Living Off The Grid and Other Thoughts
Allyson N. Jason on May-14-2008
Current Mood:
Introspective
I saw a documentary last night that was very intriguing. It was featured as a free movie selection on Sundance On Demand. The documentary is called Off The Grid: Life on the Mesa.
I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live completely off the grid and construct an autonomous style of living…creating sources of power, plumbing and food all by my lonesome without municipal aid. It is easy to romanticize and idealize the notion but in reality it would be a pretty harsh lifestyle if you didn’t have the means to make independence work and run smoothly.
The experiences of autonomous living can vary and my opinion is that the film I saw last night was just one of the many off-the-grid living arrangements. Not exactly the most poetic.
In this documentary, the filmmakers filmed the lives of several people who live in this off the grid community of 400 people in New Mexico called “the mesa” which is near the city of Taos. The community is comprised of extreme loners, vets suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, runaway teens, mentally ill people seeking refuge, ex-hippies, radical anarchists/neo-luddites, junkies, gun rebels, and various anti-social eccentrics.
The community also has its own hierarchy…with “elders” and “mamas” being on top. They are generally older and they strive to keep the peace in the neighborhood when meetings are held to make decisions which includes how to deal with new residents who might be problematic. No one contacts the law and every resident is pretty staunch about that as they strive to create their own rules entirely.
That brings up a question: If a community can successfully live off the grid away from most of society and mainstream civilization (including creating their own bartering system and currency), should they be subject to governmental laws and regulations?
Anyway, according to the community, each person must follow only two rules:
- Don’t shoot your neighbor
- Do not steal from anyone
All food is self-harvested or picked up from a donation ranch in the nearest town and each community member takes a bath at least every 3 weeks to a month in nearby streams and pools of water. Some residents still visit medical centers in Taos as well as collect unemployment or veteran checks (not exactly completely off the grid). The currency of the community is weed. Neighbors barter and exchange food and items for marijuana.
Some of the people in the film have access to some donated solar panels and many attempt to construct greenhouses on the land. However, the land is extremely arid and they are out in the middle of high desert ground, so you can imagine how difficult it is for anyone to harvest crops on that type of “soil”. They are competing with ground and succulent plants that are extremely water absorbent.
One of the residents is a pig farmer named Stan (older guy) who has lived out on the mesa for years and he has his own supply of sheep, goats, chickens and pigs that he continuously breeds to keep a constant supply of milk, meat and animal fur for clothing, housing and the like. He is the first to greet and see runaways that come to find a place to live on the mesa. As a result, he often takes strays in until they move on to another location or travel further onto the mesa grounds.
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