The Earthbags are Here!

Bags You Can Fill with Dreams

The first deliveries of salvaged bags have arrived in our living room!

I was an enthusiastic, if not inwardly resistant, recipient of these bags, which we found on our doorstep thanks to the efforts of Cindi with Green Acres Eco Village and Saddlebock Brewery near Goshen on Hywy 45.  Having cold feet (and I do have very cold feet even in summer) about the actual building process, I felt akin to a bride pondering how she could possibly know what life would be like after 30 years of marriage, shuffling her fancy shoes sideways towards the alter instead of straight down the aisle like a woman who knows what she wants.  I wasn’t built to build buildings, and I’m not really sure I’m capable of it. But the building phase aside – Ripples itself, behind-the-scenes, is what I’m made of.

The more practical reason for my hesitation was: Where are we gonna put all these bags?!

The bags are polypropylene from a local brewery, originally printed in Munich, Germany I believe.  They’re kinda…flour-y, so definitely NOT gluten-free!  I got covered in powdery white stuff (which I believe to be flour) while taking this picture.  There were spiders living in the bags so I didn’t want to subject Ryan to cuddling with them.  Luckily I escaped unscathed.  Each bag is filled with many more bags folded inside one another!  Hard to believe this will be part of a house someday.

Look at all these earth bags! Wow.

We haven’t finalized purchasing land, as we like to (try to) consider how the community will be affected 10, 50 years after a decision this huge.  There are ways to make larger ripples by purchasing land from a like-minded organization in a location with broader appeal, increasing the community’s access to educational workshops, services, and good ole’ fun with nature.  We’re working on it.  Meanwhile, we have some bags!  Carts are still useful; the horse will come later.

Meanwhile, we absorb time with the sponges of rather boring-looking office work.  Like finger prints, it takes detective work to see the results of our droplets and connect one hour we spend at a computer to fewer starving children or increased habitat for native species.  For the next several years, Ripples aims to make a difference that doesn’t require a magnifying glass to detect.  But to do that, we have to plan.  Not “plan” like, “I plan to eat Thai food this Friday night” (although I do).  Plan as in: create an entire Wiki, a replicable online information resource that someday will be accessible free to anybody around the world who has questions about how we converted to a sustainable lifestyle.  Ryan is the detail-oriented brain behind this project, which includes everything from plumbing to the budget to web design, topics that will help us literally build the dream with full transparency.

This is like a tsunami-ripple but an anti-destruction one.  Picture: Mary Poppins magically cleaning the children’s nursery with every toy suddenly falling into place. Like that.

Yet I linger in the land of doubt and self-criticism when the yardstick of alternative society can’t find a measurement for Ripples.  If it isn’t a hunger walk, a blood drive, a barn raising, a documentary showing…then what’s it worth?  Nothing?  Sometimes I think we’re not doing enough, especially when I see the hundred-times more awesome projects around Northwest Arkansas and the world, the silent leaders who spend hours farming, cobbing, building a huge earthship with their friends and kids…and then Ryan, ever supportive and insightful, says that I shouldn’t compare projects with totally different goals.  The tortoise and the hare have different ways of approaching the finish line.  He asks:

“How many other families who want to live sustainably are they supporting?”

“Would they enjoy spending tons of hours learning to edit a web page so that someone in the Caribbean can have a visual learning tool?”

“Are they creating a plan for their project that will enable it to help others even after they’re gone?”

With these words, he inspires me to continue admiring others’ work while measuring myself against my own tortoise standards.  He is the ultimate patience-carrying pack horse, hardly ever tiring of the work, just putting one hoof in front of the other and saying, I know this trail, we will get there someday.  He’s the steady stream that doesn’t stop flowing even while working two jobs on top of Ripples!  I love the spirit in this man.  So we have all these empty soon-to-be-filled-with-earth bags.  But I’m not fooled.  It’s Ryan who’s already filling them – with dreams, and a meticulous plan that will make our headquarters and future services turn into blissfully tangible reality.

“Now the Hundred Acre Wood boasted many natural wonders, but none was more beautiful than a tiny stream running through the forest. This particular stream had a very long way to travel and by the time it reached the edge of the forest, it had grown up so it was almost a river. ‘Being grown up,’ it said to itself, ‘there is no hurry. We shall get there someday.’ ” – Winnie-the-Pooh and a Day for Eeyore