Last year I attended two events in Montpelier with promoters for a Vermont Republic. As one of the early organizers in the bioregional movement I wondered how the aspiration for Vermont independence could be translated into action.

“What is the practice?” I asked myself and others attending the event.  Since then it has become more obvious that the answer is already rooted in Vermonters’ walking our talk as we actively create a sustainable 21st century place within a changing global commons.  

There’s no need to look far.

Many citizens in our community are already involving themselves in the work of climate stabilization, peace and social justice, and local and worldwide conservation efforts. This work may yet help turn the tide against the destruction of diverse ecosystems and communities.

Members of my Winooski Valley community, for example, are building an ecological consciousness and way of living in response to our troubled times. We understand that shipping fossil fuel, food, and consumer detritus around the world will become obsolete as we slide toward the bottom of the peak oil curve and as we encounter ongoing shifts in climate.

If we do not create a more viable world, if we fail to act now, I shudder to think what to tell my son and his friends as they grow up.. “Ooops!” just won’t do.     

Years ago I was visiting with a learned, white-haired friend who paid close attention to patterns in nature and human settlements. We were sharing stories about nature and social justice while sitting on the bank of a slow moving desert river in the upper Rio Grande watershed. We agreed that, “Without the benefit of a density of connections among people and between tribe and place, we wither on the metaphorical vine.”   

Can we transform the darkening horizon into a life- affirming pattern of living on earth? Rebuilding a dense web of connections at the local level is one key to altering the dismal predictions of a deepening social and environmental catastrophe.  (And as key leaders in the Global Climate Change movement say, we must connect our local work nationally and internationally as well. Furthermore, as author  Paul Hawkin writes, it is the global web of millions of local movements that will beneficially transform the world.   These perspectives offer us further ways to think through our strategies for changing our communities AND the world.)

In my work as Director of the Goddard College program “Health Arts and Sciences: Bridging Nature, Culture and Healing,” my intent is to teach and model how active social ties and ecological relationships are in themselves healing modalities-- “the medicine of connection.”  When we create community, we discover greater peace, health and nurturing relationships. We have far less need for self-centered angst and addictive habits of consumption.  

The medicine of connection is so healing because we humans are hard-wired for relationship. Our very nervous system provides the tissue of empathy and the potential for cooperation. We need each other to create healthy and sustained change in our communities, our world, and ourselves. The actions we take on behalf of others make a difference. Galvanizing our actions to recreate local community within a global context is profoundly necessary to invoke the healing we need.

Without community and the creation of alliances across the planet, we become disassociated and unable to creatively respond to looming crises. This disconnection is more than psychological and spiritual. We feel it on an ecological and social level, when ignorant human behavior actively unravels the fabric of life. Given how dire the times, sometimes I startle out of a deep sleep and rehash the wrenching violence related to the our era’s shortages, skyrocketing costs,  and growing insecurity over food and energy.   

I’m always searching for threads that could help life renew itself over time. In that search, I find that my friends and neighbors provide part of the antidote to the politics and practices of indifference that have brought us collectively to the perilous edge.  On the home-front there is a diversity of activity devoted to relocalization for a place-based, sustainable Vermont.   

One neighbor builds his family a home by drawing on recycled materials, locally milled wood, and help from co-workers and friends who form regular work parties. They attach a greenhouse and photovoltaic system to their super insulated house. In turn he gives community tours to teach others about affordable green building techniques.

A friend splits and stacks cords of firewood for an older woman, accepting a reasonable fee for his services. He installs insulated windows for her to conserve energy and helps her tighten up the leaks around her doors to keep her warmer and enable her to burn less fuel.    

Nearby, the founder of “Community Hydro” sets up environmentally sound, small-scale hydropower generators in Vermont streams at existing dams and through low-impact damless diversions. She advocates for expanding environmentally sound energy production via such appropriately scaled and regionally viable technology. The local high school invites her to guide students to design hydro projects that could provide power from the stream beside the school.

My 12-year-old son helps me grow extra produce suited to warming summers. We grow more than we can consume, share with people who don’t garden, and give some to the food bank. Beyond our home garden, coalitions of local farmers, chefs, seed savers, and advocacy groups organize to strengthen food security in our bioregion.

To feed the hungers of the soul, Vermont hosts a traveling youth circus, “Circus Smirkus,” bringing laughter and imagination into the heart of community. Smirkus also raises funds for local nonprofit youth groups in each town, creating a practice of kids helping kids. In reimagining our future, we can’t forget the arts and imagination.

Our local arts center hosts an exhibition of photographs featuring images of the struggle for global justice and worldwide defense of forests in rural communities. The photographer gives an animated talk describing how forest issues in Vermont are connected to the struggle for sustainable forestry within a network of worldwide indigenous groups.

In times of social flux, anxiety levels run high. One of my colleagues establishes an affordable community healing center to promote stress reducing practices for walk-in clients. A group of 13 gather in a room for her services. Stress levels lower in 20 minutes after the group sits together experiencing ear acupuncture, mellow music, and other relaxing modalities.

My son attends the EarthWalk experiential education program one day a week. He gathers outside all year long with a multigenerational community of kids and mentors. Connecting to eco-cultural knowledge through studies of plants, animals, and cultures, the kids come to love and embrace the world they will need to fiercely protect. They are learning the language and skills of transformational leadership at a young age. Fed by the joyful spirit of connection, they learn the ability to mentor others while creating interpersonal rejuvenation in the natural world.

These activities bring to life a community’s adaptations for relocalizing our lives. They provide warmth in winter through green building, conservation strategies, and locally supplied renewable fuel. They reflect regional power generation and environmentally sound technologies. They realize the possibility of local food systems and the creation of community based, accessible health practices. They inspire cultural awakening through the arts and education for a more joyful and connected world.   And yes, we have much more work to do.

I speak with my son about this aching but promising world. More than talk, he wants action to claim his life and future culture. He aspires to live in accord with nature and to mitigate the damage induced by human-made climate change and related social upheavals. He thrives in this wholeness -- despite the gravity of our times -- because he belongs to an interconnected community that may well inspire him to be one of the architects of an ecological future and socially just world.  

We need schools, organizations, and communities to prepare ourselves and our children to heal the world. People can re-create their social and ecological environment rather than become victim to a downwardly spiraling dystopia. Our efforts will support the world’s children in their future efforts.  

Although it is a long walk across a narrow bridge, shared vision and efforts can transform our lives and world. I want to cultivate a vivid and succulent sense-of-place and future. From our local place, we are growing and building that world now.