It all started with books – I enjoy reading books, researching and studying. So I had kept all my books from high school, because I never knew when I would need them again.

Then I moved on to college and began saving all the papers I wrote for classes, because I might want to refer back to them at some point. I was getting prepared for the future.

Then there were the recipes I had cut out from magazines, newspapers and printed from the internet, plus all the wonderful cookbooks I had collected. I liked cooking and wanted to have a family some day, so I figured recipes would likely come in handy.

I also held onto clothes that I didn’t like, because they looked like something I could wear for a job someday. What job I didn’t know, but I was being prepared and practical

During college I moved frequently between my home state and the college town where I lived during the school year. I felt weighted down by all of this stuff I had accumulated, but I couldn’t get rid of my collection.

I was worried I would regret it someday when I needed that extra pair of shoes or the paper I wrote on child development sophomore year. Then, everything changed.

An Important Lesson

In junior year I went to the Navajo Reservation and spent six months living in the middle of the desert.

I brought with me only a sleeping bag and a backpack with two pairs of pants, several shirts, a week’s worth of underwear and socks, one pair of shoes, one wool sweater and a coat. I lived with a family who had very little in terms of material goods and I learned not to waste anything.

It was the most important lesson of my life.

I learned to prioritize. I learned that material goods do not bring happiness and I realized I did not need much to be happy. I brought those lessons back home with me and I began to de-clutter my life.

I got rid of things that I didn’t like – clothes, shoes, books, knick-knacks, pillows, blankets, sheets, whatever. I knew other people who needed these things more than I did. So why not give these things to them?

I looked at every possession I had with a critical eye. If I hesitated even for a second, it went to charity.

I began to feel lighter and freer. This opened up more options to me. If I wanted to move somewhere else, or had an opportunity to travel, it would be easy for me. I was no longer weighed down by all this stuff.

It became an addiction – I wanted to get rid of more and more. I weeded out the things I did like. I kept only truly sentimental pieces or things I could not imagine living without.

My goal was to be able to fit all of my belongings (minus furniture) into my car. I wanted to be mobile, flexible and adaptive. I would no longer be held down by my possessions. I wanted to free up my life and my money.

A Pound Of Cure?

I moved on to the next step: prevention. I adopted a buying policy – I pledged not to buy anything unless it was absolutely necessary. Nothing was bought on credit anymore. I only bought things I could pay on cash or debit.

This worked fine until I needed to have some repairs on my car. I charged it to my credit card and I felt trapped again, suffocating. So I thought about it for a long time.

My fiancée and I were planning a big move – from Vermont to Florida. He had a car and we didn’t need two as we were both planning to do freelance work, mostly from home.

So I sold my car, got rid of that big debt. He sold his house, another burden gone from our shoulders. Then we began the process of cleaning out his house, applying all my clutter policies to his belongings as well.

We donated to charity three quarters of our belongings. Many of the things we gave away we would not need in a warmer climate – heavy bedspreads, trunks of blankets, winter boots, gortex coats, gloves, hats and tools, lawnmowers, snow shovels and fertilizer spreaders.

Not only were we planning to downsize our possessions, we were downsizing our lives.

When you get rid of things you don’t need, it opens the door for the universe to give you what you really desire. We decided we needed to de-clutter our lives so we could make a new start.

But we wanted to take it even further – to lessen our dependence on the matrix of external control through money and debt. We want to get off the grid. We want control over our own lives.

Finding Your Freedom

Without debt and huge investments holding you down, your life is fluid. The less money you owe others, the more you can travel, help other people, move to another country, retire early, and more.

With this understanding, we made a joint decision to stop working for other people in favor of our own projects and dreams. We knew we would have to make sacrifices initially, but if we didn’t do something drastic…we would stay trapped.

We sat down, made a budget and figured out how long it would take to pay off our debt. And then how much we would need per month to live the kind of life we want – nothing extravagant, but comfortable.

In order to reach that goal we can’t spend money on things that are not part of this new life.

We would use our money towards getting rid of our debts and then for things we really want from life – things like traveling, organic healthier foods, quality clothes and equipment, and more time to helping others.

Now we are conscious of all we buy. We splurge on the occasional treat, but we are aware of it, plan for it and work around it. (Everyone needs a break once in a while).

This all started from my desire to release that heavy feeling I had when I got back from the Navajo Reservation, my desire to live a freer, less complicated life. That inner knowledge that I just didn’t need all of this stuff I was carrying around.

If you want to de-clutter you life, start by prioritizing your life. What do you want from life? Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Once you start you’ll realize this journey is a work in progress. You learn there is much more to clear away than you first thought. If you have clear goals in mind, it can make the work much easier, but realize there is no way around it.

I still have a long way to go. But at least each step feels lighter.

Jenn DiPiazza is a freelance writer living in Florida. She has a degree in Anthropology and Native American studies. You can check out her latest reviews, recipes and travel destinations on her food and travel blog at TravelCloseUp.

Every few years I get this strange feeling.

It is something hard to explain – I feel antsy, like I am supposed to be doing something important, but can’t quite figure it out.

Like that feeling when you have something on the tip of your tongue and it is so frustrating that you can’t spit it out.

I scratch my head, pace, have sleepless nights until it dawns on me…I know this feeling. I need to go somewhere, get outside the box, have a new experience.

I need to travel.

This is the feeling commonly referred to as “the travel bug” and people the world over experience it on a regular basis.

In fact, there is an entire industry based on this human need – travel agents, tour guides, travel writers, travel insurance, resorts and vacation packages, the list goes on.

The Very First Traveler

Where did the first person get their inspiration to head out into the unknown? To hack apart the jungle on the edges of their village; to build the first raft to cut through the endless ocean?

It’s likely the sheer impossibility of the act provoked their curiosity. They needed to get somewhere that would have been impossible by any other means. Their desire to get there was so strong that they invented a mechanism to negate the problem.

Think about it – so many of our modern conveniences have been dictated by the human need for travel that you begin to wonder.

Homo Sapiens (also known as modern day humans) have been on this earth for about 130, 000 years. We descended from Homo Erectus, who had already colonized Oceania and Eurasia by 40,000 years BP (Before Present).

These early humans were hunter-gatherers and lived a nomadic lifestyle, which means from our earliest days we were travelers.

It wasn’t until 10,000 years ago and the Neolithic Revolution that agriculture was adopted, and human beings deciding to stay in one place for long periods of time. But even then, humans still found a need to travel.

Ever heard of spreading out the gene pool? Most people know that in order for humans to survive as a species we must diversify the gene pool. This results in less genetic defects as we are able to adapt to new situations and environments.

A Thought Experiment

Our genetic makeup leads us to do things – perhaps it’s the genetic desire to continue as a species that gives us this itch and need to go out in the world, meet new people, and intertwine with different cultures.

This is a very scientific way to look at things. How about the philosophical perspective?

The world is incredibly diverse, and people from different places and cultures have been intermarrying, sharing and propagating for such a long stretch of history.

Perhaps the travel bug is really our collective mind reminding us as individuals that there is more to life and to this world than any of us can experience in an single lifetime. Therefore we should get out there and discover as much as we can with the life that we do have.

It is this collective potential that urges us to expand our minds and in turn open our hearts so that the species can continue by eradicating racism, sexism, religious intolerance and everything else that breeds hatred and in turn war, murder and genocide.

Forget natural selection and over-population — if we as a species can’t diffuse our colonial, militaristic ways, there will be no one left to experience the world, which is the collective mind’s most important objective.

So the next time the travel bug strikes…remember, our bodies, and our experiences, are the result of thousands of years of genetic and philosophical evolution. Don’t resist your urge!

Embrace, explore, and experience the world.

Jenn DiPiazza is a freelance writer living in Florida. She has a degree in Anthropology and Native American studies. You can check out her latest reviews, recipes and travel destinations on her food and travel blog at TravelCloseUp.

Black Mesa, also know as Big Mountain, is a beautiful desert land out in the northeastern tip of Arizona. It is dotted with few sheep and other livestock.

It is also home to the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe.

These two peoples have peacefully shared and lived off this land from time immemorial. But the United States government, who holds these peoples in its charge, drew their own borders in 1974, leaving over 10,000 Navajo (Dine’, “The People”) and about 100 Hopi families on the wrong side of the line.

This land is held sacred to these peoples. It is the physical representation of Mother Earth.

So the irony wasn’t overlooked when these artificial boundaries were drawn in order to exploit the land for the coal, uranium and natural gas in the earth below.

The tribes do not benefit from the resources themselves – they have no electricity, running water or plumbing, not even a phone. They make their way as they have always done, through their livestock and agriculture.

Yet their very existence was threatened in order to power cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix; to water their many golf courses in the desert. The Dine’ watched as their wells dried up, the wildlife disappeared, and the plants for the sheep to graze on become more and more scarce.

A Familiar Tragedy

Like similar stories heard the world ever, these sad events and measures were agreed upon by corrupt leadership.

The US Government decided to solve this crisis by relocating these Dine’ families now on the Hopi Reservation to track housing projects in suburban Phoenix.

Most of these families did not know how to survive in urban areas. They could not afford their mortgages because they could not find jobs, as many of these relocatees were elders who are illiterate and speak no English.

Some of these elders, who know no other way to live than by herding sheep and living off the land, started resisting this relocation. Thirty years later, they are still fighting for the right to remain on their ancestral lands.

The US government, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, called the Hopi Tribal Police to coerce them to leave, enforcing laws to make those resisting families lives harder. Their livestock were impounded, they were barred from collecting firewood, and even their homes and sacred spaces were bulldozed.

Journey To Black Mesa

Winter is an unforgiving time on the Mesa. Many elderly resisters die because of sub-zero temperatures, and with wood difficult to stockpile, many get sick, and they freeze.

In 1998 my conscience called to me to action.

I went out to Black Mesa to spend several months with an elderly couple, to help them with their daily tasks and to keep watch over them. I also went to bear witness to the atrocities.

It was a sadly documented reality that Indian families in the company of a white person were less likely to be harassed by the Hopi Police. If anything happened to a white person up on the Mesa, it would be all over the airwaves.

During my time there I had the honor of staying with the *Smith’s. (*I have changed their name in this article, for their protection). It wasn’t long before they were known to me as “Grandma” and “Grandpa.”

When a person of relative privilege goes to a place where the basic amenities and comforts of home are absent, it forces you to become what is really inside of you, to call upon your deeper nature. You find out what you are really made of.

It gets down into your core of you and just… simplifies everything.

No more taking for granted running water and flushing toilets or a hot bath. As you focus on the things that really matter in life, the value of “stuff” becomes unimportant.

How much does one really need in order to be content and happy? Does it come from things, or the beautiful exhaustion that comes from having an actual relationship with the land and the earth’s creatures?

I learned to talk to myself and to listen. I wondered, what are the issues in my life that I would be willing to fight for?

In The Presence Of Tradition

I helped Grandma and Grandpa too. I was there when the Hopi Ranger arrived with a semi-automatic, entered their home and questioned them in a language he knew they didn’t understand.

I was there to take care of the goats and the sheep when Grandma needed to go to her heart doctor, 3 hours away in Phoenix.

Alone and afraid, I brought the herd home when the snow and ice were so deep that ice balls had formed on their fur and weighed them down so much, they could no longer walk. Relying on my newfound inner strength, I found a stick and beat the snowballs off the goats until I could get them up the hill and to safety.

I was also there for humor. Slaughtering a sheep and preparing the meat afterwards is a process that takes all day. The first time I participated, I was given lots of little jobs to do. The Dine’ eat every part of the sheep.

I watched as Grandma sat emptying the bowels of the animal into old coffee cans and cleaning the intestines in hot water. She took parts of the fat layer that had dried in the sun and wrapped the cleaned pieces of the intestines around it. She then put these packages into clean water to keep them fresh.

She motioned for me to do something with the bowl of water with intestines and the dirty coffee can. I could not figure out why she wanted me to put the clean intestines in the dirty coffee can. I pretended to do it and she nodded.

I dumped the intestines in the coffee can. I had almost dumped it all when she yelled and came over to me with another bowl of clean water and motioned for me to take the intestines back out of the coffee can and clean them.

I realized then that all she had wanted me to do was dump the dirty water out of the cleaning bowl into the coffee can.

I felt horrible. But instead of being mad, it became the joke of the duration of my stay. She started calling me dygyss (some form of “stupid” or “git”) and even when we had visitors she would tell the story of how the stupid bilaga’ana (white girl) dumped clean food to be eaten into sheep dung.

A Place In Their Family

The most treasured gift they gave me was the gift of humility; of knowing how much space I take up in the world. That humbleness has nothing to do with weakness, but is perhaps the most powerful human attribute of all.

The silent power of knowing more is not better. To give when you have nothing and never presume to know anything.

Since then I give thanks that I don’t have to sleep with one eye open, worry about freezing to death or having my home torn down when I am away.

After all the pain and sadness these Dine’ resistors had experienced at the hands of outsiders, to know they invited me into their home, eat their food, and made a place for me in their family is overwhelming.

These people, on the brink of losing everything, can still forgive. It changed the perspective of how I think. Even now, almost ten years later, as I sit here writing this, the tears well in my eyes as I wish I could have done more.

When I was there, I even considered staying with Grandma and Grandpa indefinitely, helping them as my life’s work. But I knew I had to get back to head home eventually. My job was to bring these lessons back with me, and implement them into my own life.

To tell people what is happening up there, on a beautiful desolate land full of people who “Walk in Beauty”.

Epilogue

Things for the most part have remained the same on Black Mesa. Grandpa died of old age about 5 years ago. Grandma, in her 80’s continues to live out her years, on her own, with her piece of land and her sheep.

In November, she suffered a minor heart attack after a harassing confrontation with a Hopi Ranger while herding her sheep. (Read her statement here)

Currently her case is on continuance and the pre-trial date is March the 12th.

Jenn DiPiazza is a freelance writer living in Florida. She has a degree in Anthropology and Native American studies. You can check out her latest reviews, recipes and travel destinations on her food and travel blog at TravelCloseUp.