Higher Power

Disclaimer: The term "Earthship" in the below writings is used to describe our Earthship-inspired ​home.

My higher power is people.  People give me energy, elation, courage and inspiration.  I've never come across a religion that has spoken to me.  I'm a chemical dependency and mental health counselor and when people are in recovery from addiction, the phrase higher power comes up frequently.  In working with clients who don't have a religious inclination, I share with them that a higher power doesn't necessarily have to be something steeped in conventional religious practices.  A higher power is anything that pushes you to be your best self and continues to challenge and inspire as you live life. 

In building our Earthship-inspired home, I'm feeling more connected to my higher power than ever before.  Each weekend, new people arrive in an almost divine manner, and offer up their free time to help us build the home of our dreams.  These experiences are akin to attending church as we leave the weekend feeling refreshed and inspired.  There is something particularly powerful about physically working alongside another person with the same goal in mind.  The connection you are able to forge with complete strangers in doing so is truly awe-inspiring.  

While laboring away and sledging dirt into the tires of our home-to-be, I've noticed something fascinating.   Due to the extreme physical nature of the task at hand perhaps, everyone who comes out, ends up sharing a very genuine version of their self.  Not the self that they show to their boss when they're trying to appear to have all the answers.  Not the self that they project when they're at the playground and want the other moms to think they've got their shit together.  The real, raw self; usually enshrouded in layer upon layer of rough, hard callouses, reserved for carefully vetted individuals.  And what a privilege it is to be on the receiving end of such a display.  And how powerfully moving it is to feel safe enough to be vulnerable with a stranger.  

We all go about our day-to-day lives with several costumes, or versions of ourselves, on the shelf, ready to be used as needed.  Each costume portrays an attribute or series of traits we desire others to see in us.  Oftentimes it is only the people closest to us who are granted access to view our residual scars, bruises and blemishes from a life lived.  It is a shame too, because it is in our most vulnerable, genuine state that truth growth can be achieved.  

As humans nowadays, we are all so desperate for a sense of belonging but are simultaneously continuing to live such a disconnected life; not knowing how to free ourselves from the "rat-race."  Our Western culture values personal independence and power over interdependence and community.  And as such, we each live on our own islands; paying others to support our lives so that we can busy ourselves with activities that leave us yearning for something more. 

As humans, it seems that we are all driven to stay busy and physically active; regardless of whether or not our activities feed or detract from our physical and planetary well-being.  As an example from our own life, Zac works 40+ hours a week to receive monetary compensation that we then pay Vectren to deliver our gas, DP&L to provide us with electricity, the City of Dayton to deliver our water and pick up our trash and recycling, Kroger & Trader Joe's to supply our food, Speedway to pump our cars full of fuel, etc.  While he is at work, I work on my online store, take care of our son and our household and go to work a couple of nights a week while Zac watches our little guy.  The vast majority of our life is spent in our separate bubbles and Zac and I rarely see one another.  When we do have face-to-face time, we're overwhelmed with the tasks being shouted out by our drill sergeant of a home.

We have a historic, charming 1200 sf home that comes with lots of upkeep, as most conventional homes do.  It is picture-perfect, but at a cost.  It has an adorable white picket fence that is a beast to keep painted and looking tidy, many flower beds that are constantly being encroached upon by thistles and other undesirables, things always breaking in and outside the house, a lawn that always seems to need mowed, etc.  And all of these things that eat up our time are merely superficial!  None of it actually serves any real purpose or adds anything of value to our lives!  How maddening this has become to us.  Our lawn doesn't produce anything whatsoever and was simply planted to look nice.  The home is precious but doesn't work to support our lives in any real sense and we are spending our days working to support it.  Seems odd, doesn't it?  Working to keep up appearances?  We were feeling stagnant and unfulfilled as a family and chose to do something about it before we were too far gone and were overtaken by complacency.

Because we, as a society, spend our days busily working jobs to support our disconnected lifestyle, we have created a culture where we literally live for the weekends.  When I'm at work, I so dread the answer to the question "How are you today?"  So much so, that I have tried to stifle my knee-jerk reaction to ask it in the first place.  I try to quell the urge because a large amount of the time, the response is based upon what day of the week it is.  If it is Monday, you can count on the following response: "Well, it's Monday if that tells you anything" (cue shrug and downcast glance as the person shuffles away).  If it is Thursday, it isn't uncommon to hear "The week's almost over!" (cue giant grin, raised eyebrows and upward fist pump).  Now, I'm not holier than thou.  When I was working full-time I felt myself falling into the same routine despite the fact that I happen to love what I do.  I feel like regardless of how much we love our jobs, we are inclined to feel tied down by them because we need them in order to survive.  We don't live in a society that values working to responsibly create our own resources "for a living".  We are all separate entities and are supposed to take responsibility for keeping ourselves afloat despite our simultaneous heavy reliance upon big businesses to support our lives.

On the weekends in the past, Zac and I would spend much of both Saturday and Sunday playing catch-up with chores that we didn't have time to complete during the week.  We'd mow that dumb lawn that didn't produce anything for us, trim prickly bushes that provide nothing whatsoever in return, and touch-up-paint the picture-perfect white picket fence that was slowly stealing our soul.  Now, I know I'm being totally melodramatic, but that lifestyle was truly sucking us dry.  We weren't feeling fulfilled and knew we needed to do something different which is why we have chosen the path we have.

Because we all are part of this disconnected society and tend to favor cell phone interaction and relationships via social media over face-to-face interactions, I'm not surprised at how good it feels to finally be doing something physical, in harmony with others.  The sense of unbridled, raw connection felt when we're spending our day toiling away with a complete stranger, working toward the same goal of ramming dirt into a tire with a sledge-hammer might sound laughable, but that connection cannot be questioned.  While we tend not to value interdependence and community in our culture, Zac and I feel like we are tapping into these lost values more and more as the weeks progress in our home build and making them central tenants in our life.

We have met more people we truly identify with in the past seven weeks of our build than we have in both our lifetimes combined.  The connections we've forged can be felt deeply and aren't digital or superficial.  At the end of every workday with volunteers, Zac and I always manage to have the same conversation.  While shaking our heads side to side, grinning wildly, we talk about how lucky we are to have so many amazing people step into our lives and join us in building our home as well as our long-lost sense of community.  This past weekend, after having a slap-happy, fun and successful workday, we shared a meal together by the fire.  Only one person present was actually genetically family but it felt like a family gathering.  It was as though we had known everyone for years and years and we couldn't imagine any other place we'd rather be.  We feel like we're finally living life. 

I encounter my higher power quite regularly these days and feel challenged and inspired by everyone we've met so far to be a better person.  Thank you so much to everyone we've come into contact with thus far.  You have enriched our lives more than you could ever know.