The dream usually contains a heady mixture of yurts and vegetables.
Courses and communities.
Some see this as a symptom of accelerating Earth changes.
I feel these, both in the expressions of deep unrest, in the Earth's faultlines and weather moods, and in the increased urge to shift the priorities of our lives.
I wonder also whether we feel the need to reconnect, in proportion to our cultures disconnection, into virtual formats.
Though I sometimes see my own life as like a computer game, where from my birth and upbringing in that sterility known as the suburbs of Birmingham, my mission was to get closer to that bountiful goddess, the Earth.
It takes a long time, or maybe I was just slow to change.
I am sixty now and so have spent forty years fully engaged with the project.
I bought land only about twenty years ago: until then I had spent my time in many places empty of people, gathering things to sell in the city.
Those years had taught me that that land get lonely, and actually appreciates our presence there. It loves us.
We can become like envoys, or message-bearers, passing between these fixed, but inquisitive places. Crazy children, dancing between sentient, fixed beings.
So the first lesson is not to get hung up on the need to OWN land. You can rent or borrow it in return for help. The Earth is yours to walk. You can walk it in celebration of its subtle response to each seaosn.
Ownership has a downside. The feeling of being tied, obliged and responsible for it can weigh down your spirit, which in turn affects the energy of the land. Also the burden of 'making it pay' can distort your decisions about what you do with it.
The need to Own, is a desire to Control, to Fix, to Guarantee things. Away goes the energy of the moment, the lightness of a spontaneous encounter.
There are many steps on the way to paradise, and each one will teach you what you need to take the next one. You can bed down too early.
Nobody really owns land anyway.
Well, no more than the land owns them. That for me is another forgotten part of the dynamic. Land is not an inert commodity but a living being.
Each piece, each place is distinct. Often this has been recognised and strengthened by human use, in how it is enclosed as part of a 'holding'.
The places that express their character best are those that have escaped the attentions of mechanised farming, usually because fields are steep, too rocky or small. Also I suspect that some places are so powerful that they repel disturbance.
Here is another factor that we forget when looking for land to live on. There are people there already, some of whom have ancestral connections to the place. Even unconciously, they are protectors of it.
Also an increasing number of older or town-weary incomers live in the countryside, who may see any change as negative and threatening.
As soon as you appear, wary eyes are on you.
These are the REAL forces that will help or hinder your plan.
If you find a place attracts you, it probably feels the same about you! Likewise, the owner and other people around there can be so positive and helpful that it is as if they were waiting for you to arrive.
Of course there are other, more centralised impedances, such as the Planning Authority and Building Regs. But these are not key players. Like ownership, don't get hung up on legal approval as some surety of permanence.
I think that even to engage with them sometimes is like entering conversation with a mad aunt.
I don't want to dismiss them too glibly, but observe that attention to them can waste the creative attention that you should be engaging with the place itself.
Seek advice from people whom you respect, not from Authorities. They, like Governments generally, are always trying to design the future by reacting to what has already happened. So they are always suspended between an interpretation of the past and a projection of the future...
You need to enter the magnificence of the NOW.
We maybe will get to a time when they can confer and advise, but whilst they are trapped in prescriptive mode, I advise you to develop your own instincts and intuitions. That is really what this time is all about.
No one but you can give you back your power!
So how to find your place.
You have to just go and find it. Explore at weekends. Buy pathfinder maps of areas that interest you, and spread them out on the floor and gaze at them like a high-flying bird. Then explore on foot. The land you want probably isn't for sale.
It's up to you to initiate the sale, firstly by finding the owner. But don't be unrealistic about the likely price. (It's possible for a transaction to satisfy both parties)
-You could be setting a ball in motion which might be better left untouched whilst you get your spirit or finances in better shape...
A good strategy with a cautious or reluctant owner is to word it as a future proposition: 'if ever you felt like selling that piece of land,,,,'.
Also don't be afraid to ask in a local pub or village shop. Choose your approach carefully. It's probably not a good idea to express the extent of your ambitions too early.
Learn to listen to some instinctive part of you which knows what and how to say and to whom Spot-On.
Remind yourself that dialogue is a way to communicate effectively, not an arena to strut your stuff.
A farmer feels fundamental disquiet about wasting or neglecting land, and so if you present yourself plausibly as someone who will care for it, and they for some reason no longer can, you are in with a chance. So get to recognise the signs of inattention. Ungrazed fields, with encroaching bramble or bracken. If you want undisturbed land ( though this is often protected by National Park or other heritage landscape status) look around open access tracts, depicted in pink on OS maps
Your attitude is key. We all too easily ride on a float of youthful, moral, urban superiority, especially if we intend to initiate a 'Community', and can come across as braggart and stupid.
So try to engage with the people that you meet on their terms. Listen to their unhurried words.
It is you who wants to change, not them.
Also believe in miracles.
Otherwise they can't happen
Good Luck
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