Required reading for folks living through the apocalypse of America — Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. If you haven’t read it, do it now. We’ll wait… While we’re waiting, we’ll just say we have no spoilers for you here, just a great place to head to create your safe space and sing some songs during the end of the world.
This is an imagining of The Land Office a project of the Imaginal Services Bureaux which is in turn a project of Cooperation Humboldt. We are imagining the most just use of property for sale in Humboldt County. This is a work of art. You can read our Principles or just read on…
We were tossing around the idea that this country is always unfinished. It really is one of the endearing qualities of this nationstate. We can always say we are striving to form a “more perfect union” and get off the hook for our previous misdeeds, even if they were genocide, slavery, and class oppression. But sometimes we’ve just got to realize that we can’t wait until we get to heaven to live in the most healthy way.
As the Little Red Songbook says, “We’ll have pie in the sky when we die! (That’s a lie!)”
Honey, dew you want to live here?
This fantastic parcel at the end of the road has the idea of a cabin, more of the shell of a fantasy of an individualistic dream away from society and all their communal ills. Well, what if we bring the community here and build our “new world in the shell of the old” as those Wobblies always say?
We haven’t heard it so much these days, but not that long ago folks who thought of a different way for society would speak of a “vanguard” who would lead the revolution. The idea was that an elite group of folks who “get it” could get the revolution going and start the change in society that we obviously need. Well, sometimes they would succeed in their revolution and maybe even do some good things, but darn it if it isn’t just the hardest thing to give up the power once you’ve got it…
How many sleepy revolutionaries can awaken here?
You can call it what you like, but our imagining in this cabin is based on “prefigurative politics,” which is just a fancy way of saying we just live in the way we want to world to be. No compromises “until the world is ready.” No “lesser of two evils” mind games. No enlightened leaders telling us what to do. Just some elders who have some experience to share. We just try to be the people we wish everyone had the chance to be.
And just to be clear — we’re going to mess this up.
But that’s okay.
So imagine moving out to the end of the road and “finishing” this cabin because even when it’s done, it will still be a work in progress. The important part is how we treat each other on the way there. Will we try to be kind despite our differences? Will we apologize when we make mistakes? And will we commit to doing the work of unlearning the messed up patterns we’ve learned up to this point?
Building the new world in the shell of the old…
If you were imagining a place to escape to in your apocalyptic cli-fi novel while trying to make a better life for your crew, you could do worse than the Prefigurative Honeydew Cabin. Bring your guitar and your songbook.
Check out the BONUS MATERIAL at the end of the post…
Extended material and more perks are available for Patrons. Please contact us to start a conversation about how you can support The Land Office of the Imaginal Services Bureaux.
Here are some links to the background material:
Assessor’s Map for 107-056-013:
http://co.humboldt.ca.us/assessor/maps/107-05.pdf
Zillow:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1533-Doreen-Dr-Honeydew-CA-95545/83148774_zpid/?
Trulia:
https://www.trulia.com/property/5037757714-1533-Doreen-Dr-Honeydew-CA-95545
You may want to read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower if you are thinking of moving here with your rag-tag group of survivors.
https://www.northtownbooks.com/book/9781538732182
You heard this song?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Preacher_and_the_Slave
Or this one?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_Forever
Bonus material! Hey, since you are in the neighborhood why not check out this second listing with 156 acres just down the road. The imagining would be similar to the last imagining from The Land Office anyway (without the ocean view). Why not add it to the mix? Forests are cool, you know. Here’s the Zillow listing:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2006-Doreen-Dr-Honeydew-CA-95545/2085540817_zpid/
And for good measure, the Trulia:
https://www.trulia.com/property/5052614889-2006-Doreen-Dr-Honeydew-CA-95545
Previously was 8455 Centerville Road in Ferndale, California.