“Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.” ― Wendell Berry
Growing your own food is one of the most liberating actions each of us can take. Daniel Quinn puts it this way: We submit to a culture that locks up the food, and in so doing, our lives our delineated. The trappings of culture become nearly inescapable: an omnipresent societal hierarchy, working for wages, even the emergence of religion. I must ponder these powerful ideas further, especially the question Quinn poses: If the food wasn't locked up, who would work? and why? what for?
What does locking up the food mean exactly? Is it the fact that civilization with economies in demand of burgeoning "efficiency" allow for rampant specialization and punishes people who do not take their place in the metaphorical assembly line? Each of us performing our one ordained action in order to receive a monthly allowance of food from the supermarket? Each of us waiting in the bread line to get our share of whatever the monocroppers produce for us? All the while under the impression of believing that we are practicing choice? It's a lot to think about and question duly.
Wow. Maybe it's time to take the red pill and find out how deep the rabbit hole goes. (Matrix clip follows)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ1_IbFFbzA
It may take a little expertise (because many of us have become so separated from our food) to grow successfully a garden of multitudinous foods, but it will set you free in a way working for money never will. This, I can believe. Choosing to work on a small farm is, for many, inherently philosophical, even political, inseparable from worldview.
Becoming a member of your local CSA is a step in the right direction.
Sometimes, such a philosophy can set free an entire city. Havana in Cuba, is one such remarkable city, that, due to the pressures of the US embargo and the lack of aid from the Soviet Bloc, was nearly forced into growing food in every available space, and in so doing, has become one of the most food secure, self-sufficient, large human communities on Earth.
When the Soviet Bloc collapsed in 1989, Cuba lost its food imports and agricultural inputs from which it depended for an adequate supply of food. The US Embargo also created a shortage of petrol necessary to transport the food from the rural agriculture sector to the city. This marked the beginning of serious food shortages that shook the entire country, but most of all Havana.
When these sources where cut off and food shortages began, Havana residents responded en masse, planting food crops on porches, balconies, backyards and empty city lots...
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