marvel that is the earth , revering her and acting accordingly , and 2 ) that modern humans have forged a distorted view of who we are relative to the earth , one informed by near total disconnection with the sources of life in any meaningful way that go beyond the brutal exploitation of her resources , consumerism , recreation and commercial tourism .
Our relationship to our food and to food production suffer from this same conundrum and in the end , so does our physical , mental and spiritual health . We are like an uprooted tree with its roots in the air , unable to connect our organisms to the sources of life . I say this against the real-life backdrop of highly unfulfilling forays to local grocery stores where no one utters a word of joy , praise or appreciation for the overflowing stocks of food on the shelves , in part because except for the fruit pickers , usually poor people of color , the entire mainstream food production process in our country , is now the domain of machines and geared toward corporate profits and the absolute control of everything deemed to be a resource - from genetic seed information to water , arable lands and labor .
It is a sad end to a once robust relationship that , up until recently , human beings had with the earth . Our once intimate connection to the earth gave birth to a kaleidoscope of human expressions which ranged from the grain-stacked , threshing floors of the Middle East trampled by hard-hoofed animals to the work songs of laboring field hands in the South to the elaborate corn dances of the Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest .
There has never been a time when after a day of springtime planting of seeds of every sort in the rich soils of my garden , that while waiting for sleep to overtake my tired body , I did not feel a part of me planted securely , serenely and expectantly beneath the gentle folds of the earth .
I often wonder , however , if we had planted , cared for it and we might not be able to redeem watched it move through each of ourselves and our earth by mending that part of the organic fabric ment in concert with the totality
its successive stages of develop-
of life which still survives and of of the universe , might we not forge which many of us are still a part . the kind of sensitivity , appreciation and regard for the earth that
For me , this fabric includes our relationship to food and plants would prohibit us from destroying her ? Would we not engender a and by extension to the earth and to one other . The fabric certainly whole new consciousness and way includes the old farmsteads that of life predicated on caring and have not sold out to agribusiness or development and the
There has never been a time
loving her and her creatures ?
actions of millions of people who , when after a day of springtime each spring bring out their most planting of seeds of every sort in cherished seeds from storerooms , the rich soils of my garden , that grab their farm tools , roll up their while waiting for sleep to overtake my tired body , I did not feel sleeves , and engage the earth in the loving and co-creative ways a part of me planted securely , inherent in planting . If each one of serenely and expectantly beneath us were to experience the wonder the gentle folds of the earth . Some of the birth of life from a seed that aspect of my being — perhaps just
6 plenty I spring sowing 2022