Happy Interdependence Day!

by Patricia Sanders

Yesterday was the Fourth of July, but since I’m outside the U.S., there were no celebrations, no fireworks for me. I watched a movie that had fireworks in it, just to get to see some.

Where I am, the Azores islands, belong to Portugal, and Portugal has its own Independence Day – the first of December. That holiday goes back to 1640, when Portugal separated from Spain. So the first of December, I guess I’ll finally get to see real fireworks.

Turns out no less than 163 countries celebrate Independence Day in some form. The oldest celebration is in Switzerland, which broke from the Holy Roman Empire in the year 1291. Just like in the U.S., the Swiss display flags and shoot off fireworks –but on August 1, not July 4.

Burundi, the Congo and Rwanda commemorate freedom from Belgian rule on June 30 or July 1. Belgium, in turn, celebrates its independence from the Netherlands three weeks later. And in the Netherlands, they’ve been partying on the fifth of May every year since they broke from Nazi Germany – they call it Liberation Day.

Even North Korea celebrates its own Independence Day, which goes to show independence doesn’t necessarily mean freedom.

I, too, have my own personal Independence Day: April 11, the day I left Reevis Mountain School after living there six years.

Everybody has their own Independence Days – maybe the day you graduated from high school or moved out of your parents’ house, or got your first job. Your birthday is an Independence Day too, in a way.

Living at Reevis gave me new appreciation for independence, but also for interdependence. If you don’t know about Reevis, it’s a 12-acre farm, a kind of homestead, located south of Roosevelt Lake, deep in the Tonto National Forest, at the edge of the Superstition Wilderness. Peter “Bigfoot” Busnack founded it back in 1980, partly out of fears about where the world was headed.

For over 40 years, Peter has been living there, growing his own food, teaching survival classes. and living life his way. The full name of the farm is Reevis Mountain School of Self-Reliance, and the idea was self-reliance makes freedom and safety possible: If you don’t need anyone else, you can pretty much do whatever you want, and it doesn’t matter so much what they do. You’re separate, and free, and safe.

The thing is, though, in reality, Reevis sits at the center of a network of hundreds of people who ensure it can continue to exist. People who buy the farm’s produce or come to classes, people who donate money, or do volunteer work at the farm, or support the school through its legal framework, as well as the county or other entities helping maintain