August collection - simplicity

I was four years old. I was playing, alone, in a thicket of trees and bushes. A moment came when there was sound and silence at the same time. I became exquisitely aware of the breeze through the leaves, of the sunlight dappling across the earth in front of me. I understood that this was an experience of God in me and around me. It was strange and familiar at the same time, and it was the simplest thing in the world.

I’ve spent the rest of my life alternately running from and trying to return to that simplicity. Perhaps the grace of God is at the heart of the desire some of us have to live in a simple way.

So what do we really mean by simplicity? My dictionary tells me that the word simple means:

• not compound, consisting of one element, all of one kind;
• not complicated or elaborate or highly developed;
• absolute, unqualified, mere, neither more nor less than;
• plain in appearance of manner, unsophisticated, ingenuous, artless;
• foolish, ignorant, inexperienced;
• easily understood or done, presenting no difficulty.

Not so simple perhaps!

Is simplicity the opposite of complexity? My thesaurus thinks so, but I disagree. Imagine resting your back against the trunk of a great oak. The tree stands there in simple majesty, but what a complex masterpiece of life it is, grown from a tiny sapling, changing with the seasons, absorbing carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen, supporting an entire miniature ecosystem.

It seems to me that simplicity holds complexity within it and vice versa. They are not separate and cannot therefore be opposite.

There was a recent article at Hermit’s Thatch called Simplicity which addresses this issue in the context of relationship. It begins:

Simplicity is not the opposite of complexity, subtlety, or depth. Simplicity refers to a relationship with the external world. Simplicity is a detachment or disengagement from the values of the world. For the hermit or solitary, the consequences of this detachment or disengagement ripple through the more obvious and visible aspects of his or her external life, eventually touching and transforming the entirety of life. Encountering such a person will not automatically reveal his or her inner life. But the outer life will reflect the values of simplicity.

In the late 1960s and during the 70s, we baby boomers thought we had invented the concept of simple living. (We thought we’d invented a lot of things…) We looked for alternatives. We didn’t often live as hermits, but we dropped out, lived in collectives in the city, communes in the country. We lived on the land, and genuinely tried to find a different way.

For some of us it didn’t last. But it was one of the tributaries running into the growing river that is the present day green and simple living movement, fed by books such as Duane Elgin’s Voluntary Simplicity, Fritz Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful and James Lovelock’s Gaia.

It’s not surprising that for so many people, the concept of simplicity is bound up with that of self-sufficiency. There’s something about the land, about the miracle of planting seeds in the ground that grow into food. It takes us home to a deeper and simpler meaning of ourselves.

You see that paradox again: deeper and simpler, complex and simple, not one or the other.

Perhaps the best way to look at it is with the help of the Chinese concept and symbol of yin and yang: different yet complementary, in constant movement, bound together in one whole.

John Seymour, who I once had the pleasure of meeting, is often seen as the father of the self-sufficiency movement in the United Kingdom.

John was as much at home in the humblest house on a hillside, as in the manor house of landed gentry. He was like a force of nature, always willing to listen, always interested in learning about new - or very old - ways of working the land. He was a one-man rebellion against modernism …

Herbert Girardet

John’s best-known book The Complete Guide to Self-Sufficiency is a must for anyone anywhere interested in living off the land. The Irish smallholding he started still thrives, and you can visit and learn. This is from their website:

Our home at Killowen is the “classroom” for the many students who visit us each year in their search for a better way of living. Our only timetables are those of the seasons, the animals and the plants. We dig and weed and build; we brew and cook and bake; we bottle and pickle and freeze; we sing and play and write. Above all, we try to share our experience and way of life.

Of course, there’s an irony in the fact that living off the land is in many ways not simple at all, and it’s certainly bloody hard work. Much easier to go to the supermarket and get your weekly shopping in. But of course then you have all the hidden costs of the huge machine driving environmental havoc, human misery and animal suffering to supply us with cheap and tasteless cuts of meat in plastic trays. And you have to work longer and harder at the office to pay for them.

(In the interests of honesty I should state clearly here that I do not live off the land, and I do shop at my local supermarket. However I am very careful about what I buy: for example I will not buy factory-farmed meat. And I am investigating alternatives. In fact I’m starting another blog soon to look in part at simple and natural living.)

If you want to try out a self-sufficient lifestyle, I can thoroughly recommend an organisation called World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. It’s an exchange scheme: labour for learning and accommodation. And if you haven’t quite given up your ’60s hippy ideals, the communities movement is flourishing. Diggers and Dreamers in the UK, and the Intentional Community Database will give you plenty of possibilities and ideas. But be careful: you can spend hours getting distracted by all the interesting links to follow. I speak from personal experience…

Here are a few of my favourite blogs concerned in varying degrees with self-sufficiency, or at least with growing things:

• Bean Sprouts
• Edible Balcony Garden
• Irish Sally Garden
• Take Joy
• Welcome to Voluntary Simplicity
• You Grow Girl

But does all this mean that those of us who work in offices have no hope of simplicity? Well I think you actually have to be very good at your job to enjoy the clear head that comes with tackling office life in a simple way. And by extension the paperwork and chores all of us have to live with, no matter what our job.

So first up, the only system for getting and staying organised that has ever worked for me: David Allen’s Getting Things Done. Once you implement and trust this system, your mind can float free into creativity.

And I’ve recently found Zen Habits, a resource devoted to minimalistic living in many contexts. I particularly enjoyed this post railing against multi-tasking. Have a good browse under the Simplicity category. And the site uses this wonderful quote from Thich Nhat Hanh:

Whatever the tasks, do them slowly
with ease,
in mindfulness,
do not do any tasks with the goal
of getting them over with.
Resolve to do each job in a relaxed way,
with all your attention.

Perhaps the words of a Buddhist can bring us back to my thoughts at the beginning of this post: that ultimately, simplicity is related to our mystical experience of the divine.

All the great faiths emphasise simplicity. Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Muhammed, all lived lives of simplicity and frugality. Their disciples and those of other faiths have been examples to us throughout the ages right up to this day.

Last week I watched a television documentary on the Muslim teachings of Jesus (whom they revere as a great prophet), and I was struck by this story:

There is an Islamic tradition that apart from his robe, Jesus had only two possessions: a cup for milk or water and a comb for his hair.
One day, he saw a man scoop up water to drink with his hands, and so he gave away his cup.
The next day, he saw a man comb his hair with his fingers, and so he gave away his comb.

Now there’s a challenge.

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