Updated for 2025
As we begin a new lap around the star we call Sol, some have offered their predictions for what will occur in the year ahead. Depending on who you are tuning into, some have very dire, and ominous predictions indeed. Others have sobering and unpleasant, yet empowering predictions to offer. Fewer yet, have utopian (sit back and watch the fireworks and saviors will make everything better) type predictions.
Rather than worry about dire predictions or hope for vague saviors to do the work for me, over the last year I have been working to ensure that I will be able to offer a highly accurate prediction for the coming year. I have accomplished this via applying an approach that combines three SolutionsWatch episodes from the Corbett Report into one (Community Gardens, Regenerative Agriculture and Guerilla Gardening) so rather than extrapolate potentials of what might happen due to external events impacting me and my community, I worked to make an internal vision, hope and knowledge base manifest outwardly in ways that will definitely impact me and my community (and in ways that nourish, heal, connect and uplift).
In other words, I planted tens of thousands of heirloom perennial herb, veggie and berry seeds and hundreds of food and medicine producing tree seeds last year. I sometimes did this in collaboration with people in my community (in communal spaces) and sometimes I did it covertly in local parks and abandoned fields, and I always did so in a way that would enrich local biodiversity and enrich the soil.
Thus, my prediction for 2025 is that many of the seeds (and seedlings) I (and those I have collaborated with) planted last year with love will grow in the spring and set down roots, beginning a process of providing food, medicine, hope, beauty and the foundations for local culinary traditions for people alive today, and people that will call this place home after I am gone.
Each and everyone of us can do this and every little bit counts! Even if it is one potted plant on a balcony or one tree seedling planted, it all adds up, in experience, ecological enrichment, beauty and nourishment.
There is a line in the Forward written by Samuel Thayer (for “Trees of Power: Ten Essential Arboreal Allies Book” by Akiva Silver) shown in the pic attached below that I have found to be particularly moving and motivational to re-visit multiple times recently. It says:
“Perhaps we cannot guess what the future holds, but we can plant it”
If you have been paying attention to the world of finance, industrial agriculture supply line fragility, nefarious government policies, the plutocratic war on small scale farmers (being rolled out under the guise of “sustainability”), pharmaceutical cartels schemes, soil erosion rates and the activities of the most wealthy people on Earth over the past few years, you will know very well that we have some challenging times ahead.
With all that being said, this does not mean we should begin this new year without hope or in a fearful way. Mother Earth has her hand outstretched to us lovingly to help us find resilience and be capable of weathering the storm ahead. She offers us ways to align with the inherent abundance that is offered to us when we contribute to her ancient living economy. We are each capable of embodying the solution to the challenges we face in each of our communities.
Now is the time to reaffirm our alliances with the living Earth, to nurture new symbiotic relationships with the soil, people, plants and fungi in our local communities. Human empires rise and fall, and history teaches us that when they fall, it is those that know how to grow/forage for their own food, medicine and preserve it, that survived.
We can create oases of health, resilience, and abundance in each of our communities… we can become the solution, break from dependence on centralized systems and help others to do the same. It begins with the soil and the seeds and it evolves into nurturing symbiotic connections with those whom we share our communities with. Each of us can embody the medicine that the land and our communities need too survive and thrive though the tough times ahead.
Thus, each and everyone one of us should now be focusing our efforts on honing our skills related to food/medicine cultivation, preservation and developing a reciprocal relationship with the land where we live.
If you already have a garden think of this as a list of 25 reasons why you should re-double your gardening efforts by expanding, honing and sharing your garden abundance. Please share this article with anyone you feel would be receptive so they can take steps to help themselves and be capable of weathering the storm ahead of us.
Why Garden?
Some people may ask themselves this question. Some may think “I can buy all the food I need at the store, I can afford to do so, and it’s so much easier than having to grow the crops from seed, so why should I bother?”
Let us take an honest look at all the reasons why one should take the time to compost food scraps and set up and maintain a regenerative food garden (especially now in the year 2025).
1. Reciprocity: Regenerative gardening offers a way for us to give back to the Earth and ecosystem(s) that provides us with everything we need to live:
Starting a composting routine means feeding the soil life and creating valuable ‘black gold’ for building soil and increasing productivity in the garden. This means less waste ends up in the landfill, more CO-2 gets sequestered in the soil, and we are able to build rich healthy soils for supporting robust plant health (requiring less watering and yielding bigger harvests). It also means we are choosing to contribute towards a more healthy future for our children and their descendants by building the precious soils that all life depends upon to survive.
The act of composting means you are contributing towards the fabric of an ancient living decentralized economic model. We invest our time and materials, and the ‘asset managers’ and ‘investment strategy team’ (comprised of myriad bacteria, fungi and decomposing insects) invest molecules of biological currency for us, storing those units of currency in the form of fertile soil. We can then withdraw from our account through using the ‘key code’ that is embodied in a living heirloom seed we plant in that soil (which unlocks it’s potential and allows us to withdraw part of our savings account in that living soil/seed bank in the form of life giving food, medicine, oxygen and poetry for the senses).
Composting is medicine for the land and medicine for the soul. It offers us a tangible way to connect with and give back to the living planet that sustains us all. When one looks at the act of composting through a more linear or utilitarian lens it is an act that facilitates the transformation of free materials into something extremely valuable and useful for saving money on grocery and medical bills.
Through offering our hands to accelerate the natural cycles inherent in composting we involve ourselves in the sacred act of reciprocity and begin to nourish a reciprocal relationship with the living Earth that results in True Wealth.
The gift of True Wealth is found in the years, lasting fulfillment and health which is added to our lives when we care for the land we live on (and those who we share it with). Lasting fulfillment is found in savoring those precious moments that are given to us each time we stop to appreciate the "little things". It is the gift we give ourselves when we choose to use our time on earth to help things grow and nurture them to achieve their highest potential.
Have You Seen James Corbett’s Interview of Etienne? How to Leave the Cage?
Etienne recently appeared on The Corbett Report with James Corbett to discuss his new book: To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many.
It is definitely one of Etienne’s best interviews ever! If you have ever wanted to share Etienne’s work with your friends, family or colleagues, this is the interview for you. You can get a copy of To See the Cage is to Leave It (press release) by “Going Paid” on Substack AND get access to all FOUR of the Art of Liberty’s Substacks: Important News from the Art of Liberty Foundation, The Daily News, The Daily News Digest, and Five Meme Friday. By “Going Paid” you can get access to the full transcript, all the slides, memes, and videos mentioned in the interview: How to Leave the Cage - James Corbett & Etienne de la Boetie2
The Best “Go Paid” Deal on Substack! You Get REAL Stuff!!
Go paid at the $5 a month level, and we will send you both the PDF and e-Pub versions of Etienne's new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It - 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many and a coupon code for 10% off anything in the https://artofliberty.org/store/.
Go paid at the $50 a year level, and we will send you a free paperback edition of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It - 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many OR “Government” - The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! OR a 64GB Liberator flash drive if you live in the US. If you are international, we will give you a $10 credit towards shipping if you agree to pay the remainder.
Support us at the $250 Founding Member Level and get a signed high-resolution hardcover of “Government” - The Biggest Scam in History... Exposed! + Liberator flash drive + a signed high-resolution hardcover of Etienne's new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It - 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many + everything else in our "Everything Bundle" of the best in voluntaryist thought delivered domestically. International pays shipping. Our only option for signed copies besides catching Etienne @ an event.
