Shamanpunk 2020: Interview.

I: So what is this place? Is it a farm, a school, an ecovillage?

S: Well each of those answers would have an element of truth to them, but would also be slightly misleading. If I may go through them?

I: Of course.

S: The gathering of the food that grows on the land is a livelihood that every human here participates in, and it saturates our culture. Though it is not the only livelihood to be found here, it is the one most widely shared. At this point it has become so natural that we rarely even think of it, you should notice that I didn't call what we do 'farming' as that suggests something done with extended deliberation. Instead we gather and cultivate food here with the same natural care that you digest food with. Each step of digestion going on quietly and without notice unless something goes a bit wrong, in which case you can adjust slightly (using medication, different food, or different movement) to set things back on their own course.

Extending that metaphor, this place is as much a farm, as you are an eater. Farming is an intricate part of our existence and of our way of life, but it is not what makes us who we are; any more then your diet defines your character.

Let me say, I appreciate your patience with my meandering pace.

I: I appreciate the time to digest what you say.

S: As to the accusation that this place is a school. Most of the humans living here are engaged in a life of constant education growth and change. Further more, we take in several people a year and work with them, developing skills and understanding in a range of masteries. Permaculture, Philosophy a whole series of crafts: smithing, ceramics, carpentry, masonry, woodwork, cooking, mechanics, husbandry, weaving to name just a few; also sciences, maths, sociology, linguistics, political science are offered as areas to explore.

But it would be reductionists to call this place a school. You are no more definable as a eater or a learner, then this place is definable as a farm or a school. Though they are in all cases apt observations.

Eco village suggests community a shared life and in that regard may be a more appropriate descriptor, but it is still just a descriptor and falls short of really giving a rich account. Giving a comparison of the form I did for the previous cases: Saying you are an urbanite is accurate, as is saying I am a villager. But 'urbanite' is not, I speculate, the answer you would give to the 'what are you' question any more the 'villager' is the answer I would give, or 'ecovillage' or 'village' is the answer that should be given to the 'what is this place' question you asked.

I: I understand, though I can't really say what answer I would give if the question were turned back on me. I might say that I am a journalist, but if pressed I would admit that wasn't quite right. Since you're the philosopher here, can you help me get to a good answer about this place.

S: Be careful who you call a philosopher around here...

Well, you asked about this place, you asked about something physical... but in a way that doesn't look for a name on a map. The acreage, water, plants, animals, humans, and buildings here are collectively an organism of sorts. You have asked in effect about a body. But really I suspect that the physical properties or even the various functions of this body are not the scratch for the itch of your question. I think you really want to know who's body it is. You want to know the character of who lives here, of who is here.

I: The spirit of the place.

S: The person of the place.

I: I don't understand the difference.

S: If I ask you 'who are you' I would not be asking for a spiritual answer. I would want to know about the person you are.

I: Ok, and what would you want to know about that person.

S: Perhaps a great deal, but first and foremost I would want to find the narrative that you are enacting. What is the relation between yourself, existence, and the fates.

I: Oh! Is that all?

S: It sounds to huge to approach in such grandiose language, but in fact it is quite mundane. The story of Gilgamesh is quite straight forward to tell. He is a divinely born king of Uruk, who struggled with his mortality after being traumatized when Enkidu was struck dead by the Gods. See how simple that narrative can be, but there are a thousand ways to tell any one.

'Who are you' isn't a question that has a particular or definite answer. But it is a question that can be responded to by telling your story. It starts with an account of how you got here, and then has a telling of what you are doing here, what your life is, and builds up to an account of where you are going.

Not an explanation of why you must be here, and not a prediction of where you will be. If you are driving and someone asked you 'where are you going' your answer wouldn't be a prediction of where you will be when you stop driving. Instead there would be a narrative you are enacting, maybe with a destination in mind, maybe one with just the open road ahead of you. I don't say intent, because I don't want to suggest that there is any consciousness of the narrative. As a matter of fact it is now normal to not know who you are.

I: Is all of this then just smoke and mirrors to avoid my question, because you don't know who you are? Because you don't know what the story is?

S: No, I am building up to it, dramatic device. As a Shaman I am the teller of the story to be enacted. Like providing the music for the dance. But so much of the story is hard to uproot from the enacting. And no telling of the story is at all definitive, the story is changing (BwO) even as the words stay the same by the way it is taken by the actors. So I will now give you a story, but only on the agreement that this is just one way to tell it among countless.

I: Ok, but some how I feel like I am getting a lot more then I asked for, or meant to ask for at any rate.

s: Chalk it up to my generosity.

For a long time now, the great philosophers have been trying to reground their though in the world outside of their increasingly isolated ivory tower. Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein each tried to find something one might call 'the simple life' to take root in. And others besides them too. But they all failed or had limited success at best. Because they did not understand the life they sought.

Some looked at the world man had built and said it was mad, and fought it, but they either were crushed, frustrated or worst of all victorious in their fight which tragically would but add to the madness. A fugue of pessimism could be heard in the halls where philosophy was studied. Its most sacred task, that of finding a way to live well was at risk of impossibility.

But everything needed for a good life was there for the grabbing, and it was all so simple so long as classic mistakes could be avoided. Confusing 'a way to live well' with 'the way to live well'. Designing a way of life that required people to be better then they are to get started.

So they started to spin the yarns that would build this. They practiced the story to be enacted, and they started playing at enacting it. Just a children in a tribe play at enacting the myths that in adulthood they will live by unerringly.

Now you see why story and narrative were stressed, because this is a story of story tellers. But the abstract stories of the ivory tower were not of interest, the stories told in increasingly isolating idiolect. No what was needed was a story that in a very real way saturated every pore of life.

By time the land was had, the yarns and stories were well rehearsed, and were woven into the ground. And new yarns were spun, twisting together the threads that tied together the life on the farm with the threads of thought that tied together the philosophers.

But there weren't philosophers anymore. They were now tied into the land, a part of a whole. You have to understand, hundreds of yarns were used at this point. Yarns fisrt told by Nietzsche, Quinn, Mollison, Dewey, Buber, Odum, Curtis, Deluze, Campbell, Buddha, Holzer, Carter, Carse, Veil, Jesus, Fukuoka and many many many others. And with those yarns, the threads of life between Fir, Pine, Quail, Worm, Blackberry, Thunder, Wind, Sun, Moon, Grass, Duck, Bat, Bee, Flower, Grasshopper, Fungus and many many many others. These threads formed a tapestry, this very story being but a single fiber of it. The story that can be told is not the tapestry.

Now we live hear, we spinners of yarns, forever beautifying the tapestry of our lives.

I: So you work to improve yourselves?

S: That is so, but not with any ideal or fixed goal, with out a standard. Each of us seeking our own fulfillment of the story, and collectively weaving those stories into a shared mutually supportive tapestry. Even the ducks and the goats and the olive trees have their own genius to contribute to the tapestry.

I: And what is your position in all of this, as a shaman?

TO BE CONTINUED