Imagine waking up to a world where people were enthusiastic about their work. Where people made choices out of a drive to better their communities, not out of resentful obligation. Imagine feeling like you have a community supporting you on your path. Imagine a constant flow of curiosity and creativity in your daily interactions. Imagine feeling capable of communicating openly about your emotions in any context and resolving conflict in all your life’s spheres. What would a social system full of this type of people look like? Where do we begin to create this reality?

Here is an account of one such beginning…

Broad Strokes

My three brothers and I were home-schooled and unschooled on a 240 acre piece of farmland in the backwoods of Quebec. I am eternally grateful for the choice my parents made in not sending us to through the school system.

My parents are both alternative medicine practitioners and were involved in a community of people doing similar work in our area. They held regular therapy and nature awareness retreats on our land. There was a constant flow of interesting people to interact with, learn from and teach. That I was a child did not really come up as an issue when I was involved in showing people what plants were used medicinally for what aches and pains, or teaching them the words for a Persian chant we had sung that day in meditation. There was little to no hierarchy between ages. It is only now that I know that bi-directional learning and inspiration is not “the norm”. For me it was. What I learned about plants and healing and animals and psychology and cooking and the rest, I naturally passed on, to anyone who wanted to know.

I learned to be responsible for my own choices. I was never interested in drugs, alcohol, smoking or the like. Most friends I spoke to seemed to do these things as a way of finding social acceptance among their peers. In my reality, my peers included just about everyone. It seemed clear to me that I would be more respected, both by myself and others, for taking care of myself. I was never forbidden from doing anything but was given full information on the implications of my choices. As a result I became confident in my ability to choose my own path in any given situation.

Without the plethora of techno-gadgets present in most homes today, our imaginations had free range. Time management and boredom were never an issue because my brothers and I had never learned to assume someone else would be there to tell us what to do or help us occupy ourselves. Exploration, invention and everyday chores kept us busy and, for the most part, happy.

A Day in the Life of an Eleven Year Old

On average I wake up with the sunrise at around 5 a.m. I head out for a walk through the fields to watch the day beginning and feel the dew trickling down my feet. I sit on a stone for a while and meditate, taking a moment to find gratitude for another day, then walk back to the house where my brothers are still sleeping. I make myself a tea from herbs I collected in our yard and sit on the porch, a ruby throated hummingbird buzzing within feet of my face.

I cook some eggs that we got from the neighbors and then jump into the day.

I grab a basket and some scissors and wade my way into the herb garden to gather the plants we need to make a salve for bruises and cuts. Some friends living with us come up to help me. They’re from Costa Rica so we converse partially in Spanish and I point out the right leaves and flowers to collect-comfrey, rose petals, plantago major, goldenthread (but we’ll have to go dig through the moss in the forest for that)…. Once our baskets are full we spread out the herbs to dry on sheets in the upstairs of the hay barn, which has been converted into a workshop space. I walk outside and wave at the school bus as it passes.

The next project of the day is paper-making.

Eugenia and I, a Costa Rican friend who’s been living with us for two years now, have started using leftover bits of construction paper and newspapers to make our own paper. My brothers are up and join in. We take out the blender and screens and make a few batches. Combining different amounts of the colored scraps we come out with a rainbow of shades. We set these up on a table to dry. Some will be made into little booklets, some we add bits of flowers to and stick on cardboard backing to hang on the walls. While we’re working she teaches us a new song in Spanish—“La Cucaracha”.

My brothers and I have been put in charge of designing a fence for our front yard. This will be to keep our farm animals from wandering into the neighbors fields like they’ve been doing for the past while. We put our four heads together and come up with a design. The construction will happen with some adult help.

A car pulls up and I lead one of my mother’s clients down to her workspace, chatting in the local French about the weather and explaining how to prepare for their treatment (my mother is a massage therapist).

A friend of the family has decided to teach us how to canoe, so a bit before lunch we drive off to a nearby beach and paddle around the lake for a couple of hours. The lake is calm and once the initial fear of “wobbling as precursor to tipping” is past, the different strokes are fairly simple and fun. We stop at the cantine to eat and then head back to the farm.

Back at home I take out my violin to practice before my next lesson. I somehow managed to do enough odd jobs around to save up and buy myself a second-hand violin last year when I was ten. It had been important to me that I be able to buy it myself, so that I would feel more attached to it and know how much work it took to be able to afford it.

After a half hour of scales and songs I go down to see another live-in friend of ours, Jimena, to make her a hair wrap out of embroidery thread. Someone has offered to take me to a music festival where people will pay a dollar an inch for these, so I need to practice.

Once I’ve finished I take out a Star Trek book and curl up next to one of our cats to read. When I hear the school bus arriving I get up to go meet my friend Emily from across the street. “So, what did you learn today?” I ask with curiosity. “Nothing,” She shrugs. “There was this guy at recess who wouldn’t stop bugging me and my friends though…what an idiot” I told the teacher with us but she totally didn’t care and said we should handle it ourselves so he kept bugging us…” And that’s about all she has to say about the day.

I suggest we go practice our dance steps before our Friday night lessons, but her mother yells over from across the road that she has to do her homework first. She yells back and then tells me she’ll try and come back later if she can. I nod.

I go down to the barn and find my mother and brothers are in the midst of making bread. Mom shows how to make challah, a traditional Jewish bread she’s just started making a lot.

Our friend Jill has been busy making drums all day and I go over to help stretch some of the rawhide. A friend from the neghborhood who hunts has been giving us her deer skins, which we then get treated by the local taxidermist so that it’s thin enough to be used for the drum skins. While I’m helping Jill, she and I go over the names of countries and capitals that I’ve been memorizing for one of our many geography board games. “Uruguay” “Montevideo” “Saudi Arabia” “Rabaat”…

Emily comes back from doing homework and we dash upstairs to practice some dancing before supper. When the meal’s ready she calls her mom begging to be able to stay over, but she hangs up looking upset and says she has to go back home.

I sit down to a meal with over ten people. The salad is all made from greens from our garden, the curry is steaming hot and delicious. We speak in three languages around the table, laughing and chatting ‘til it’s time for bed.

We spend a few minutes searching the sky for shooting stars, then climb under the sheets and fall asleep, believing tomorrow will be even better.