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  • From: Woody Wodraska <wodraska@mac.com>
  • To: Seed Keepers <seedkeepers@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Seed Keepers] Manifesto [written 5 years ago
  • Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2008 07:51:13 -0800

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
Free chapters from
"Deep Gardening: Soul Lessons from 17 Gardens" at






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