I really enjoyed reading your sweet essay and your reflections on how we have become so alienated from Nature and from our Creator. So important to re=establish a mindful relationship with where our food comes from, and not take it all for granted as we mostly do.
On a practical note, I was surprised you included Japanese Knotweed in your wild food. Here in West Cornwall in the UK, it has taken over whole valleys, and is considered a huge problem, as non-native plants sometimes are. I have never heard that it is edible.
Yes, it's a big problem here as an invasive species as well. It takes over riparian habitat. It's quite tasty when cut young and lightly steamed - kind of like asparagus, but with a strong lemony flavor. The root is also a major component of herbal Lyme disease treatment.
Among the edibles in Vermont, we have a mix of native, non-native species who are not taking over, and non-natives like knotweed that are taking over habitats.
Dear Mark--thank you for this wonderful epistle....I just got back from our home in Italy where so much of what you describe is a way of life. I was unable to sleep and got up and there was your post to give my churning mind some rest. Thank you my precious brother. george
This is beautiful, Mark. Your relationship with the land as a source of abundance reminds me of the work of Candace Fujikane. She's a fourth-generation Japanese settler of Hawai’i, and a scholar of the Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) and their familial relationship with the land as a source of abundance. She writes about this in her book, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future. For the Kānaka Maoli, the land is something to relate to, something that has a will, and you can communicate with it through the wind and birds and your inner knowing. She contrasts this relationship to the settler’s way of commoditizing and exploiting land. She differentiates between capitalism’s “rhetoric of scarcity” and what she calls “Indigenous economies of abundance.” She writes, “Capital produces a human alienation from land and from the elemental forms that constitutes a foundational loss. Humans compulsively try to fill this emptiness through an imaginary plenitude that commodifies land.” It's a dense book, but maybe of interest to you. Thank you again for a beautiful essay.
Thank you Heather for these thoughts. That does sound like a book I'd value, and I appreciate the lead. I'm often struck by how my own (and many others) experience of the contemplative Christian path has led to a 'de-objectification' of the land and its creatures in my daily experience. It leads to a way of relating that has many parallels with indigenous ways of relating to land.
I find it helpful, when working with Westerners, to remind ourselves that we have this way of relating as part of our own heritage, and that it is something we can actively recover and cultivate through engaging with the depths of our own tradition. We're not a separate species from indigenous people, nor do we need to start 'from scratch' to enter into an 'economy of abundance'.
I really enjoyed reading your sweet essay and your reflections on how we have become so alienated from Nature and from our Creator. So important to re=establish a mindful relationship with where our food comes from, and not take it all for granted as we mostly do.
On a practical note, I was surprised you included Japanese Knotweed in your wild food. Here in West Cornwall in the UK, it has taken over whole valleys, and is considered a huge problem, as non-native plants sometimes are. I have never heard that it is edible.
Yes, it's a big problem here as an invasive species as well. It takes over riparian habitat. It's quite tasty when cut young and lightly steamed - kind of like asparagus, but with a strong lemony flavor. The root is also a major component of herbal Lyme disease treatment.
Among the edibles in Vermont, we have a mix of native, non-native species who are not taking over, and non-natives like knotweed that are taking over habitats.
Dear Mark--thank you for this wonderful epistle....I just got back from our home in Italy where so much of what you describe is a way of life. I was unable to sleep and got up and there was your post to give my churning mind some rest. Thank you my precious brother. george
Thank you George! I'm glad to hear it was helpful, and that you're living into this way of life at your home in Italy. Blessings to you!
This is beautiful, Mark. Your relationship with the land as a source of abundance reminds me of the work of Candace Fujikane. She's a fourth-generation Japanese settler of Hawai’i, and a scholar of the Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) and their familial relationship with the land as a source of abundance. She writes about this in her book, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future. For the Kānaka Maoli, the land is something to relate to, something that has a will, and you can communicate with it through the wind and birds and your inner knowing. She contrasts this relationship to the settler’s way of commoditizing and exploiting land. She differentiates between capitalism’s “rhetoric of scarcity” and what she calls “Indigenous economies of abundance.” She writes, “Capital produces a human alienation from land and from the elemental forms that constitutes a foundational loss. Humans compulsively try to fill this emptiness through an imaginary plenitude that commodifies land.” It's a dense book, but maybe of interest to you. Thank you again for a beautiful essay.
Thank you Heather for these thoughts. That does sound like a book I'd value, and I appreciate the lead. I'm often struck by how my own (and many others) experience of the contemplative Christian path has led to a 'de-objectification' of the land and its creatures in my daily experience. It leads to a way of relating that has many parallels with indigenous ways of relating to land.
I find it helpful, when working with Westerners, to remind ourselves that we have this way of relating as part of our own heritage, and that it is something we can actively recover and cultivate through engaging with the depths of our own tradition. We're not a separate species from indigenous people, nor do we need to start 'from scratch' to enter into an 'economy of abundance'.