Seed Keepers

[Woody Wodraska <wodraska@mac.com>]

We Have Always Known This: A Manifesto for Seeds

 

By Woody Wodraska

 

 

We are seed users, seed eaters, seed growers...all

of us. We have been wrapped in a world of seeds for eons, since

long before agriculture. In hunger we ate the bird that ate the seeds;

in happy accident we brewed the beer from spoiled and worthless seeds;

in unwitting service to the plant we transported its seeds from place

to place on our trouser cuffs. We slobber over ear corn and eat

our Wheaties. It's in our language: We are of our parents' seed,

our ancestors' seed, Adam's seed ultimately. We are born into,

thrive in, die in, a seed sowing, seed garnering heritage. To

deny the status of the sacred to these time capsules, these enfoldments

of life we call seeds is to court foolish disaster. We have

always known this.

     

But...now they're messing with our seeds. The power grabbing

corporations and their government flunkies propose in their

arrogance and disrespect to irradiate...manipulate... defructify...monopolize

and further commodify our ancient birthright, our real wealth: SEEDS. We are

strong when we have our seeds. They would enslave us and

they would use as leverage the seeds we cherish, the seeds that nourish

us.What we would pass on to the seventh generation as bridegift

they seize as strategy. They would put a price on the

priceless and sell it back to us.

     

Leave our seeds alone. Leave our seeds in the hands of the people

who feed us...the family, the clan, the village group. The

profession of "seedsman" was created only 130 years or so ago.

Perhaps it was an aberration to try to centralize a process that

had before been disbursed in village gardens, homestead gardens,

middens and small fields. Grandmothers and Great-uncles

collected, watched over, cherished the seeds that came down to

them. Grew them out with love and patience and infinite

care. Grandmother's seeds... grandmother's blessing...passed from

generation to generation. Reckon three generations to a century

and 150 centuries in the history of agriculture and you have several

hundred generations of seed gathering folk, seed saving grandcestors,

passing on precious seeds to descendants. There is memory

encapsulated in this line of life stretching so far back.

Feelings are there too...feelings of gratitude to Gaia, of holding

dear, of well wishing to the future generations, feelings of

faithfulness...feminine feelings.

     

The memory is right there in the seed, in our cells, in the

mitochondrial DNA passed down the feminine line. When I touch my

seeds I tap the memory that is there, instinctive wisdom almost lost,

beaming itself into our consciousness just when it is most needed.

     

John Trudell said: " It's about our D and A. Descendants and

ancestors. We are the descendants and we are the ancestors. D and A,

our DNA, our blood, our flesh and our bone, is made up of the metals

and the minerals and the liquids of the earth. We are the earth. We

truly, literally and figuratively are the earth. Any relationship we

will ever have in this world to real power-the real power, not energy

systems and other artificial means of authority-but any relationship we

will ever have to real power is our relationship to the earth." (1)

     

Seeds are concentrated wealth. Seeds are worth far more than we

pay for them now, in the commodity trade. You can pack in a

suitcase $10,000 worth of garden seeds in any variety you choose.

The slavemasters and their propagandists would have us believe that

money is power and, since they have plenty of it, that they are in

control. They don't want us to have that suitcase, to be free to

leave and plant elsewhere; free to stay and plant many gardens, feed

many people with real food.

     

If we are staunchly of the Earth, her power is ours to neutralize and

transmute the evil work of the authority-mongers, those without

conscience. We can do this with life enhancing

actions. Repeat. Life-affirming actions override, overwhelm

the lifeless. Always the great stone temples of the arrogant

become topsoil for living systems. It's something the

corporations and governments fail to appreciate. Their authority

rests on entropic processes, explosions, coercions, cultural

lies. They cannot take  into account the power of life, the

connectedness of life. They would have us forget where we come

from...so we can be entertained and exploited and addicted to their

cheap dream, their gadgets and their ersatz food. If we are

staunchly of the Earth we have access to the strength of the

generations, the ancestory, to help us put life affirming ideas and

actions in the places where death-dealing had been. We can

REMEMBER from where our power comes. Let us plant gardens.

Let us plant trees. Let us tend cows.

     

Our weapons are our tools...

our ammunition is our seeds...

our fuel is our sacred intent to do right by the future of life on the Planet...

our marching song is the thrumming of memory in our cells.

     

We march in concert, but we do not march en masse. Our aim

is not to dominate or overpower. Rather, our aim is

service. Each of us has a plot of earth to serve, our own

elementals and devas to consult...

intuition that speaks in us...we know how to surrender to the

requirements of the task, of plants and soil, in order to earn our

harvest. We bend to the task in joy and service, each individual

one of us mustering pure intent, a gutsy laugh, with the power of life

upholding us.

     

Join Wendell Berry's Mad Farmers Liberation Front. No dues. No meetings. You just have to be pissed off enough to be clever.

     

Don't be depressed, be clever.

     

Let us be clear. There is no money in this, only

sustenance. This passing forward of DNA on family or clan

level is a matter of right livelihood, not of commerce.

     

And right livelihood brings joy. If I can feed myself, my family,

a few others perhaps when surplus appears, then I have done something

REAL.I am in touch with my power, and my delight.

     

JOY...What if the picture that's been drawn of medieval peasant life

as, basically, "Nasty...Brutish...Short" is a cultural con job put out

by the rationalists and the materialists, the ones who shortly would

have something to sell us? What if life on a subsistence level

has joys and satisfactions as well as challenges? What if people

had time to laugh and sing? What if there were still people in

the world who could catch the memory of this and show it to us??

     

A friend tells me about life in the Philippines, far back on the rural

islands...tells how, when two rice threshers or donkey drivers meet and

begin to talk, they're laughing most of the way through the

conversation. There is something boisterously entertaining

about what is going on in the poverty-stricken lives.

     

John G. Bennett wrote of an encounter in Africa: "Following a lightly

trodden path, I came upon a Basuto village. All the inhabitants

were out hoeing mealies. Their ages must have ranged from seven

to seventy, and they were singing and hoeing to the rhythm of their own

music. As they saw me they all stopped and stood straight up in

surprise.Then with one accord they began to laugh. I have

never heard such laughter. It was pure joy and friendship,

without malice and without thought. I joined in, and we all

laughed together for several minutes. I waved my hand and walked

on, and they resumed their gravity and their hoeing.

     

"This was one of the unforgettable moments of my life. A

lifetime's experience had convinced me that happiness is greatest where

material prosperity is least.I had seldom seen a happy rich man,

but I had seen many happy people among the poorest villagers of Asia

Minor or Greece.I had seen happiness in Omdurman, but this

happiness that I saw before my eyes was beyond all the others.

Here was a village totally lacking even the smallest of the benefits of

civilization.They had not even a plough or a cart. And yet

they were the happiest people I had ever seen. They were without

fear and without pride." (2)

     

They were without fear and without pride. The meek shall inherit

the earth, for the meek remember who they are and where their power

comes from.

     

(1) John Trudell, on the occasion of a memorial service for Earth First! Activist Judy Bari.

     

(2) J G Bennett, _Witness_ Claymont Communications

Woody Wodraska

wodraska@mac.com

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