Artist Cadine Navarro and the South Side Family Farms team invited me to share a story at a healing garden event on July 7. Below is an essay closely based on the talk I gave.
I call myself a soil creative. By that I mean that I garden, farm and forage things that are created from soil, yes, and also that agriculture itself is a creative act.
Agriculture is about creating food, creating beauty, creating healing, and creating a sense of place and purpose.
In January I began, and six months later ended, a Big Important Job (at least to me) as the Execituve Director of OEFFA, a sustainable agriculture organization. Though I loved the kind of work, the quantity was overwhelming and thoroughly depleted my body, mind, and spirit.
After resigning, I subconsciouly turned to farming as a means of reconnecting to myself and my purpose. Subbing in as a farm worker picking raspberries for hours a day, as I was doing when I met Cadine and was invited to this event, is a full-bodied reminder of my interconnectedness.
The sounds of a mockingbird with a dozen songs, early Japanese beetles snapping their wings on the leaves, airplanes overhead and the constricution equipment down the road say “I am not alone.” The world is teaming with life.
The feel of a soft, warm, perfectly ripe and fresh fruit meling in my mouth is sublime, unmatched by a berry with any time off the branch. The stratch of a thorny branch on my wrist, or worse the sharp sting of kneeling in thistle, calls out “I am here right now.” My body is full of pleasure and pain.
I don’t know about you, but I need these reminders from the Earth. Daily, sometimes.
I am not alone, I am kin with all of nature.
I am here, right now, in this body, breathing and being.
Every day that I garden, or eat food grown by someone I know, I can be grateful for the soil and human connection inherent in agriculture. And no food calls me home to this truth more than garlic.
Garlic is a near daily seasoning in my cooking, as is true of many cultures around the world. We are not alone, so many of us all use this precious allium.
Why? I believe that humans evolved to enjoy garlic not only because it is tasty, but because it’s a powerful medicine. The allacilin in garlic has research-backed benefits as an antibiotic, antifungal and cancer-fighting antioxidant. Eating garlic is a way to keep our dear bodies going.
Garlic is fairly unique in the edible agricultural world in that it is planted as a bulb in the fall, grows throughout the spring, and is harvested now, at the peak of summer. It is easy to grow in that it requires little special care, few pests bother it, and other than an eary spring weeding session and removal of the scapes - which you can also eat - there’s minimal time needed to provide the amount of garlic a typical family eats in a year.
But that special timing of fall planting means that garlic is a relatively long term commitment. At the end of October when one might be carving pumpins and putting the garden to bed, the garlic grower has to choose: will I keep doing this farming thing?
Deciding where to plan my rows of the garlic varitety I’ve adapted over the last decade is my annual opportuntiy to recommit. It is my investment in my future health and my future place in this world.
Because it is delicious, powerfuly healthy, and calls us to invest in ourselves, I contend that garlic is as precious as gold. I dream of a time when vegetables - and those of us who farm - are cherished. Until then, I encourage you to value yourself like gold and take the time to consider what gifts you exchange in the garden.
Perhaps the feel of the first raindrops after a dry spell connects you with the common humanity of fellow gardeners. Maybe the ache behind your knees after spreading straw on your spring plants calls you into presence with all your body can do. And most of all I wish that you have a garlic in your life, a golden plant kin, who reminds you of what is most important.
