(image via lssu.edu)
Gooooooooood Morning SuperForest!
Last night, I had a beautiful dream.
In the dream, a weary band of travelers were struggling through a dense wood. They had been traveling a rough path for months, and were bone weary. Suddenly, someone at the head of the line shouted back! Something lay directly ahead, glittering like gold through the trees. The travelers broke out of the wood to find themselves in front of an incredible structure.
In the woods, amidst a general return to wild and nature, defiantly stood a man-made building of white stone.
The dirty, weary, hungry travelers entered a smooth, wide courtyard, where to their astonishment they found waters running, some hot, some cold, and gardens growing untended. Symbiotic plant species had been placed together in a tangle of beneficial growth, and so the travelers found fresh fruits, vegetables, and berries growing in abundance.
The travelers could not believe their incredible luck! They bathed in the waters, and found themselves clean and refreshed. They helped themselves to the abundant plant life and found themselves full and restored. They delighted in finding that the building’s designers had considered decay and destruction and further growth into the buildings plans, so a collapsed tower had become an ad hoc apiary, and rich honey combs could be prized from the stones. Birds and bats nested side by side, one species using the roost during the day, and one using it at night.
Whoever had designed the building had known that it must withstand certain forces, like earthquakes, and strong winds. They had built it out of stone as stone lasts a looooong time. They had built the structures to be perfect organisms with or without humans inside them. But when humans were added to the equation the buildings functioned with greater productivity and greater abundance.
Humans would bathe in the waters, and the sweat and dirt that rinsed from their bodies would flow into clever terraces, and there feed grains and grasses. All products of human existence were anticipated by the buildings designers and were meant to add to the greater good of the system. No longer were any by-products of human life considered waste, at least, not to whomever had constructed this building. Anything a human introduced to the system worked to make the system stronger and more efficient at producing variety and abundance.
The travelers were no longer weary, no longer afraid, no longer without means to support themselves. They had found an oasis of abundance and this oasis welcomed them. Their presence here as a plus, not a minus. The humans were welcomed by the building, and the building was loved by the grateful humans.
“What shall we call this place?” they asked themselves.
The answer came quickly enough. A young boy, seeing with his young and clever eyes a hidden inscription on the rock, climbed and pulled down a tendril of vine to reveal the words: SuperForest – A Temple of Peace. A gift to Universe.
This was my dream last night.
Architecture as a form of time travel. Architecture as a way of saying: “This was what was important to us. This is what we cared about most. Right here, right now.”
Architecture as a gift to humankind. Architecture as a way of saying “I love you. Your needs have been considered.”
We came together and worked hard. We created a system to feed, shelter, and care for ourselves and our friends and families. We created a system so clever and conscientious that it could last for millenia, feeding, sheltering and caring for countless generations.
We created a system so robust and flexible that, heaven forbid, if it was forgotten and buried under the rubble and ash of time, could be rediscovered and once more put to it’s intended use.
We can create this world. A reality where all human life has been considered, provided for, and loved. A system without waste. A system where the very idea of waste has been replaced. Instead of “waste” we call it “resource.”
This reality is just as real and as possible as the one we currently reside in.
I am working to create this reality, and I cannot do it alone.
To transition peacefully from our current “scarcity reality” to “abundant reality” will take a commitment from all of us.
Here are my 5 commitments to ensure that the Abundant Reality Model blooms to life:
1.) I will joyfully examine my personal energy use, and voluntarily limit it to a state where if all 6 billion of us lived that way, the resources of planet Earth would sustain human life.
2.) I will joyfully replace the idea of waste with one of resource, and I will use all resources at my disposal to accomplish item one.
3.) I will joyfully spread peace by being peaceful, and I will joyfully trade being right for being kind.
4.) I will joyfully help my fellow humans gain access to and facility with humankind’s great idea aggregator, the internet.
5.) I will joyfully share my experiences in these endeavors with humankind, using the internet.
If you are with me, let me know: superforestnyc(at)gmail(dot)com
Love to All,
Jackson
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