Even Today Everyone Can Build a Home (book 4 chapters 26-27)

In chapter 26 Anastasia provides the first step for building a home.

"First choose for yourself a place of your own you like best of all the pleasing spaces on the Earth. A place where you would like to live, and would like your children to live out their lives. And then you will indeed leave to your great-grandchildren a fitting memorial to you. The climate, too, in that place must be favourable for you. Take one hectare (~2.5 acres) of land in that place for yourself in perpetuity."

In chapter 27 Anastasia and Vladimir discuss putting a fence around the property. Initially, Vladimir feels Anastasia might be against a fence, but that is not the case as she says even animals mark out their own territory. Vladimir then suggests a fence with posts and boards, but Anastasia has a different idea.

"Would it not be better, Vladimir, in place of a whole lot of posts, which can later rot, to plant trees?"

"Trees? And then what, nail boards...?"

"Why nail boards to them? Look there, in the forest there are a lot of trees growing with their trunks only one-and-one-half to two metres apart."

"Yes, you're right. But there are holes between them. It's not the same as a fence."

"But it is possible to plant bushes in between them that people cannot get through. Take a careful look, and think what a splendid living fence you would have! And it would be just a little bit different with each person. And everyone would come to admire the view. And your descendants in the ages to come will remember the creator of this splendid hedge. And the hedge will not only save them time on repairs but will bring them benefits as well. It will serve, in fact, as far more than just a barrier. One person will make a hedge out of birches growing in a row. Another will use oak. And someone with a creative impulse will make a coloured hedge, the kind one reads about in fairy tales."

"What d'you mean, coloured?"

"Planting different-coloured trees. Birches, maples, oaks and cedars. Someone may intertwine a rowan-tree with clusters of bright red berries and still plant guelder-roses in between. And make room for bird-cherry trees and lilac bushes. After all, you can plan it all out in advance. Each planter should watch to see how high each one grows, how it blooms in the spring, what kind of a fragrance it has and what feathered friends it attracts. Thus your hedge will be both sonorous and pleasantly fragrant, and you will never get tired of looking at it, as the picture will be changing its tints with each passing day. It will flourish with colours anew every spring and every autumn burst forth in an explosion of fiery hues."

Next, Vladimir talks about all of the work that will be involved to grow a garden, including hauling in manure and fertilizer by the truckload. Once again Anastasia has a different idea.

"Vladimir, right now you are in the taiga. Look around you, how high the trees are, how mighty their trunks! Among the trees herbs and bushes are growing. There are raspberries, and currents...indeed, a whole lot of everything grows right here in the taiga for Man's use. And over thousands of years not a single person has fertilised the ground. But the land remains fruitful. What do you think: how has it been fertilised and by whom?"

"By whom? I don't know how or by whom. But you've pointed out a really important fact. Indeed, it's simply amazing how Man somehow gets everything twisted around. Tell me yourself, why aren't various kinds of fertiliser needed in the taiga?"

"Here in the taiga God's thought and God's plan are not interfered with to the same degree as where Man lives today. In the taiga leaves fall from the trees, and little branches are torn off by the breeze. And these leaves and branches, along with worms, fertilise the ground in the taiga. And the grass which grows all around regulates the composition of the earth. The bushes help it clear away excesses of acids and alkalies. None of the fertilisers you are familiar with can substitute for leaves falling from the trees. After all, leaves include many of the diverse energies of the Universe. They have seen the stars, the Sun and the Moon. And not only seen, but they have interacted with them. And even many thousands of years from now, the ground here in the taiga will still be fertile."

"But the ground-lot where our house is to be built is not the taiga, you see."

"Then start planning! You yourself can plant a forest of different kinds of trees."

Later in chapter 27 Anastasia provides further details on how to develop our one hectare of Motherland.

"Let us say our lot is on a barren section of land, and is now enclosed on all sides by a hedge. Let us divide it, reserving half or three-quarters of the lot for a forest, and there plant a variety of trees. On the edge of the forest, where it borders on the remaining part of the lot, we shall plant a hedge in such a way that animals cannot pass through it and trample the crops growing in the garden plot.

"In the forest we shall set up a pen using densely planted saplings, which in time will be home to a goat or two. And we shall also use saplings to construct a shelter for egg-laying hens.

"In the garden plot we shall make a pond approximately 16 metres across. We shall plant raspberry and current bushes among the trees in the forest, and wild strawberries around the edge. Later, after the trees in the forest have grown a little, we can set up two or three empty log hives there for bees. And we shall use trees to make a gazebo where you will have a cool place, safe from the heat, to talk with your children or your friends. And we can make a summer sleeping area out of living things, along with a creative workshop for you. And sleeping places for the children, and a living room."

"Wow! It won't be a forest we end up with, but more of a palace!"

"Only the palace will be a living entity, and continue to grow in perpetuity. This is how the Creator Himself thought up the whole balance of things. And all Man has to do is to assign everything its task - according to his own taste, design and understanding."

"But why didn't the Creator do it all this way to begin with? Everything in the forest grows just where it happens to end up."

"Think of the forest as a book for you as a creator. Look more closely, Vladimir - everything therein has been written by the Father. Look over there: three trees are growing just a half-metre apart. You are free to plant them in a row and use a whole lot of them to make up other configurations. In among the trees there are bushes growing - think of how you can make use of them to sweeten your life. And where the trees do not allow grass and bushes to grow between them, you can take that as a lesson for building your future house out of living materials. It is as though all you have to do is to formulate the required programme and adjust it according to your taste. Everything around you is charged with the task of cherishing and delighting you and your children, cherishing and feeding them."

"To feed ourselves, we'll need to plant a vegetable garden. And that'll take a lot of sweat."

"Believe me, Vladimir, even the vegetable garden can be set up so that it will not be an aggravation. You just need to keep everything under observation. Among the herbs, just the way everything grows in the forest, you could have the most splendid tomatoes and cucumbers under cultivation. Their taste will be much more appealing and healthful for the body than when they are grown simply on a patch of bare ground."

"But what about the weeds? And won't they be destroyed by pests and beetles?"

"There is nothing useless in Nature, Vladimir, and there are no purposeless weeds. Neither are there any beetles that are harmful to Man."

"What d'you mean, there aren't any harmful beetles?! Take locusts, for example, or the Colorado beetle - a real vermin that eats away at potato crops in the fields."

"Yes, it does. It is also thereby showing people how their ignorance is eating away at the self-sufficiency of the Earth, contradicting the designs of the Divine Creator. How can people keep stubbornly ploughing year after year in one and the same place, torturing the ground? It is like scraping an open wound, at the same time demanding benefits from the wound. Locusts or the Colorado beetle will not touch the ground-lot which you and I have outlined. When everything grows together in one grand harmony, the fruits accruing to the owners are also harmonious."

"But if that's the way everything is going to ultimately turn out, meaning that on the lot you have thought up there is no need for Man to fertilise the ground, or fight off vermin with various kinds of poisons, or do weeding, and everything is just going to grow all by itself, then what is there left for Man to do?"

"Live in Paradise. The way God wanted us to. Anyone who is able to build himself a Paradise like that will come into contact with the Divine thought and produce a new co-creation together with Him."

"What new co-creation?"

"Its turn will come once the creation of Paradise has been completed in due course. Let us consider now what you and I still need to do."

Most of what Anastasia has said in these chapters is well known to those who have studied permaculture; the foundation from which the Golden Age will be built.