Connection, Here at Home, Perhaps.

"To lose the sense of the sacredness of the world is a mortal loss.

To injure our world by excess of greed and ingenuity is to endanger our own sacredness."

 From Ursula K. Le Guin's notes regarding the below.

"Those who think to win the world

by doing something to it,

I see them come to grief.

For the world is a sacred object.

Nothing is to be done to it.

To do anything to it is to damage it.

To seize it is to lose it."

Lao Tzu, from the Ursula K. Le Guin rendition

of the Tao Te Ching.

Tonight is the New Moon. This is the final chapter of this project.

Connection

We need to garden more. Grow food. Touch the land directly with our hands. Get some soil under our fingernails. Become intimate with the food we eat. Know where it comes from and how it grows. Know the seasons again. Become dependent on them. Become dependent on the Earth and ourselves and not some store to provide us with our nourishment. Even if it’s just a few pots on a roof, grow tomatoes. Grow herbs. Know the plants and their cycles. Any small connection is better than none.

Here at Home

Currently, it is almost impossible for the population of this country to live this way. A major change in expectations needs to happen. We cannot always expect to have everything we want when we want it. Our diet need to get less processed. Our connection to the land and our food source needs to dramatically increase. How this happens is up to us as individuals. It is determined by where we live. It is determined by how much we believe we can actually do it.

The philosophy of organic farming, non-mechanized, non-chemical, non-genetically altered, non-cloned and non-nano altered agriculture can feed all people. But it takes labor, knowledge and the will to do it. The will to take profit out of the equation. If fuel to make electricity becomes unavailable there would simply be no choice. If a crisis happens within the food distribution system in this country

perhaps the will would be there.

Perhaps

Perhaps then, people would begin to see another way; another way besides that which they are told is the only way. This would be a step toward a sustainable path within the world. This would be a step toward sustaining ourselves as humans.

Perhaps then, our footprints would become easier to wear away.

Perhaps then, the earth would breathe easier

and cry

less.

Retrospect

As I look back over the years, I see how I’ve cultivated myself. I see how I have changed. How I have grown and prospered emotionally and spiritually. I gave up the past’s pollution. I am giving up the ugliness of human industrial life. The ugliness of our history; I will not forget it. I will remember and accept it. I will teach my children to walk lightly. Like feathers brushing sand. I will not stand in their way.

But, I, me personally, still have a long way to go.

Printed Sources

Pacific Northwest Research Station, Science Findings - Finite Land, Infinite Futures? Sustainable Options on a Fixed Land Base

issue 31 February 2001

Native American Sustainable Agriculture in Wisconsin Summer Research Experience for Undergraduates

University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire, Summer 2004, Michele Shaw and Dr. Zoltan Grossman

Yes Magazine, issue 49 Spring 2009 - The City That Ended Hunger, Belo Horizonte: Food Democracy on a Penny a Day, by Frances Moore Lappe

Yes Magazine, issue 49 Spring 2009 - Food Rebellions, by Eric Holt-Gimenez

Web Based Sources

http://www.census.gov/population/www/projections/usinterimproj/

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/OrganicCubawithoutFossilFuels.php

http://www.hellocuba.ca/itineraries/470alamar1.php

http://havanajournal.com/business/entry/organoponicos-and-organic-produce-in-cuba/

http://wafreepress.org/46/organic_farming.html