I originally published the manifesto below in Taproot Magazine in 2017. Taproot was such a special publication that lifted up so many artists, farmers, gardeners, food lovers, and makers of all kinds.
While it closed earlier this year, I’ll always treasure my stack of issues and am thankful for the way Taproot gave a home to my words over the years. The magazine and the people behind it brought such wonderful connections to my life, and I’m grateful for them.
To Grow Love: A Farmer’s Manifesto
1. Water seeds with awareness.
Breathe deep as you water, giving your body a moment of stillness as the seeds settle into soil. Let your breath wash over the seeds. Let your breath be a watering of love.
2. Grow love.
Know that every bite of food you eat informs your entire being. Know that all food begins in the soil, be it vegetable or animal, and we trace our roots to the land.
As you tend to the crops, remember that you are tending to the seeds of love that will someday transform into a meal. You may not know the people who will eat this food, and they may not know you; let these crops be an introduction, a meeting, a coming together that transforms food into bodily energy, and let that food carry the energy of love.
Let that love grow a community, for self-sufficiency is a myth. Become community-sufficient and you will have space and peace in the strength of many hands; you will have solace and support in the ugly moments.
3. There will be ugly moments.
Slaughter day will come and blood will drain from chicken necks. Bills will come and the bank account won’t seem adequate. Everything will have needs: the livestock, the crops, your customers, and you may cry under the stress of it all. This business of building a business will feel achingly slow even as your dreams spin faster.
Breathe.
Leave the Brussels sprouts and winter squash and sit in consultation with lettuce, with radishes, with the fast-growing crops. Let them remind you how many timelines braid together to form the whole. Let them remind you that even the fastest growth takes a little time. If you sit with them long enough, they will give you their bodies, the crunch and subtle bitterness of springtime that cleanses and awakens your own.
4. Farming necessitates a certain awareness and level of observation that can pull you towards beauty. Follow the pull.
Witness beauty. The beauty of seeds, of flowers, of sunrise and sunset, of sharing a summer meal with friends. Witness the beauty of everyday, even the hard days, and know that the light will shift and remind you that you can keep growing.
Do this not just because it is a revitalizing antidote to the anger, fear, and violence that weighs us down, but because beauty brings us alive all on its own.
5. Learn how to live in the space in-between.
Before the harvest comes the seed, the seedling, the unripe fruit. Sometimes it will be hard to live in this in-between space. Sometimes you will want so much to be at the harvest, juice running down the sides of your mouth, but all you will feel is the tension of growth. This where discovery lives.
6. Take lessons from sunflowers.
Some days are full bloom, others are not. Eventually, you will have bloomed enough to trust that it will happen again, but those closed moments may catch your breath in your throat. Learn how to follow the sun even when you feel stuck; to see the beauty in sleeping petals that gather energy and grow until the right moment comes to open the center to the world.
7. Show up for abundance.
There will be days when farming feels unreasonably hard. And then there will be days that remind you with every ray of sunlight and note of birdsong why exactly you're doing this. With persistence, those reminders will come more and more. Abundance is here. It's hard work to show up for it, but when you do, the beauty and sustenance reveal themselves.
8. Remember that wealth does not rest solely in money.
Future savings can look like this: mowing buckwheat to make way for winter rye; growing cover crops and building soil and investing in blueberry plants. The cycle of growth can nourish the soil and the body; it can generate and regenerate beauty and food and value that surpasses our own lifetime.
9. Cultivate wildness beyond the weeded rows, for wildness cultivates awareness and liveliness.
Scatter wildflower seeds to entice bees and butterflies. When the flowers emerge, a silent tug will remind you of the part you played, and your own wild soul will draw to the blooms and smile.
10. Rest.
Wash yourself in evening air, in summer rain, in the dark nights of new moons. Stand still long enough to taste the love you’re growing, long enough to feel roots spread from your feet and mingle with the roots of trees and the bodies of worms. When you step back to take a break, see how the rhythm of the fields mirror your own: growth and rest intermingled.
Lay down among the garden beds and let your dreams dig deep. Let your body become a vessel of seeds. Water them with love, and see what wonders grow.