Healing Gardens

Body:

Reflections 1

My family’s perspective on gardening is pretty individual, i.e. each member has their own ideas about it. My mother grows herbs and tomatoes and not much else. She really likes French dishes that have lots of fresh spices in them so she grows many of the spices herself. And tomatoes are a traditional peasant food of the South that she was brought up eating a lot of (She lives in GA and was born and raised there). I can’t think of anyone else in my family who has a garden actually, though my father has an orchard. He like the idea of having fruit producing plants and trees that require minimum attention for them to prosper (we have, or at one time had, blueberries, raspberries, apples, and more.)

My personal perspective on gardening (to what small extent I have one) is not based on any deep cultural tradition, just on modern gardening practices. My ancestors are mostly Swedish and Irish/Scottish but I know nothing about their gardening practices and only a little about other aspects of their culture. I personally believe in organic gardening and I appreciate the value of producing one’s own food (or at the very least knowing the source of your food intimately).

In modern society, toil is mocked, as the author of Fields that Dream elaborates in her story of the strawberry field. (pg 7) Traditional ways and people are thought of as backwards because the modern world is out of relationship with the land. Most agricultural practices today elicit no personal connection with the sources of our sustenance and the result is something like a combination of parasitism and prostitution. There is no feeling connection with the benefactor itself, only a selfish attachment to the pleasures that benefactor brings.

I believe part of the problem is that we have culturally lost our appreciation of labor and of the satisfaction attained from working hard for something. There is nothing in life that comes free and until we realize that, the price we pay for our easy street attitude is going to be fierce.

Ralph Waldo Emerson refers to this when he says:

“All external good has its tax, and if it came without desert or sweat, has no root in me and the next wind will blow it away. But all the good of nature is the soul’s, and may be had, if paid for in nature’s lawful coin, that is, by labor which the heart and the head allow.” (Friendship and Other Essays pg 110)

In other words, you can’t cheat Nature because you always get what you put in. Put in something that your heart doesn’t value and you’ll get a product back that has no value to your heart.

Because it is always the easy way that the modern world wants (and since there is little relationship with the land) the farming community at large chooses to pay less personally at the cost of everything we truly hold dear. If you could pay $45 to kill all the weeds in your field of crops in one day, using synthetic pesticides, or instead pay $1500-$2000 for laborers to do it by hand and have it take the better part of a week to complete, which would it be? (Fields pg 14, laborer calculations mine) A person in relationship with the land would of course always take the latter option. But in the U.S., pesticide use has skyrocketed to 4.5 billion pounds / year. (Fields pg 3) That is so hard to believe! A billion is a huge number. If you stacked a billion dollar bills, one on top of the other, they would reach 50 miles into the sky; or if you stacked them end to end, they would stretch 97,000 miles across, which is about 4 times around the earth. If I paid you a $1000 every day, 7 days a week, it would take me almost 3000 years to pay you a billion dollars. Or if you started counting to a billion right now, you’d finally be finished (no breaks allowed) in the year 2036.* A billion is a HUGE amount. And yet, the U.S. uses 4.5 billion pounds every year. The part that is most ridiculous is that the percent of crops lost to pests has increased by 20% since WWII. (Fields pg 3)

Some heartening news is that there are 79% more farmer’s markets than there were in 1994 and that sales of organic food has jumped from 1 billion in 1990 to 7.7 billion in 2001. (Fields pg 6) I imagine this trend will continue as people start to realize the dangers of pesticide and the terrible price the world pays for using it. It is heartening when I see that companies like Kelloggs have an organic line of food now. I am glad the big companies are finally getting wise to the want for nutritious food in this country but the sad thing is, I imagine they are motivated more by potential for monetary gain than they are by a true humanitarian perspective. But whatever, it’s a start.

It’s strange that European farming practices and the pastoral ideal of Thomas Jefferson are a big part of what destroyed sustainable native ways, and that now these same farms are ecologically invaluable as preservers of open space. Like the Tenino farmer said in Fields That Dream, “the worst farm or ranch is better than the best subdivision.” (pg 19)

Still, the native ways that were replaced were (in my opinion) infinitely preferable to any modern thought and method of ecological interaction we have or may come up with. For instance, reading in The Earth’s Blanket about all the simple foods that natives ate makes me think of how modern people crave variety, the exotic, and anything that is novel. With food, it has to have artificial sauce, msg or other (often unhealthy) flavor enhancers in order for it to taste good. Indigenous people had a panoply of vegetables to choose from, all with different flavors, and though modern people might find many of these flavors at best bland and at worst disagreeable, these utterly nutritious diets were perfectly sufficient for our ancestors and in fact tasted great to them. What made everything taste so good was their connection with their food. It is emotional relationship that gives us true satisfaction in life and our relationship with our food is no exception.

* http://www.classroomtools.com/billion.htm

http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/gal111/universe/etu/html/digital_age/architecture/arch_bil.html

http://serc.carleton.edu/files/quantskills/methods/JohnsonBigNumbers.pdf

 

Reflections 2

There are gardens for food, medicine, beauty, or any combination thereof. I had actually never thought about a medicinal garden until I saw the picture of the Sayuyay garden with its description of different areas being for different types of herbal medicine. There are also gardens for commercial use, though we tend to call these farms not gardens. There are organic farms and farms that are as pesticide free as possible, such as Gretchen Hoyt's farm in this week's reading. I felt for her having to choose between what is economical and what is the healthiest for humans and for the environment. That's a tough choice to be confronted with. I feel that same sort of way when I go grocery shopping and I want to buy all the highest-quality, fresh, organic foods but can only afford to buy 75% or so of what is up to my standards. Back to garden/farm types, there are big factory commercial farms and there are smaller family owned farms. I liked Gretchen's description of her work model which was that, unlike large corporate farms, she values her employees almost as family members, which is probably why many of the same seasonal workers come back year after year. I think that if society collectively added this familial element to everything we do, it would be a great improvement that would push us towards life-enhancement instead of destruction. Kindred spirits do not harm each other and when our emotional valence is set on this harmonious level, we tend to be more thoughtful about how our actions affect each other and the world around us. With this in mind, it is interesting to note that it was war that brought about harmful technologies such as chemical pesticide treatment and processed food. Instant karma seems devastatingly clear here.

 

Reflections 3

The ancient ways of our ancestors are what’s meant by the term “traditional ecological knowledge and wisdom.” It was beautiful to catch a glimpse of the Skokomish TEKW, both in person and in the videos we watched. I felt very privileged to be able to walk around the Sayuyay garden on Saturday, it was a special experience that I enjoyed sharing with everyone.

It is interesting (and sad) to see how war has turned us away from TEKW, toward delocalized, earth-unfriendly practices. I never realized this point, but Fields that Dream points out again and again that the majority of these negative practices of the modern world are the result of war or preparation for war. I mentioned a few topics related to this in one of my earlier reflections and in this week’s readings it was explained how highways (that have brought about such drastically negative changes in American landscape and commerce) are also derived of war efforts (FTD 37). The author defends the highway by saying that it also brings us together but I feel like they mostly stretch us apart. I think about how my mother and her family are on one side of the country and my father and his family are on the other and I have to choose which side I live on and who I get to see. It’s tough sometimes and makes me think the distance between us would never have been an issue if humanity lived on a smaller scale.

According to the author, highways also caused the explosion of suburbs in the 50s and 60s, which led to longer commutes and hence more fuel burned, and this long commute in turn led to people needing fast food, and so McDonalds was born. Fast food then transformed every part of the food industry (for the worst) and nothing has been the same ever since. Food is not produced locally, which results in a stretching of the fabric of community and also causes terrible treatment of animals in mass market farms due to low worker to animal ratios. Even on a farm like the Phillips’, where the animals are obviously taken good care of, they are forced to kill all the male baby goats! I was shocked to read that toward the end of the chapter after hearing how gentle they are with their animals. Even the most humane places are forced to resort to ways that traditional peoples would never even consider. And it all comes back to war.

 

Reflections 4

Gardens can be for food, medicine, meditation, income, fun, teaching, etc (or combinations of these qualities, like John’s garden is in chapter 5 of Fields that Dream). I really enjoyed chapter 5 and 6 of FTD. John has some really powerful ideals that I find inspiring. I like the idea of eating only local organic food. I am not quite ready to take that step yet but it is a good idea. I can identify with the author’s struggle when she makes the point that all our protesting is hypocritical in light of the fact that we are the problem that we are protesting against. I believe in John’s solution, which is to see that the true revolution is within. Our actions in our individual lives change the outer world accordingly and such changes are often the best thing we can do for the world and are at least as powerful a catalyst as any protest. Also in this chapter, the quote from Dr. Shiva on page 69 is awesome. She says, “The right to consume anything anywhere with total ignorance of the true costs has been redefined as the new concept of freedom.” Wow … It could hardly be stated more clearly than that.

Chapter 6 really woke me up to the part Mexican Americans (legal or otherwise) play in this country’s economy. I feel strongly for them because they are treated so terribly and yet are such an integral part of the U.S. economic infrastructure. I had never thought about them paying social security that they will never receive, or being exposed to all the chemicals their employers require them to spray on the crops (often without them being able to read the safety precautions!). No medical insurance, the constant experience of racism, the economic struggle, and many more issues besides I’m sure. It all seems pretty unfair.

Earth’s Blanket is also a great book. I feel like I understand the indigenous viewpoint in a deeper way after reading each chapter. I liked the notion that we should respect the animals because we all used to be animals. We all used to be these beings and so they are relatives to us, not inferior but opposite: like male is to female so man is to animal.

 

Reflections 5

A garden is a place where plants are grown for their edibility, medicinal use, and/or beauty. I think there is a difference between a farm and a garden. When I think of a garden, I think of something done for the interest of having a relationship with plants while a farm grows their produce for money. So yes, a forest is a garden since it provides food, medicine, and beauty, without monetary fee.

A garden is also something that is cultivated, arranged and cared for by someone and a forest meets this requirement as well. Creator designed the forest in such a way that it is cultivated by the diametric and reciprocal relationships of its inhabitants (such as a human has on the microcosmic scale with their personal garden when they give the garden care and form in exchange for the garden’s food, medicine, and beauty).

Earth is one giant garden formed of many smaller gardens -- and the metaphor likely extends out past our Earth and into the universe at large. Life itself, in all its myriad forms, is a garden: it is a beingness interpenetrated by reciprocal relationships of consciousness, flowing outward forever into infinitude but syncopated utterly by the internal rhythm of a single cell.

A city is not exactly a garden in and of itself but it is a part of the Earth and hence a part of the garden. The city represents sickness and disease, a viral infection or perhaps cancer. While it is ecologically devastating, it is not evil and it is not unnatural. All things that exist are part of all-pervasive Nature (every single particle and molecule is made of the sun, the sky, the water, and the dirt, so how could it be otherwise?) and we, who are the sickness and the sick, are no exception.

The current state of the world is a macrocosmic illness, not an abomination. If it were an abomination then all of life is as much, since sickness is such a powerful part of our physical experience here. Even if it is terrible, now is not a time to abhor, to demean, to desecrate, to punish. It is a time to have compassion for each other, ourselves, and the Earth, just the same as we would have compassion for a sick family member. It is celestial winter, the hard time before the Sun returns and Spring comes to renew the land … and soon, it will be over.

 

Reflections 6

Indigenous people the world over have a direct relationship with the land. It is symbiotic attunement with the Earth that makes them what they are. They are cultivators of the land, but more than that, they and the land are one. This isn’t an abstract thought for them, it is a direct awareness of the effect their presence has on the world around them. This ecological awareness ties all aspects of their land use practices into an earth-centered goal orientation and gives them an understanding that all life is mirrored within each individual piece.

Earth’s blanket continually enlightens me to this sort of indigenous understanding of the world around us. Each chapter puts you a little bit deeper into the world of the aborigine and gives a wider angle on their perspective of consciousness and understanding of ecology.

I loved the example of the salmon nets on pg 149, in which the natives make a hole at one end of the net in order to let some of each tribe of salmon get through, so that each specific family (not each species!) may regenerate their population and come back the next year. What’s implied here is that they treat these fish almost as a communal being, like a plant that one might take a few branches from, while still leaving the root or enough leafy foliage for it to grow back next year good as new. This sort of mindset is really interesting to me, especially since it is the family they are concerned about preserving rather than the whole species. It is like the same family of fish gets to come back together again and again, as long as the humans are careful to let a few of each family through the nets to spawn once more and regenerate themselves. What this seems to be is an indigenous view of reincarnation. Why else would they be more worried about the family of fish rather than the species? It’s as though they are compassionately conscious that the same families of fish (who presumably care for each other just as a human family does) will get to be together again if humans leave each group of fish enough members to regenerate themselves. This is how and why these indigenous people cultivate (or “garden”) their fish.

Why do people garden? Indigenous peoples do it because their style of gardening benefits everyone: it is compassion that motivates them just as strongly as self-interest. Again it comes back to the point of view that everything is mirrored within everything else and what we do to each other and our environment, we do to ourselves.

The singeing and pruning of berry bushes mentioned on pg 155 is an example illuminating this facet of indigenous ecological awareness. The Native American treatment of berry bushes is enacted in order that the bushes may grow back healthier in coming years. It is both good for the plants and good for the people. They reverently ask the plants for their berries and explain to them why they are burning their foliage because they respect the plant as being a fully aware creature, as much so as a human being. It is interesting that they have the same prune and burn practice in place for their ten month old babies, whose hair they cut and singe in order that it may grow back more beautifully. The tribe consciously compares the two practices, actively mirroring their community customs in their relationship to the natural world around them (or vice versa!).

 

Reflections 7

I enjoyed reading about indigenous technology in this week’s selection from Earth’s Blanket and was glad to learn about issues surrounding small family organic farms vs. large-scale corporate ones in Fields that Dream. Both topics are important to me, especially the former, as I feel that our future on this planet hinges upon a return to the ways of our ancestors.

I see humanity’s future in a neo-archaic light. I see us as a race of again-primal beings who have miraculously passed through this poisonous period of wasteful gadgetry and dark art forms and into a time where we live as in tune with Nature as our ancient ancestors did, while still employing some of the advanced technology and artistic capability our fallen civilization has bequeathed to us. Like in the movie Fight Club, we’ll be hunting deer in Central Park with rifles instead of bow and arrow, our hearts humming with reverence and full to the brim with appreciation for the creature we prepare to kill. That would be holy to me.

In this potentially post-apocalyptic scenario, perhaps we live like Tolkien’s elves, in tree houses designed by those who were once architects and engineers and who now let all their creative juices flow into earth-centered designs, rather than into executive skyscrapers for unconcerned snobs and big metal bridges for 4-wheeled pollution making machines. The tree houses would symbiotically grow our medicinal and food plants as part of their structure and we could have zip lines and vine ladders, and, and … Ok, wow, I’m getting a little too far into the fantasy but ain’t it fun! The point that all this leads to is that, in my opinion, it would be a good idea to keep indigenous bio-technology alive for revitalized use in the future. This is something I plan to research in coming years, that is, how to do things like make fish hooks out of yew wood and fishing line out of stinging nettle. Because learning about symbiotic technology is a dream I have, I really enjoyed reading about all these native methods and how integrated these ancestral peoples were with their environment – it’s really a beautiful thing!

As for the small organic farm vs. large organic farm debate, this is where I tie in my answer to the question, "are there good farms and bad farms?" I think that the short answer is, there are not good and bad farms: there are better and worse farms. At this point we need to save all the land we can from development, and all farms (organic or otherwise) are doing this to some extent. With this as our primary concern, then there is the question of is the farm organic or not. The best possible scenario is that pesticides, GMOs, and other unsatisfactory farming practices are not used since organic is better for the environment and hence better for us as well. But I think there is then another level of better and worse we can identify, one that most people aren't aware of. This is that small, family owned farms are better for the world than large corporate ones. I had wondered about this for a while, especially after I found out Kellog's came out with an organic line, but I never did any research on this and so it was edifying to read that chapter in Fields That Dream about the topic (though there is still a lot more information about it I'd like to know).

 

Reflections 8

A gardener is someone who is devoted to gardening, someone who spends a significant portion of their time in the act of gardening and who has an emotional stake in the outcome of their botanical endeavors as well as an appreciation for the process and the plants themselves. A gardener can be someone who works for money, or they could be a retired person who works in their backyard as a hobby. Being a gardener could amount to a more intensive occupation in the case of folks like the land preservationists in the final chapter of Earth's blanket, whose title as gardener comes with more than just a paid wage or a sense of enjoyment, but also with an onerous ancestral responsibility to the land. I am happy to read about these various projects that indigenous Americans are working on, as I was unaware such efforts were taking place. I imagine there are other projects like these ones out there that I also don't know about and it would be fun to do a little research.

Also, I loved this statement from the Haida's written constitution on pg 224 of Earth's Blanket:

"Our culture, our heritage is the child of respect and intimacy with the land and sea. Like the forests, the roots of our people are intertwined such that the greatest troubles cannot overcome us."

These are powerful words!

I also think it is awesome how the Heiltsuk garden their berry bushes that are next to waterfalls, finding the best bushes and transplanting them to this choice location (choice because of the constant mist-humidity) as well as fertilizing and pH balancing the soil. Amazing!