I have so much that I want to write about that each day, I'm sure I know what it is and then I have another thought and another thought - I can feel a book coming on! Oh no! Not another book!!! I can hear you all the way from Harsens Island. Well, let's just see where this all goes and if I'm lucky some of you will keep me company along the way. I know this is a garden newsletter so really, I should keep all things garden-like. But coming from a family of soap box preachers - my great grandfather used to stand in a park in Romania preaching politics, later followed by my grandfather who was one of the founders of the Detroit auto union at GM - I guess I just can't help myself. What's the worse-case scenario? You can delete me from your inbox, but oh, I don't think I could bear that, so I will try and be a good girl!
No one wants their belief system to be smashed to bits. We spend years fixing our minds on what our truth is. This covers a broad spectrum i.e. religion, politics, weight loss, medicine, anthropology, living conditions, life on other planets - you name it and we have probably formed an opinion in our young lives, building, dismissing, editing all information throughout the years. So when we begin to entertain the fact we need to find another way to live, it is not going to be a simple process. Instead of moving into the world of "Let's find a way that really works" we go into "What about me?" "Hey, that's not how I've always done it." "Why should I change." and "My life works just the way it is." One of the easier answers is that it really is a numbers game. There are so many people on this planet that we not only have to think about what is good for the individual but each other. But here's the big AH HA! If you are thinking about your neighbor, you begin to change and leave the world of kindergarten what about me I'm the most important thing on the planet, to being a much happier fulfilled human being. At least that has been my experience.
This was a tactic that I had to utilize when running a band. Some of you may remember, I had groups with six to seven women singers and a four-piece band. If I left my ego at the door, than they had to leave theirs. I would always put myself last in song choices and importance unless it was for the good of the group to take a more leadership position. But because of this sacrifice the group and concept were incredibly popular allowing all of us to achieve our collective dreams that we couldn't achieve individually. It really did work.
But we are humans and change is scary. Scary means fear and fear means lack of faith. Therefore lack of faith equals fear. Faith can mean anything to you. A higher power or maybe just your life's experience that things do happen the way they are supposed to. Or better yet maybe faith in this case, could be the collective consciousness of the group. I agree that at times, it is all too overwhelming. However I know that I forget that there are only three kinds of fear - fear of being wrong, fear of being lonely and fear of being hurt. I have often been in a place where I believed I had faith but yet, still remained fearful - hmmmmm - forgetting that faith is an action word. There is a disconnect there, isn't there? I find, the other part of our human condition, is that we don't change our minds because life looks like a Walt Disney movie with bluebirds landing on our shoulders and fairies doing our housework. We change our minds because we cannot stand the pain anymore. We absolutely feel like we are going to die so therefore maybe there might be a different way - hence, everything I have let go of has claw marks on it. It reminds me of the old joke where the guy falls off the cliff and is hanging with one hand to a branch keeping him from dropping to his death. God himself comes out of the clouds and says "Just let go." The guy thinks a minute and says, "Can I get a second opinion?"
I am going to make this particular "paradigm" newsletter in three parts. Part 2 will be sent next week and Part 3 the week after. There are many new paradigms I have been reading about which truly fascinate me that I would like to share. But let's start with seeds as I don't want to be deleted from your email just yet! So see, it is about gardening!!
With all of my talk about "new paradigms" it doesn't leave out that maybe going back and relearning something that mankind "used" to know just might be a good idea. Because it's not modern doesn't mean it's not good. Which brings me to the following:
A recent book, Seed of Knowledge, Stone of Plenty, by John Burke presents scientific evidence that the old-world engineers who built the massive henges, pyramids, mounds and dolmen of the ancient world may well have understood a true secret - lost to modern man until now. Burke, is an unusual combination in that he is an anthropologist and a physicist, doing most of his research at Harvard. He and his team have found that these structures are overwhelmingly sited at locations where the local geology magnified naturally-occurring electromagnetic fluctuations in the earth's crust and, further, that pyramidal and corbel-roofed stone structures erected at these locations enhanced this effect. Additionally, they reveal that indigenous seeds, when placed at these
locations (for various periods of time, depending upon the type of seed) show significant increases in growth rate and yield when subsequently planted-as well as increased
resistance to plant stressors (lack of sunlight and/or drought conditions). Such results would of course, be of enormous importance to ancient peoples. Burke suggests that the monument-builders not only knew these facts, but deliberately chose these sites and structure-shapes in order to insure their culture's food production. I find it extremely interesting that Burke's experiments with seeds indigenous to each specific location studied produced similar results. Seeds placed on top of the "Lost World" pyramid at Tikal show increased growth-rate relative to their controls. In America they conducted these experiments on ancient Indian burial grounds, with the same results. Leading them to believe that these mounds were built on "lines of energy" for many
different reasons. All kinds of questions come up. How did these ancient peoples know where these places were? Did they just feel it? How did they know what these energies would do? Was it a hit and miss sort of thing? Did they think, well, "I feel better when I sit there, maybe this magical spot is good for other living things"?In March I am going to get a group of gardeners together and head on down to Ohio where there are some serious mounds and lay my seeds out for two or three hours and see if there is a difference. With the changes in the weather, creating new strains of disease for the vegetation, I really have nothing to lose. I tried to talk my husband in going last year - but in his defense, I think the two of us were just too busy. If any of you would like to make a "seed of knowledge trip" let me know and we can make a weekend of it.
As I grow older I am forced to face that I really don't know much. My new mantra is that I believe everything and nothing. I am working on allowing information to come through without my opinions attached and corrupting what might be a new idea that counters all that I believe in and maybe, hopefully, might help in allowing this planet to be an even better place to live.
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