Communities & Networks, Viruses & Spores

​Extinction has been on my mind lately. A lot. And survival. Of the human species and all of the others, plant, animal, fungus, & mineral species whom we share this world with. Yet even the tiniest fragment of a dream might clue us in to ways that we can turn the tide. Not only have I personally been dreaming of extinction but so has one of my daughters. It’s not surprising for family members to be dreaming in the same web. It’s not surprising for humans to be sharing the dreams of the earth, with the other species who share it, and those who have come before.

My own dream about Survival Research Laboratories and the strange image of a taxidermied dog/duck led me, by the path of synchronicity, to a book called The Curse of the Labrador Duck by Glen Chilton about his obsessive quest to to examine every known stuffed specimen of the extinct bird in the world. I read some of the book, but decided not to finish it. It was one clue in a series of clues, and I was having better luck researching the leads given to me by other dreams. It was what I discovered in the readings stemming from those dreams that has given me more concrete information about what we might do to survive.

Chief among these leads were two books by Gary Snyder, Earth House Hold and The Real Work: Interviews and Talks 1964-1979. These books spoke to me in a deep way. Throughout the second book he talked about how poets (and artists in general) act as a kind of yeast causing cultural ferment to take place. He says in a talk titled Poetry, Community, & Climax that: “Art is an assimilator of unfelt experience… When it comes not as a flower…but as a mushroom, as a spore or seed spreading the thought of enlightenment, reaching into personal depths for nutrients hidden there, back to the community.”

Yeasts, spores, and other types of cultures have been one of my primary obsessions since around the time of Halloween. Part of this has stemmed from the growth of Evolver Spores. I am not currently part of this movement per se, but I am observing. It is a good concept for spreading positive evolutionary memes throughout communities. One evolutionary meme is ecological sensitivity. We once had it and we’ll have to attune to it again if we want to survive.

We’ll also have to start building community. The costs of community haven’t been something people in America have been willing to pay. The commitment of time to building actual, physical, communities is something not many people seem interested in right now. It is easier to go home after a day of bland work and sit in front of the bland screen of TV or Computer. On the computer much time is freely spent building networks based on peoples interests. Gary Snyder argues in The Real Work that networks are fundamentally different from communities. Communities are built where people live. Networks can be spread out. Communities aren’t always based on interests outside of survival, networks often are.

With the internet we have all kinds of networks: for people who are interested in specific subjects, whether they be dreams, occultism, music, poetry, science-fiction, or whatever. These groups often call themselves “online communities”. I can’t totally disparrage them because I am part of a few “online communities” myself… but after reading Snyder’s thoughts about it, these so-called communities seem to function more like networks. Networks that connect people with similar interests. When living in a community you won’t always agree with or be interested in the same things that people in your network might be interested in. You live close to the people in a community, you may end up knowing more about their personal lives than you would in a network, how so-and-so is a brillant musician but can’t keep a steady boyfriend, or that Mr. Jones across the street has started drinking heavier since his wife died. And you get irritated at the people in your community from time to time: the boxes of papers sitting on Georges porch for three years, Mary never managing her money right and always asking for help at a certain time of the month. Yet in a community the triumphs and victories will also be shared and more often than not the irritations overlooked. The community comes and celebrates together at times of weddings, aniversaries, the seasonal holidays. People from the network probably aren’t invited to these events. Is digital technology responsible for the withdraw from community? Why do we give ample time to network building online and little or none to community building, content to live insular lives in our boxed homes staring at flickering boxes?

There have always been interest based networks whether professional or amateur and I do not think they are bad. They are in fact necessary but the networks can’t supplant community. Knowing someone in a network might help you with a scientific or artistic project but will it help you get a garden planted, and food canned and stored for winter? Will the people in the network help you chop the wood, find water and dig a well? Networks are good at spreading the spores, at growing the yeast of cultural ferment, but some roots need to be reestablished in the firm soil of community if we are to be a resilient species.

Tom Hodgkinson wrote in his brilliant book The Freedom Manifesto that “digital technology may give you what you want but it won’t give you what you need.” The ideal would be to have both. Will we remember what community costs before it is too late? I’d like to think so and I believe that dreams can help us to rebuild our fractured communities