The Helpful Gardener
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Various Schools Of Natural Farming

I do not particularly like the word "work".
F-san isn't scared of labor; this is clear from his farm and his practices. But it is clear he means to make something more of his practice, his endeavors mean more than simple toil.
I went on to say that among natural farming methods two kinds can be distinguished: broad transcendent natural farming and the narrow natural farming of the relative world.
He further divides these two as the farming of spirit vs.. the farming of intellect. Anyone who has followed my diatribes knows full well my justification of organic culture through scientific proof, and my eschewing of standardized agriculture based on it's damages to the natural world, but F-san challenges me further. It goes beyond this rational embrace of organics, to the Zen-like focus of natural farming.
...in trancendant natural farming the relationship between humanity and nature can be compared to a husband and wife joined in perfect marriage. The marriage is not bestowed, not recieved; the perfect pair comes into existence of itself.
Can we in America adopt this to fit our current lifestyles? Or is this something we must embrace in contrastor even direct opposition to our modern lifestyles? Is there a middle road?

HG

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rainbowgardener
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"Can we in America adopt this to fit our current lifestyles? Or is this something we must embrace in contrastor even direct opposition to our modern lifestyles? Is there a middle road? "

Good questions... I love the idea of the simple spiritual close to the earth life he describes in this chapter and the previous one, but it isn't really how I am living, with my car, computer, job, TV...

I keep trying to inch closer to it, but I'm not sure if we can get there by inches.

****

Ursula LeGuin, one of my favorite authors, talks (I believe in her Utopian novel Dispossessed ) about the notion of work. She proposes a different distinction: work/play vs drudgery. Work/play is more like Fukuoka's "making your living by living." It is all the kinds of "work" people do that bring joy, use creativity, whether working in the fields, creating things (e.g. weaving a beautiful and useful basket) etc. Drudgery is some of the stuff that just has to be done to keep everything going, cleaning out the sewer lines, washing the dishes. So the task is to minimize, then share equally, the drudgery, while enabling everyone to do work/play.

muland
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I'm not sure that we can adapt Fukuoka's philosophy to fit our current life styles. It's a challenge for me, too. It comes down to a way of thinking (or not-thinking). Presumably with the new frame of mind the outward contradictions will fall away. Pretty hard to imagine given what we simply cannot live without. :cry:



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