halfway to nowhere. The land was flat. It wasn’t interesting. It wasn’t fun or exciting. I had to go somewhere else, again, and again, and again, only to eventually come to the realization that fun, excitement, happiness — life! — is not a matter of the exact geography of my life. Instead what's important are the flows from my own interior disposition and my attitudes about the where’s and what’s of my life.

Drawing on that frontier ethos, we all-too-often believe that if only we were in a different situation, THEN we would be able to truly live in a way that cares for people, cares for the planet, and has a care for the future. In our fantasies this is in an idyllic utopian setting where we live in an earth-sheltered straw bale home on five acres in a rural area, planted with orchards and perennial vegetables, where we can nurture bees and worms and rabbits and goats and all kinds of fun critters.

But if we want to live the earth-friendly life — now is the time to do so. Tomorrow will never actually get here and yesterday is gone and done with. All that any of us have is the present day. To constantly live in the tomorrow is to avoid the realities of the present.

The real counterculture choice these days that happens to be the choice that cares for people, cares for the planet, and has a care for the future, is to stay put where you are.

Bloom where you are planted, as they say.

Find a place that works for you. Put down some roots and live there. Become part of the ecology. Be your place. Don’t live in the future or the past. Live in the present wherever that geography may be.

We live the permacultured life right here, right now, not in some future utopia that will never see the light of day.

This is a matter of doing what we can, with what we have, where we are — and doing it intentionally, as a matter of design, not as a matter of being wafted this way or that way by the current winds of fashion. Permaculture design allows you to break free of the slavery of high velocity and move at your own speed, in your own time, to the places you choose, by paths you decide to take.

Consider these common synonyms of stability —

adherence, assurance, backbone, balance, cohesion, constancy, dependability, determination, durability, endurance, firmness, maturity, permanence, security and steadfastness.

The people who are most notorious for their rape of the earth, who are guilty of the worst abuses against people, animals, birds, and communities, are those who have no sense of place. They rush unceasingly from one airport to another. Their lives are blurs of zip codes and hotels and airports. They ignore the unpaid costs of their lifestyles.

To become intimately connected with a particular place, to know it and love it and care for it does not mean that you can’t appreciate the beauty and diversity of other places and other peoples. Indeed, being rooted in a geography seems to me to be a prerequisite of the ability to appreciate other places and peoples and cultures.

The velocity of modern life is extreme and it seems unlikely that we will get out of the present situation without slowing things down a bit. That isn’t the kind of thing that can be legislated, though. It can only be achieved as the ethics of permaculture become the conventional wisdom of millions. This isn’t an impossible task. It is merely difficult.

An embrace of stability as a lifestyle does not suggest that one will never move in a lifetime, but rather that if migration must occur in a life, it will be for reasons that care for people, care for the planet, and have a care for the future. It will not be founded in the existential angst that seems to be driving so much of the modern rootless migration and random travel.

Migration and travel seem so common that those who travel less, who avoid occasions for long journeys, are notable exceptions.

There is no such thing as a “Travel All You Want Without Ecological Consequences” card. However entitled any of us feel to unlimited travel with our only constraint being our personal economic circumstances, flying and driving personal automobiles have enormous negative ecological consequences.

The sad truth of the modern era is that even people with commitments to ecological lifestyles do not model stability. The world is full of “green leaders” who flit unceasingly from one airport to another, justifying their travel because, you know, they are important and special and the movement needs them! People want them to come and personally see them and satisfy their emotional needs for someone important to pay attention to them and tickle their ears with the things they want to hear. The number of leaders in the sustainability movement who travel by sustainable methods (bus, boat, and rail) is, alas, nothing that we can brag about.

I have no objection in principle to traveling to give presentations and speeches, I just think we should praxis what we preach when we do so. That means going by bus or train when traveling between cities and avoiding air travel. If you are so important you have to use an airplane because you are so busy, you are too important to travel and should stay home where you are needed. Foreign travel? Most of us should just stay home.

The “least damaging path” is the right choice for a world that possibly approaches tipping points in climate forcing emissions and declining energy supplies.

It’s past time to stop deluding ourselves with lies concocted by corporation greed merchants who encourage us to spend more money and who care nothing for people, nothing for the planet, and nothing for the future.

So contemplate the concept of “staying put” right where you are. Or, perhaps, make one more migration to find a place where you can put down some roots. If you will migrate during your life, as part of your life permaculture plan, describe the rational reasons for said migration(s).

Country or City

For a long time, "back to the land" was the mantra for the sustainability movement. It is not a new concept. It goes back to the days of Thoreau and the Transcendentalists. The data, however, does not support the notion that rural living is more ecological than city living. The residents of Manhattan, one of the most densely populated parcels of real estate on the planet, live much lower carbon and energy foot print lifestyles than residents of rural Oklahoma and Texas.

While this is a complex subject, it seems to me there are four drivers of interest in rural living.

Farm to market entrepreneurs. There are a growing number of people interested in growing food for direct sale to a local marketplace. This group is often more interested in small plots of land conveniently located to cities where they will market their food.

Desire for rural life. Some people just don't like the busy-ness of the city. They want something more peaceful, quiet, closer to nature. They see that in rural life. They may have close friends and family in a particular rural area where they want to relocate.

Fear. There is a growing concern that our system is not stable and it will collapse. This fear is completely justified. Our system is unsustainable. Unsustainable systems eventually collapse. We hope to manage that collapse but that may not be possible. People think they will be safer in rural areas where they can grow all of their own food and energy.

Desire to live more sustainably. The interest in rural living is often driven by a desire to grow all the food and energy the household needs. People thinking that "growing your own" is the ultimate in sustainability.

I think the first two reasons — desire for rural life and farm to market entrepreneurship — are fine reasons for moving to rural areas. The last two, however, are not good reasons for moving to rural areas.

I have discussed the comparative carbon and energy footprints of rural versus city living in 00131 so I won't repeat that here. The evidence is clear that both have their pluses and minuses. Because of that, absent a desire for rural living or farm to market entrepreneurship, imagining a duty to move to rural areas so they can raise their own food seems not such a good reason for a major life migration.

A household can be at risk of just as much violence in a rural area as they are in a city. If the entire system collapses, it's impact in rural areas will be as severe as in the cities. Rural areas may be overwhelmed by refugees from the city.

Anywhere you go, community is the issue that makes or breaks the safety of a situation. Participation in a local community of care and support is an important factor in developing stability in an area. If you have many beneficial connections in your place of life, it is easier to develop stability than if you are in an area where you know few people and few people are interested in knowing you. It's easy to say "we all need a community of care and support.' I will be the first to admit that that is not always an easy thing to develop in one's life. That's why iPermie devotes an entire section to that topic.