"I got some radishes. I did it. This is what I made."
These vain and incomplete thoughts run through my head every time there is a successful pull from the ground.
It is indicative of the kind of thinking that plagues us as human beings. We desperately want a place in the ecosystem far more dominant than we deserve. (remember blog post What Kind of Soil is Most Needed for Growing Humans? That etymology of our name piece is important here)
The good news is this is not an unknown problem. Knowing this is a problem that has been tracked by philosophers and sages over the generations allows us to begin the hard journey of reconstructing ourselves and our cultures.
When I break down what goes into my harvests by examining the causal architectures I must take into account much more than my labour, such that it was.
You see most of the seeds I used came from a seed catalogue. Sent to me via Canada Post. (A very complex system of information delivery) The seeds I chose were collected by others with far more knowledge on heritage varieties, isolating pollination practices, and harvesting viable seeds. My labour included tilling the soil, planting seeds and on some days watering... and, of course, weeding.
I must also consider the soil; the organisms, bacteria, insects, not to mention the nutrients created by the decomposition of plant, insect and animal life generations before. I am confident I had little to do with that.
Then, I need to consider the wind carries pollen from one plant to another so that it may bloom, or cause the vibrations that shake the stamen and pistil on self pollinating plants, in order to encourage them to create fruit. If not the wind, then the pollinators, like my friendly hardworking bees who help me out. Yup, not my doing.
I must also consider the sun, that star at the center of our universe, the earth rotates on it's axis and due to many forces we get a growing season. The sun is a key part to warming the ground, the soil, sprouting the seeds, giving the green leafs nutrients. I am pretty sure I didn't make that happen, although I can safely say I leveraged the sun in some places with structures originally devised by people far more clever than I.
Okay, now I need to consider the rain that gives moisture to my plants, or even more remarkable the fact that I can water my plants when no rain arrives through the water supply the roots of which we can trace back to early Rome & aqueducts. The fact that I have a hose and running water in my yard is a testament to the striving and learning of many before me.
Um... I okay, I walked to the garden, held the watering can and filled it, then emptied it. And although that is something it is certainly not the whole story, as a matter of fact it is a small part of the story and that is very liberating.
This breakdown barely scratches the surface of what is going on, but it is an example of a way to consider the true effort of our existence & our true place in our primary community of life.
When I focus on what I can get out of life, I forget that I am creating a future for those yet to come.
If I remember what I am building on, I can let go of the many petty problems that plague us as humans like ego, status drive, conspicuous consumption and move towards a place where my life has a purpose beyond my lifetime.
There is a quote a few good people have driven my attention to lately (thank you Anita & Elizabeth) which seems achingly appropriate for this conversation:
“You are a flower and a seed.
You are part of a story which began with the first cell of life.
That story will continue on after you…
You are a guardian of the seeds for the world to come.
All that has gone before and all that is yet to come is within you.
Through you passes humanity’s saving fire. You are running in a relay.
This is the moment you have been chosen to hold the torch. You cannot refuse to run.
Whatever you do is part of your page in the story of life.”
~ Tolbert McCarrol~
Although I suspect this quote could be vastly misconstrued in areas, the piece that is important to focus on is that we are a part of the story, not the whole story. We are part of the relay and we participate whether we are conscious of it or not. We engage in consciously leaving this place a better place for life to come.
We can also choose to be asleep and unconscious. In making that choice we are more likely to not consider all that goes into our daily actions, our path dependency and we are more likely to cause harm.
Growing things, for me, is a simple meditation on what most needs doing. This exercise applies to all our actions, the daily actions of what and how I choose to spend my time, my money, what I pay attention to. The larger questions of how we negotiate the space of "natural resources" & "human resources".
If we can zoom in on the earths soil, we can learn to zoom out to life & humanity through time and space.
