THE VISION IS A PLACE | ✓ {complete}

Chapter 3 : Van

    Anna lets me finish the house chores on my own, which gives me a chance to go back upstairs and freshen up before getting started on the day. By the time I enter the garden, she's already busy harvesting with Aurora.

I make my way along the winding footpath to the greenhouse in the centre. It's a rustic, wooden structure, covered in vines, built into the South side of the hill, with big slanted windows that arch out, facing the valley. The South side of the garden is all open to let in the light, while the other three sides are forested, creating a pocket of heat that lets us grow all the way to the end of October, which is a rare asset this high up in the hills.

Our garden looks unlike most. Modelled after The Vision, what might appear as an untamed wilderness, is really a careful design, with purpose behind every detail. To mimic nature, we've woven together forest and meadow ecosystems, and the entire garden is heavily terraced, to take full advantage of the rain. Thick layers of mulch and compost feed and protect the soil, giving the impression that you could fall back, just about anywhere, and be supported by the cushiony earth, if the plants don't catch you first.

Inside the greenhouse the air is full and warm. Every time I look though those big windows, I'm reminded of the night we went to get them. Awhile back, Heath caught wind of an abandoned housing development a couple hours West of here. It's since become a spot we harvest from whenever we need new materials that we can't source form our own land, like: PVC pipes, bricks, glass, copper wire, certain size beams, doors... We even stole a couple bathtubs once for an experiment in aquaponics. To get there, you have to drive on old logging roads for a long time, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there's a single wide paved street, with lights and two story houses with front lawns and garages, all being reclaimed by the earth in a slow collapse, as a result of some mortgage fraud scheme. The place is creepy, not just because of how empty it is, but because of how those houses were never intended to be lived in.

Taking from that place never felt like stealing; it felt like we were taking what was rightfully ours. It's quite a powerful feeling: the feeling that you can do no wrong. It's maybe even a little dangerous, but that's what it feels like when you live by the words of a book that separates you from the rest of society. That's what it feels like when you're on the same side as people like Heath and Addison, who make you feel so safe inside those beliefs. If it's in line with The Vision, then it can't be wrong. The Vision is our new moral compass—our new social contract—and, more and more, its rules are the only ones that matter.

The little red handles of the shovels and pitchforks bounce against each other in the wheelbarrow as I make my way down the bumpy straw path. The West end is where we grow most of our hardy greens. The beds get full sun and are protected by impassible thickets of fragrant raspberries and wild roses, and a single, shin-high electric wire that does a good job at keeping the deer and rabbits out.

I get straight to preparing the recently cleared beds for their next rotation. I work down the long, thirty foot rows, a few inches at a time, lifting the soil with the broad-fork to break up the compaction, while hand pulling any small weeds that surface. I fall into the rhythm of it, where time seems to lose its meaning and thoughts quiet down. It's a good place to be. Instead of entering the vortex of self-analysis, picking apart the lingering head space I was in last night, I try to focus instead on the afternoon, and how by the time we break for Full Moon, a sunbeam will be spread across the floor of the loft and onto the white sheets of the mattress I never should have left. I think about how, while everyone else is getting ready for the bonfire, washing up in the spring-fed pond and setting up the fire pit, I'll find a way to slip back inside to soak in the silence of a rarely empty house.