In her article, Modern Homesteading in America: Negotiating Religion, Nature, and Modernity, and book, At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America, she shows how the homesteading experiences and practices could be compared to those of traditional religions. She notes that there is what could be called a religious conversion experience that happens when people visit a homestead. They are inspired to become homesteaders and began to look for more information. The autobiographies of other homesteaders become like a sacred text with guidelines of how to live this lifestyle. “Many have well-stocked libraries of books and magazines on simple living with serve as testament to a way of living that is both practical and philosophical, not just ‘how-to’ but ‘why you should’” (Gould, 1999, p.191). She goes on to say that if one considers the autobiographies as the sacred text, then nature itself becomes that “which is the physical and symbolic center of one’s existence” and puts them in touch the ‘creator’(Gould,
In her article, Modern Homesteading in America: Negotiating Religion, Nature, and Modernity, and book, At Home in Nature: Modern Homesteading and Spiritual Practice in America, she shows how the homesteading experiences and practices could be compared to those of traditional religions. She notes that there is what could be called a religious conversion experience that happens when people visit a homestead. They are inspired to become homesteaders and began to look for more information. The autobiographies of other homesteaders become like a sacred text with guidelines of how to live this lifestyle. “Many have well-stocked libraries of books and magazines on simple living with serve as testament to a way of living that is both practical and philosophical, not just ‘how-to’ but ‘why you should’” (Gould, 1999, p.191). She goes on to say that if one considers the autobiographies as the sacred text, then nature itself becomes that “which is the physical and symbolic center of one’s existence” and puts them in touch the ‘creator’(Gould,