30 Jul July 30, 2025
Transferring Cape Breton wool in Antigonish at the Small Farm Expo. Working together to build our local economy.
July 30, 2025.
The stillness of this morning left me hearing only the ringing in my own ears. It was so quiet. It was almost a loud quiet, if that is possible. The quiet was so quiet, it was consuming. Oh how I lingered in it. As if, for those moments of stillness, there was immense repair happening.
I have decided to finally read some of the textile, yarn spinning, text books I have. They are incredibly technical because of course, fibre preparation and spinning is very technical. As of the time of publication they had removed humans out of the mix, with advances in technology, of course humans are the greatest expense in most operations, and had increased efficiency to what they felt was the maximum that could be reached without compromising the quality.
Why do we do this? Why do we remove humans from the making of the things we humans need? Isn’t it totally counter intuitive? And, to what end do we remove humans? Total separation and knowledge and total dependency on a few. Where have we learned this? Why do we believe that we need to advance in these ways? Who is leading this? Can’t we advance, while holding and honouring the role humans play, regular every day humans? I mean, it is not regular every day humans that can read and understand the technical specifications written in these text books, but it is regular every day humans who are drop spindle spinning sheep and alpaca wool in the mountains of Peru. And yet, we do not value (in terms of money) them or their products, or their process. They live, in what we consider, deep poverty.
Have you read the Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingslover? It is a must read in my opinion. She makes a goosebump creating point that it is good enough for us all that someone, somewhere is doing the down on the farm work, while we do all we can to keep our children from this work. We absolutely need our children to be farmers and spinners and weavers.
The Nova Scotia Government has a job posting for Executive Direction of Growth and Development. This department (Department of Growth and Development) is, and I quote, about “driving economic growth and productivity by creating the conditions for communities and businesses to thrive”. One of the expectations of the role is “to lead integrated economic development strategies that foster vibrant, entrepreneurial, and resilient communities.” Tell me who will get this job and what experience will they have in doing this? This role needs someone and some ideas that are FRESH! As a society, we are suffering and there is no one standing up and leading us to a future that is vibrant, entrepreneurial and resilient. Partly because we do not, as a society, acknowledge the need within our communities for interdependence, diversity, and sharing. We are individualized ourselves to death. Literally. The epidemic of loneliness and death by suicide.
My point is, working to support adding value to fibre here in Nova Scotia, for us to have jobs and products and services, is a lonely and rather disappointing financial adventure. Given what we know about the NS economy, one would think the government would be encouraging such investment and helping. Ah, but no. As per usual, our eyes widen the more zeros there are. When will we have leaders that realize, it is the small local initiatives that are what has always, and what will always be there to fall back on?
Wishing you a lovely day.
Patricia