BLM has become a familiar acronym in the past decade.
But how many people know of the original BLM? The Back-to-the-Land Movement.
From Wikiless:
The common thread is a call for people to take up smallholding and to grow food from the land with an emphasis on a greater degree of self-sufficiency, autonomy, and local community than found in a prevailing industrial or postindustrial way of life. There have been a variety of motives behind such movements, such as social reform, land reform, and civilian war efforts. Groups involved have included political reformers, counterculture hippies, and religious separatists.
Everything going on today in modern egalitarian communities has much to owe to the gains made by back-to-the-landers. Those in permaculture, homesteading, and self-reliance in general are riding a wave that has only swelled in size since the pied-piper of industrialism led humanity away from its agrarian, land-based lifestyles.
I remember discovering the work of American author and true blue rusticator Ralph Borsodi several years ago thinking “my god, he’s got it going on (and he writes about it so well)!” He left depression-era New York City and took to the countryside with his family. He covers much ground in Flight From the City (1933).
Back-to-the-Landers join the ranks of peoples from the fledgling days of civilization who responded to the disruptive rise of nation-states by returning to the land and staying put, who resisted the trespasses of urbanization and the violence it necessitates.
Initially I was going to write this short essay in an attempt to show differences and similarities between modern rusticators and back-to-the-landers. However, BLM is deserving of its own editorial. There would be no Rusticator without the inspiration with which I’ve received from those who have come before me, who had the courage to choose what was best for them, their loved ones, and the natural world.
Big ups!
therusticator.com 