At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America PDF
Preview At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America
AT HOME IN NATURE AT HOME IN NATURE Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America Rebecca Kneale Gould University of California Press Berkeley Los Angeles London Frontispiece: Sign at the entrance to Helen and Scott Nearing’s Forest Farm. Photo by R.K. Gould. University ofCalifornia Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University ofCalifornia Press, Ltd. London, England © 2005 by The Regents ofthe University ofCalifornia Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gould, Rebecca Kneale, 1963– At home in nature : modern homesteading and spiritual practice in America / Rebecca Kneale Gould. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. isbn0-520-24140-1 (cloth : alk. paper) — isbn 0-520-24142-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. United States—Religious life and customs. 2. Country life—Religious aspects. 3. Nature—Religious aspects. 4. Spirituality—United States. 5. Country life—United States. 6. Nature and civilization—United States. I. Title. bl2525.g69 2005 306'.0973—dc22 2004027410 Manufactured in the United States ofAmerica 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on New LeafEcoBook 60, containing 60% post-consumer waste, processed chlorine free; 30% de-inked recycled fiber, elemental chlorine free; and 10% fsc-certified virgin fiber, totally chlorine free. EcoBook 60 is acid-free and meets the minimum requirements ofansi/astm d5634–01 (Permanence of Paper). In memory of four lovers of gardens and seekers of the Good Life: Helen Knothe Nearing, my maternal grandparents, Ada Kneale Burns and Robert Martin Burns, and Ione P. Smith And for my sister, Alison Gould, my brother, Kenneth Gould, and my mother, Nadja B. Gould There is an Adam and Eve in Darwin’s plan, too, but they were not set up in business on the home farm, their garden ready planted. They made their own garden and knew how they came by their acres. John Burroughs, 1883 Amid the decay ofcreeds, love ofnature has high religious value. This has saved many persons in this world—saved them from mammon-worship, and from the frivolity and insincerity ofthe crowd. It has made their lives placid and sweet. It has given them an inexhaustible field for inquiry, for enjoyment, for the exercise ofall their powers, and in the end has not left them soured and dissatisfied. It has made them contented and at home wherever they are in nature. John Burroughs, 1920 CONTENTS List of Illustrations xi Preface xiii Acknowledgments xxiii A Homesteading Time Line xxix Introduction 1 1. Conversion 11 2. Getting (Not Too) Close to Nature 38 3. Homemade Ritual 63 Interlude: Interpreting Ambivalence: Homesteading as Spiritual and Cultural Work 102 4. The Reenchantment of the Farm: John Burroughs Goes Back to the Land 108
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