Hope of the Harvest

Hope of the Harvest                                                                        by Pennie Rumsey

published Oct 2011, Moapa Valley Progress

I still remember the first time I planted a seed in my first garden as an adult.  I remember looking at the seed wondering, “Will this really grow?”  It appeared to be dead; without life, and yet it was only sleeping dormant.  I wasn’t sure it would grow and I planted it, hoping that it might.  It was a wonder for me to watch that seed burst forth into life.  Nature truly has its own magic. 

In today’s fast paced techno-world of IM (instant messaging), fast food, and super highways, we have come to believe that anything we have to wait for is not worth waiting for at all.  Our faith has been eroded by such man-made systems of instant gratification.  When it comes to working in the garden for three months to grow carrots or tomatoes we think it not worth our time because we can go to the store and buy them in an instant (relatively speaking).  There is much more to be gained from growing a garden than the food we eat or the nutrition we absorb.  The most valuable things my garden has taught me are the things I cannot see or touch; the unseen lessons of truth.  The lessons of the garden offer us the fertile soil that can heal our souls, our families and our nation.  Working in natural systems offers us a new way of thinking as we observe Nature in her natural form.  As we see the slow growth, for example, of a plant we come to understand that the natural growth of life is slow and sustainable, a little bit at a time, one day at a time.  Life is meant to be lived one breath at a time, one day at a time, and even one moment at a time.  This requires a conscious decision to slow down and observe. 

There is much that the classroom of the garden can teach us, and has taught our fore-fathers before us. Thomas Jefferson carried his commonplace book with him wherever he went, observing Nature and the lessons they spoke to him.  The Natural Laws of the garden are universally applicable regardless of the year or the location.  Gandhi said, “To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.”  Joel Salatin, a modern day pioneer, said “Nations rise and fall on the fertility of their soil.”  And William DeMille referred to the unseen hope of the harvest when he said, “The ancient Greeks believed that the real harvest of the soil is a special kind of person, a farmer, a husbandman, who has developed in his soul a set of principles rooted deep in the Law of the Harvest that keep him on the road to prosperity and happiness.  A society that has compromised this harvest from its citizenry is a society that will soon loose its culture.”

In some ways, I believe the American people can be compared to the state of a seed.  They lie sleeping dormant, unaware of the power and potential that they hold individually as well as collectively.  As we look to the hope of the harvest, envisioning the type of kind of man or woman we want to become, or even the kind of nation we want our grandchildren to inherit, let us look to the garden to observe the Laws of Nature.