The Laws of Reality

This is Laura’s second Lauratorial, which appeared in Earth Quarterly #2, Sept. 1998.


Well, my life has definitely become much more "interesting." I moved onto this little homestead ranch ten years ago after spending my life pretty much as a city gal. Through Gordon have come many important lessons in how the REAL world works. By that I mean Nature’s laws. Living with Gordon (Mister grapes, apples, carrots, and tomatoes himself), I have come face to face with the consequences of the natural world. If I want to eat grapes and I have my orchard in a frost pocket, then I must cover and heat the vines every single night that there is frost after those grapes have broken dormancy in the spring. There is no exception made for the night that I am especially tired because of a sick child. The law is always the same and always the same for all. Cover them or lose them, every time. The law is the same about frost, birds, drought, floods, hail, squash bugs, etc.

So my point is that the law makes no exceptions, and all that I—or anyone—has to do is to learn the law and conform to it in order to eat grapes later in the summer. In other words, to create my own life, I must learn the laws of reality and conform to them. This has been, and continues to be, a process of my becoming more mature—me growing up.

Our current interest in alternative building is another example of this teaching metaphor. We really are on our way home. We are all of us inwardly headed home to the reality of our being, and when we open our eyes, we see our outward home replicating our current state of consciousness. Many of us are awakening to another way, a better way. Building our homes is an outward manifestation of our inner journey.

We give birth to our lives, for better or worse, from our understanding of and conformation with cosmic law. We are pretty good at wrecking a planet, now we must learn how to take care of one.