Sitting in a window seat at Coffee O in Falmouth, feeling detached and subdued, a calm I haven’t felt for a while. I need to get out of my house more, out of my neighborhood, out of my town actually. Not necessarily permanently, but certainly regularly. It was a pleasant drive out here, mostly what’s left of decent back roads, unencumbered by the hi-speed, erratic drivers that seem to rule the roads more and more here in recent years. It’s like everyone’s in a rush, to keep up, get ahead of the next curve, whatever, and the constant exposure to that constant rushing has taken its toll on me, on my spirit. I’m a human designed for a slower, more thoughtful and deliberate pace.
I come from rural roots, farmers and laborers mostly and I grew up in the analog era of the Industrial Age before Big Tech and instant tele-connection made dial-up telephone connection virtually obsolete — my dad grew up in a city, yes, the son of immigrants, but within Boston’s smaller sub-urban“neighborhood” cities before they became plastic, boxy, uniform sprawl. He remembers when Somerville still had woods when he was a boy. His parents came from Irish farm folk, a housemaid and a formerly imprisoned member of the IRA.
There was no interstate, Mass Pike, and all the other highway systems that carved up the land — supposedly in the name of what? Convenience? To separate us from each other? Cutting through our neighborhoods, they’ve certainly accomplished that.
I’ve been doing more armchair navigating, looking for my North Star, and finding it in the books I so love to read. I’ve been doing a lot of reading — and “listening” to what people have to say — dreaming of a world of possibilities, of hope, of light — despite what feels, at times, like a relentless encroaching darkness.
I find so much encouragement when I look to historical worker and class movements from past eras, as well as present-day initiatives, creatives, outliers, and other changemakers that are already shining light and hope in what can otherwise feel like ever-looming gloom and doom. I’ve been learning about the Black Panther movement, Murray Bookchin, the Greek Solidarity movement, municipalism, confederal systems, mutual aid, Rojava, and a whole lot more beyond the narrow frame of a capitalist “democracy” always teetering on the edge of some form of totalitarianism, be it right or left. I’m seeing light beyond a seeming tunnel of darkness. Perhaps you too would like to chase some of these light workers, follow the glimmers of distant beacons. They’re out there, and I aim to find as many as I can. Here’s a few I’ve been plugging into lately to keep my own light charging.
Audio and Print Media:
Dissent Magazine — municipalism, Union Hall, & more
Trillbilly Workers Party — Podcast
Appalshop
Creatives, initiatives, outliers and change makers:
Earth Bridge Community Land Trust — I’m a huge fan of community land trusts
Rock Steady Farm
Sweet Freedom Farm
Soulfire Farm
Murray Bookchin — wish I’d known he was a neighbor once upon a time
Firestorm Coop
Solidarity — mutual aid can extend beyond disaster
Substack Essays, Newsletters:
OK, Boomer
All We Can Save Project
Supernuclear— On co-living and creating communities
Already read, or on my Bookshelf, and in the Queue:
Lifehouse by Adam Greenfield
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber & David Wengrow
The Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing
Believers by Lisa Wells
’Hood Wellness by Tamela Julia Gordon
Let’s start talking to each other again:
The friendliest social network you never heard of
Just Launched— A how-to on LOCAL digital community building
…and a perfect example from … where else? Vermont, of course:
Front Porch Forum