“If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it…one
step at a time.”
~ Marian Wright Edelman, founder, Children’s Defense Fund
Inspiring individual, personal action to create change in
the world is what Natural Life Magazine has always been about. We
believe in action rather than talk, whether it’s about living a simpler, greener
lifestyle; growing our own organic food; reducing the ecological footprint of
our homes and how we travel; transforming aggression into peaceful ways of
interacting; building community; or parenting our children and helping them
learn in non-coercive ways.
Small steps in any of those directions won’t change the
world on their own, but they make a difference. Each small, individual action
leads to other actions – one we didn’t think about earlier, or didn’t think we
could take – and to questioning ourselves, our neighbors, and our governments
about what bigger actions could be taken. Each small step inspires others to
make changes in their lives, and all those small changes add up to something
big. The trick is to begin!
Urban homesteader Karen Kliewer demonstrates that in this
issue in her article “Living the Good Life in the City.” Her family’s small
steps were inspired by iconic back-to-the-landers Helen and Scott Nearing. But
they found that, with the goal of living more lightly on the earth in sight and
a plan in hand, it’s not necessary to take big steps like quitting your job,
moving to the country and building a solar-powered cabin.
As Karen writes, sometimes the changes are incremental and
are sitting right under our noses while we’re waiting for the big chance for
change to come along. She and her partner discovered that “homesteading” can be
done in the city – right on the property they were using as a temporary base
while they hunted for their perfect place in the country. And she provides a map
for living that sustainable lifestyle one small step at a time.
Among those steps is mastering a whole variety of new
skills – things like straw bale construction, vermicomposting, making yogurt,
starting sourdough, preserving food, keeping chickens. These skills used to be
called “homemaking,” a term that was pejorative for many women (and a few men)
not so long ago. But now, as I write in my “Media Beat” column, this term is
being rearranged by those who understand the need to look at the world in a
different way. So as we take those small steps toward living more lightly on the
earth, ideas grounded in self-reliance – such as homeschooling, home business,
home-made, and home- grown – have suddenly become progressive keys to social and
economic change, rather than oppressive tools of drudgery and insecurity.
And I think that’s a change we all can welcome.
Natural Life Editor
Wendy Priesnitz
Read Wendy Priesnitz's
blog
Little
Changes, Personal Steps
