Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse by Carolyn Baker

Author:Carolyn Baker [Baker, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-58394-900-9
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 2015-03-24T04:00:00+00:00

As a student of mythology and ritual, I must also ask what the symbolism of this transition may be for our time. On some level whether conscious or unconscious, we are all aware of the dire predicament in which we and our planet are mired at this point in human history. In fact, I believe that through a return to sustainable agriculture and in the very act of growing our own food, some aspect of the human psyche is bowing to the earth and the sacred in gratitude for and resonance with the elements of the soil from which we have evolved. The ramifications of this in our lives and our communities have been and may well continue to be astounding—a renewed reverence for the earth, a heightened appreciation for nutrition and the health benefits of organic food, a deepened connection with our families and communities around growing and eating food in our local place, and enmeshing local food sheds (a geographic region that produces food for that region’s population) directly with local economic development, to name only a few.

The opposite of the sacred, of course, is the profane. Something in our ancient memory understands that mindlessly manufactured and technologically tortured so-called food constitutes the most profane of substances unfit to be ingested in human bodies. The more deeply immersed we are in the sanctity of food and its origins, the more we are likely to be repelled by processed, genetically modified, and chemically laden foods produced by way of massive resource and ecological destruction, which deliver more of the same to our physiology.

Moreover, the more we view food as sacred, the less likely we are in times of food insecurity to focus only on hoarding it—or hoarding anything. My hope, dear reader, is that upon completing this book you will understand unequivocally that everything is sacred and that the division of the world into sacred and profane is a false dichotomy of the human ego. When we hoard anything, we are essentially declaring that it is profane and has no sacred value. Part of the sacred value in food is our capacity to share it. Several references to establishing healthy boundaries have already been noted, so at this juncture I will only remind the reader that sharing food does not mean giving our last morsel to anyone who asks for it but rather developing discernment about when to share and when to decline, bearing in mind (as noted in the Introduction) the principle of sacred flow and the reality that when we give to others generously, what we have released is almost always replenished when we consciously practice attunement with the sacred Self.

The sacred within us instinctively resonates with the sanctity of food. Therefore, the growing, transporting, distribution, and consumption of food are sacred acts that deserve ritual and reverence from the moment the seed is planted to the moment we have washed and put away the plate on which our food was served.

Besides sharing food, how does the

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