A Rant About NJ

This is a celebratory post for the Adventures of a Barefoot Princess, as well as a little rant about New Jersey. I started this blog in February of 2008 while working at The Farm, an intentional community and once-hippie-commune in rural Tennessee. It marked the beginning of an output-phase, where I began transfering my wisdom, knowledge, experiences, and inner guidance into some sort of offering to the world.

We all go through times of creative inspiration, and ride the wave to the other end of the spectrum and back again. Recently the spark in me was rekindled when I decided to move forward with a long envisioned project to localize the barefoot princess blog to New Jersey. Now that I live in New Jersey, I naturally want to post everything that is going on in my area. The barefoot princess blog is now becoming a place where folks living in the Garden State can find local events and resources for holistic health, natural living, earth education, and so much more.

I've been around the country a few times, and to farther parts of this big beautiful Earth, and for a time felt discouraged by the negative outlook most people have for New Jersey. Most of them had never even been off the Turnpike and yet still believed that their limited, biased, and what I would also dare to call ignorant opinion had enough merit to encompass the entire Garden State and sometimes the northeast as a whole.

High Point

In defense I would bring up the expansive Pine Barrens in the south, the Applachian Trail that cuts through the northwest, the Delaware Water Gap, Sandy Hook Beach, and the bountiful farms, forests, rivers, and creeks. I would also mention the Catskill Mountains of NY, the Berkshires, Vermont...

Pine Barrens

To them there was no possibility for beauty. They would say there is no culture, no community. I would offer the Wilderness Survival School, the thriving yoga community, the organic farms, the artists, the vegan restaurants, health food stores, CSA's, permaculture meet-up groups, and primitive skill shares... and beyond New Jersey I would mention centers like Kripalu and Omega, EarthDance in Western Mass, on and on and on....

Great Falls of the Passaic

Sandy Hook

......and on and on.....

Palisades

Delaware Water Gap

...and on...

Buttermilk Falls

Only someone who knows the Garden State would be able to tell you that there is something here for everyone. Like any other state we have our poverty. Like any other government we have our corruption. We suffer the butt-end of our nation's and world's insatiable and disastrous greed for energy and resources, with many good people living in the unfathomable pollution it causes. We host mean-spirited, unhappy residents. Drugs. Crime. Concrete. Cars. Yes you can find that all here.

But what you can also find are the seeds, blossoms, and fruits of positive, creative, regenerative culture. I feel honored to document the non-profits, for-profits, collectives, community centers, wellness centers, farms, teachers, artists, classes, gatherings, and wild places, so that those living in and around New Jersey who are inspired to live better, more conscious lives can gather information, find support, and seek out their community.