The Farm

If I were to trace the threads back to the beginning I would have to go to the farm. I grew up with a mother who fed a family of eight all winter long with the vegetables that she grew in her garden. My father hunted the wild game that provided us with meat and we harvested buckets and buckets of wild berries to preserve for winter. I know how a bear smells. I know the foliage that supports certain wild crops. I know how to strip a gizzard after I've pulled it out of the belly of a chicken. I know how vegetables taste fresh from the garden. I know that there are many people who know much more about these things than I do however it is this knowledge that forms the basic of what it is that I know about sustainability. To sustain oneself relates primarily to food...sustenance. Sustaining our family on that farm took a tremendous amount of work and I'm not going to pretend that I am predisposed to that lifestyle though in my heart of hearts I wish I was. But thank goodness for those who are predisposed to that way of life. Thank goodness for the needs that they have once their bellies are full. Living sustainably isn't simply about being able to feed ourselves, it's about the interrelationships that form so that we are able to do those things to which we are predisposed and still eat. On the farm these relationships were apparent at a very basic level. Whether it was through the care we gave the livestock or the garden, one of the basic tenets on the farm was that our survival depended upon not just the survival but the flourishing of those things that were in our care. It is something that translates off the farm in so many ways, yet I know it in the core of my being because our life on the farm was committed to supporting the growth of those things which sustained us. Imagine if everyone in an institution or organization knew and acted on the principle that their survival depended on those around them flourishing. Imagine how that would impact global economics. It seems like a simple principle when you think of it and maybe there are a million other ways to learn it. And while I didn't completely know that principle then, as a child, it is so embedded in my bones now that I realize it isn't something that I learned but rather something that became a part of me. What are the implications of this basic tenet when considering how we are in the classroom and what things become embedded in our bones there?