Modesty Problems and Regenerative Ag
I vividly remember the first time I heard a young farmer talk about the biological principles involved in growing good crops. By tending to soil, the farmer explained, we steward our sliver of Earth. Through this vigilant stewardship we could serve the vast micro-systems of life that were contained in every inch, every teaspoon of soil.
I heard their deep voice come to a reverent halt, as they said that Earth liked to be covered, that “she” was actually, “modest.”
At first I thought it was a sweet way of framing the truth around something seemingly neglected. At first it felt like a nod to the role of the feminine, to the role of Earth, as a receiver, a carrier of life. It took me a while to realize that I profoundly disagree with this concept of a modest Earth, and why I think you should, too.
Mother Earth is in no way modest, and in fact, modesty is a human convention. To call the Earth modest is an act of projection. To describe the Earth’s fertility as being linked to its supposed modesty is in no way a favor. To elevate Earth away from being merely a resource of parts it is not enough to simply say that “she” gives when tended, covered, or provided for in some patronizing fashion. Earth is not a handmaid and she is surely not your wife. Earth does not conform to our molds, in fact we conform to hers.
One of the issues that plagues us today is that everyone has something to say about the bodies and functions of women and their fertility. That’s fair enough, for people to have their opinions, but it’s not smart nor correct to push those opinions onto the very field of all nature itself.
Sure we can use a feminine lens for describing Earth’s function and we can revere that. We simply have to watch ourselves when we take it a step further and characterize those female functions according to our moral values, to those derived from how we idealize womanhood.
Our imaginations and our moralizing are in fact, a deadly combination, one that has resulted in the destruction of Earth’s “beasts” and in the clearing of their lands for ourselves alone. All this of course was done to keep our version of Earth manageable not for her but for us, for our plans, our visions, our books, our religions, our thoughts, for our games of culture including the one of war. Our Mother Earth then got moved into this safe space and even became so boring that we hardly remembered her at all for a while.
The deeper truth is that Mother Earth is both womb and tomb. She is provider and taker. Mother Earth is the drought as much as she is the harvest.
The ultimate truth is that Earth and Mother (with the big M) are bigger than our civilization and more wild than all of our imaginations put together. Earth can be understood as female receiver of inspiration, creativity, of mystery, but she can not be boxed by us. Earth as Mother can not be boxed by the roles we give to women. Full stop.
When I think back to that example of healthy soil, of its need to be covered by leaves or by plants, I no longer think of the modesty clause. I no longer shudder to think what penalty would result if she did not manage to stay covered.
Now when I think of biological principles of this thing we are all attempting — this poetic exercise of biomimicry and its implementations — I think more of an Earth careful with her riches. I think of Earth’s desire to be covered in reams of her treasures. In this model the leaf litter and the plants are her jewels and when she has enough of them, so do we and so do others.
Earth prefers to be clothed in some way because that befits her majesty, not her modesty.
In these models balanced on maintaining modesty or majesty, the actions we take can be close if not absolutely identical, but the framing could not be more critically different. Over time it is the issue of framing that makes one of these approaches more robust, adaptable and ultimately more reverent than the other.
That young farmer’s Earth might be scared to show an ankle or let her hair get messy, while mine likes to change outfits and dance with rivers flush with rain until every strand of herself is kissed with wind. The modest Earth begs for her crown, while mine dressed in rags, could never lose her majesty.
Today there are many names and nuances that put words to the urge to grow our food and our communities better, healthier and with more respect towards the soil; towards the thin, life-supporting crust of this celestial node we call ours.
It is from language that the stories of food and culture formed. We are what we eat, both literally and figuratively.
We are either eating from a table set for us by families or by industries.
We are either eating chemicals and compounds that combine to form fuel or we are eating complex intelligence nourishing us with a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
We are either eating from a field that serves us with head bowed and eyes averted or from one whose upward gaze is rooted in depth.
I know that farmer felt like a true revolutionary in food, and in many ways they were. But I also know that the revolutions of the past had a lot of people who were not women telling us what we liked and how they thought we women would behave. Those revolutions only ended up bloody.
