Givers of Life

What if in this time of forced quieting,

When the motions of the human world have slowed in many quarters,

Slowed enough to feel the rhythm of our breath and our collective pulses,

When human lives, our own and others, have grown more precious in our minds eye,

What if the longing in our hearts for a return to connection,

For drawing those we love in close,

What if all of this caused us to stretch our hearts and minds to include our truest Mother,

Earth, into that sacred holding of the archetypal mother with her newborn in her arms?

Imagine-

How can we collectively bring ourselves into a new way of being that honours the life giving nature of Earth; clean air, clean water and living soils and vibrant, biodiverse life?

What if we came to see Earth as our first mother, and all living things as our sisters and brothers?

What would the world look like if we cared for and celebrated our Earth Mother by truly listening to and providing for its needs rather than taking advantage of her goodness and generosity as though it will always be there for us and us alone.

Let us move away from our ways of folly and let us move towards love.

When I think of my own Mother and how beautifully, lovingly, and creatively she cared for my siblings and I, I truly am in awe of her efforts, and her undying and continued love for her offspring of which I am the eldest of the five.

When I think of my own self as mother to my three beloved children, and what I will do to see them well and nurtured, I realize that I cannot separate any of this from the image of the Earth which nurtures us with the nurturing of a loving mother and her children.

And since it takes a village to raise a child, and I have been greatly influenced by the love and caring of my mother's siblings wisdom, care and generosity, and my own three kids have benefited tremendously from the loving care and support of their extended families, I see this love and caring as a mobilizing force for growth and I recognize its generative power to aid in healthy development.

Like the mycorrhizal system of the soil extending its goodness to benefit life. Love energy!

Now imagine that love as a microbiome that your children are growing within. Like a womb of love. Healthy, balanced, nourishing. This microcosm of the whole my children and myself benefited from are these wonderful life giving conditions of love. Conditions for thriving.

But the soil our store bought food was grown in and the food we often ate, like so many others of our generation, was weakened by industrial agriculture and industrial food processing, and autoimmune disease in recent generations is rampant in large part to our food system.

Bear with me.

I was raised with so much love and a garden and home cooking that I learned the life giving benefits of all of these from a very young age. But most people did not understand back then in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, was that the very grounds in which we grow our food must be healthy and well nourished in order to produce vibrant and life enhancing foods.

That which is the incubator for life must be well.

Does this then sound similar to the knowledge that maternal well being; nurturing good eating and healthy supports in pregnant women, creates a positive environment for good natal outcomes.

We know this to be true. Why can't we, then, see this with soil?

That when we care for and ensure that the soils and waters with which we grow food are well nurtured and actually supportive of a living microbiome, that soil is better able to produce vibrant and viable plants.

We are what we eat.

Seems pretty straightforward, right?

But where does this fall into the narrative we have come to ascribe to of fast and convenient food for the masses? And how does this tie into food security,the local organic movement, and food production for a global export market?

Do you have a sense that those in decision making power positions in agriculture in this province and beyond are of the nurturing and nourishing sort? Do they actually have the well being of soil in mind?

When agriculture on this once upon a time, rich in red fertile soil, Island, was mostly comprised of small scale subsistence farms prior to the green revolution things were quite different.

Food nurtured those who ate it because the topsoil had not been ravaged by the scourge of modern industrial agriculture.

Flash forward to today when farmers farm for the global market place, (the be all and end all to so many) and especially for the restaurant industry, and things in farming are very different now. Topsoil is allowed to be blown to kingdom come, wealthy corporations guide most of the actual decision making from seed production to how food is grown (using what inputs), and when push comes to shove, as it has due to the global pandemic, farmers are left holding the shattered pieces of a system not designed to actually nurture anyone in the first place.

Especially not the farmers and certainly not the soil.

Where then to go from here?

Let us start in the simplest and profoundest of ways. In love of farmer, soil and in love of nourishing, nutritious foods grown by farmers in the soil. In love of Earth our Mother.

Let us vow to treat our Mother Earth with the respect it deserves by our actions when we purchase and consume foods. Buy local, buy organic. Grow your own. Support seed savers. Save seeds yourself. Share your knowledge, share your wealth.

On this day when we celebrate those women in our lives who have given us life and taught us how to love, how to nurture, how to care for self and others-- may we all be courageous enough to consider treating the soils and food growers of this Earth with the same kind of reverence we give our dear mothers--blessed givers of life they each are.

Happy Mother's Day!

Jill