As I write this I am sitting at the table inside the “long
room“ in the farm cottage It’s a warm summer Sunday afternoon and we have been
here since lunch time yesterday. But what makes this weekend different is that
my family is here with me. You see, the cottage has now been repaired to the
point where it is now just about weather proof. (Depending on exactly where in
the cottage you stand during a rain storm) The cottage also has running water,
lights that switch on and off and toilet that flushes. (all off grid I am proud to say) These simple conveniences
make it possible for my wife, my daughter, my sister in law and her son to stay
over with me at the farm last night. It was the first time for my wife to sleep
over here, so I count it as a bit of a milestone. The thing is though, it just
feels better to me for me to be going about my chores, moving the cattle,
feeding the chickens or watering the fruit trees with my wife and family here
on the farm. Yes we had a fun braai outside last night and a pleasant breakfast
this morning, but for the most part it’s just about knowing that we are here
together, not necessarily that we are having deep, meaningful conversation or
helping each other physically. When, as I have been doing for over a year now, I work on the farm over the weekends leaving
my family at home in town, it feels different. It feels more rushed, strained
perhaps. As if though a part of me feels that I am stealing time from them. I
don’t know. I have not consciously recorded thinking that I am stealing time, it’s
just that when we are here together allowing time to pass slowly together, it
just feels so much better, It feels very right. It feels as if though it were
meant to be. So perhaps this too is a lesson from the farm, one of the laws of
the farm, that are true to the farm, but true also to our civilisation.
Let’s think about this a little. Because the idea of family
and its “usefulness” seem in some parts of the world to have become caught up
in politics of polarity , where the term
“family values” have become used as a code to mean, conservative, male
dominated and religious. I am not talking about that here. Rather what I am
observing is and process of evolution, where our species has grown to become
strong and prosperous by holding together in tight family groups. Other species
have evolved in such a way so as to make them highly successful to live alone
for the most part. On the farm here we often see bushbuck. Sometimes a big
impressive grey black male, will reveal himself for a few seconds before bounding
off into the forest. At other times the female will peer through the shrubs,
smaller and brown. We have not yet seen them together. It seems bushbuck are
quite successful at living apart from each other for most of the time. But the
ducks that visit the dam, are always in a family group. Sometimes there are
four of them together, other times just two. I have not yet seen a lone duck on
the dam. Ducks seem to be family birds.
Of course, humans have big brains and an impressive amount
of will power, we can chose to do many things that may go against our
evolutionary programming. We would live completely by ourselves ad we have
proven it. Every now and then there is some record broken of how some brave person
has circumnavigated the globe single handed in a yacht, even smaller than the
previous brave person who did so. Of course it’s possible. What I am working on
though in my own life, is to observe in me, what are the “laws” what is my
evolutionary programming? In order that I can embrace it and work with it. In order that I can understand when I feel
down or lonely that it is probably that I am feeling removed from my family.
And by contrast, perhaps the reason Or maybe one of the reasons) I am feeling right now that I am feeling energised
and reconnected with farm and with my life and with my mission is that I feel I
am together in this with my family. We are on a joint mission. We are working
together. We work at different speeds and we need different things to make us comfortable
and relaxed, but we are all on the same mission.
