Supernovas, Soil + Social Justice

Well - no more than the regular number of folks cancelled me from their inboxes this week after my last email, so thanks to everyone who stuck around! Hehe.

Ya know, I know that my speaking about things like human rights and social justice isn't what most folks expect when they sign up for a local farm's newsletter.

And yet, those issues are exactly what brought me to farming in the first place.

Farming in an ecologically-sane manner, working with nature instead of against her, providing my community with an alternative to the violence of the industrial agricultural system . . . all these things became concrete means for me as an individual human being to wrestle with the big problems that make me feel so small.

One of my guiding principles in my life is the notion that - There, but by the grace of God, go I.

It bears remembering in times when we are encouraged to regard our fellow humans as less-than, unworthy, ignorant or unclean.

Today it is 'them' but tomorrow, it might be me. There, but by the grace of God, go I.

For me, the world only makes sense when I take a step back, remember that I am a tiny part of an infinite universe and that an equally miraculous and infinite universe exists within me.

From supernovas to mitochondria, it's all in there, and it is all connected.

How might our views change if we took that perspective of our fellow citizens during difficult, divisive times?

Might we realize that the particulars of their fight are less important than the theme of how power responds to dissent? That, historically, power stigmatises dissent, ridicules it, silences it - no matter what the dissent is about or who is dissenting?

Could it be, that today I might disagree with the details, but if I support the methods of quashing dissent now, because I disagree, if I give even more power to power . . . that tomorrow it might be me and something that I care about?

Might I suddenly find that stick - the one that seemed so appealing when it was used against 'them' - significantly less tasteful when it is turned on me?

So I root myself in the soil and her ancient wisdom and weave my activism into my work, as incongruent as it may seem from the outside. I remember that old proverb : Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars.

We are all soil and stardust. Divisiveness is not only not our nature; it is an illusion.

As always.

Best,

Stacey