I knew it was coming. Years ago. I didn't know when or how, but I knew we would hit the wall.
I was living in a tent when 9-11 happened. I wasn't shocked. While the devastation was terrible, I honestly expected it to happen sooner and and expected to be much worse. We are living out of balance.
I knew the dinosaurs of society wouldn't go down without a lot of thrashing about. That is why I left Los Angeles and headed for Hawai'i. That is why I stopped pursuing as career as a commercial actor for a job as a farmer. When Bush was elected, I was partially glad. I thought that having that maniac at the helm would wake people up. I though that he would jack the heat on the pot of water, and the frog citizens would jump out instead of slowly being cooked in the gradual demise of our civil liberties and human rights. I was partially right. Bush and Co. took it further that I couild have imagined.
I come from them, the conservative neo-cons. I was raised conservative christian. I was waiting for the Apocolypse. After I left the house and the mind set of the Doomsday fetishists, I began to see the world as a place I wanted to be, not just a waiting room for heaven. I saw the world was alive, all of it, the trees, the oceans, the cockroaches, everything. The world spoke to me, reminded me that it nurtured me. I listened. I responded.
The apocalypse brainwashing was still there. It changed shapes though. Now I was awaiting the destruction of the unnatural systems that were calcifying this world, anticipated the end of the corrupted power structures that were sucking the vitality out of all living things for their own selfish needs.
I didn't do anything to expedite it. I knew that it would fail naturally. The control systems were to unweildy.
I was in downtown LA during the riotsof '91. I was in Northridge when the earth shook in '94. I saw the signs. The grocery stores were emptied in hours. I knew I didn't want to be there when something big went down.
I moved to Hawai'i, learned to eat off the land and hunt in the water. I chose O'ahu, in spite of the fact that 80% of the population of the Hawaiian Islands live on this rock. We could feed ourselves if we had to, but not without a heroic effort. 85% of our food is shipped in from over seas. We are the most remote metropolitan city in the world.
I decided to prepare for a disaster. In Hawai'i we are all ohana, family. We take care of each other. It's not good to make enemys here or prolong conflicts, because everyone knows everyone, one way or the other. We can't avoid each other here.
i'm living and working on five acres of land that are under the supervision of the Hawai'i Department of Land and Natural Resources. The lease is held by a couple of old Okinawan locals since the 60's. Their too old to work the land much, but they still depend on the sale of flowers in the orcid house for their income. I came in to put the rest of the land into production to help them keep their taxes low, and to help them win their last ten year lease extension. We don't get along that well, but they need me, and I have no other way of getting access to this much land. There is a cabal of big business nursery owners in town that would rather us not get the extension. They don't want to see the land tied up for ten more years. They would rather have the property go up for bid so that they can vie for the lease to expand their commercial nursery operations. Then they would cover the land with gravel and plastic and spray everything with chemicals.
I am using the issue of sky rocketing fuel prices to convince the DLNR that food producers should have first shot at the agricultural lands. It's more difficult than one might think. The commercial guys have more cash and are in a better position to pay the state more for the next 50 year lease. I'm trying to connect the dots for them. Higher fuel prices = higher food prices. I find out at a hearing next week if the state has the foresight to choose food production over turfgrass. Bad news on the oil front would be good news for me and the future of food farmers on the islands. We'll see if the press is paying attention to the elephant in ther room. In the meantime, I'm germinating my seeds.
( stay tuned...)
