On my way to work early this morning, I heard an NPR story about utilizing and increasing the awareness of plants that most people would call weeds. Plants that grow wild, but are often the progenitors of the domesticated vegetables most of us eat daily. It’s nice to hear a story like this that promotes awareness of plants that are mostly neglected or scorned as a nuisance. I’m a fan of volunteer plants.
My interest in plants and where our food comes from, has grown substantially since working at a farm. And within the last five years, I’ve also studied herbalism, survival, and primitive skills, and taken a permaculture design course. All efforts to essentially learn more about and be closer to nature. The NPR story reminded me of another famous farming book, The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka. And I lucked out that it was available from the library right when I wanted to hear it.
After listening to the book, this video was fun to watch. Mr. Fukuoka practiced something called do-nothing natural farming. The gist of it is, doing the least amount of work, or anything that goes against what is natural. He found a way to farm that did not use any machines, chemicals, or outside inputs like compost or fertilizers. He did less work than his neighbors and had comparable yields. The most important aspect might be that he paid very close attention to what happened naturally and did not fight that.
The yearning that I felt while listening to his words, was to have my own plot of land. A place to live, and learn about, and evolve with. Ideally, I’d then be able to grow and eat a lot of my own whole foods, practice more cooking and canning and preserving, go foraging, and also grow medicinal plants. And just like he modeled, find a way of observing, respecting, and tuning in to the land and working with it and all of its complexity, instead of thinking I know better or that more technology is only the answer.
“When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.
Fast rather than slow, more rather than less—this flashy “development” is linked directly to society’s impending collapse. It has only served to separate man from nature. Humanity must stop indulging the desire for material possessions and personal gain and move instead toward spiritual awareness.”
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