Growing and eating is all about connection

Yesterday was our summer growing workshop. I love workshops as a way to connect with you. Each person who visits feels like a miracle, both in the stories that brought you to where you are now, and in your kindness. It spurs us on.

The opposite of corporate Big Ag, of the power of the food system being concentrated in too few hands, is not organic agriculture or regenerative agriculture. It is not permaculture or pesticide-free or any of those labels, though it may well fulfil all those criteria. 

The opposite is a stumbling, clumsy… connectedness. Connectedness is the brave approach to growing and eating, where there is no enemy, no “other”, not even factory farms or the CEO of Monsanto.

Connectedness is slow, gentle, light. It moves us forward even if it leads through some deeply uncomfortable territory.

I mean that the direction of our energy matters. When we stoke righteous fury, we inevitably wage war against parts of ourselves. Because who of us has never bought something made by Unilever, or Nestle, or the other arms of Big Food?

If we can be gentle with ourselves while knowing we are part of these systems we can explore those parts of ourselves and our society that prefer things to be easy, cheap, quick, anonymous. It is as though we are in a rip current, taking us far from where we need and want to be.

We can free ourselves from the rip current of Big Food and Big Ag by slipping sideways, not by furiously swimming until we drown.

The deep work we are doing in our growing is not just about learning to grow all our food, though that is important and worthy.

It is to know what it means to grow and pick a tomato, so that we can see differently. The microbes, the clouds, the water, the hands that made the things that nourished us, however far away they may be. Even the machines. Once we know that there are hands, then we can begin to see those hands, bring them closer, maybe even thank them.

Once we can thank the hands that feed us, then it becomes natural to understand food as sacred, and imagine how to honour all that contributes to our eating and growing. To pay farm workers adequately, to protect them from pesticides, to make sure the microbes that we rely on are cultivated. 

Here’s to connectedness this week, wherever we are. I’m cheering you on.

The workshop schedule for next year is wide open. I’d love to know what’s been most helpful to you this year, and anything you’re keen to spend more time on. I’m thinking of doing some remote workshops as well.