As people consciously prepare for collapse, transition-the end of the world as we have known it, one of the first issues to attend to is that of one's place. Questions regarding arable land, accessibility to water, climate, a sense of community, and many more emerge slowly or rapidly to be grappled with.

Many Truth to Power readers have shared on the website and with me personally, their stories of relocation, whether they are actually in their ideal place or not. Obviously, it is becoming increasingly challenging to relocate, and eventually, it is likely to become virtually impossible.

As many Truth to Power readers know, I relocated to Vermont in the spring of 2008, and I wrote about my move in an article entitled "Location, Location, Relocation" shortly thereafter, explaining why I had chosen to move to Vermont and how pleased I was with what I had discovered in the Green Mountain State. Before moving to Vermont, I was unfamiliar with the Transition Town movement, and one of the most important discoveries for me in Vermont was an active and vibrant Transition Town initiative in Montpelier. As I have written numerous times publicly, I do not perceive the Transition Town movement as a panacea or magic bullet that will reverse the collapse process, but I do find enormous possibility in its principles for lessening the severity and suffering of the unraveling.

Throughout the current year, I have become more deeply involved with Transition Towns and at the same time have been struggling with whether or not Vermont was the appropriate place for me given the fact that I had lived for 36 years in the Western United States and had grown mentally and emotionally accustomed to generous amounts of sunshine and dry air, neither of which one finds in abundance in Vermont. On the one hand, Vermont's small population of 630,000 people lends itself to a smallness of scale not found in other states, yet at the same time, that very sparseness of population can foster isolation at a time in human history when building strong connections with other collapse-aware individuals and groups is critical. Quite simply, I have discovered that I require contact more than I require smallness of scale.

For these and myriad other reasons, I have relocated again, this time in Colorado in the Boulder area. Not only have I been drawn by a climate with which I am familiar and in which my body and mind function well, but I am deeply in awe of Transition Colorado and the numerous Transition initiatives that have been created throughout the state. Over the past year, I have been in dialog with Transition groups in a variety of areas in the Western United States regarding presenting workshops in those locations, and unlike residing in far-off New England, Colorado' central position in the West is ideal for traveling to other venues in the region.

In the process, I have discovered that what is most important about relocation is not necessarily what appears logical, but what feels comfortable physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As I and others have stated ad infinitum, there is no "perfect place" in which to prepare for collapse. Every venue on earth has disadvantages and trade-offs that anyone relocating must consider.

I frequently hear relocation stories in which people share that they found it necessary to move more than once in order to find the place with which they most strongly resonated. Not everyone can afford to do so, nor does everyone feel compelled to do so.

Myriad considerations enter into our decisions about relocating. There are the "standard criteria" to which many people refer as asserted by James Howard Kunstler in the The Long Emergency which discourage relocation in the West due to water issues. While it is true that the West is facing increasingly daunting challenges around water, it is also true that areas of the country where water is plentiful are facing different but equally severe struggles. While in Vermont, I learned that enormous amounts of the state's water supply contains traces of carcinogens from agricultural run-off and other contaminants. Wells and springs frequently contain ecoli and must be very carefully monitored for lethal bacteria. My point is that accessibility to water is not in itself a determinant of survival.

A plethora of factors shape our decisions to relocate-if we choose to do so at all; however, intuition and what feels comfortable to body and soul should not be discounted. I recall hearing a couple of years ago that my friend, Mike Ruppert, had chosen to return to live in Los Angeles where he had spent most of his adult life. At first I was shocked, since I had so many times heard him speak and write about the nightmare scenario that collapse in the Los Angeles Basin would probably initiate. Yet in more recent conversations with him, I have come to understand how important it is to him, and to many individuals, to live the unraveling in a place that feels familiar and that resonates with the totality of who they are.

Relocation is always disorienting and ungrounding, and many months or years are required in a new place to feel part of it. I am currently experiencing finding my legs in a state where I resided more than three decades ago, but which has obviously changed enormously since then. I will be working closely with Transition Colorado in Boulder and with all of the Transition Initiatives throughout the state, as well as continuing to manage the Truth to Power website and Daily News Digest, and promote my book Sacred Demise, in countless ways.

I am in awe of the spread of Transition Towns here in Colorado even though so much still needs to happen to take communities from the initiative level to becoming actual Transition Towns. I intend to be part of that work and bring with me the lessons I've learned through relocation in the past year.

For over a decade I have been teaching college students, using every opportunity to awaken them to the realities of collapse, but more recently, I've found such efforts draining, despite the fact that more students than ever before, due to current economic realities, seem receptive to learning about the "Long Emergency".  Conversely, I find energizing the task of supporting people who are already awake and consciously preparing for the unraveling. To that end, I intend to direct my future work toward the latter audience, as each day confirms for me more clearly that that is the truest fulfillment of my life's purpose and is the work I came here to do.

Subscribers of Truth to Power are certainly among this audience, and I continue to be inspired by your stories of awakening and preparation. Richard Heinberg speaks of his decision to conclude all attempts to save the world because, in his words, "the world doesn't want to be saved." I share his perspective and realize more clearly than ever that my energy must be directed toward individuals and communities engaged in conscious preparation. Relocation is only one piece of that project, and every aspect of one's personal well being must be considered when making a decision of such magnitude.

NOTE: A new postal address for Carolyn Baker Information Services can be found on the subscription page of the website.