A few newsletters back, I made a book recommendation- Pastoral Song, by James Rebanks. I guess you could say this book, and his previous, A Shepherd’s Life, have been a few key thumbtacks bolstering my growing interest in regenerative agriculture, ‘rewilding’* of our environment, and our complex relationships with technology and history.
My first practice moniker, Shepherdess Health, was a nod to the part of me that yearns for animal husbandry, for the pace that’s required by tending land and animals, and for the directness and simplicity of raising for butchering. The name Shepherdess was a proclamation of a semi-conscious intention to always act on curiosities, and take steps toward a more self-sufficient and environment-relational life. It also sprung from a lifelong fascination with sheep that’s fueled by various past engagements with these animals (a stampede, burying a lamb, reading Murakami). This fascination drew me to all things sheep related: hence, Rebanks’ writing.
Simultaneously, for years I have been filling my brain and web space with content about capitalism, medicalized birth and fertility, trends (good and bad) in nutrition and big wellness, and ideas about “back to the land”. I’d be glad to get on a soapbox about each of these issues individually, but hadn’t quite gotten to synthesizing their relationships.
One more bit here, and it will all come together, I promise.
Last 4th of July, my friend Anette and I were walking our dogs home after fireworks, and the topic turned to having kids. Most bits echoed a LOT of similar conversations I’ve had with other friends:
“But this air quality!!”,
“Broke as hell!”
“But global warming!”
“How could we even?!”
“Political shitshow!”
“Bring a child into this?”.
And the most poignant, from Anette- “Phoebe, farmers are killing themselves- that’s how bad things are”.
And she’s right. Farmer suicide is a tragic, visceral demonstration of just one symptom of global trade, industrial farming, hyper consumerism, and climate change. In sum- current day, real life capitalism and globalization.
It’s remarkable (and understandable, and correct) how much of an impact it’s having on our family planning and our fertility.
Rebanks’s story tells of how his family farm moved away from slow, traditional practices in favor of combine harvesters, chemicals, and monoculture under pressure from market prices and the cost of modern life. And then- after a dark turning point- they shifted toward regenerative agriculture, land and watershed management, and rewilding*. A (non-regressive) shift toward sustainability and life, a lane-switch away from the road to death. The life in this case is the life of the farm, the crops, the animals, and the surrounding wild, but also the life of the family, community, and their progeny.
I’m dedicating more brain space, writing, reading, and talking to the topic of fertility during late stage capitalism, and ‘rewilding’* practices for conscious conception. Right now, so many of us of ‘childbearing age’ are at a dark turning point, wondering how to move forward with our mammalian instinct to procreate clashing with our mental health and rational understanding of life in today’s crumbling economic and social structures. How do we deal with this fertility anxiety?
I’ll be speaking from my own experience, with my own value system and set of beliefs about all sorts of things:
⌓ Community
⌓ Sunlight
⌓ Money/jobs
⌓ Nutrition
⌓ Embodiment
⌓ Separated families
⌓ Movement
⌓ Connection to nature
⌓ Reducing stress in a structural way- not a consumerist way
⌓ Geographies
⌓ Rewilding* our days
⌓ Rewilding* our pace
⌓ Recultivating pleasure and joy
⌓ Recultivating long-span attention
⌓ Growing an appetite for slowness
If you have kiddos, what preconception fears did you have?
Did you shift anything in your life in anticipation of having kids?
If you’re currently childless, what worries do you have?
What changes do you want to make in your life before you bring new life?