Bringer of Death

posted in: Understanding Gaia | 1

Not too long ago an accomplished gardener noted to me that growing food is more about taking life than giving it. Much of one’s time is spent weeding, ‘managing’ pests, reaping crops, etc., you know, killing things. Very little is about planting, or bringing life. That has stuck with me—partly because I struggle with that a bit as I spend a few hours a week farming at a local community supported farm, sometimes killing pests, mostly pulling plant after plant after plant that are just trying to make a go at it, and rarely harvesting veggies! And partly because that insight was a complete inversion of the romantic understanding of gardening. So below is a poem recognizing the violence and even trans-moral reality of cultivating food. (In traditional terms, at least. Gaian ethics recognizes our interdependence and embedded eat-and-be-eaten reality of life—a reality humans will never escape.) While the poem itself could have used some additional weeding and tilling, hopefully it’s passable as a Gaian Reflection!

Go with Gaia,

Erik

This Gardener’s cute gloves mask the violent nature of her actions…. (Image from summa via Pixabay)

Bringer of death

I am a Gardener, bringer of death. Destroyer of worlds.
Weeds yanked by their roots.
Beetles squished between my fingers.
Slugs cast into saltwater.
Even wayward cultivars pulled for simply being
In the wrong place or the wrong time.

Gardening is violent.
Gardening is to become the master of a microcosm.
To become a god.
Not God, for there is no omnipotence in a garden.
There are many demons to haunt one’s world building.

Jaws—god of all locusts, slugs, beetles, and caterpillars.
Storm—god of all droughts, heavy rains, and summertime hail.
Chance—god of overwhelming zucchini and one single cabbage.
Rot—who eventually conquers the most beautiful garden.

Hail Jaws, god of tiny plant predators! (Image from Tsippendale via Pixabay)

So not God—a minor demi-god in a cast of accomplished adversaries.
But one with some power—the power to kill and, through that death,
To bring new life:

Fruits of one’s labor—of one’s violence—tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, and cukes.
A veritable salad to nourish and heal and sustain one’s toils.
Strengthened relationships and interdependence,
Of shared abundance and distributed burden.
Greensong made up of the swaying of corn stalks
And the drops of rain caught in broad squash leaves.
An entire ecosystem filled with beings beyond morality, living their lives,
trying to feast on chard while avoiding the questing fingers of Death.
This is the true calling of a Gardener, to sacrifice some lives for others
With the hope that the calculus is just, and the landscape delicious.

Life and death in one bunch. (Image from valenciamarkyv69 via Pixabay)

Special thanks go to the wise gardeners and farmers in my life, who have shared and modeled this wisdom. And yes, to Robert Oppenheimer, who inspired the title and opening line.

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  1. Ann Bright

    Thank you! This is right where I’ve been the past few days as I’ve been pulling huge weeds that have popped up during our monsoons in Arizona. Each weed I pull sends bugs scurrying away, and I feel so bad for not only killing the weed which had burst to life but also destroying the home and food of the insects. We have so little green here in the desert that it seems a waste to destroy any plant.

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