I've been writing to the web, consistently, for over a decade now - mostly to individuals or small clusters of friends. For several years recently, I wrote musings to the Eugene Pemaculture Guild listserv. For most of this period, the listserv was not public, and is without archives. I made the following posting in February of 2004, under the subject line 'Peg's Prison Party and Seedswap.' (Jewels, mentioned below, was list moderator.)

If the juxtaposition of subjects in this missive's subject line has got ya wondering, well, here's the skinny. There's an event taking place at Cosmic Pizza on the evening of March 28th that's emerging as a hipster gathering of sorts and I sense a leeetle explanation might help ya to decide whether or not the gig has any legs. (In all my years of posting wid Jewels, this cyberflurry is perraps my longest yet, so I'll try and keep the schtick as snappy as poss.)

Wot ho. Some of you may be aware that Peg Morton, a local Quaker, was recently sentenced to Federal jailtime - the consequence of her third arrest during her yearly pilgrimages to the big peacenik squishfest held annually at the gates of Fort Benning in Georgia. She begins her prison sentence, soon.

Well, wouldn't ya know, there's a local permie tie-in. For starters, Peg and I iz ol' buddies; indeed, our deep friendship was cemented during an overland cross-country trip we both made to Fort Benning (and one of her arrests) back in 2001 with two other women elders, Bonnie and Beth. "Three old ladies and a barefoot guy," they called themselves. Imagine if you will, four strong voices, cooped up in a tin-can, plodding along the freeways of America, all getting to know one another, up close, for da first time. The 'trusty steed' we purchased for the trip found a wrecking yard in Santa Barbara a few days after our departure - just about the same time we were learning that, yup, `World peace begins in the van.' A hitch to south-central LA to the loan of a vehicle from a Friend, got us up and running again and to Georgia and back, with stopovers along the way to share with sympathetic souls around the topic of U.S. military training of foreign nationals and the consequences thereof. (I'll spare you the harrowing first-hand accounts of the consequences, and keep this email to just one pol factoid of note: according to Amnesty International, over 100,000 foreign nationals from 150 countries are now trained in military and police activities in approximately 275 U.S. military schools and installations each year. Didn't know that? Well, wouldn't ya know, very few do.) A defining impulse in Peg's lifelong commitment to non-violence was prompted by her visit to Europe in the very immediate aftermath of World War II and the question it then prompted in her: "What would I have done if I'd been German when the Nazis were in power?" Peg's search for an answer is why she's going to prison. Peg gave me a piccie of herself, and some words, to use on the webpage we created for the trip at: http://bugs.scribble.com/pilgrim.html

Those of you who lurk, I know, on the international permie listserv might remember my "peripatetic permie peacenik"
travelogue, penned as our roadtrip unfolded. Given that permie discussion circles tend to be refreshingly free of political grandstanding and hucksterism (and thank goodness for it, eh?) lemme cut to the quick, and move to the deeper permie rationale for dropping politics into the permie e-thread, then as now.

Innanutshell, protest ain't my cuppa tea. "Light candles, do not curse the darkness," kinda sums up the M.O. And so I avoid protest actions wherever possible. But when I met Peg on a Farmworker March for Justice earlier in 2001 (I'd been asked to help feed it), almost the first words out of her mouth were a request to accompany her overland to Georgia. I generally try to make a point of doing everything I'm asked (confession: three-year-olds asking for cookies just before bedtime always prompt a mini-spiritual crisis), but given that I'm not a protest-placard kinda peacenik, the prospect of thrusting the horrors of the School of the Americas in the faces of everyone between here and Fort Benning made me uneasy. So, I decided to use the opportunity of our cross-country trip to focus on the permie song, instead.

Rumi says, "the arrogant beauty in me is a lover that weeps." To that end, wherever we were invited to present as we crossed the country, I chose to speak to the topic of permaculture as peacemaking. "Wanna shut down the SOA once and for all? Then take up permaculture and here's why," was the gist. And wherever I could, I hosted seedswaps along the way.

Two strong impressions of my seedswapping endeavors come to mind. First, it just so happened that on my way south, a sudden Serendipity dropped me into the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library (BASIL) at the Ecological Literacy Center in Berkeley, which I had no idea existed. There, a friendly face handed me two large boxes and said, "Help yourself!" Some of you may know that for some years now I've been a seedcarrier around town. I carry seed to share, freely. Prior to the roadtrip, I stepped up my search for top quality germplasm and was blessed to be gifted some of the finest seed in our bioregion - gifts from local gardeners and farmers. With my stopover at BASIL, the diversity of the already sizeable seed collection I was carrying, exploded. I pondered the implications deeply as I passed through the Deep South. To wit, if I'd hit the trail announcing "protest rhetoric, hot outta Eugene and Berkeley," I sense that not only would my gentil southern hosts been reluctant to hear me out, but they woulda been legitimately pissed if I'd tried. In all sincerity, I'm a big fan of southern manners. And yet, what _woz_ I sharing? I'm reminded of the dictum, "Permaculture is revolution disguised as gardening." No matter who heard my schtick and learned the provenance of our seed, the response was one of honest, welcoming smiles.

I saw first hand that gifting seed is one of the safest, friendliest and most potentized forms of sharing we can engage in. It affords us a mechanism to tackle injustice, arm-in-arm, with all and everyone, across all tribal boundaries, without threat. It allows us to respect everyone, and their home territories, as great friends and allies. What's more, "this gift of our wisdom of place, has no power, until _you_ plant it, until you and your home-land embrace it, until _you_ make it your own." The correlatives between the sharing of seed and the authentic sharing of wisdom never cease to amaze me. I think it was Emerson who said, "Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of mind." Ah, hippy prattle, ya might think. Well, if the connection between sharing seed and closing the SOA seems tenuous, romantic and silly, read on.

When I got to Georgia, I laid my seed down on the ground at the big protest event close to the gates of Fort Benning and for the better part of a day shouted "Free Seed!" into a crowd of about ten thousand. I think it was Tessa at Abundant Life who told me around a donation for that trip: "Seed wants to be free." Some people stood, bemused, in front of the broad, thick carpet of seeds I had laid on the ground. Why on earth is he doing _that_? Perhaps 150 people talked and took seed from me over the course of that day. And in a handful of hearts, I could see the Lightbulb go on.

Okey, dokey, quick change of tack here, but hold onto the halyard, Horatio. Some years ago I found myself cornering one of the wisest of the Green Sages, and asked him: "I have a sense of what I can do as a gardener to nurture biodiversity. But what can I do as a gardener to specifically nurture social health and diversity?" He paused. "I'll have to get back to you on that one," he said. I was as clueless as he.

Another change of tack, my fellow cybernauts. Fast-forward to Stephanie Chappell's recent posting to this list about the relationship between cultural and linguistic, and biological diversity. I must admit, her posting had me _itching_ to leap indulgently into a capsule synthesis of da topic. But hooey to that: we are already rich in related literature. Many of this nation's most eloquent contemporary writers are much alive to this theme; and some of the best are local, too - as my favorite Oregon expat, David James Duncan, wryly puts it, "Sense of place, as a theme in Western writing, has become a sizeable sacred cow."

Then again, here's a very quick para of research factoids culled from several recent Terralingua publications that tackle the subject, globally: "Pekka Aikio, the President of the Saami Parliament in Finland (and an active reindeer herder), commented (November 2001) on a recently announced discovery by Nordic fish biologists that salmon can spawn in very small rivulets something that biologists had not thought possible. But the Saami, Aikio explained, have always known this: many of the rivulets studied even have a name in Saami that contains the word for salmon spawning ground; In countries around the world, there is a high level of coincidence of endemism for vertebrates and languages, flowering plants and languages, and birds and languages; Muhlhausler (1996) suggests that the physical environment is an intrinsic part of traditional linguistic ecologies, in which no separation is felt to exist "between an external reality or environment on the one hand and the description of this reality or environment on the other"; "Life in a particular human environment is dependent on people's ability to talk about it," Muhlhausler (1995); Anthropologist Norman Tindale has stated: "Coincidences of tribal boundaries to local ecology are not uncommon and imply that a given group of people may achieve stability by becoming the most efficient users of a given area and understanding its potentialities"; As linguistic anthropologist Keith Basso (1996) puts it, wisdom sits in places"; From this perspective, fostering the health and vigour of ecosystems is one and the same goal as fostering the health and vigor of human societies, their cultures and languages."

I could go on. But da point is made: we're awash in prima facie evidence that the link between cultural and biological health is one and the same. The key to conserving/restoring biodiversity anywhere is collectively understanding those places well enough to know what to do. And vice-versa. Culture grows from and blends with the land. As the Gary Paul Nabham quote in the latest issue of Tilth puts it, ya can't restore a landscape without re-storying it. (Come to think on it, the article in which that quote appears, an interview with Dr. Pramod Parajuli, is as must-read as any article I've read in recent memory. It's brimful with gnosis round the theme of this email: "By eating, all of us participate in interspecies communion...work on nature is not possible by one but always requires many co-operating hands...humanity is at the verge of knowing how to create our livelihood while following nature's designs and meeting nature's needs, enriched with the foresight of the past and a vision for the future...a new natural and cultural drama is unfolding." with lotsa realworld examples. And I wasn't surprised to see this rather profound chappie putting in a solid plug for our very own Toby H's Gaias Garden. "Inspiring," he calls it. Amen.)

So, given the direct correlation between culture and landscape and da fact that Monoculture Mind currently has us on a fast-track to Cultural annihilation with huh capital `C', wot next? Wot course to steer, capt'n? Well, I have before me, right now, the seminal academic text (2001) on strategies for "language/culture revitalization." It's fat. And in not one place does it suggest the process might be assisted by the planting of a single pea.

I ask ya. Back to a dusty library shelf for that one.

Nah, we can't nurture human culture without nurturing green culture, in the same breath. Coz theyz one and da same, innit? So here's my ten cents worth. Some years ago, parked on a porch wall at a Food Not Lawns seedswap, awash in the magical glow of it all, I had an epiphany that almost tumbled me backwards into the shrubbery below. Gathering mah wits about me, I've been muttering like an OT prophet blinded by the Light, ever since. A couple of months ago, a green-thumbed buddy who has been picking up on my brief, occasional asides about `seedswaps as microcosmic archetypes' challenged me to order my thoughts and tell her what I've actually been rabbiting on about under my breath all this while. So, in two paras, here's the gist of what I told her:

The Sages insist there is a fundamental unity through all diversity. So, where's the evidence? One of the most potent examples may well be manifested in the palpable reality of the humble seed swap. Think about it. Take two ostensibly separate worlds, that of humans and plants, and imagine any singular occasion that better affords the opportunity to both witness and nurture the energetics of togetherness - between and among them. At a seed swap, is it the people who are collectively engendering deeper and stronger interrelationships in the green world, or vice versa, and then some? Where are the boundaries between the dynamic interplays of these two cultures? Look with eyes that see. They don't exist. They're an illusion. But seeds swaps aren't simply about dropping a veil of separateness, they're fundamentally an activity catalyzing the birth of profound collective synergies and strengths that each realm, plant and human, bring to each other. You'll be hard-pressed to find a higher __expression of the gift of Life to itself, anywhere.

Which is, of course, why seed swaps are where the sharing and creation of real `power' is grounded, not the rootless and utterly temporary abstraction that passes for influence-peddling we see in capitols and elsewhere. Deep gardeners know that you can walk out of a seed swap with a form of authentic power in your pocket with the literal potential to transform the politics of an entire bioregion. And, of course, the cosmic irony is that this form of power transcends all political differences. As the Sages say, conscious evolution is not about gaining power, but becoming power. Perhaps that's why our experience around seed swaps consistently demonstrates that they don't simply attract the finest seed in any locale, but some of the finest people, too. Local seed swaps are where the deepest indigenous wisdom of land and people become most potentized, shared and enlivened; they stand at the arrowpoint of the evolutionary impulse in any place.

Yes, indeedee. I have an intuition the size of Mount Everest, that seedswaps will emerge as the defining cultural phenomenon of the New Millenium. As Marshall McCluhan might put it: they're <b>the seed archetype</b>.

I find, not surprisingly, that I'm not saying anything new. Penning this note, I was looking through an old email from Dominique Guillet - whose article "Seeds: The Stolen Heritage" is the one of the finest pieces on seed consciousness I've yet encountered - especially savvy around the conjuring trick of `hybrid vigor' and disease `resistance.' If you're gonna follow any hyperlink from this piece, follow this one:

http://www.kokopelli.asso.fr/actu/actu_menu.cgi?lang=ang

- when I noticed a pointer from him to an article on the role of the seed in indigenous Peruvian culture: http://www.grain.org/publications/jun983-en.cfm I'll quote the teensiest snippet:

"The essence of the seed fair is to strengthen the breeding of seeds and culture, and to rekindle intra-ethnic (intra-ayllus) and inter-ethnic relations."

It's an utterly fascinating piece. Seminal, in fact. Parajuli has picked up on the trend, too. In Tilth, he sez: "In 1996, I found another prophetic example among the peasants in the Peruvian Andes, where a host of grassroots organizations inspired by Proyecto Andino Tecnologias Campesinas (PRATEC) are revitalizing the age-old practice of exchanging seeds."

Deep natives everywhere are hip to the cosmic dimensions of seedswap ontology. Some years ago, when the Food Not Lawns collective was first finding its feet, we arranged a seed-cleaning/seed-swapping event in the Whiteaker one evening. A little ways into the night, as we sitting on the ground in the driveway around a large tarp, shelling dried beans, a middle-aged Native American man, a complete stranger, walked into our gathering out of the darkness. It transpired he was passing through town that day and someone had alerted him to our event. He told us he was his tribe's seed carrier, and he had spent years traveling this country, arranging seedswaps. That's what he did. Our event was the first seedswap he had ever walked into that he hadn't organized hisself.

I could see the tears in his eyes. We talked awhile about the Red Path before he disappeared into the night. He told us he managed to arrange about five seedswaps a year. Just five a year. A truism that points to the energetics of seedswaps. There is, I find, a sanctuaresque (the adjective of sanctuary?) dimension to them. They are events that simply refuse to be forced.

In a very real sense, evolution hasn't been ready yet for the seedswap phenomenon to catch like wildfire. It hasn't yet been time. The second major impression from my 2001 roadtrip, was how few people were receptive to the seedswap metaphor. In truth, barely a handful of people took seed off me on my way across the country. Perhaps seed-swaps simply don't lend themselves to being organized by outsiders, but I put some good effort into hunting people down to gift them seed. In Birmingham in Alabama, I was able to promote a seedswap on my way to Georgia (meeting with people at the local Botanical Garden and suchlike on the way east) and scheduled an event on my way back to Oregon. Two people turned up to that event. In Oklahoma City, I had a good deal of support on the ground and every avant-gardener within reach, a bare handful, put in an appearance.

We've seen this `muted' response very clearly in our efforts at the local level, hereabouts. Some among us have put a very deal of effort into nurturing seedswaps locally, and yet they have remained, for the most part, smallish events. For ourselves and our immediate circle, of course, these rituals have been, well, both beautiful and effective. But we've also been quite curious to see, given the power of the archetype, how small attendance has remained.

In Eugene we have about two or three major standalone local seed swaps a year (excluding seedswapping that happens as an adjunct to permaculture conferences and suchlike). Our major Spring permie ritual is the Maitreya village seedswap, of course. Food Not Lawns (http://www.foodnotlawns.com) has been actively promoting seedswaps in recent years. Our seedswaps typically attract between 25-50 people. Our biggest was a Fall harvest fair seedswap that attraced about 75 people: our last seedswap, in December of 2003, held in a local, friendly bookstore, attracted about ten, perhaps our smallest yet. I wouldn't put small attendance down to advertising oversight. I'm sure many of you know, the FNL team ain't without experience in matters of the garden or community; we are well-networked locally; we are not unsophisticated propagandists; we "market" these events well; we've been building on tradition for some years now. But the truth is, so far, few people grok `em enough to put in an appearance.

These days I'm working closely with pre-schoolers. I could say my grown-up colleagues and I are teaching them gardening, but we're not. We and the children learn-teach together, and gardening's simply the root metaphor out of which each day emerges as an experiment in the art of living holistically, together. Handholding and being handheld into the garden with children is how local cultures will find their way into Paradise, my experience suggests. I'm finding that the younger the children I work with, the greater their hunger for play around Nature. I'm constantly pushed to explore how we can integrate human and non-human cultures synergistically. Just now I'm using puppets - Mademoiselle Organic Edwina (Organic Ed): "Ze seeds eees where eeez at, mes petits choux," and her horticultural handsock doppelganger, Spitty: "Ptuh!" the stars of the show. Fun stuff.

My work with children has transformed of late as we have moved The Seed to the heart of our play. It is the seeding season, after all. I've long held the vision of nurseries as nurseries, and my experiences of late are confirming my sense that seedwork with children is a foundation stone I've been seeking for a long time. The LIFE blossoming around this activity, in all areas, leaves me transfigured. To paraphrase Thomas Merton, the years of stumbling have brought me to a place that feels nothing like the last gasp of exhausted possibilities but, rather, the definitive birth into a new creation.

Where are we going with this? No idea, but right now, I'm trying to introduce kids to the fundamentals of bioregional seed stewardship. The wherefores, of course, would fill a book - and what it involves I've no idea because we haven't done it yet. (Oh, quick related aside. Pruning fruit trees alongside a savvy local organic farmer yesterday, he tells me he had trouble laying his hands on quantities of Chioggia beet and Mokum carrot seed this season. "A drought in Europe, apparently. That was quite the reality check," he says. "I had no idea.")

And so I'm actively collecting locally-saved seed to grow up with the kids. If you've been saving seed, of any type, or know others who have, would you be so kind as to consider putting some our way? I'll commit to doing my utmost to getting the seed, _and_ the story that goes with it, into the hands of people working with children locally. You can reach me by email or, in person, at the two seedswaps listed below.

Hmm, long note. I had hoped to get into some of the deeper specific correlations between botanical medicine and cultural medicine - between power plants and power language, for example.. But I've kept ya long enough. Anuvver time, perraps.

Peg's Prison Party and Seedswap will be at Cosmic Pizza at 6.00 p.m. on March 28th. Suggested donation is $3-10. No one will be turned away for lack of funds. Moolah raised will support Peg in prison (SSI stops for jailbirds) and the local work of CISCAP and the SOA Watch. The seed will be free.

The Eugene Permaculture Guild Spring Seedswap will be on March 20, Saturday, 10 to 12 Noon at the Maitreya Eco Village. Almaden and Broadway. The seed will be free.

Blessings y'all,

n.

"What interests me are the post-Netwonian, extrabiologic implications of a human species able to think and act using clusters of electrons: _light_, in other words. If the opening act of the evolutionary drama involved a descent from light into matter and language, then it only makes sense that in the closing act, so to speak, we reunite with our photonic progenitor. The role that language - the word - will play in our light-driven metamorphosis is the furry little questions that cranks my squirrel cage. Say, didn't the guinea pig originate in the Peruvian Andes." Switters in Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates, by Tom Robbins.