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Loading...Food For Thought: Grow Your Own and Re-Connect With Nature
Going to the garden in the morning is an adventure in the magical realm of transformation. Although I love to grow flowering plants, I’ve never actually tried my hand at growing food. I suspect that I am missing out on one of life’s most exciting pleasures. It amazes me enough to think that plants can turn soil, water, air and sunlight into flowers. But when I allow my mind to ponder the fact that some plants turn those sources of energy into food in abundance, it appears to me to be one of the great miracles of life.
It’s easy to take it for granted, especially when the food we eat is so far removed from its original source, as it is when we buy it in supermarkets and grocery stores. Growing our own food provides us with a powerful opportunity to tune in to our relationship with nature.
Food plants simply go about their business, bathing in the light of the sun and absorbing its energy, taking in rainwater to hydrate themselves, and using their roots to seek the nutrition that is present in the soil. It seems like a simple procedure, certainly when it is taught to children in school, yet I know there’s more fascinating detail to it than that.
But the amazing part of it to me is not the science, exactly. It’s more the incredible brilliance of a system that works so harmoniously. It seems so right to me, that food can be generated in this way, and so appropriate for humans, who do not get excited by the idea of preying on other creatures.
Sooner or later, people everywhere are going to be growing their own food. The current system of food production is simply unsustainable, and in a new economy and a new society, changes must be made. People are already beginning to be nourished, body and soul, by community and rooftop gardens, farmers’ markets, and backyard veggie plots, where they have never been before.
Change is essential, and I believe it’s inevitable. This evolution will bring with it multiple benefits, not the least of which will be better personal and environmental health. But hidden in amongst the other positive effects will be a very special opportunity for those who seek it: The promise of re-kindling one’s fascination with the natural world.
Helping plants to grow has the potential of leading us to a gentle but profound spiritual awakening, an enlightening experience which can help us find a sense of peace and belonging. In this life, where we are so far removed from many of the miracles of life, re-connecting with nature is something we all need, and it’s re-assuring to know that we can achieve it in a way as simple as growing our own food.
Read more: environment & wildlife, food, green, growing, nature, organic, self-sufficient, sustainable, vegetables
Photo from Gentle World
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8 comments
+ add your ownPlanting has become more than a hobby. Love the veggies and fruit, but learning has been the hard part. Need to know more about potatoes, and strawberries are not producing.
Great idea...I would love to try this!
Growing things is really exciting. I grow organic veggies and wildflowers (for the bees and other insects) at my allotment, and organic fruit in my garden. Also I keep the garden semi-wild for the birds etc. No chemicals. I have 5 water-butts -- we get a lot of rain in England!
Iam so glad to hear about more people are growing their own food. I started my vegie garden three years ago. I used to have just flowers garden and a few fruit trees. Now I have more fruit trees and seven raised bed vegie gardens. I feel connected to nature, happy, peaceful and relaxed. Something about playing with dirt,
hand watering the young plants and watching them grow is so rewarding. Our grocery bills have reduced almost one half and we eat more fruits and vegetables. Last month I had yearly Phycical check up and my doctor told me that I was a woman who is blessed with good health! I am 65 years old and I believe gardening and eating plenty of home grown fruits and vegetables have a lot to do with it.
What a lovely article and sooooo beautifully written. We live in the countryside in southern Sweden and I periodically grow my own veges. Just this week I was expressing to my husband that I must start with sowing seeds getting ready for the Spring! Thanks, I feel further inspired by your lovely mind and fully agree!
Great idea - I myself would like to grow my own mango, eggplant, tomatoes, lots of stuff.
lets grow and grow all kinds of food everywhere in america, even if one has to do it indoors, america needs to be self suffecient again!, they want to enslave us even more to banksters/corporate gangsters and they do NOT care about children, teachers ( whom should get better pay/benefits than these so-called reps) They represent whom ever deposits the CASH, auto-makers pay lawmakers to not vote for public transit so everyone has to have a car and buy gas/oil/mechanics. If they would of built that train system here in Phx 30 yrs ago? Imagine so LESS pollution ( I cannot breathe since I came back) the oil schemer corporate gluttons would NOT be able to hold any of us hostage again ! As it is amerians are choosing between car insurance and groceries and it is disgusting ! ALL govt employees should have to give up their salaries, because the $250,000. a year we pay them? Is nothing compared to what the lobbyists/special interest pay them to manipulate american families lives
Here in Phx, az it is tough growing, but it can be done. We are moving up to North cali or oregon and I am going to spend my remaining years as a farmer! I don't believe mass consumerism is relevant to surival on THIS planet ! Sick of corporate gangsters/banksters, used to work in their game and they are ALL very bad people and govt is interfering in the karma that has come due !
I want to grow potatoes, squash, tomatoes, melons, strawberries and many other things !
Grow, grow and grow !
Kim/zone
P.S. Don't visit az, they've turned it into a roadside circus show and they will put ur kids in jail and you'll never get out of here, Our family settled here 1800 from canada and my new book is about how it used to be here...awesome! Not anymore, It is illegal to be poor here, or homeless, or have brown skin. I know this because I have a non-profit to help our youth get into college etc., while the "toughest" sheriff in the nation that moved here from NJ and fancies himslef a real cowboy? The big mexican hunter whom are here because american business's are greedy gluttons and don't want to pay a descent wage, yet housing is in the millions, If big business here wasn't having them shipped up here ( i've seen em do it) They would NOT come here! When we open up the old shut down american mfg again for americans, the outsourcers are going to be blacklisted for betraying america ! In fact why don't they just stay in china, mexico, india etc.
Kim/zone
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