Off-Grid Culture

As I took yet another soul-reviving off-grid step, I realized that not only is off-grid more journey than destination, but there are a lot of grids to get off.   “Too many,” said  a colleague as he shook his head in his apparent despair.   In addition to the quintessential electric grid, we’re weaning ourselves off the waste grid, the home-heating gas grid, and the water grid.   

But it was Michael Pollan-inspired Linda who led us away from our first grid:  food.  It was she who walked away from the grid-tied organic produce at Kowalski’s and Whole Food  Market.  It was she who bravely founded a neighborhood CSA with our grower neighbor’s the Dietz’s.  It was she who creaked open the bulk-room door, slipped inside and tapped our first---dare I say it---raw milk, oh no!. 

But this week I’m Sandor Katz-inspired and I took the food lead.  I couldn’t help myself.  He made me feel so invited to take the next natural off-grid step.  But you know what the very hardest thing is about all this (and every previous off-grid step)?    I don’t know how to explain why I’m doing this.  

In fact, if you want to get my blood boiling---and that’s not always easy---do what the 2012 Minnesota Solar Tour enrollment form did:  Ask me how long it will take before our off-grid electric pays off.  So I typed into the little box, “How long until your children pay for themselves?”  OK I didn’t.  But I wanted to.  I really really wanted to.  Do they think I’d leave my wonderful neighbors and co-workers and church community just to move down here and save a few pennies on electricity?  So I typed in their little box, “We didn't buy the system to save money.  We bought the system to enable us to live a life that is connected to the Land.  Since no standard grid-provided electricity can't do this, payback was immediate.”  And that didn’t begin to say why. 

Perhaps I’m stepping off-grid to restore my grid-depleted mind, body and spirit.    

But maybe there are too many too grids to get off.  The food grid.  The power grid. The money-enmeshed trade grid.  Education.  Transportation.  Communication.  My whole life was on a impossibly complex, corporate run, government regulated, quantity over quality, soul-sucking grid.  Well not quite actually.  The absolute best things in life were not:  Linda, my friends, neighbors and church community.  And the Land.  Who knows where my heart and soul would be without them, without my off-grid island of connection, love and support?  Now all I’m doing is adding to that off-grid community.  And the most recent addition came from the inviting work of Sandor Katz.

I started my first-ever batch of mead.  Just raw honey, rainwater and wild black raspberries.  That’s all.  I let nature add the yeast and whatever else makes those blue bubbles on top of the raspberry mass.  And in a few days, promises off-grid-minded Sandor Katz, I’ll take my first sip of slightly sweet, slightly alcoholic, raspberry brightened mead.  What engaging magic!  What an off-grid culture!  The grid exercises control to gain consistent availability for me, me, me.  Off-grid relies on wild collaboration (bees and flowers, honey yeast and me) and ruthless competition (yeast and me over mold and vinegar-producing bacteria) to gain…hmmm…what is it I’m gaining?

I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on those Solar Tour folks since even I struggle to well-answer their question.  At least an answer delivered in words.  Right now it’s more an energizing feeling, an uplifting song, blue bubbles rising in the mead.   I think I’m going to start another batch.