By: Francesca Mundrick, Founder & Executive Director
Sovereignty is to maintain authority over oneself. This provides us with the right to live according to one’s own laws and traditions.
Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. This is inseparable from the ability to roam and sustain life in harmony with the Earth.
Liberty is the state of being free within a society without oppressive restrictions. This requires a responsibility to self and community where the courage to defend rights exists at the center.
Sovereignty, Freedom, & Liberty require sacrifice. The old adage “freedom isn’t free” reins true. These gifts require us to be vigilante, actionable, and independent.
Understand this, the environment is at the center of what makes us free. The deconstruction of our connection to the spiritual and physical resources of land and nature itself. This is a direct attack on our freedom. We have been tricked into thinking that local environments are meaningless and useless. We have been sheparded away from the foundations of freedom that exist in the natural world.
In our society, two things remain true: Land is power. Nature is commodified.
We have seen time and time again that the removal of people from land is a systematic form of warfare to disempower, conquer, and control populations. This is a multifaceted approach to guaranteed power as the removal of people from land is not only a direct loss of resources but of community, spirituality, and knowledge. The land is in our soul- without it a part of our identity is missing. The goal is demoralization and decreased health and it works every time.
Sitting Bull, a symbol of indigenous resistance culture of the 1800s, was an avid warrior of sovereignty, freedom, and liberty in the purest sense. He believed his people had an inherent right to govern themselves and remain on their ancestral lands. He opposed the forced relocation of Indigenous communities onto reservations and resisted government efforts to dictate how the Lakota should live- knowing that these actions were purposeful disempowered.
William Wallace, a Scottish military leader, became one of the most recognizable figures in Scotland’s struggle for independence from English rule. He led a rebellion against King Edward I of England during the First War of Scottish Independence in the 1300s. A warrior and liberator of the Scottish people, he famously spoke against cultural injustices and the removal of Scottish people from their land and communities by the British Monarchy.
The very foundry of the United States of America, Jeffersonian and Lockean ideas taking us into a different context, recognizes the sovereignty of a free people begins with the right to steward land and communities. Our American Revolution was fought to free a people from control and to forge natural rights.
How many revolutions, rebellions, and resistance efforts exist in history- all for the same reason?
In the modern world, our removal from land and loss of a connection to nature has been gradual and interpreted as progress. Changes in culture from a localist society to a globalist one- fraught with pleasantries, comforts, and shallow institutions- represents the same systematic concepts of removing power but in a passive way that seems “fine”. This is almost worse because we have allowed it to happen willingly due to laziness- the death of vigilante, action, and independence.
How do we recover sovereignty, freedom, and liberty?
- Localization: Fight for the reestablishment of local economies, local food systems, and local culture is a must, must, must.
- Education: We must remain knowledgeable in a diverse and holistic manner. Historical context, cultural knowledge, and diverse philosophies. Awakening is the first step forward.
- Ancestral Connections: A convergence of modern identity with ancestral identity can rebuild spiritually and sustainable life ways.
- Bioregionalism: A recovery of regional knowledge of the natural environment- geology, ecology, climate, etc.
- Skills: We must practice and refine old ways, practical skills, and wild arts. Skills allows us independence.
- Understanding Land Use, Laws, Government Resources, & Taxation: We must learn the innerworkings of our societal system in order to wield it for our collective benefit. Our society is built on land ownership- private and public. That determines, at the ground level, how we access and connect to nature. Planning, zoning, laws, government resources, and taxation are important to understand.
- Privately Owned Land: Privately owned land should be protected with Conservation Easement, stewarded in the old ways with focus on holistically boosting biodiversity and ecosystem services, and stewardship should be intimate- you should know your land, the ecology, resources, and intrinsic value it holds. Understand tax incentives and government programs such as State Arborists and farmland preservation. Participate in homesteading, permaculture, foraging, hunting, and fishing to diversify your resources.
- Co-Owned & Co-Inhibited Private Land: People can come together to form co-living houses, ecovillages, communes, and intentional communities- purchasing land together or under a legal entity such as a nonprofit. This way lifeways and shared resources are controlled by the formed community. Look into laws at the local, County, and State level that inhibit or benefit these actions.
- Public Land: Public land is an untapped resource. This is land owned by the government and is supposed to be shared and available to citizens. In truth, tax dollars pay for public land and so citizens are the owners of it. Municipal, County, or State land can be utilized for food forests, community gardens, and cultural space. Negotiate legal land use agreements with government entities to ensure rights for citizens who wish to use public land.
The results of Rewilding Land, Self, and Community can help us to achieve the sovereignty we seek. The undermining of freedom has occurred since the beginning of time. The contemporary challenges that we face match that of all the freedom fighters of the past. The path to freedom is already laid out for us- we just need to walk it. However, our fight for freedom is arguably more grandiose than ever before. We are up against a globalist coalition and, truly, our fight for freedom is on a global scale. In every corner of the world, whether we know we are all together or not, a resurgence of sovereignty, freedom, and liberty is occurring, and we are directly a part of it.
To learn more about Fran, visit About the Founder.
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