Wakefield/Ground Farm; a working farm, ecosystem, and interactive learning center
THE FARM
1 THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FARM AND AN ECOSYSTEM
For years, I have had the privilege of employment and an income. I left Denver in 1979, and since that time have chosen to not to spend money on rent or purchase of a dwelling in the city; but rather on land in some country setting.
Initially the plan was 'homesteading', as I had read '5 Acres and Independence','The Family Cow', and the eye-opening 'The Sheep Look Up', by John Brunner.
After building a house and having a child, I bought a cow and built a small herd. Eventually I referred to my operation as a 'farm', although I am no more successful at operating a farm at a profit than any other person who has not got government support.
It wasn't until the last 3 years that I realized I don't have a farm. I participate in an ecosystem. This is a very definite perception on my part, but I have been working for some time to evolve an explanation of what I perceive as the differences.
On a farm, you are concerned with production. Whatever is produced, the quality, success, or failure of the operation depends on the quality and amount of the product. Cattle, trees, vegetables, grains, fish; it is all a question of what comes *out* of the operation.
An ecosystem is different. In an ecosystem, you are specifically part of the operation, and output is only 1 portion of multiple cycles and interactions.
In farming, generally the surface only is considered. With an ecosystem, the consideration extends to the 'sky', and beyond. On a farm, songbirds may frequently be considered a pest and a burden on output and profit. In an ecosystem, birdsong is a part of me, and the health of the songbirds and beehives is every bit as important as crops a farmer might treat with insecticide that could negatively impact the health and existence of these other inhabitants.
This view is somewhat humbling in the sense that it is not 'human-centric', but rather holistic in consideration of species and systems. It is not a predatory concept, but more reflective of stewardship. And it specifically rejects the idea that it is a 'business'. The statements that 'He is a businessman' or 'business comes first' have often justified cut-throat bloodthirsty, inhumane, and anti-life activities. It is *not* a business. It is existence, life itself, and if I am part of the ecosystem,I cannot hurt the environment without hurting myself.
It is also, of course, not often financially profitable, but as was said by one wiser than I 'We cannot eat money'.
2 PUTTING THE SOUL BACK INTO COMMERCE
One of the over-riding principles of cooking 'Lord Krishna's cuisine' in a 'Vaisnava' kitchen is that of preparing and cooking food as 'Prasada'- an offering to God, which by the offering becomes a blessing to those who eat it.
Not only is the food itself exquisite, but the principal of devotion in its preparation allows these fruits of the earth to continue to maintain all of their goodness, and adds the wishes of the preparer for the gift of God's mercy to go with them.
This principle could well be applied to all transactions of production, harvest and commerce.
It has long been painful, not only or even primarily to me, to see the soullessness of such commercial activities as clear-cutting, strip-mining, stockyard activities, petrochemical production, large-scale grain production using chemical fertilizers and practices that waste the land and burden the waters with effluent, trawler-fishing and gill-netting, unfair labor practices, and all empire building on the backs of those enslaved by any means. This is not a new story. It is destroying the earth at a rapid rate, and many can see it.
This is not- not at all, to say that productivity, or harvesting of the fruits of the earth, is wrong. But what strikes me is that in most cases the point of the harvest is not the harvesting for the benefit for all beings and that of earth itself, but rather for the gaining of money and power. It is as if what is desired and what is planted is not- for example- fruit trees or grain, but simply money. Some people would be happier simply to plant a money tree. I think this is part of what destroys the soul of the transaction.
What, then, if the principle of 'prasada' was applied to all production? To feed the hungry, to cherish each thing taken from the earth, to harvest according to principles of sustainable agriculture, silviculture, and aquaculture- in short, not to swarm over the face of the earth as soulless locusts, leaving destruction behind when the financial profit of an enterprise drops below the point of economic feasibility- what then?
Would more go hungry, or less? What would the earth look like? What would become of the empire builders? Would we, collectively, be stronger, or weaker? What would come of hate and envy, theft, lies, and all the other activities of human predators? How would it change the practices of those of whom it is stated to sum up their workday activities 'He's a businessman'? (This should be more gender-neutral as there are as many women who are cut-throat and who enjoy getting the better of competitors in order to get ahead in the world of finance and power). Persons who have climbed upwards on the backs of others would find matters different if they a) had a religion and b) practiced that religion with each transaction. Not meaningless words, but actual blessings, with each purchase and sale, each package shipped out, each car salesman interacting with his customers (imagine that..)
It wouldn't work if only the 'top dogs' were held to it, because there are predators throughout the system, just as many hungry for money and power who have neither but will gladly steal and lie to get ahead. (There is slightly more justification for this in one who is actually hungry or trying to feed a family.)
We need to stop preying on each other and raping the earth. Go out and touch a tree, and thank it for the wood, for heat, for building, for warmth and shelter, for oxygen, for holding water in times of drought, for creating a clement environment.
Hold your jewelry in your hand and consider the path all the way back to the time when the stones still lay in the earth. Revel in the power that formed them- God's crucible of liquid fire- but more, consider each hand and marketplace through which they passed on their way to you. What is the miner eating? How are his children? What is the condition of the earth around the mine? What is done with the mine tailings? Through what market did these stones pass, and who profited, and who was cheated?
The chain of production for food is as crucial. What of the ground where the fruits and vegetables grew? What poison, what manipulation, what exploitation occurred on their way to your table? If you eat meat, did you slaughter it? Did the animals suffer? Rare now, is the time, when we raise our food with our own hands and are able to follow the process with conscience and caring.
It is not a light burden, to wonder about ethical harvest. If we all truly loved one another and made each interaction a blessing, many of the wounds would be healed.
3 USHER’S BARN
They lock the barn door
Long after the cows are gone
It is closed and barred
Green painted and well kept
The orchard is mowed almost daily
By an aging man who can
Barely walk anymore
Trimmed straighter than any four-footed creature
Would crop it.
The barn is empty, wide and tall,
Clean and uncluttered
But only barn swallows and old chairs
may be found within.
Where are the animals?
Where are the cows with their
Steaming breath and their heat?
The barn is cold and alone.
The life of cows and the farmer
Has moved on;
Become agribusiness
And left the empty barn behind
To dream of cows and the old times
When it was full of life.
This is not right.
What is the virtue in an empty barn,
However clean?
The land is unkempt
With cows around.
They make it messier
And they change how it smells.
They are loud and uncouth.
Slaughtering becomes an issue,
And milking, and hay and grain
And the cycle of the year.
There is more work
But the land is more fertile
With four footed grazers
Instead of a wheel horse.
They eat grass.
They give meat and milk
And manure for the land.
It is not so neat
But fecund;
Not stocks and bonds
But livestock
And a living farm.
Which is the way of the land?
Which way is the Lord’s way?
The way of healing,
Of feeding the people?
4 YOU WANT TO DO WHAT?
This is a farm, which is to say
A conglomeration of activities
That no one in their right mind would attempt
5 SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE VS PROFITABLE AGRICULTURE
As we were listening to a second-generation wheat farmer from Kansas, he made the statement;’ Sustainable agriculture is profitable agriculture’. He was making the point that, from the point of view of the family farm, if there is not a (financial) profit to be made, the agricultural activity is not sustainable.
It got me thinking about the nature of profit. An operation can be rated according to financial profitability. But it can and must be rated according to what one might term biological profitability, and this is in fact the substrate of sustainable agriculture.
When money comes into the equation, things change.
God created the heaven and the earth, the plants, the animals, and us. He didn’t create money.
The original covenants were between God and human, human and earth, human and animal, human and plant. All these still prevail. Trade is human to human, and covenants (better known as trade agreements) are reasonable.
But what happens when money and profit come into it?
The soul of the covenant is lost. Beans and corn turn from food into something else. ‘Futures’. Traders in the stock market propose to buy and sell my future.
If there is a very good harvest, food can become a glut on the market. Not worth picking. The soul becomes sick. It is not right.
My husband went through this a number of years ago. His beans had done very well, so he picked some of the extra and took them to the local farm stand. He got virtually nothing for them, and completely lost heart in gardening. He no longer saw the food. He wanted to see the dollars that the food had become in his eyes.
Food is food. Keep your food home. Keep your work home. Make sure that as you work, the ground is enriched and each year does better as a result of the work of your hands. Understand that the earth is part of you, and you of it.
2/26/10, written at a grain workshop
6 THE LITTLE KINGDOM
The little kingdom
Knows mud, and cats creeping,
And birds that awake
To feel the morning sun.
The little kingdom
needs more kids
to live and learn,
to laugh and play,
to grow like weeds,
mobile weeds
with mischief on their minds.
The little kingdom
Is plagued by taxes and bills
and philosophical and strategic disagreements.
The little kingdom is not at peace.
It has no business existing.
It should be house lots
or woodlots
or paved highway.
What is it doing here,
in this time and place?
No one lives like this anymore
No one can afford to
or would want to.
Everybody wants a house lot.
But I want a little kingdom,
A very little kingdom
With a little brook
and little trout
and little ducks
and little kids
with a little mud to play in.
1996 or 1997
Introduction/discussion
My farm in Hollis, Maine is very much the foundation of my life. As I lived here from age 5 onward, it was my crèche, as well as my strength when human interaction grew toxic or harmful. I didn't always live here- I was 'away' from age 16 to age 40, and in fact first learned about keeping cows and a garden in West Virginia. My love for that ecosystem is intense as well, but when I was called back home, and later had the opportunity to buy my childhood home, my participation in this ecosystem came to call for much of my attention. We presently garden, grow grains, keep cattle for milk,cheese, and meat, and otherwise try to do what I used to call 'making the land produce'. I now know it's much more comprehensive of a relationship than that.
I have an enduring passion for the 'web of interconnectedness'. .As a hand weaver, I know how potent this analogy can be, and in the blending of the energies of the ecosystem, I see the warp and the weft of life itself.
I have realized as I age, that this ecosystem needs more like-minded people. I have seen somewhat about eco-villages and intentional communities, I feel strongly that survival at some not-distant point will require all our skills at both self-sufficiency and cooperation. I have been trying to feed myself for years, not from the grocery shelf, but from the land. I have continued to take courses, accumulate resources, and try to share the knowledge base and skills,
When we had a music festival here in 2010, and an apple festival in 2011, my hope was that the attendees would be able to take in and open up to the good energy. As it turned out, there were perhaps more intoxicants being consumed than would be compatible with full mindfulness and appreciation of the experience. But the opportunity was given, and that is sometimes all one can do.