“The Earth wants us here.”
Abundance is all around us
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A few months ago, I was consulting with a small farmer about how to grow his business. I consult with farmers on their messaging, getting their business up and running, or solving specific challenges they are facing. This was one of those consulting relationships.
I love doing this work. Inevitably, I learn a lot from them.
On this particular day, I was talking to a farmer about why he was choosing farming.
Frankly, it can be REALLY tough.
Most people don’t understand what it takes to produce food anymore. They take our farmers for granted and expect them to adapt and fit into a modern, over busy, technically-evolving lifestyle.
(Maybe it is us who should be slowing down. But that is a topic for another day.)
I posed to him these questions several times:
Why are you farming?
Why do you want to do this with all the obstacles in the way and when you are so highly qualified for other, lucrative jobs?
What is your purpose in farming?
Why do you keep choosing this?
These are supposed to be tough questions. If he couldn’t answer these question to me, how could he possibly tell prospective customers why they should choose his farm instead of the one next to them at the market, the one down the road, or a random online source.
And then he said something that stopped me in my tracks.
“Because the Earth wants us here. The earth is abundant and it provides for us.”
I was blown away.
If you live in this modern era with me, you’ve most likely seen PLENTY of the opposite messaging.
Things like this:
The earth is overpopulated.
We need depopulation to reduce the demands on our esources.
Food shortages are looming.
Topsoil is disappearing.
Doom doom doom
The mantra that these messages create are enough to set anyone into a frenzy of depression and actually believing some of it.
People also believe this above messaging because we are disconnected from our land, our soil, and our own ability to produce food and be in communities that are interdependent and sufficient.
We are often reminded of the problems in the world through media messaging and repetition of a strong narrative designed to cause depression, isolation, anxiety and to take away our confidence in ourselves, our communities, and our earth.
But….
I’ve observed something remarkable these past few weeks that is both fun and refreshing.
I was at a meeting with my poetry group (Yup, I have a secret life as a poet), and someone asked me how my work was going. I mentioned something about local food and one of my dear poet friends chimed in and told me about her colleague’s pear tree.
“It was dripping with pears. So many pears. So many!”
Her eyes got big as she went on and on about this pear tree brimming with sweet fruit and how amazing it was that it produced so much.
I loved her enthusiasm.
In the past 2 weeks, my family has personally found and harvested 15-20# of Chicken of the Woods (COTW) mushroom–a highly prized mushroom that is easy to find and harvest on the east coast late summer and into fall. It makes amazing meals.
AND…Several friends have reported to me that they have found and harvested more than they can possibly eat or process of COTW.
AND…Gardens everywhere are providing for people. We are getting unexpected late crops of certain items. Even without the TLC that us gardeners strive for at the beginning of the year, they keep producing.
The earth wants us here.
The earth provides for us. Even when and where we are not expecting it.
We have cycles. We must learn those cycles.
But yes, we also need to respect the earth and how and when she provides for us.
We cannot overbuild sports fields full of turf in all our communities and then wonder why we can’t produce enough food to feed our families.
We cannot collectively decide to obliterate our forests, streams, meadows and swamps to “develop” them and then wonder where our species diversity has gone.
We cannot teach our children that they must excel at sports and academics, shove their bodies full of fast foods because we are so busy and then wonder why our children have allergies, and chronic illness.
We cannot outsource food production to only a few “farmers,” isolate them in and tie their hands through zoning and bureaucracy, and then expect food security during a crisis.
It doesn’t work that way.
Every day we make choices. These choices shape the face of our earth and these choices shape our communities.
These choices shape our food security.
It truly is up to us.
It starts with small choices. But these small choices add up and become exponential as we understand the power they have and that, truly, we wouldn’t want it any other way:
Food security in our communities and households.
Vibrantly healthy children and families.
Embracing the abundance that the earth so freely gives to us.
May we all go forth and prosper, learning from each other how to honor the earth and what she brings us.
What steps will you take today to build more food security for yourself?
Will you plant a pear tree?
Learn about edible mushrooms?
Tell a local farmer that their work is important and you value them?
About Raw Milk Mama: I believe in the freedom to feed our families how we see fit. I also see the direction that our country is going--no one wants to live in a world where food scarcity is a constant reality. It's time to take back our food systems so they serve us, not monopolistic corporations.
Thank you for expressing what we have found to be true. We have spent several years observing nature in my small 1/4-acre yard. It started with wanting to know how wild cats, who have never been domesticated in any way, really acted and lived. I observed them and found they acted very differently than domestic cats. We also started rescuing, instead of killing insects, that had found their way into our home, providing water and compost for them outside and sealing up places in our home, so they could not enter. We replaced the plants with native herbs and let the birds plant sunflowers and trees. I let the cats protect my garden from gophers and gave them small treats for doing so. We started a garden for food. and planted in a style called "companion planting." We have made it a passion to protect all life here including insects, birds, and lizards, possums and wild cats. We send love and light and reassurance to all the life that comes here, and we found that the Earth has responded with abundance and love.
What a fantastic message that runs counter to the traditional narrative. I shall carry that with me from now on 🌵🍄🪴