Healing Gardens

My understanding of TEKW is that it is a way of talking about the sustainable practices of indigenous people that have been perfected over thousands of years. This includes harvest methods, information sharing, and most importantly respect for the land.
I really think that this is the key missing from contemporary agricultural practice in general. As a blanket statement, western agricultural practices have become systemically destructive because of the industrial disease. Crops are grown in areas wehre they are not native, pesticides and sprays are ubiquitous, labor is abused, seeds are patented and synthesized, and not to mention the fad of genetically modifying food...

Respect for the land has become an anomaly, as highways are the true source of our food and trees are felled constantly and agro business does more harm to the earth than good...
The traditional ecological knowledge has been lost to history: genocide, industrialization, appropriation...

I do think, however, that gardening is an amazing way of reviving and cherishing this quality of involvement with the land. In this way, an individual is able to create their own space and their own practices and relationship with the land. I think that in a garden, a gardener has an inherent sense of TEKW, whether they are conscious of it or not, because of their closeness to the soil, the water, the sunshine. Because the plants speak to them and there is a true bond between human and nature.
I also really think that sustainable practices can catch on, and are beginning to. Composting, recycling, cover cropping and green manure are some ways that a person can begin that lifestyle.

Within the context of TEKW, I think that gardening becomes the center of the life and the home. That the real interdependence of the gardener and the garden, the fruits of the garden and the community, of nature and humans, becomes almost tangible.

It may be difficult for some people to understand the true meaning of TEKW, and so I think it may be important to think about the difference between simply caring for a garden and actually adopting this attitude of traditional native cultures. I think that people should be careful about this as a way of respecting another people's culture and of not just assuming meanings.