Green Harvest by Rebecca Jones

Author:Rebecca Jones [Jones, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780643102101
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Csiro Publishing
Published: 2010-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

Similarly, Kay Earl from Edmonton in Queensland attributed her problem-free pregnancy to ‘our earth-loving existence’ and Marjorie Spear in the Atherton Tablelands found that: ‘living and eating in harmony with nature has improved our health and increased our vigour’.402

Like the organic farmers and gardeners discussed in previous chapters, Back to the Landers believed that growing food using organic methods was inherently healthy. However, while they were interested in nutritious food, maintaining ecological wellbeing and chemical free growing, the primary attraction of self-sufficient organic gardening was that it brought them in close contact with the biophysical environment. Back to the Landers believed that a person’s disposition, character and physical health were influenced by their environment and direct contact with a physical environment that was healthy, authentic and natural (as both the rural and the bush were believed to be) would bring health and wellbeing. This was another manifestation of the environmental determinism inherent in ecological versions of health in that it was the physical environment and people’s relationship with that environment which delivered health and wellbeing.

Belief in the inherent healthfulness of the natural environment was a form of ‘biophylia’, a term coined by American biologist and entomologist E.O. Wilson.403 Wilson explains that, because humans have evolved in close relationship to other forms of life, we have an innate affiliation with nature and depend on the natural world not only for our material wellbeing but also for our physiological, psychological, aesthetic, spiritual, cognitive and emotional wellbeing.404 Living among trees, plants, soil, animals and insects was, in the yeoman idyll, an experience of returning to origins.

For some Back to the Landers human affinity with nature was described not just in terms of physical wellbeing but also in terms of spiritual health. Most Australian Back to the Landers, unlike their American peers,405 did not embrace established religions but some did adopt an amorphous romantic spiritualism where the sacred was believed to reveal itself to humans through natural things.406 For these organic growers, practical acts such as tending a garden became spiritual: ‘you come to all sorts of transcendental states of mind in the garden. It automatically happens to you. If you just poke away with the discipline of a pick and shovel you become sanctified. The magic happens to you’, explained a contributor to Earth Garden.407 Biodynamic organic growing, based on Rudolf Steiner’s Christian philosophy of anthroposophy, connected nature to cosmic forces of energy. Planting by the phases of the moon, harnessing cosmic energy by methods of stirring liquids and the creation of homeopathic remedies from plant materials offered organic growers another means to connect with spiritualism in nature. Earth Garden and Grass Roots published information about biodynamic methods and there was good attendance at biodynamic society meetings during the 1970s and 1980s.408 Spiritualism in nature could also take a more pagan form. Marjorie Spear wrote to Earth Garden telling of the importance of fairies on her property, Harmony Farm:

The ‘little people’ (fairies) are a tremendous help. They like to live in organic gardens where humans acknowledge their existence and appreciate their work.

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