There was a time during the 20 month party that I said I could imagine giving a deep roots plot to a gapper. After, maybe, 18 months of awesome work. That never came to be,
but....
... more recently ...
There are two gappers that are currently applying 100% of their bounty income to deep roots plots.
Both of these gappers arrived last year ... they did some bounty stuff and they just seemed to jump in and help lots of folks with lots of projects. They set a good, strong forward momentum. For each bounty, their work was far better than what I expected. And, it seems like when we talk, they understood me really well - they didn't need any handholding or detailed explanations.
This is awesome. The best.
And .... I'm a little nervous to mention it at all.
On the one hand, I really like the idea of having a dozen people doing exactly this.
On the other hand, I am worried that I could end up with a lot of people that want to do this, but what they bring to the table is not this.
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In 2005 I realized that for all the things I wanted to and be part of, it was bigger than I could possibly do by myself. So I had this idea that I would live on a big piece of land with six other people that were all at least as passionate as I am about permaculture. Each of those six would be far better than me at several aspects of permaculture. It would be an amazing growth experience.
That is what I imagined.
I read the community books, I took community workshops, I visited dozens of communities, and lived in communities. I realized that I needed something that had a central leader, so I joined a community that had a central leader. I learned that I needed to be the central leader and that I needed to provide a way so that people could learn about the central leader before coming (podcasts and videos and articles and speaking and stuff).
It begins.
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Again, all the things I want to do is sooooo very big. The list of what I would like to accomplish has grown bigger. Now I want to do all the things I wanted to do in 2005 and I want to
save the world infect a billion brains with permaculture goodness. I want to test the wofatis, I want to see rocket mass heaters and hugelkultur become commonplace. I want to see the people of america grow 20 times more food for themselves than they currently do.
Some days I feel like I can almost smell a path to having everything I want - if I just work a little harder. And other days I feel like I do have to do all the little things myself.
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I had an idea two days ago about an enhancement to all of our hugelkulturs and berms. It would be work. But it would be soooo cool. And finishing the basecamp paddocks so we can get started with paddock shift ... chickens ... hogs ... more hugelkultur .... we need a brushpile ... more berms .... art ... a new video project ... finish at least one of the books ... new features for jforum ... a youtube video about rocket mass heater external air intake ... a youtube video about
cowgirl coffee ... make the last podcast for gaia's garden ... do a podcast review series of the big black book .... need to finish allerton abbey .... very much want to put in a johnson style
air well - that's just a few hours ... dvds are arriving soon and will need to be mailed out ... basecamp has a water leak and the bermshed hydrant needs to be moved (twofer?) ... need to make a sketchup of the garage for modifications ... need to update sketchup for bermshed and some new wofati designs ... need to build good shelves in office and prep it for interviews and voice recording ... need to get new dvd streaming set up ... need to set up next year's pdc and innovators events ... finish cooper cabin .... start wofati freezer ... plant the lemon tree at the lemon tree site ...
To find somebody to help, I think the first step is to find 20 people to help, 19 of those turn out to be more of a hindrance than a help.
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A while ago I wrote about
the difference between a level 2 person and a level 7 person. Basically, I will drag a level 2 person, kicking and screaming, into mediocrity. A level 7 person will drag me, kicking and screaming, into awesomeness.
I now like the idea of harboring a dozen level 7 people here. And, in time, maybe most of the people at level 9 on the wheaton eco scale will live at wheaton labs.
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At the moment, I am low on coin. But I am rich in deep roots plots. And I have more projects than I can possibly complete in one lifetime. And building forward velocity is important.
I suppose if people have suffered through 200 or more of my podcasts and they wanna come out for a few weeks, we can see how well you fit ... and go from there.
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