Thursday, December 22, 2011

Food & Nature

"One problem is that in Western nutritional science there is no effort to adjust the diet to the natural cycle.  The diet that results serves to isolate human beings from nature.  A fear of nature and a general sense of insecurity are often the unfortunate results.
Another problem is that spiritual and emotional values are entirely forgotten, even though foods are directly connected with human spirit and emotions.  If the human being is viewed merely as a physiological object, it is impossible to produce a coherent understanding of diet.  When bits and pieces of information are collected and brought together in confusion, the result is an imperfect diet which draws away from nature."

Masanobu Fukuoka

Thursday, December 15, 2011

It rained

Last Night.  There is no more happy sound on this earth than that of a serious-minded rain on a metal roof.  I hope for a wet, muddy, "miserable" Christmas, for green shoots, puddles, streams, mushrooms in the cowpies, clouds, mist, fog, dew.  In the midst of the second year of drought, rain-water and all the phenomena associated with it, the very words themselves, have a sensual, almost erotic, fascination.  In classical Chinese "clouds & rain" is a euphemism for sexuality.  I no longer consider it an odd metaphor.   When it rains I feel as if a darkness is washing away: dark worry, depression, fear.  In its place is a new, small joy.