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  • From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Optogeorgia
  • Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2008 22:54:54 EST

Optogeorgia.

Do you know anyone named George? The common Greek word for ‘farmer’ is a
combination of ‘Ge’ (earth, land, as in Geology) and ‘Eorge’ (work, as in
the
root word for Energy and Ergonomics). So ‘George’ means ‘works the land’.
While the state of Georgia is named after King George, that same form is also
the Greek word roughly for ‘farming’. I wanted a word for the point of view
from a homestead, from one who works land. Do you recall W.C. Bryant’s poem
"Thanatopsis" (A View of Death)? So I figured Georgiopsis would be ‘A View
of the Homestead’ but that doesn’t really serve the concept here. A view
FROM
the homestead would be Optogeorgia, a glimpse from the point of view of
working the land.

The view from the homestead is a unique one, a vision not shared by those who
have not been there. It will change the person’s perception forever. The
homesteaders on this list, probably all modern homesteaders in fact, have
also
see how the other half lives. Been there, done that.

The things you notice, the mental processes you employ, and the evaluation
and conclusion of everything is changed forever once someone has seen it as a
homesteader. I’m not talking about pontificators and wannabes, but someone
who
has stood there by the garden, or grain field, or flock or herd and known
that
how they were to fare for the coming season depended on the Earth (the ‘Ge’
part of the word) directly.



Take a ride through the country from the nearest town to your homestead with
a non-homesteader and when you arrive ask them what they saw along the way.
Then make that same trip with a subsistence farmstead and ask what they saw.
"Those dead trees at the bend in the county right of way, I noticed how much
fire wood there was in them. And that overly wide shoulder at the bottom of
the
hill, if there were a way to fence it that would be, what, three or more
weeks pasture for a cow. That vacant spot between those two buildings, I
couldn’t
help but mentally calculate how many cabbages you could fit in three. And
all those leaves and trimmings piled up on the median …. that would fill up
three compost bins."



Admit it …. you do that, don’t you! Non-homesteaders don’t. The world
looks like a very different place from the perspective of ’working the land.’

‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also…’ type of thing. If
the first thing you think of is ‘how is this affecting my money’ ‘whose out
there trying to get my money’, it is irrefutable evidence whence your life
emanates. But if your first reaction to any news is how this affects what
will
come from your land, that too tells where your life is.

But it is a mistake to equate homesteading with gardening or farming. A
land-centric life changes everything. If you are not dressing to impress
people,
you clothes cost nearly nothing and last for ages. If you are not on someone
else’s schedule, you don’t have to have a way to get places with 100%
reliability. If you are working the land for your living, you will not fall
prey to
self-induced diseases nor have the time or attention to spare to invent or
imagine them.



Once your primary focus is off what’s happening with your money or your
source of money and placed on what your land is yielding, every aspect of
life is
seen differently.



Half-baked and fearful views about what is going on in the world now are a
dime a dozen. Yet here on this list are a good number of people I happen to
know for a fact have their boots in the muck, their hands in well worn work
gloves, and their weathered eye on the field. It is those people’s views I
want to
read because they are unique, seen from this Optogeorgia, a land-working
view, viewpoints not easily had from elsewhere.



It’s just getting to be a little more effort to sift out the pearls from the
rotting oysters amid all the verbose blather here. But that comes and goes
on
this list as it does on most. First, I suppose I am reminding myself, is to
consider the source. Is the view coming from the worker of the land, or is
it
from some other focus … or none at all?



I just wanted to add this diatribe so that I can refer to it and to the
concept of Optogeorgia.


James




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