Tending the Land

Tending the land is a problematic phrase for me, as it touches on the concept of stewardship. I have seen stewardship defined as "managing and caring for resources" or "taking care of the things we own and use." In biblical terms, it's defined as "Utilizing and managing all resources God provides" or "managing and utilizing intelligently the gifts that God has given."

This is an important idea when applied to, as our Faith and Practice says, "the right use of gifts given to us - time, ability, money, and our physical selves", but it is not appropriate when applied to nature.

1. On a cultural mandate 

2. Root reading

3. Early Anglo-Saxon preservation

4. Harvest, dry, and braid my onions

5. Unity with Nature

1. On a cultural mandate:

I was raised on the deeply held Judeo-Christian belief that we are the caretakers of everything God made, and therefore (and this is the giant leap of human audacity) the owners - that nature is a gift given to us by God to use and manage. And it comes directly from Genesis: Genesis 1:26 says “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” 

This command, often called the “cultural mandate,” has led to a great many wrongs, including the Doctrine of Discovery, the enslavement of Africans and indigenous peoples, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, abuse of women and children, and also the rape and pillage of the Earth. The Hebrew verbs used in Genesis are kābaš which means “have dominion” or “make subservient”) and rādāh (“subdue”). Kābaš has harsh contexts elsewhere in the Bible, meaning to “subjugate”: In Jeremiah (34:11), subjugating slaves; in Numbers (32:22-29), subjugating a country; and in Esther (7:8), subjugating a woman sexually. 

Of course we can find other interpretations of these verbs, but this is the one that early Christians chose for the King James Bible, and the one that was taught and preached. For example, Wesley said that all creatures were made for human beings and Calvin said all things were ordained for the use of man.

 
In 1967, Science magazine published a controversial article by Lynn White Jr., an historian at Princeton. His thesis was called, The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis. White claimed that the Industrial Revolution's exploitive attitude had its roots in Christianity, and that we have been conditioned by the Western Christian worldview to feel comfortable with exploiting the natural world. He stated, “Especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen ... Man shares, in great measure, God’s transcendence of nature. Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia’s religions ... not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for its proper ends.”

Much of the writing by Native American authors points out this same idea: That Western thinking is fundamentally different than an Indigenous worldview. In his book, Becoming Rooted, Randy Woodley talks about the way the white settlers viewed the land: "The very land itself meant something quite different to the newcomer than it did to the host people. Something was missing. The difficulty, as the Natives saw it, was with the settlers themselves and their failure to tread lightly, with humility and respect, on the land. The settlers wanted to live on the land but the host people lived with the land."

It's not be fair to lump all white settlers into this category of exploiter, and we can quibble about a new Christian and Quaker definition for Stewardship that is much more caring, but Dominion theology has underlined our nations history, and is alive and well with right-wing Christians, and with our economic and political system. 

And so I prefer to make a break from the past, and name my belief the Testimony of Unity with Nature, which puts me and nature on an equal footing. I do not consider myself a manager of the Earth's resources. I hold that the Earth and every part of it is a spiritual being. I live with the Earth, not on it, and I accept gifts from the Earth with gratitude. I tend the land, and the land tends me.

2. Root reading:

I'm reading again from "Root and Ritual: Timeless Ways to Connect to Land, Lineage, Community, and the Self," by Becca Piastrelli (2021). I started this book last December, then got distracted. Today I re-started Chapter One: Tending the Land.

Becca says, "We were all born into a system where dominance and ownership had the highest value, so it takes some time to unlearn those old paradigms and reprogram our perspectives to steward land rather than use it. ... So much of the modern world has been deeply impacted by the forced (and often violent) taking of lands. ... The effects of colonization still very much exist today, even inside of us. The unconscious ways that we take what we want without thinking about consent or our impacts on others plays out all the time in our day to day lives".

She follows this statement with the simple image of picking a flower without considering what the flower wants, or the needs of the ecosystem around it. When I multiply that by billions of us, and broaden it to include every part of the natural world, I want to cry. 

How can I remember to put limits on my sense of entitlement?

Becca also talks about reciprocity: "...the understanding that we are never alone on earth, and the consideration of non-human beings is imperative if we want to understand how to rebalance our relationship with the land. ... We must acknowledge the severity of humankind's destruction of this earth. We must grieve." 

And we need to reconnect to indigenous ways of caring for the land.

3. Early Anglo-Saxon preservation:

As I seek out how to be indigenous to the land, I look way back in time. My ancestors were mostly English and German farmers. Before Christianity corrupted them, they were probably connected to the land and the seasons in the way of all native peoples. Their gods and goddesses were nature gods, and they understood the power of nature. They knew they were not in control. They would have believed that every tree, animal, and insect has a spirit, that humans were an inseparable, integral part of Nature.

I found out that the word harvest comes from my people, from the Anglo-Saxon word haerfest (pronounced heer-fest or hayr-fest), meaning autumn - which started in August in merry old England. I've begun to understand that the act of farming, harvesting, and preserving in the ways my mother and grandmother (and ancestors back in time) did is a revolutionary act in this time of "easy" food that disconnects us from our environment and from our community.

So, how did my ancestors preserve food and store it through the long winter?

Lots of foods were dried, in the sun, in the open air, by a fire, in an oven or kiln: Beans, peas, cereals, herbs, mushrooms (threaded on string), and seaweed.

Some fruits or vegetables were pickled in vinegar, alcohol or honey. Fruits were also boiled down to sauce and stored in crock jars sealed with a greased lid, maybe using butter or wax.

Root vegetables, leeks, cabbages, and onions were stored in cool dry rooms, and eggs were stored in ash or straw.

Some fish and meats were smoked, or salted, but animals were typically killed later in the winter, as meat was easier to store in the cold months than the heat of summer. 

What does this mean for me? I look for the simplest, most sustainable methods for me now. That mostly ends up being the freezer, but if we had a power outage and lost our frozen foods, I'd like to have some dried foods too.

4. Harvest, dry and braid my onions:

My onions are ready to harvest; I can tell because the necks are getting floppy. I pulled them all out of the ground yesterday, and let them dry in the sun for a day. I brushed the clumps of dirt off but did not hose them off. 

Next, I put them into a bin with holes on the bottom to help with air flow, and stuck them in my studio, propped between two chairs, with a small fan blowing under them, to improve the circulation and dry them quicker. And there they will stay to cure for a minimum of two weeks. When the tops are completely dry and crispy they are ready to braid. Braiding helps to keep them together while allowing for continued air flow, helping to reduce mold.

How to braid onions:

1. Start with three onions and tie them together above the bulbs with one end of a length of twine. Begin to braid these three stems, along with the twine.
2. Add an onion, braid a bit more, then add another, keeping each section of the braid about equal. Continue adding onions and braiding until you get to a size you’re happy with.
3. Secure the top of the braid with the twine and make a loop to hang.

When using the onions, grab an onion from the bottom of the braid and break off one at a time, as needed.

5. Unity with Nature:

Unity is how Quakers talk about our process of community discernment: In Meetings for Business we take a step beyond consensus to find a spiritual unity. We have an immense belief in the reality of continued revelation, and we expect a revelation of God’s direction in our meetings. God leads everyone present in unity. Why should we not invite the Earth to be present?

As with any unity, the way to find Unity with Nature is with Discernment. Discernment is the process of finding the right course of action through spiritual perception and thoughtful consideration; it's the intersection of contemplative practice and social action. If we are going to make a decision that will impact the Earth, either as an individual or as a community, we might want to include the Earth in our discernment process - and do not almost all of our decisions impact the Earth?

How could this kind of Earth Unity be practiced? 

The process of seeking unity has at least two parts: Worship and seasoning. Our Faith and Practice says, "It is important that every meeting for discernment by a meeting, committee, or other decision-making body begin with a period of worship rather than with 'a few moments of silence,' so that the spirit of worship will pervade the transaction of business." 

I like to invite the Earth to worship with me anytime I worship. I do that by acknowledging the Earth as God's creation and thanking her for giving me such a beautiful home, food, water, air to breathe - for giving me life. As part of this "land acknowledgement" I also like to apologize for the wrongs done to the earth in the name of religion. I am trying to tip Quakerism back towards our earlier pagan roots when we would have believed without a doubt that nature has a spirit, and that humans are deeply connected to the Earth.

Continuing with the process of finding unity: After worship we proceed with thoughtful consideration, with talking and listening to everyone who will be impacted by the action. This is called seasoning. And is not the Earth impacted by pretty much every action we take?

One way to season an action item with the Earth is to consult science. Another is to research ways Indigenous People have acted. Yet another is to go outside and sit on the Earth and let her talk to you. For me this might look like: 

• Being mindful of my actions in the moment and tuning in to what the land might need, just as I would when caring for my grandsons.
• Learn all I can about my local wildlife and what it needs to survive and thrive.
• Tasking myself with researching the best ecological practices before making any repair or improvement on my house or yard.
• Double-checking that any institution I invest with has no ties to Big Oil.
• Considering the question "What is my spiritual relationship to the non-human world?"
• Making donations, or working to repair damage.