Reality & Dream Can Work Together

Sometimes the Permaculture life is a battle of the mind--our minds show us gorgeous regenerative havens of abundance, and then...we look out our window and see concrete, glass, asphalt, and lawns.  We have to not let that painful contrast overpower our day-to-day. If we focus on things we can do, we will move forward toward our dreams, and moving forward allows us to see and seize opportunities that may not have come up otherwise.

Example:
My dream--5 acres with overflowing gardens, filled with goats, cows, and chickens.
My reality--I have an 80s ranch on a tiny urban lot between a golf course and a public school, with no full sun anywhere on my property, and below-middle-class income.

I daily battle frustration that this is what I've got (and sadly all I am likely to have!). But, when I try to rise above frustration, I do things like  fill my tub with peepy chicks--and now it sounds like I've got a farm in my house, ha!  Because of Permaculture, the Permies forums, and trying "weird" experiments, I am a different person than I was when I moved to this house a decade ago. My home, yard, my thinking, and my way of life are all different. When I think about that, I am thrilled.

The point of all this: We idealists have such beautiful visions, and also hurt greatly perceiving how very far our reality is from our visions.  But I have found that I can only move forward by truly valuing the daily progress in the direction of regenerative living I can make. We control how stuck, helpless and hopeless we feel by the volume we let our frustration play at in our heads. Try and keep that volume way way down as you work on building up your current life!

Plant more flowers.  Flowers have a way of drowning out all the other stuff.

flowers are beautiful, smell nice, and feed the pollinators.

The pollinators pollinate the vegetables and now there are vegetables to harvest.

And yes, reality and dreams can work together.

I love these books, and frequently reread them.



These books are portable mentors on making and working plans to scale up your life. Although not written by Permaculturists, they can still help us turn our regenerative values and visions into practical personal roadmaps.

Permaculture designers are pre-equipped to be life designers--hope some of you check these out!

Designing Your Life @ Thrift Books

Fail Fast, Fail Often @ Thrift Books

Thank you Rachel, I needed this post today.  I realized recently that we still have no business trying to buy a house, even a manufactured one with a little yard, we don't have the money.  I've made the best of ourlittle 550 sq. ft. 1 bedroom with a tiny kitchen and a patio, and I've made it work for 2 years, and even though we can't buy anything anytime soon, we are determined to move soon to something with more space and some sort of yardthing where I can grow more plants.  Its not a dream house of any kind and it will still be a rental, but I need something better, and that's going to have to do, while I wait for something good.  But I want to strive for contentment and not always pining for the next great thing.  Because we can't afford a great thing, we need to be content with finding a slightly better thing.

Riona Abhainn wrote:Thank you Rachel, I needed this post today.

Gee, thanks for the thanks--very glad these musings are useful.

Good for you, doing so much with where you are! And I really do believe that the more you can make of your situation, then the more unexpected things will open up for you in future. You will also be very ready to recognize them and use them when they knock on your door!

I've been thinking of all that since I got this in my inbox yesterday:

James Clear ( in 3-2-1 Thursday newsletter) wrote:
A simple recipe for finding opportunities:
  Be pleasant
  Ask questions
  Engage daily
It's hard for a warm and pleasant person who is asking a lot of questions and engaging in their industry daily to not come across interesting opportunities.

I'm introverted, but when I do behave this way it has been very true for me. (And my very extraverted mom has this happen in spades!)

A fabulous idea flashes through my mind instantly--and then unfortunately, it doesn't appear in my life quite that fast.

It might seem silly, but this is another source of frustration for me. I have trouble believing in the power of small steps adding up to big things. So, I have also really loved the way the books Atomic Habits (James Clear) and The Slight Edge (Jeff Olson) emphasize the essential nature of making continual, steady progress no matter how slow. (Oh yeah, doesn't nature do the slow-and-steady, I ask myself?)

I'm building my garden that way this year. Pure clay soil, oh my. Every Saturday is "Soilday" and I bring home one bag of good soil to add to a raised row (cause I can't afford raised beds, alas!). But you know what? I've now got Spanish marigolds (thanks Miz Pearl!), green beans, melons, broccoli, leeks, tomatoes, cucumbers coming up in there, in just a few weeks. Imagine what it will be like after another month of Soildays! (I'll be planting Hallowe'en pumpkins at the beginning of June...)

Edit: Forgot to mention the hyssop and basil out there too!