HOMESTEADING AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE
Humanity has a remarkable ability to manipulate the environment around us. It is a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing to not worry about having enough to eat, though of course not everyone can say that but a much larger percentage of the population can say that compared to 3,000 years ago. It’s a blessing to have warm houses in the winter, to be able to take hot showers and wash our clothes in the winter. It’s a curse to be disconnected from the land for so many reasons I don’t need to enumerate.
We used to manipulate the environment within the context of a tribe and the limitations of our place. We worked with the land to meet our needs. Our ancestors in ancient Israel grew wheat and barley, grapes and date palms, wine and olives, raised goats and sheep because those species met the marriage of our needs and what the land gave us. Some of us focused on raising sheep and some of us focused on grain and some of us focused on fishing and some of us focused on grapes or olives, depending upon where precisely we were, our family history, our personal inclinations. The Abenaki Indians on whose stolen land I dwell raised corn and fished, because this is a land well suited for corn and there’s big lakes and rivers.
The key word here is the word with. We worked with the land, not against it. We didn’t attempt to force the land to do something it shouldn’t. California ranks first in dairy production in the United States, using genetics that come from places where it rains year round and is cold and cloudy, rather than farming with cows who can survive 6 months of no rain and sun. It’s insane. We worked with our neighbors on large projects such as hunting or harvesting salmon during the short period when they returned to spawn, or the fall hog killing or when it was time to can the bounty of the garden.
We’ve so lost the idea of working together that here I am living around the corner from an organic farm, buying almost all of my fruit, vegetables and animal products locally. The only work I’ve done on someone else’s farm is the U pick apples I harvested earlier this fall and some lettuce gleaning for a local food bank. The last time most of us actually worked on a farm or for our own food was never. Most of us have no idea about where the food we buy from the grocery store comes or under what conditions it is grown. Most of us have no idea if our food is grown in a sustainable way, let alone if it is grown in a spiritual way.
What do I mean by spiritual? To me that’s about working with the land because it is a way of being aligned with the divine, however we define that term. For me, spiritual work with the land is rooted in a clear sense that all of the beings I am working with are alive and have their own needs, wants and rights. I struggle with understanding them, and that’s on me. It’s my spiritual task to understand how I can work with the carrots as plants that have the same soul I do, only a very different kind of body.
I have a practice for the month of November to visit a being of the more than human world everyday and make an offering. It’s part of my Seminary of the Wild program. So I chose the carrot patch in my garden after wandering around for 45 minutes on a nearby trail and through the property I am renting. I considered a stone wall and a small hemlock, but the carrots called to me.
Here’s what happened to me the other day.
I offered cornmeal to my carrot plants after praising them and saying how they are this beautiful mesh of the three dimensions, their leaves above ground, the roots we eat and the soil in between. I bowed and started to walk away and they called me back. They wanted to know when they were going to be harvested. I explained that I had these carrots from the neighboring farm and I was going to work with them after that because I was worried there wouldn’t be enough, even though I really have no idea how much there actually is underground. They weren’t happy. They wanted to be harvested and eaten. So I said what about if I mix you and the carrots from the neighboring farm together? They said that would work. So I said, the next time I’m going to eat carrots I’ll dig a few of you up. Does that work? They said yes.
This being open to a conversation with another being—that is reciprocity and is a spiritual practice. This willingness to put aside my human plan and work with what the other being wants, that is spiritual practice.
