From comments I received last time, I feel validated in my sense that Charles Eisenstein is an important voice in this conversation. Others in Vermont are reading him too. I got inspired to start Sacred Economics even though I've not made it through The Ascent of Humanity. It is a wonderful book with a powerful analysis of how our money system leads to many of the problems we face, not only economic problems. I'm only about third of the way through so will wait to comment further, except to say that the phrase, "the more beautiful world our hearts tell us is possible," that appeared in the Eisenstein quote I used last time, elicited a comment or two from readers and turns up in the Introduction to Sacred Economics and then again as the title of his final chapter. (I jumped ahead to read it and it's a beautiful vision of a possible future.)

Today I want to address preparation: what we might do to prepare for the challenges of the transition. I'm going to suggest eight different kinds or categories of preparation (with some overlap between them). The categories are: survivalist, practical, re-skilling, financial, community, life style changes, emergency preparedness and psychic (emotional, psychological and spiritual) preparation.

The survivalist meme has been around for a long time as a response to various perceived coming crises. It's the 'bunker' mentality. I remember years ago reading the inimitable Herter's Catalog with George Leonard Herter's warning about the impending Chinese invasion inside the front cover. He went on to tell you the catalog page numbers to buy food stocks to last a year, guns to defend your supplies, flashlights and all the other equipment you'd need to hunker down. 

There are lots of contemporary sources for a year's supply of freeze dried food (one of the companies in my home state of Oregon, Mountain House, where I sourced back-packing supplies in my youth, is a major supplier). Just today, I was sent a link to an article titled "Why Costco is preparing for the end of the world." (Because they sell survival kits in handy backpacks -enough food for two weeks, knives, a hatchet, duct tape, a tent and first-aid kit.) The article talks about folks who self identify as "preppers," preparing for the end of the world as we know it.  It's interesting to me that peak oil is not among the possibilities that most of these folks think about as crises to prepare for (Mayan calendar, rapture, natural disasters, foreign invasion, etc.).

Food stores is something I have done but I'm not good at staying organized. I will need something from the stores and use it and then not replace it or find that the expiration dates have passed so will move it to the pantry, again without a system to replace. I once did a weekend at Rowe Conference Center in Massachusetts with Chris Martenson and he showed slides of a group of men friends in his garage dividing up bulk rice, beans, etc. for their individual families. I do think it's a good idea.

The next category I listed was 'practical' and food storage could also be here. Other things might be growing a garden, learning how to do chickens in the backyard, using a bike for around town errands, installing solar panels, stopping heat leaks in the house, etc.

Re-skilling gives attention to things that folks used to do before we sourced most of our stuff from China and our food from California, Chile, etc. Again there's overlap with gardening skills, raising chickens, etc.  We might also list sewing clothes, repairing household things, cooking (they say that 2/3 of American meals are prepared outside the home), baking. We might also think of entertainment if our high-tech, high-stimulation sources are less available (singing together, playing games with friends, stuff that we

used to do back in the day). Cheese making, spinning, weaving.

Financial is a hard one and not something that I'm prepared to give any advice about. A lot I read now suggests various investment vehicles that may fare better with this or that eventuality, but if the US dollar tanks, or the US government defaults (again the things I read at least raise these possibilities) then there won't be a lot of safe places for assets. I do consider Chris Martenson a good source for these matters.

I listed community in my categories because membership in various communities whether neighbors, friends, churches, volunteer groups, work groups, or other organizations is crucial in the face of transition. While the urge to help, even strangers, becomes very evident in the face of a given crisis (Irene, and last week tornados in the Midwest), in the long haul future, the communities we belong to will be a very important part of our resources.

Life style changes was raised in my January 18 post in the John Michael Greer quote where he suggests that we can prepare for the transition by voluntarily downsizing our life style now before we are forced to do so by any number of potential future crises. Curtail car use or give up the car, grow food, buy local, get out of debt, settle in a place where there's a chance for community, acquire the tools and learn the skills you think you might need.

Emergency preparedness has been around for a long time and there is a whole system in place, often through the Red Cross, with 'emergency preparedness managers.' I remember when folks were gathering to prepare for the Y2K thing, the Red Cross in my community loved it as it provided them a forum for an issue they routinely have trouble getting folk's attention over.

Finally there is inner preparation, what I called "psychic" in my list above. The stressors that come from high fuel and food prices, economic disruption, erratic weather, unavailability of some items and social unrest acted out in antisocial behavior leading to security threats will take their toll emotionally, psychologically and socially in family and community. Any inner work we can do that makes us more resilient in these areas, more accepting of what is (when it isn't what we want it to be), more tolerant, less judgmental, more connected to our close community and a daily spiritual practice that supports our connection to larger and transcendent realities, may be the most important preparation we do.

Here, I recommend two books by Carolyn Baker: Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization's Collapse and Navigating The Coming Chaos: A Handbook For Inner Transition.

Good news: More and more solar panels appear around Addison County. Drive out Highway 125 past the Middlebury College campus and see a large array of solar trackers going up. A couple years ago I was in Boulder for a conference and was impressed with the amount of PV panels on homes and businesses. (One of the most active Transition Towns in the US and the first is TT Boulder. Addison County (and Vermont) is catching up!

Also a nod to another initiative I read about this week-albeit it not local, a project in Seattle to turn a city park into an edible food forest. 'Edible food forest' is a permaculture concept: a sustainable landscape that produces food. Read about it here. Someone ought to do something like this here!