Message from Krishna
Dear Friends,
A message from the spirit of the Turkey Berry Plant,
I live well now! I have so many siblings, children and grandchildren. I grow large and am home to various plants that like to grow on me. The Butterfly Pea is gentle with beautiful flowers and others like the ash gourd are slightly overwhelming, almost suffocating, but I am really strong so I can manage! In the summer, when it is so dry and harsh, I do just fine! Especially now that I am allowed to grow in the beautiful rich soil of this farm! There is moisture in this porous soil and thus so much nutrition for me and my incredibly diverse community.
But it wasn't always like that....
I use to try and grow in fields but was always weeded out. I was not wanted. They wanted peanuts and rice but not me. The fields were dead, having been ploughed and sprayed with deadly chemicals. This was not really a place for me. Instead I would find a place next to a sewer or in a trench by the side of a road offering my tasty berries to little old ladies who still valued my nutritional and medicinal value, who still appreciated my taste! Ladies who never had or would suffer from man made diseases like diabetes. They would soak my berries in buttermilk and dry them in the sun, saving them for the months when I did not produce valuable food.
This is why I live well today. I am loved! People in this farm appreciate and recognize that I need very little water to grow and yet I still put food on their plates. They make medicinal powders from my dried leaves and best of all I grow where I please! I am part of a diverse community of plants and the fields in which we live are not ploughed. The soil in these fields has become rich with micro-organisms, moulds, bacteria, earthworms, insects,small animals and the mycelium. I live in a community and create community. I am a heart beat of Mother Nature.
Yours,
Krishna
“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”
― Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution
|