This summer I had the pleasure of growing a large garden with my Uncle, Carroll Andrews. We planted rattlesnake green beans, Clemson spineless okra, tabasco, jalapeno, cayenne, and banana peppers, early girl, bonnie's hybrid, and heirloom tomatoes, and marigolds for pest control. We broke the virgin soil with a roto-tiller and broke our backs trying to get the grass out of the soil. When we planted the seeds and seedlings we brought what was solely dirt and DNA into a garden, like a community the individual strengths of each plant and the gifts of the micro-organisms and nutrients in the soil came together as a diverse, functioning whole. A garden can't be seen as a bunch of individual plants producing individual crops. Indeed, viney plants like beans grow from multiple seeds into one or two plants and replace the nitrogen in the soil. The peppers and other strong smelling plants help keep out thieving critters, and flowers bring much needed pollinators to the garden community. The farmer, like the community organizer, nurtures the strengths of each individual plants and fosters an environment where fruits can be reaped.
But, we've lost this notion of community as diverse, vibrant and interconnecting organism that thrives off the strength and weaknesses of others in the community. Why has community come to mean "those like us" and not "those with us?" Community has lost much of its meaning because we have lost much of the commons. For a garden, the commons are the soil, a diverse, living rhizome from which all can draw to grow, change, and produce. Our communities have lost their vibrance because, like the industrial food system, the commons, the soil, has become privatized through private property and mined of its worth through the use of drugs and fertilizer, alcohol and pesticide. The soil and the community has lost its virility through violence. Private property has facilitated this by creating owners of the soil and giving them the rights to do with what they please, treating the fertile earth no better than a slave. So, these owners exploit the earth with fertilizer and pesticide.
Our communities, likewise, have become privatized instead of open and inviting. Closed communities of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, and a million other things have become the owners of community, making community a thing instead of a process, a seed instead of a rhizome. To build communities and the good earth, we must foster diversity, inclusion, flexibility, and transformation. We must see community as an ongoing process that produces the fruits of mentally and physically healthy children, vibrant relationships, and positivity. We must start by building the commons, both the material and immaterial.
But, we've lost this notion of community as diverse, vibrant and interconnecting organism that thrives off the strength and weaknesses of others in the community. Why has community come to mean "those like us" and not "those with us?" Community has lost much of its meaning because we have lost much of the commons. For a garden, the commons are the soil, a diverse, living rhizome from which all can draw to grow, change, and produce. Our communities have lost their vibrance because, like the industrial food system, the commons, the soil, has become privatized through private property and mined of its worth through the use of drugs and fertilizer, alcohol and pesticide. The soil and the community has lost its virility through violence. Private property has facilitated this by creating owners of the soil and giving them the rights to do with what they please, treating the fertile earth no better than a slave. So, these owners exploit the earth with fertilizer and pesticide.
Our communities, likewise, have become privatized instead of open and inviting. Closed communities of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, and a million other things have become the owners of community, making community a thing instead of a process, a seed instead of a rhizome. To build communities and the good earth, we must foster diversity, inclusion, flexibility, and transformation. We must see community as an ongoing process that produces the fruits of mentally and physically healthy children, vibrant relationships, and positivity. We must start by building the commons, both the material and immaterial.
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