Holy Ground

I am tempted in every blog entry to formulate some kind of spiritual gardening doctrine and declare it like the sermon on the mount. But the fact is, as you will see below, much of what I'm learning are snippets, little bits of truth here and there that don't have a collective form that I can present to you. Walk with me, like in a garden and take in the beauty and variety that can be found.

My initial spiritual experiences with soil was through the Christian creation story- “...the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life...” (Genesis 2:7). The existential Ecclesiastes also refers back to man's beginning in the famous “dust to dust” verse: “...'As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Man's fate is like that of animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of animal goes down into earth?'” ( Ecc. 3:18-21)
(Side note: In an effort not to pull a verse out it's context as is so often done with the bible, I intentionally included the whole paragraph and was surprised by what else was said in the verse. I have no memory of these parts, though I've read this book countless times.)

Sitting next to my garden, I was ruminating on the chalice symbol representing the womb of the Mother Goddess. It suddenly became very apparent to me that soil in which the plants sat was the body of the Earth. She lay on her back, the shape of the garden her belly, the soil her flesh, the organisms her cells, and the water saturated in it her blood.

I have been reading about nature spirits and their different manifestations, trying to understand their role in the food garden. In my ancestral tradition, Gaels and Celts, the nature spirit were held in great reverence. Gnomes are known as the personification of the soil spirits, the beings that aid plants in their birth and growth. Last week I spoke to a clairvoyant who explained to me that nature spirits are like nitrogen fixers, except that they fix energy. As he explained it the nature spirits' role is to take the world's energy and fix it in a way the plant can use. When I speak to my plants, sending it generous and loving energy, it is the nature spirits who take this energy and feed it to the plant.

I've known people who are quite offended when one refers to soil as “dirt.” To them, dirt is well, a dirty word. It implies that soil is worthless and lifeless which couldn't be further from the truth. For these people (and I think I'm one of them) soil is a miracle. It is miraculous how unclean and unwanted things like shit and rotting matter, can be turned into something that gives so much life. For us, soil makes every inch of the earth holy ground.

The Soul of the World

Over the course of the last few months I've come across the term, Anima Mundi, latin for World Soul. It peaked my curiosity and I decided to do a little research. Anima Mundi's meaning is very literal- this world, actually this universe, has a soul. It was first directly mentioned by Plato in his writing, Timeaus. Marcus Aurelius also spoke about it beautifully in his Meditations: “Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; ... and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things that exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the structure of the web.”

It seems the Anima Mundi is just one way of identifying an all-encompassing non-material form. The concept of the Anima Mundi seems very similar to pagan beliefs of the Great Mother, the Spirit of Creation, or the Divine feminine counterpart. There are theistic faiths that believe the universe is synonymous with an immanent God (pantheism, pan=all and theo=god). Some traditions of Christianity have been pantheistic. Panpsychistic beliefs contend that the whole universe possesses a mind or consciousness. Animism, common among folk faiths, is the belief that every thing in the universe possesses a soul.

A Sufi teacher, Llywellan Vaughn-Lee, explains that the Anima Mundi is the Macrocosm of the Universe and the Individual is the Microcosm. The spark of life and light in the Anima Mundi, is also the spark in us and in all things. He teaches that when the individual nourishes it's own soul, it also nourishes the World Soul.

I believe in the Anima Mundi. Whether it is God, the Divine Mother, or a Collective Consciousness, it doesn't really matter to me. What matters to me is that there is something that contains everything. A whole, more than the sum of its parts. I don't believe that anything, anything at all in this world is isolated from anything else. Everything is part of a great whole.

What disturbs me is that for quite sometime we humans (especially us Western ones) are trying very hard to prove that we are isolated. We do not tolerate being subject to the consequences of someone else's actions. We've built physical, mental and spiritual barriers around us everywhere we go to prove that we are invulnerable and not responsible for anything other than our individual selves.

This is why I love food. Not only is it pleasurable and satisfying, but it is a constant reminder that we are connected. And we can't run away from it, we have to eat! I believe, now more than ever, gardening and eating are healing acts because they can bring us back, over and over to the basic truth that we are part of the universal family. And when you choose to be open to this truth, you can no longer look at a carrot and just see a carrot. You see the hands that planted it. The soil and microbes that nourished it. The sun and rain that nurtured it. And then if you really look, in the carrot you can see yourself. It's the spark. The same spark in everything. The spark of the World Soul.

Imaginary Lessons

A few months ago I was daydreaming about getting lessons from a great cook. I imagined a motherly french woman, who grew her food with patience and tenderness, harvesting it carefully and thankfully, and preparing it with creativity and affection. As I imagined our first lesson, I quickly knew what her first words of advice would be: “The most important element of relationship with food,” she says in a thick french accent, “is love.”

Call it a cliché, but I believe it's the truth. Isn't love the most important element of our relationship with anything, or anyone? Consider, when we are born one of the first things we do in relationship with another human being is eat. We are fed, most often, by someone who loves us. Sometimes, we are fed from their own bodies. If you have ever fed a baby, or watched them being fed, it is almost impossible to not sense the presence of love. The baby breathes in out steadily, fingers and hands grasping in the air, and eyes that stare up almost in awe. Somewhere along the way, especially in the West, the love element in our relationship with food is stripped away to the bare-bones of fuel, pleasure and satisfying craving. With all the distractions and triggers in life, love in food is forgotten, like it is forgotten in so many other places.

After experiencing my imaginary lesson with the motherly french cook, I tried to hold an intention of love when I interacted with food. I have many opportunities as it is my job and my primary responsibility at home. I also garden and harvest food, and yet like any meditation, putting it into practice is not as easy as it seems. Of course, there is love somewhere behind my daily interaction with food, but bringing it to the surface of my awareness is difficult. Still like any meditation, the very act of trying, over and over again, is as important as the end goal. It is a loving act in itself. And throughout this study, this is what I intend to do.

Yes, my study is about spirituality and agriculture, not explicitly love and agriculture. But in my mind love evokes the spirit, it calls it into the room, it is it's language, it's music. Love is the most important element in our relationship with food because it is the tie that binds our soul to food, to the Creation and her gifts, and to the people we give and share it with.