I have daydreamed about sustainable harmonious living since I was a child dreaming of green pastures. As I aged it began to take on new meanings. I often though about dropping put of civilization somehow, somewhere, but the idea only had partial appeal and left me wanting. At times, sustainability came to mean cutting back on meat, partially or altogether. It also came to mean Not buying a car and taking public transportation even though it takes twice as long and requires bus And metro.

But sustainability surprisingly even came to mean living with my parents! The choice was between finding roommates in berkeley, receiving welfare until I was ready to separate from my newly born to go to school or get paid conventionally... Or move out of the bay area to the suburbs of dc and live with my folks in their new oversized home and have the freedom to do what I love (gardening) and be with my babe in his first years. Sustainable, because living with family and sharing resources naturally (without spreadsheets or post-it notes) is more conscious than pushing through the other choice. But living with parents after five years of freedom and distance was daunting. Its easy to say our problems are most deeply rooted in our issues with our parents. A yogi also said "if you think you are enlightened go spend a week with your parents." so living with them?!

Sustainability inadvertently came to also mean working through old issues. For the last hundred hears, families have gotten smaller, more nuclear, more dispersed globally, and individuals tend to live removed from the older generations, isolated in a city hub of peers who have also left their families elsewhere. I am not saying that is the Wrong Choice. People don't always think about sustainability, and even so, it's possible to be relatively sustainably conscious. In fact, I think the city structure has great potential for sustainability. But my point was going towards how in the last century the structure of life ha changes dramatically from a system that was in place doe thousands of years. I don't know why, exactly... Maybe it's because the need was gone (and now for my personal situation it reappeared to grant me this perspective).

Ok my initial Point is a no-go. There are millions of people, and each situation calls for a best solution, and I was trying to come up with a generalizeble theory on sustainability and connecting it to family affairs.

But what I can say for certain is that, in terms of sustainability, community is paramount, whether it's a community of three or hundreds, whether it's a household, a commune, a neighborhood, or a city. The individuation of civilization has been a step away from harmonious sustainability. The cooperative mentality is paramount to sustainability, above competition. Drive for improvement must not disappear but competition against individuals could be left out of it, in place of cooperative co creation.

What does this have to do with unconventional mothering? No idea. Co op nurseries? Just a general mindset I guess.

I just felt like writing. My son is smiling in his sleep. Very sweet.

men are sons, too

since having a son, my relationship with men has changed dramatically. I accept my child for who he is, completely. And this compassion has extended to all other men. With women it comes more naturally. i don't expect perfection from them. but with men i had a tendency to shun their weakness and expect more of them, and it wasn't really... fair.

now i can be a loving, nurturing presence for men in my life without judging them negatively and unfairly for the inevitable character traits that could be deemed as imperfections. but on a certain level, i can see that everyone is perfect as is, all is well as is.

self acceptance and acceptance of others go hand-in-hand. the more we forgive ourselves the more we accept others, and vice versa... the more we accept others, the more we forgive ourselves and are freed from any sort of guilt or lack of feeling worthy of anything...