Another perspective.
FOOD SECURITY
REFORMING THE MYTH
The reason I write is in the hope that human beings the world over whom believe that their way is the right way, may reconsider. I say these things with a humble spirit. My 1st nation’s friends would say I offer this “in a good way”. I have been considering many of the ideas you’re about to ingest or not, for most of my life.
My young mind saw “Star Trek” on TV in the 60’s and asked how did they get there from here? I was viewing with focus from a cultural perspective not scientific. After all, it was mostly science fiction then, not so much now 50 years later as primitive human contrived technology advances. I’ve been influenced by many, especially by David Suzuki’s and Daniel Quinn’s perspectives. But perhaps most of all by the Bill Moyers public television interview series with Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth.
Only now have I begun to fully understand what my beloved mom’s firm yet gentle words of encouragement meant. While my siblings and I took turns lying next to her on her deathbed, we gave and received last words of love on the afternoon before her life’s light went out. During my turn (we had discussed these things over time) mom firmly squeezed my hand, looked at me with great clarity, and said softly: “Make sure they all know”. I wasn’t ready to speak up at that time. I needed to be able to think with more clarity and maturity as I was still coming out of the fog of alcohol addiction. After considering these a-ha moments and interpretations from personal apocalypses during my life’s experiences, I feel ready now to attempt to “make sure they all know.”
I’d like to begin with my version of the creation story as told from my perspective and interpretation which was informed by the church every Sunday, and all the attending rituals since before I can remember. I also quite proudly attended 12 years of formal Christian parochial training and survived several bouts with “born again” in my first 25 or so years. The lessons I took that became most impactful to me were those of extreme sincerity of belief thoroughly blended with hypocrisy which in my opinion is rampant throughout western life’s culture. I’m beginning my interpretation of this story for brevity here from when shortly after humans showed up on the scene and began enabling this rise.
For those that ascribe to Adam and Eve’s story, this is how I see it. Just like babies Adam and Eve were getting everything they needed, at arms’ reach. Then as they aged, just like today, we teach our children to ask politely with a please and thank you. The way I see it they just didn’t ask for the fruit and definitely didn’t say thank you. Similarly, many parents of today’s culture, a lesson including some punishment is meted out. Just like kids (and adults)of today, their imaginations can and do make up the most amazing stories to cover supposed mis-behaviors. So they made one up about an evil talking snake. Subsequently they were caught and kicked out (sent out of the room) of the Garden of Eden, cursed to have enmity and to a life of labor by the sweat of their brows, Thus was born the concepts of separation from nature, ownership, stealing/crime, punishment, penance outside the story into our everyday lives. More specifically, Adam to till the ground, and to have enmity for Eve the mother of all living(Gaia)and banned from the garden and Eve to “sorrowful” childbirth. Their two sons, Cain and Abel each took different livelihoods. Cain of firstborn privilege followed the tiller of the soil, (farming, agriculture, “Daniel Quinn’s” Taker’s) to make a livelihood. Abel the younger nurtured more closely by mom, followed a more pastoral lot with the herds (hunter, gathering, innocence, subsistence “Daniel Quinn’s” Leavers) path of how to live “here”, both young men making different use of creation outside the Garden. This undoubtedly supported the concepts of ownership of land. Cain and Abel made offerings from their labor and livelihood to their Creator as is customary around the world to this day. Abel’s offering from his pastoral life was accepted because he showed respect, humility, thankfulness, and compassion for the world that gave him his livelihood, much like the indigenous peoples around the world do to this day. Cain’s offering, from the sweat of his brow, was not accepted because he held enmity in his heart toward the earth and all within it. Cain “lost it” as we might say nowadays, out of suspected jealousy and greed from his point of view, murdered Abel. Cain a farmer practicing his type of agriculture likely believed it wrong to seemingly not have control of animals, water and growing spaces fence row to fence row (natural resources). This likely bore the concept of imperialism historically and the subsequent “Doctrine of Manifest Destiny” in the Americas (our way to live is the right way) as practiced to this day, even throughout our solar system and beyond. BTW, that doctrine seems to have been lost in Star Trek.
Why would the Creator accept Cain’s offering now, any more than he would then? Not much seems to have changed except technology-which is not evil, only its use and intent are misguided by beliefs. Our culture has and holds a perceived enmity towards creation. Desecration happens in our culture through our production practices of food and all the other supposed essentials of this culture. We have been conditioned to act, talk, and feel as if the world and its natural laws and systems are feverishly working to cause us harm. As my mother used to say, “That’s just nonsense”.
I have been able to deprogram or de-colonize my mind and reverse the effect of the dominant culture’s conditioning of enmity toward creation by questioning authority and breaking from traditions, to realize that nature and its life and resources are not against me. I continually gain more reverence while standing in awe of the incredible web of life so few seem to be aware of. The widely accepted interpretation of the “Creation Story” I have come to know was the direct path to what I refer as the current “Prime Directive” of our Totalitarian Agriculture paradigm:
“Grow more food, to feed more people, to sell more stuff to, to enslave more souls, at All Costs.”
The eventualities (centralization, mass production of goods and services to feed affluenza, commoditizing essentials to all life, earth, air, water, fire, etc) of our current paradigm all have causation which can be traced to this prime directive. We do all of these things in a yearly quest to have the Creator accept the fruits of our labor while still holding this enmity toward nature. That acceptance is NOT gonna happen, folks—not while holding and promoting enmity towards Creation through this agricultural paradigm.
Farmers/ranchers of today are often some of the kindest most reverent disciplined well-meaning people around. Yet wholly with unquestioned belief in the Cult of AG. I think there is a dire need to come to understand that Agriculture—as practiced—is a dogma, a religion that assumes control over natural systems it has a sparse understanding of and no business attempting to control. Kindness turns to ruthlessness when it comes to dealing with all things natural. This enmity needs to be forgotten, abandoned, and wiped clean from this planet.
Relatively little applied interdisciplinary study has been done by this culture compared to the billions of years of adaptive design by evolution. Maintaining monetary profit is put far ahead of any consideration for maintaining the web of life. My assertions may be defined as or called blasphemy and heretical to those who deeply believe that Agriculture and all its related motivations are their sacred calling in life. I would say, “You got that right!” I have come to know and understand that the unlimited interspecies competition or “survival of the fittest” dogma IS that perceived enmity our culture holds for our creation. And that only through complex webs of co-operation has anything survived this long. We are the ONLY living things that consciously refuse to co-operate and continue to act like we are outside the bounds of the dynamic equilibrium of the “Creator’s” processes. We are the ones that are responsible by choice from the beginning for our current creation of hard-scape infrastructure and abominable stewardship of the place we also call home.
As I come to better understand through my personal apocalypse, Agriculture has proven itself impotent in that we have continued this agricultural practice for centuries despite the same result: desertification, destruction of the soils and destruction of up and downstream supporting biosphere. Dominant Agriculture is the most destructive human activity we engage in. It engages war machines and chemicals, the nuclear industry, mining and foolish shape-shifting of the earth to fulfill the “at ALL costs” prime directive. Agriculture is as disappointing to billions of hungry humans annually as those who prophesize the end of world or claim that a “Rapture” is going to take place on any given date. I might even go so far as to say that all forms of “civilized” government to this point in time have succumbed to the “Myth of Agriculture”. Because of the “Prime Directive”, they outstrip their land and its resources. Globalization has us on the path to Armageddon and is what human choices through this current agricultural paradigm is creating over time. Therefore not hard to predict.
We are, with this prime destructive force, for the time being, able to grow enough food (of very suspect and limited health value and wild imbalances to every other living thing) to feed at least 11 billion people using extractive agricultural practices and philosophies abhorrent to nature. It doesn’t matter if we only have 7 billion or so people yet nearly 1 billion go hungry and an average 25,000 starve to death every day. As Author Daniel Quinn suggests, if you don’t have the money to unlock food from Cain’s ancestors’ warehouses you are not entitled to it and it will be wasted. That is manufactured scarcity on a planet of abundance. Tell me this is not destructively insane!
Ponder for a moment: How much healthful, regenerative food could be grown and harvested in a system that mimics nature in its abundant web of life? The Garden of Eden (Gaia) system does not engage in wasting and currently feeds “every other wild living thing” and much of our domestic livestock on the planet from cradle to grave without a drop of fossil fuel, sweat of anyone’s brow, or so much as a dime! Agro-ecology Silviculture, Biomimetics, Permaculture designers/practitioners are proving as much and more plant yield and hundreds of times more diverse foods and tens of times less inputs than dominant agriculture current methods. Relative to the time and money spent developing Agriculture, limited experience and re-establishment time is needed to learn and further develop these restorative and regenerative earth compatible practices. Taking this path of far less yearly physical inputs from humans plus regenerative benefits to all living things regain our true stewardship role. As I edit this manifesto, I’ve been handed more evidence in this regard for the reader from the Biblical Faiths that are not ready to change their minds on this issue. Check out a film from one of their own called “Back to Eden”
http://backtoedenfilm.com/ I would like to bring up the issue enmity once again of what happens to “every other living thing” when they run into us, the self-appointed gatekeepers of life “Managers of the Planet”. In general “every other living thing” pays steeply when humans of this culture cross their paths unless it has been a chosen cash crop or animal. The web-of-life is subjugated to Agriculture and its “at all costs” paradigm. All species, from the plants, and insects to the whales, far too often pay a toll of extinction. Belief in the dogma of Agriculture ordains science to force life in the web to give up their painstakingly evolutionary derived identity, diversity, connectedness, and compatibility. For example; those of us that have reverence for life refer to genetically engineered (GE’s) as to what really takes place; “Trans-Species Raped” (TSR). We’ve used the term “rape” to explain what we’ve been doing to all the other “Natural Resources” for quite some time now so there is no reason not to in this case. The people and organizations that deal in TSR organisms are most often interested in owning patents on life to enslave humans to their food product, sell all kinds of manmade fertilizer and pesticides and supposedly grow more food. We must be honest with ourselves. For decades now they have been using guns and e-coli as an infectious agent or radiation to mutate, to impose their “TSR”. On top of that the TSR industry and researchers are forcing us to eat the resulting offspring. It does not get much more abhorrent than that. I do not think this bodes well for our salvation or hopes that the Creator might accept our offerings.
Another recent realization for me is that the science of Elemental Chemistry, with its protocol and proofs through replications and falsifiable peer-reviewed ethic, should have never been applied in the study and experimentation when “life” is involved. Here’s why: “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know”- Donald Rumsfeld. I could not have said it better. There are simply too many variables for us at this time to include in any parameters of experimentation and for us to understand what is happening. This is not to say don’t do them only to apply great precaution. We in all our hubris ignore the wisdom of the ages when first nations call it “the great mystery” and in our own story “passes all understanding”. That seldom questioned belief in scientific methods of observation always leads them to their default observation of “we used to believe” despite claims of “best practices”. On top of that (with only very recent exceptions) no toxicity training is required anywhere in the world to become a chemist. This seems to me to be the poorest way to observe and interact in our quest to evolve, when we only need to observe, understand and mimic what billions of years of evolution (nature’s experiment of what is successful to this point) or if you choose an omniscient God has given us.
This transition in the evolution of thinking can be a quick as it takes to read and comprehend this manifesto, but physical on-the-ground change does and will take time. So I am not proposing absolute and immediate abandonment of our dominant agricultural practices. I am however proposing dynamic shifts in belief, understanding, thinking, and practice. We’ve known the tree of good and evil and now is the time to “put forth our hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”, so to speak. Enough minds need to make different choices and abandon long-held and un-questioned beliefs for this change of direction of evolution to take place. Similarly, regenerative practices and intent need time to replace the rampant enmity. These “Sins” are why we continually have needed to ask for forgiveness since we began as humans to practice Agriculture. As my dear friend, sage and mentor John Cruickshank used to quip, “There are no such things as sins, only consequences.” The only reason we got kicked out of the Garden is because we didn’t ask! We stole and we have been stealing the ability to live from most every other living thing ever since! “Thou shall not steal” might be the only ethic ever needed. Only when we step back into nature in its symphony of compatibility might we find the love, peace, and harmony amongst all beings that so many of us hope and act upon. I also suggest it might be a good idea to ask forgiveness and we need to accept that forgiveness from ourselves and reconcile these things unto ourselves! We have thoroughly earned the tag of the “Taker Culture” by rarely asking for consent or saying a reverent “Thank You” as all native/indigenous cultures do that I’m aware of. We have little real reason to take from the Garden when it is, like, totally willing to share from its abundance as it does with every other living thing.
I have faith that we will step back into the proverbial Garden of Eden because it’s still here, a little a worse for wear to say the least, but it’s still here. We can personally make the choices necessary to step back in, without losing our shirt so to speak. We will thrive with every other living thing when we stop destroying our mutual home with human ego and contrivances to control growing processes in service to that pathological prime directive.
If this is not an apocalypse, perhaps you already knew these things and your conscience has been anesthetized by being repeatedly forgiven by your chosen forgiver. Many of those that believe in this Agriculture are engaged in spreading it to the four corners of the earth. Those supporting them have become people chasing money or are trying to buy our way out of problems agriculture’s dogma has created. Therefore acting like “humans doing” rather than the “human beings” we must be, in order to become good stewards of our home.
As stewards of the Garden, we need to learn the language of our garden and learn to let it provide for us as we learn to share with it so that we might co-create a different future than the obvious path to Armageddon we have bulldozed thus far. We need to understand that EARTH, a firm foundation (Father), AIR, with us where ever we dwell (Holy Spirit), WATER, the giver of life (Son) and all together only works with the light of the world, the sun, FIRE. As stewards of those constituents, we need a new prime directive based on sharing, collaboration and regeneration and acceptance so all life is given fair opportunity to evolve in peace.
With that said, I hope this has been an apocalypse that will add to the shifting away from old beliefs and an embracing of our world from Abel’s nature and of the demonized indigenous cultures long sequestered perspective. While realizing, learning and progressively evolving to know what is important to reform our hearts, minds, and world, as this call to reform closes. We need to realize that our imagination is an unlimited resource and a new story/myth is required.
Start imagining. We need all of you. Respectfully yours,
Dogma: a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds. Religion: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices, “a theological theory” Paradigm: a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated. Enmity: positive, active, and typically mutual hatred or ill will. Pastoral: 1) of, relating to, or composed of shepherds or herdsmen (2): devoted to or based on livestock raising b: of or relating to the countryside : not urban <a pastoral setting> c: portraying or expressive of the life of shepherds or country people d: pleasingly peaceful and innocent : of or relating to spiritual care or guidance Heretical: of, relating to, or characterized by departure from accepted beliefs or standards Blasphemy: irreverence toward something considered sacred or inviolable Apocalypse: (Greek: ἀποκάλυψις apokálypsis; "lifting of the veil" or "revelation") is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted.
*All definitions are from Merriam Webster’s Dictionary with the exception of apocalypse which is taken from Greek translation.