Journey, or Psychosis?
Have you ever had such a mind-blowing and world-shifting experience you gave up everything to follow that path? I have. For me, the greatest professional disappointment of my life was immediately met with the discovery of my most important earthly work — regenerative agriculture. This combination was explosive, a crisis of meaning countered with a profound and revelatory sense of purpose.
What I’d toiled at for several years proved to be worthless, replaced at that moment with a newfound, higher calling that resonated with my soul. It was easy, even unconscious, to let go of so much that had been weighing me down, discarding loads of physical and emotional baggage. It felt like livingthe parable of the man who found a treasure in a field and sold everything he had to buy the field.
Fortunately, opportunities presented that helped me work through this tectonic worldview shift. The most wonderful coterie hosted a two week permaculture design course in my neighborhood, and let me trade my traditional lactofermented sauerkraut for tuition. Discovering Joel Salatin and reading through his books provided a way to project myself from the broken present to an ideal future. And over the course of the next year I cut my teeth visiting three farms to get first hand experience (the “internships” never quite worked out…)
To any outsider, I was completely out of my mind. And in fact, my mind was being entirely swapped out. My family had a very difficult time understanding what was going on and feared for my safety. At certain cul-de-sacs along this trip I feared for my life, as well. A medical professional may very well have diagnosed me with certain psychologic disorders, and prescribed an emergency ending to the fiasco.
Tracing my steps, though, it is clear to me now that this was merely a cataclysmic reordering of my world. Building a large building requires removing a massive amount of earth, splitting the nuclei of an atom creates extraordinary amount of energy and even a nuclear explosion, and apparently completely changing your mind involves a significant degree of disturbance, as well. I’m grateful to have hiked the entire trail, not turning back despite turbulence and frightening scenarios. The new vista is worth the journey.
