The One Rock Revolutionaries -- from left: Kate Tirion, Bill Zeedyk, Sefra Levin, ST Frequency, Brad Lancaster, Britt Retzlaff, and Benjamin Fahrer.
It was a balmy January morning in southern Arizona as my Subaru trundled down the dusty dirt road toward Elkhorn Ranch. Packed cozily inside was a weird load of farmer-freaks and permaculture gurus I’d somehow fallen in league with. Brad Lancaster, native Tucsonan and rainwater harvester extraordinaire, sat shotgun and played tour guide, pointing out otherwise imperceptible features of the parched landscape. Sparse clusters of cacti and mesquite trees dotted the rocky brown earth. So iconic to our modern image of the Southwest, these forbidding flora were in fact the thorny holdouts of a once-thriving ecosystem. Continue reading →
For the past two months, I’ve been deeply immersed in the fascinating process of hand-pollinating corn for seed production. Native Seeds/SEARCH runs a 60-acre conservation farm in Patagonia, Arizona where each of the unique varieties in our collection are periodically grown out to replenish the viability of the seed stock. This year there are nearly two dozen corn accessions in the growout, which means each variety must be laboriously pollinated by hand to avoid cross-contamination.
Earlier this month, Native Seeds/SEARCH received its largest grant to date: a $300,000 check from the Gila River Indian Community. We are very grateful to the Gila River tribe for their generous gift. The grant will aid in revamping the seed bank and expanding capacity on the Conservation Farm for more seed growouts.
This video commemorating the grant award offers a look into the important work happening at Native Seeds/SEARCH.
If someone told me a year ago that in short time I would be working at a seed bank in the Sonoran desert, I’d be incredulous. Talk about an unlikely gig. In the context of my old life, this seems as improbable as gunning for local office in Boise or grease monkeying in Talladega. But strange things happen, as per usual. So here I now find myself, fresh into a six-month internship at Native Seeds/SEARCH (NS/S), a seed preservation nonprofit in sunny Tucson, Arizona. Such is the wild-card whimsy of fate, it seems—the “roulette wheel” existence I’ve come to accept as routine.
This past weekend I attended a silent meditation retreat in the tranquil pine forests of Flagstaff, Arizona. Presented free of charge by a local Buddhist community called the Mindfulness Institute, the retreat was a solid two days of intensive inner work following the Vipassana tradition of mindful contemplation. This practice aims to foster stillness of being by training the mind to experience the essence of each arising moment rather than getting whisked away into distracted thought.
Much time has passed since my last blog entry, back when I was just starting to get my hands dirty at Mano Farm. My initial intention before striking out for unknown territory six months ago was to diligently chronicle my journey at each introspective turn. Early on, I realized that this was more easily intended than achieved. Adrift in the vibrant flux of life’s novel experiences, it has proven unduly challenging to distill the gradually unfolding revelations into meaningful words, let alone engaging prose. I’ve come to discover that introspection and insight comes more readily (and elegantly) to me after some time for reflection.
So, at this fertile half-year juncture, I’m ready to reflect.
In this video, Justin Huhn of Mano Farm demonstrates an ingenious new addition to the hand-tool arsenal: the tilther. Designed by Eliot Coleman and sold by Johnny’s Seeds, this lightweight yet heavy-duty tool cultivates the top layer of soil while mixing in fertilizer to prepare perfectly fluffed garden beds. Watch the tilther in action!
Mano is the Spanish word for “hand”—and after the first two weeks of my internship at Mano Farm in Ojai, California, it’s no mystery why such an appellation came to be the farm’s namesake. My own manos are dirt-caked, sun-browned and boasting early signs of some gnarly calluses. Located in an idyllic mountain valley about an hour’s drive from Los Angeles, the 1.3-acre farm is a verdant bouquet of dozens of varieties of organic vegetables, medicinal plants and culinary herbs in various stages of sprouting, flowering and bolting. All are cultivated and harvested completely by hand using an array of simple tools no less wieldy than a wheelbarrow.
There’s something about the deserts of the American West that gives rise to mankind’s most provocative experiments. Rolled out like a blank canvas, they beckon to be filled with revolutionary novelty, from the anarchic abandon of Las Vegas and Burning Man to the paradigm-rattling blasts of atomic bombs. Arcosanti — the experimental city in the barren plains of central Arizona — is no exception.
The beloved mythologist Joseph Campbell is perhaps best known for his freewheeling maxim: Follow your bliss. This simple phrase has been responsible for ending countless dead-end careers and launching thousands of soul-searching odysseys over the past thirty years. As a philosophical directive, it’s purely existential. Never mind the social impositions goading you down one manufactured path or another, it insists. Venture out of the morass of dull commonality and into authentic selfhood. True meaning in life can arise only through the uniquely personal journey of the individual. In other words: do what you love and the universe will bestow its juicy rewards.
