>The sense of loss I experience now revolves >around flushing potential humanure down a >toilet in a rental house,

–>Set up a bucket toilet alongside the flush one. Lots of folks I know have done that.

>wasting gas because we can’t insulate and >upgrade someone else’s house,

–> Add insulation by hanging blankets/tapestries on the walls or ceilings. Or use 2x4s and drywall to build a “room within a room”. Stuff cloth, newspaper, plastic bags, etc., into the space between your temporary wall and the permanent wall.

>and being unable to commit to a huge garden >in a rental yard full of crappy soil.

Build raised beds, and take the soil with you when you go.

We renters can’t afford to wait to move into “our own places” to get started with all we want to do!
Hope these ideas are helpful!

I always feel like we have too much – too many obligations, too much stuff, too much work, too much space (which, clearly, we do – now three of us take up a house that a few years ago held 6). But I realized that most of the people I know have walk-in closets (many that can’t actually be walked into) or entire junk rooms in their houses. We have a friend who I suspect has a hoarding problem, who has 2 bedrooms for stuff in her house, and one bedroom for people. And few of the people with rooms or garages packed full of stuff, enjoy that aspect of their lives. It’s a drain of time and energy and money and emotional effort.

One thing to consider is that we don’t have to aim for complete self sufficiency. Trading, like language, is a universal human trait. I hate sewing, but I love working in the garden. There are people living within a mile or two of me who love sewing but hate gardening. I know at least one of them.

Rather than self sufficiency, we might better work on perfecting our own special skills and forming communities of people with varied skills. This is nothing Sharon and others have not already said, but it seems appropriate to throw it in here as a reminder that most of us will not be living in isolation.

We owned/operated a log house business for the last 10 years, and have 3 kids who are now 10, 9 and 8. To say that the last decade has been exhausting is an understatement.

When we decided to simplify we sold or house and moved onto our business property after we renovated the 600 sqft office as a house. As a consequence we were traveling less (to and from work) so we stopped insuring one of our vehicles. We also started eating better and not eating out frequently … the list goes on and on.

In many ways we are living with less now, and it seems that every decision to simplify is accompanied with trepidation and fear of a different way of doing things.

However, we have never tried to quantify our and our kid’s happiness as we spend more time together, and more importantly time doing things as a family. At times five of us living in such a small space can be tense, but it certainly has not been as stressful as maintaining two properties and two vehicles!

Most of us believe in a lifestyle (the American dream or call it what you will) that has sold us a bill of goods. It is challenging to look at an alternative to this lifestyle.

I believe that our lives are richer even if we are not keeping up with the Jones.

A sense of loss implies a void. Can you provide something to fill the void?

risa b talked of inviting people over to watch the sunset on Jasper Mountain. She had a way to fill the void, before it ever formed!

I laughed at Jennie’s post. From 1980 to 1984, I was in the Peace Corps in Swaziland. Maybe American babies are genetically programmed to need their own room. Swazi babies are genetically programmed to stay with their parents. Many Swazis would be horrified about placing a baby alone in a room by itself, all night.

What I meant to ask was “How do you speak to people for whom that grief of losing what they perceive to be the safe, the familiar, the only way to survive is so big that they are in denial either about the possibility of actually experiencing the loss or the possibility of being able to survive if it comes to pass?”

I guess I realize the answer is that you don’t speak to them about it. They aren’t ready to hear it, except perhaps as a story or metaphor that touches that place without referring directly to it. But framing a story like that requires considerable skill and experience as a healer and is probably best approached very cautiously.

Risa B seems to have had some success at this when she writes “I sometimes succeed in getting my friends to come over, have a home grown salad and a switchel, and just watch the shadows climb Jasper Mountain, and then the stars come out.” and how they “get it” that life “revolves around the sun and the rain.”

Perhaps that is a skill to master. Something of a “natural human being whisperer” who can talk to the part of us that still remembers the simple pleasures of sun and rain, mountains, rivers and trees without the fearful, culturally conditioned part getting in the way.

There are as many ways to do that as there are people who will try. I’d love to hear more stories….

Having more money to buy more things just isn’t worth it. I would like to be a little more secure financially but I leave that up to hubby who loves his computer work even if it doesn’t pay all that well. The result is a community who we help and who help us.

That makes it all worth while.

viv in nz