This is the house that defiance built.

7/8/2016

The random key to my current front door reminded me...

... of a phrase I saw in a dream: "This is the house that defiance built."

I was studying permaculture and earthen-building at the time, because I wanted to flee the city, head to a dense, mossy forest, and live in monastic peace.

So I listened to Jack Spirko's Survival Podcasts. Got my certifications. And took very seriously the idea of self-responsibility.

I was gonna be a new kind of pioneer woman, and everyone knew about my intended hand-sculpted, solar-powered, earthen dome home... designed with genius regenerative properties. And edible landscaping. And fields of cannabis!

And all those things may still come to pass, but I realize now my dream wasn't really about home-ownership, but self-ownership. And for that, defiance is needed.

Owning yourself requires defiance.

Defiance is the only appropriate response to oppression, enslavement or tyranny.

To defy is to refuse to obey, or to resist.

Unless you are harming another, no one has a right to force their will upon you. Yet we have come to EXPECT constant interference. Instead of *objecting* to the creeping intrusion of the State, we *normalized* it.

And that is why defiance is needed.

To reverse the routine trampling of your will. To revive, rather than regulate, your relationship with plants, rainwater and the sun. To cease the theft of your taxes, which fund deep and wide investments in death, via authorized assassins, weapons, wars and prisons.

We are encouraged to fear each other, and keep distance. Please, don't. Defy division. Defy the temptation to exaggerate the menacing qualities of "them," and the admirable qualities of "us."

From behind that green door, guarded by wild Bouganville and Birds of Paradise, I'll have more to say about personal liberation, and the plants that help us get out of our own cognitive way. In the meantime, Google "self-ownership." Let the ideas sink in deeply. Within you, they'll start the right kind of peaceable fire.

5 Comments

Wisdom Seeker

7/16/2016 10:38:14 am

Erika,

Being the landlord of oneself is foremost the wisest and most valuable role that one can fulfill. After recognizing what the essentials are for ones own personal growth, he or she must honor them by f-o-l-l-o-w-I-n-g t-h-r-o-u-g-h with the strength and courage to manifest. You have done it, and CONGRATULATIONS, Erika!

Thank you for being a living example for the rest of us.

sarang

7/18/2016 09:18:37 am

Love your blog. Came across it while searching for natural ways to shrink fibroids.

Erika Harris link

7/26/2016 10:44:01 am

Wisdom Seeker + Sarang, so happy for your visit. Thank you both so much for your kind and gracious words!

Journeyman O link

11/7/2016 03:46:33 pm

Dear Erika, I love and resonate with the spirit of how you share your TRUTH. Thank you!

11/9/2016 02:33:46 pm

I'm rereading this post because there's so much that is RIGHT on, not only about your words, but about how you approach the topic of "reducing the routine trampling of your will" which, in short, amounts to slavery. Rarely do we consider that slavery is not only a matter of what is done to us but, even more importantly, what we REFUSE TO DO FOR OURSELVES. We can look to such examples as Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass for people who WERE NEVER SLAVES, but were ALWAYS Free People, BECAUSE THEY WANTED, WILLED and DID EVERYTHING NECESSARY to FREE THEMSELVES. Free People WILL and DO. Slaves WANT, but WON'T, and DON'T.

Ezra Pound, who ended up as a political prisoner held in St. Elizabeth's Hospital because he refused to support the scams of WWI and WWII, said, "A slave is one who waits for someone else to free him."

I celebrate those who, like you, DO NOT WAIT FOR ANYONE TO DO FOR YOU WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOURSELF!

Defiance in the face of a Biocidal Sociopathology masquerading as "culture," and the embrace of LIFE with your LIFE!

THANK YOU!