Brink of Freedom

Lovely subject line, isn’t it?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t describe where the political world stands (no surprise). But it does describe a cool new website and a beautifully laid-out and informative digital magazine.

Brink of Freedom is a great place. It combines a freedomista attitude, high energy, and useful self-sufficiency how-tos.

Michael W. Dean of Freedom Feens turned me on to the site and introduced me to its founder, Josiah Wallingford. (Don’t you love that name?)

Go check it out for yourself. It’s the kind of place you could spend hours. But while you’re here, here’s a little background Q&A with Josiah, as well as links to pdfs of BoF’s January and February editions:

Q: So, Josiah, where’d you come from?

A: I grew up on a farm in the Flathead Valley of Northwest Montana. My mother, Lynn Wallingford, was an herbalist and owner of Kettle Care — an herbal body care products company. My father, Bear Paw, is an artist who mostly deals with wood work. They are very talented and I am proud of them both.

Q: And what inspired you to become a publisher?

A: After high school, I decided it was time to explore the world. With that, I joined the army as a cavalry scout, which took me everywhere I didn’t want to be.

After four years I had enough and joined the corporate world as an installer of networks for the hotel industry. I was happy enough doing this, as it took me to luxury hotels across the country for months at a time. The army must have decided I should not be enjoying myself so much, so they recalled me and sent me to Afghanistan for one last year. I got the orders on Veterans Day.

One year later, I was done with government and was convinced the world was rotting and that I must do something. I started making connections with people in the preparedness and permaculture industries. From that point on, Brink of Freedom was in the making. I took an internship with Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast and brought my idea of BOF to him. He loved it and encouraged me to take it on full steam.

Q: What’s your aim with BoF?

A: Some call me a revolutionist. It is true, I want to see a revolution. A revolution with no bloodshed. A revolution of the mind. I am an anarchist at heart and believe in the non-aggression principle. My sole purpose in life is to help people prosper and fight for their freedom. Some would say this is selfless. It is not. I have my best interest in mind. I want freedom. I believe the only way I will have freedom is if everyone has it. That is why I created Brink of Freedom. The idea is to show people that they can have freedom in their lifetimes and the lifetimes of those in generations to come. We wish to encourage people to realize this is possible and to contribute to that goal in every way possible.

Q: Describe BoF and what you’re doing with it.

I plan on BOF being so much more than it is today. But I must take this one step at a time. This is what BOF does now:

• Publish articles by bloggers and entrepreneurs in the prepper and self-sufficiency industry.
• Publish article written by those in our community. Anybody can submit an article to us. Most of those will be published.
• Produce a monthly digital magazine of the most popular of these articles.
• Provide each person who publishes content with us the ability to promote their work and their websites.
• Build community by connecting like-minded people.
• Workshops to pass knowledge on. We just finished a workshop on building a battery bank for your home and for your vehicle. Next, we are doing a permaculture plantings workshop and a beekeeping workshop.

Q: And the future?

Here are some things we are working on:

• A freedom and permaculture focused homeschooling curriculum for any age. Everything from mathematics to firearms to livestock management. Life skills.
• We are starting an open source permaculture farm program.
• We are also structuring an open source community living system.
• Podcast publication for anybody who wishes to do a podcast.
• Video publication and production.
• Book publication and promotion.
• Event promotion and organization.
• A Q&A panel where anybody can ask or answer any questions they like. We will then have our more prominent authors answering many of those questions.

Q: Ambitious.

A: One step at a time.

Here are pdfs of Brink of Freedom’s January and February digital magazines:

January

February