The Gift

The beginning of this adventure was the Abundance Tree - an ephemeral installation project that my son and I will be installing in various locations. The Abundance Tree is a gifting tree made of discarded branches that forms a sculpture of a tree with a room inside, which we hope facilitates community and discussion like the concept of the Liberty Tree did for our ancestors. It's fitting that the Abundance Tree was the impetus for our adventure because we're exploring living on the road from the perspective of giving. We aren't charging for setting up our project - we're approaching people with the concept and if they give us a venue, we will create it - alone if we have to - and present it as a gift to the community that has hosted us. We will be self-sufficient and expect nothing in return. Of course, the idea of giving freely is not easy. In fact, it goes against everything we have been trained to do, every way we have been trained to approach our interactions with other people, that establishing it as a habit is nearly as difficult as actually building the trees.

But the trees themselves are not the full project - our own changing methods and mindset are equally important. On the tree we hang two signs. One says "Give More Than You Take" and the other says "Abundance Creates Serendipity". This is how we will be living while we are creating this piece. Every experience, from searching for the RV, to setting up the mechanical repairs, to working odd jobs and getting rid of our excess belongings has been a lesson in giving and receiving. Already, people are helping, and I'm trying to give as much as I can - not in return - that's not the point. The point is to give what you have. To give it all out to the world. This is not a quid pro quo arrangement. And I can tell you that practicing this has created abundance for us already.

In his book The Gift: The Erotic Life of Property, Lewis Hyde concludes not that our culture of monetary exchange for goods and services should be usurped by a gift economy, but that we need to reinstate the gift economy beside the capitalist arrangement. Some things need to be exchanged in that way, but others just don't work in any way but a gift exchange. Our culture is increasingly breaching that line - we pay for medicine that we used to expect as a gift, we pay for art and it has become detached from our every day experience. We are now so deep into this arguably diseased way of living that we are paying for care of children and creating a record number of children who need pharmaceutical treatment to live in this culture.  Something is wrong and the only way that seems appropriate to fix it is to start to give.

I met the man I bought this motor home from just a little over a week ago. He came off as a little rough and I wasn't sure if I could trust him, but soon realized he was feeling the same about me. At some point while I was examining the vehicle, he asked what I was going to do with this motor home and although I had previously thought I would not reveal the nature of the project to those I was considering buying from (very few people really understand this and I didn't feel the need to share), something made me tell this man precisely what I was doing. And when I did, he said "Trees? Really? Let me show you something..." and we walked into one of his outbuildings on the property. He'd bought a small manufacturing plant a few years ago that made hand dyed raffia made silk trees for florist shops and craft supply stores. He didn't want the business, just the property. He had bales and bales of raffia and boxes and boxes of parts for silk trees that he said he tried to burn but couldn't stand the smell. When I asked him how much he was asking, he replied "Cheap" and laughed.

This sweet man, masquerading as a curmudgeon let my mechanic friend and I work on the RV in his lot, is letting me store the RV there temporarily until we leave this house and has become almost a friend in a short period of time. Speaking of mechanics - just before the inception of this project, I did some yard work for a man who I ended up trading for some mechanical help on the motor home - also a giver - he's helping me for food and conversation and a promise to help him out in any way I can later. I lucked into good people and coincidentally supplies that were exactly what I needed for the project I am planning. Is that coincidence? That's serendipity.

So the tree says "Abundance Creates Serendipity" and I didn't make that up - I discovered it from installing that tree before and watching what happened. My project is teaching me. I think that's what art is for an artist - it's a teacher. Or it's a method for your own internal voice to reach you with its wisdom. But now I'm learning from this phase of this project that in addition to abundance, serendipity is also created through the gift. Gifts given freely, without expectation, open a portal to a giving world. And that's really what this entire project is about - not giving in to the scarcity model world that we've been handed. Not expecting returns of equal or greater value, but just giving, learning to give freely. And flowing through the serendipity as a full agent of the change that we want to see happen.