By Carolyn Raffensperger
Feb. 19, 2000
Winnipeg, Canada
Manitoba EcoNetwork

"Forgive me Thou Bleeding Earth, That I am Meek and Gentle with Thy Butchers."
Barry Lopez

What is a seed?

It is a library of information.

It is a code which governs the relationship of the plant to pollinators, the plant to the sun, the plant to soil organisms, and the plant to its method of dispersal, be it bird, wind or mammal.

A seed is an embryo

A seed is a storehouse of energy.

A seed is the middle child – the plant kingdom is in between the single cells and the legged ones.

Imagine a world without seeds. There would be no herons or finches. No morning glories, no honey bees. The color green would become an endangered species. We all depend on the plant world. We are woven out of plants.

Last summer I often stood in my garden in a stormy rage over the trespass of my neighbor's pesticides which drift for miles across the North Dakota landscape. It seemed to me that we had a lot more herbicides floating by and I surmise that it had to do with the increased use of herbicide resistant crops. I wanted to put up huge fences that would block their invasion of my tender and beautiful garden. My husband, Fred Kirschenmann didn't grow canola last year because of the possibility of outcrossing with transgenic canola. If we raised contaminated canola we couldn't sell it to our markets which require organic production. So we couldn't fence out pesticides. Nor could we fence out genetic drift.

All of this made me think about boundaries. I am a lawyer and can invent all sorts of legal methods for establishing and maintaining boundaries. So too engineers, molecular biologists and teachers have created boundaries to serve humanity. We have built dams which prevent salmon from swimming upstream to spawn. We have created divisions between ethics, art and science. We have drawn fast lines around private property.

But many of those humanly established boundaries are not honored by nature. At the same time nature has created some boundaries which are not now honored by humanity.

Boundaries have several meanings. One meaning, as I've used it above, is the fixed mark which indicates an inside and an outside and prevents movement between what is inside and what is outside. Another meaning comes from the root word of "bound" or limits. We are really good at two things – one is establishing hard exclusionary lines – The Berlin Wall, the border between Canada and the United States, a prison wall or a property line on our farms. At the same time we are a civilization that denies limits. There are no limits to the stock market, consumerism, or fuel consumption. This notion is codified in the statement – "you can't stand in the way of progress."

So how do we know when a boundary is a good thing and when it is a bad thing? How can we tell the difference? I would offer a paraphrase of Aldo Leopold's ethic. A boundary is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. A boundary is wrong when it does otherwise.

Integrity implies that no part or element of the biotic community is wanting. It is material wholeness, unimpaired. Integrity carries with it the notion of health.

Stability is a more difficult word when it comes to the ever changing nature of the biotic community. Ecologists generally mean five things when they refer to stability: mathematical stability, resilience, resistance, persistence of species and variability. (Ives and Klug: "Stability and Variability in Competitive Communities" Science vol. 286, 15 Oct. 1999.) In the context of boundaries, resilience probably comes closest to what Leopold meant in his elegant formulation.

Finally, beauty is the combination of qualities which give pleasure. Beauty is hardwired into humanity because it signals biological "harmony". Beauty helps tell us when something has integrity.

Today I would like to think with you about some boundaries we need to honor as a matter of being a member of the community on earth. I would also like to think with you about boundaries that cause harm, separating us spiritually and physically from the Other Beings of this community.

Let me begin by telling my story of discovering the relationship of seeds to humans. During the 1980s I worked for the University of Colorado as an archeologist in charge of two research projects. The first project was to study the change in Anasazi food processing tools over the time span from 600-950 AD. The Anasazi are the ancestors of the modern Puebloan Indians n the desert southwest of the United States. My second major research project looked at Anasazi ritual. As you might guess, the rituals of the Anasazi had a lot to do with agriculture and food. For those years that I spent in the company of the Old Ones, the Dead Ones, I learned a great deal about how culture articulates humanity with the natural world. In the case of the Anasazi and the modern Puebloans, their ritual life creates and created a seamless fabric of the people and the plants and animals that shared their world.

The Hopi, one of the most famous of the Pueblo tribes, have planting and harvest rituals that guarantee rain at the right times, reduced crop predation by birds, adequate nutrition in the dead of winter and redistribution of food so that no one goes hungry. These cultural practices recognize seeds and Other Beings as Kin to humans, not objects to be used exclusively for the benefit of the human. Gary Nabhan describes a similar relationship between plants and a people named the Kuna in Panama. He says, "Kuna shamans use....plants, and teach that they are living things that think, feel, and hear, friends of the Kuna that exist for mutual preservation, the death of one spelling the extinction of the other. (Enduring Seeds, pg. 105)

Many people have commented that when we entered into agricultural processes, that is, domesticating processes, we also situated ourselves outside of nature. Barry Lopez says it this way, "The desire is that, our colonial conquests of the human and natural world finally at an end, we will find our way back to a more equitable set of relationships with all we have subjugated. I say back because the early cultures from which Western civilization evolved, such as the Magdelenian phase of Cro-Magnon culture in Europe, apparently had a less contentious arrangement with nature before the development of agriculture in Northern Mesopotamia." (Crossing Open Ground, pg. 197)

The question then before us, is can seeds, many of which we have domesticated and made dependent on us, serve as teachers of right relationships? Some of us have considered our relationship to nature and begin by thinking of relating more closely with animals. I suspect we have further to go in making common cause with plants.

We have created artificial boundaries between us and the rest of the world through our creation myths and our sense of self importance. We do not consider ourselves part of nature. When we say the word "environment" we think of ourselves as separate – as if a line or boundary were drawn between us and nature.

This boundary is not serving us well. We have deluded ourselves to think that we actually can live off of chemicals rather than seeds, that we can poison the earth without poisoning our own bodies, and that we can manipulate every other species for our own use – whether it is developing pig biotechnology that will generate organs for human transplant or seeds which produce plastics. We have forgotten that we are made of every green thing. All living creatures depend on photosynthesis. (Anderson: "The Green Man" in Orion, 1995. Pg. 7)

Our domination of nature has been going on since the inception of agriculture yet, over the past two decades humanity has fundamentally changed its relationships to seeds, and hence to nature by being able to move DNA from one kingdom to another. The biosafety Protocol which was negotiated in Montreal last month defines "Modern biotechnology" as "the fusion of cells beyond the taxonomic family that overcome natural physiological reproductive or recombination barriers and that are not techniques used in traditional breeding and selection."

Genetic Engineering raises a profound ethical and ecological question. What is the relationship of humanity to the rest of the natural world? We have known for some time that we dominate nature. In fact, most of the major scientific questions before us must address the consequences of a totally human dominated planet. Just to give you a picture of where we stand – and I might add, genetic engineering is just one more example of human domination – let me quickly describe the consequences of this human domination – particularly through agriculture.

1. We have transformed the land and the sea – through land clearing, forestry, grazing, urbanization, mining, trawling dredging.
2. We have altered the major biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen, water, synthetic chemicals.
3. We have added and removed species and genetically distinct populations – via habitat alteration or loss, hunting, fishing and invasions of species. (Vitusek in Lubchenco Science January 1998)

Genetic engineering is not only part of the same pathology but now threatens to amplify many of these pathological symptoms by obliterating natural boundaries established through evolution. For instance, The creation of super weed species through out-crossing of canola with wild mustard and the vast increased use of herbicides may destroy native populations of plants because the Superweeds will outcompete and the herbicides will destroy them. Genetically modified trees which have no pollen and no seeds could drastically reduce insect pollinators and birds which feed on them.

What this means is that not only are we dominating the planet but we now assume that the planet revolves around us. It was a huge theological and scientific shock to humanity to discover that the sun did not revolve around the earth. The new revolution in science will be to discover that Earth does not revolve around us.

But the alternative to an anthropocentric universe is lovely and full of hope. Larry Rasmussen has said that THE scientific discovery of the 20th century is that the earth is a community. Aldo Leopold said it another way: ". . a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members and also respect for the community as such."

We need to take the boundary between humanity and nature and use it to draw a circle around us so that the circle encompasses Human Beings and all Other Beings.

To paraphrase the Desiderata, we have a right to be here, no less than the trees and the stars – and no more.

Replacing the boundary between us which prevents communion will be webs, nests and veins of respect, gratitude and reciprocity.

I delight in the idea of reciprocity with the plant kingdom. When a plant exhales, it gives me oxygen. When I exhale I feed a plant carbon dioxide. This is reciprocity. I offer plants food and they offer it back. Our lives become mutually enhancing rather than simply mutual destruction. I would submit to you that fully recognizing reciprocal relationships with plants will teach us more about our relationships with animals. We've always known we could be food for bear or tiger. But here we can also be food for plants. When I die, I wish to be buried so that I can feed plants. It will mean that I can't be embalmed or entombed in concrete. Plants have been my food. This is the least I can do for them. In turn, having become grass, I will be eaten by a cow or buffalo – giving my life back to those who gave me theirs.

Communion is also fostered by gratitude – a recognition and thankfulness for the reciprocity.

We also need to bring respect to bear on our relationships with the other than human world. I've been fascinated by how we describe homo sapiens – we certainly are enamored with our big brains. Using humans as the measuring stick of all good and value doesn't help establish reciprocal relationships with beings that have roots and an affinity for chlorophyll.

We need to respect boundaries established through nature, not so much those created out of human artifice. The psychologists of our age urge us to respect each other's boundaries. But that hasn't translated into humanity's fundamental respect for Other Beings – Respect for their integrity and respect for the boundaries established by the natural world. When the Biosafety Protocol defined biotechnology as "the fusion of cells beyond the taxonomic family that overcome natural physiological reproductive or recombination barriers and that are not techniques used in traditional breeding and selection" we see clearly, that biotechnology overrides the basic boundaries between taxonomic families laid down as part of the architecture of the world. We ignore those boundaries at our own peril.

So herein lies the task: we must dismantle the boundary that deceives us into thinking we are separate from the natural world. And we must honor the boundaries established by nature herself – watersheds, kingdoms and families, seasons, day and night.

It is a spiritual task. It is a cultural task. It is a task of survival.

If we are going to fundamentally change our relationship to the Natural World, beginning with the plant kingdom there are some wonderfully creative things we can do, especially here on the Great Plains. Let me sketch out some ideas with broad brush strokes.

1. One of the first things we might do is reconfigure disciplines in the university. How can we unearth (or re-earth) a connection between art, ethics, culture and science? I am most familiar with science and the terror of scientists at taking an ethical position. Scientists lose their careers and financial standing when they say that a scientific practice is fundamentally wrong. Martha Crouch at Indiana University announced that she would no longer work in a laboratory doing molecular biology because her research was used by transnational corporations to damage nature, agricultural systems and native cultures. She was prohibited from teaching biology in the classroom because of her ethical stance. What happens when we disconnect – create a boundary – between matters of conscience and science.

Similarly, there are very few stories, myths and songs about seed collections, seed breeding, local foods. I had to look really hard for stories about seeds. We have the Tree of Life which doesn't hold up too well on the Great Plains. We have the Green Man, Persephone, Demeter, and Psyche sorting the seeds of the universe. We have Jesus teaching about the mustard seed. As importantly we have Jesus healing a blind man in the 8th chapter of Mark. The blind man says that he sees men, but that they look like trees, walking.

But wouldn't it be wonderful if the university was a place where science and art could celebrate the natural world? What if our local universities sponsored story telling workshops and creative writing about farming and gardening.

I also await the first TV sitcom about gardening and farming that pays respect to the very Beings that give us life.

2. We must create expansive sanctuaries for Beings, plants and animals that are threatened by the onslaught of industrialization and globalization. We have created sanctuaries for people in Latin America escaping from terrorist regimes. Perhaps we need to do that with plants and animals which may be genetically engineered.

In January, in the United States, one of the lead agencies regulating Genetically Modified Organisms announced a complicated formula and set of restrictions for farmers planting Bt corn. The most important regulation had to do with the size and quality of what they call "refugia" – refuges of non-GMO crops to harbor insects so they don't develop resistance to the engineered Bt. The word refugia. Let's take it back and create whole regions of refuges or sanctuaries for plants, insects and other Beings, where they are safe from engineering, and boundary transgressions.

A model for this is the Biosphere Reserve concept which originated with UNESCO as a strategy for conserving both natural landscapes where humans have had little impact, and adjacent cultural landscapes where native farmers, hunters and gatherers have found ways to continue their subsistence activities without depleting scarce resources. A Biosphere Reserve creates a protected area where traditional uses of plants and animals by indigenous peoples persist without interference from outside pressures. (See Nabhan, "Enduring Seeds" pg. 104).

As you might guess, this reconfigures the boundaries from the legal lines around my farm and garden and encompasses a region. My husband Fred has been writing about a new vision for Organic Agriculture which would weave together organic farms and the wild areas around them. This dissolves the artificial boundary around organic farms and recognizes that we are not little islands of purity. Can you imagine whole foodsheds which are certified, not only as organic, but as sanctuaries?

3. Of course there are other things we can do. We can inaugurate Seed exchanges at all regional conferences. These seed exchanges should emphasize locally bred and grown, open pollinated seeds.
4. We need to maintain the stories of seed history. We certainly read those stories attached to prize animals like horses, poodles and bulls, but rarely record the lineage and story of the seeds that we grow. Even the seed exchanges hosted by the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society aren't accompanied by the histories of the seeds. You may remember Barbara MClintock, the geneticist who won the Nobel Prize for her work on corn. She knew the life history of every corn plant – not just every variety – in her plots. It gives the word plot both the meaning of a piece of ground as well as that of a story.
5. We can Identify the Johnny Appleseeds among us. I have several friends in the Great Plains who are wizards with plants and seeds. Things grow in their presence. Plants tell these men and women their secrets. Our Johnny Appleseeds need to be recognized and charged with protecting the germ plasm that "belongs" to them – belonging in the deeply spiritual sense, not the financial sense.
6. We might create herbariums and arboretums for the garden and farm plants that grow in our regions. First Peoples have worked diligently to record the uses of native, medicinal and food plants. We need to be as diligent about all of the plants and seeds that make home with us. These must be living breathing herbaria, not dead, museum pieces.
7. More of us might begin to participate in farmer seed breeding clubs as described by the brilliant Canadian, Raoul Robinson. In North Dakota we are planning on breeding some seeds for our farms based on Robinson's concepts of horizontal resistance. A similar idea is that we might participate in the Farmer Genome Projects based in Oregon. Farmers and gardeners grow out seeds in the seed banks and publish the results. This locks the germ plasm into the public domain and prevents patenting. It also keeps the seeds alive since seeds need to be planted.
8. But here is the important recommendation, we can begin to listen in on the conversations between plants and other species. Mark Deyrup says, "the language of life is in the relationships between organisms; each species appears in many contexts, where it can take on different meanings. The catalog of species is only the dictionary of life. Pollination ecology gives us a chance to observe the diversity of biological relationships: since it involves communication between plants and animals, we can, with a little patience and ingenuity, listen in on the conversations." (Wild Earth, winter 1999-2000 pg. 53) W. H. Auden calls this kind of listening "prayer" (Introduction to Eiseley's "The Star Thrower" pg. 20). When we pray in this way, by tuning in to the voices of the Other, we stand a chance of recovering our own souls – farmer and scientist alike.

In conclusion, the first Christmas I celebrated in North Dakota, I asked my husband if we could drive the 25 miles from our house to our barnyard to verify the old story that all the animals speak at midnight on Christmas Eve. Fred is prone to indulging the wims of his younger, headstrong wife. So off we went on an icy cold winter night, long after we were normally asleep. We got to the farm yard and the dog, cats, horse and cattle were perplexed. The horse whinnied, the dog barked. The cats meowed, and the cows mooed and looked for their calves. What were the humans up to now? Fred and I sang Silent Night in German, Fred's first language and we talked back to the animals in theirs. I got Fred to imitate the cow bawling for her babies.

Under the starry sky, surrounded by all of these animals. I realized the myth was right. The animals did talk at midnight on Christmas Eve. What I had missed is that not only did they talk on Christmas Eve, they talked all the time.

I thought about this experience as I wrote this talk, wondering what I am missing in the language of the plants. How will this alter my listening and therefore this attitude of prayer? What prayers might I make this summer that will help to weave me and my garden together? I considered the great prayer taught by Jesus. Give us this day our Daily Bread and Forgive us Our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. I love this prayer, particularly for the notion of recognizing the boundaries and asking for forgiveness for transgressing them – much as Lopez' prayer asks forgiveness of the earth. But I am struck by how, once again, we humans are speaking rather than engaging in the other part of prayer – listening. Even in this part of the dialogue of prayer we are not offering reciprocity, respect and gratitude.

There is a Sioux saying that the holy silence is God's voice. Who better to tend to this voice than farmers and gardeners? Who better to heal the rift between humans and the rest of the world? So I commend to you the task of honoring boundaries established by nature and dismantling the boundaries that mislead us into thinking that we are separate. As we participate fully in the communing, rooting, breathing, birthing, dying, singing, world around us we will hear the Holy Silence, the Voice of God.