Purposeful Pigs and Dewberries

It's been a while. I've been busy. Other concerns taking up my time until I realize my batteries are low. I'm not myself. I'm feeling low...blue...no...I think it's disconnected. And so I return to the garden and the moment I see the raspberry ripe in my backyard I know what I need to do. I eat it! And I am filled with the knowing that I am swimming in the unconditional love that the earth provides for us. How is it possible to forget this? My batteries begin to flicker with life... Wait. Batteries? Where did batteries come from? It is my spirit awakening...reaching out. And amazingly enough, my garden reaches back! I have been foraging, harvesting and preserving food for the winter. Jars of unconditional love in my cold room, bags of spiritual renewel in my freezer and wrapping itself gently around my hips and belly, the comfort of knowing that despite everything, mother earth is alive and well within and around me. I wake up with a purpose for each day. Today we are going blueberry picking, tomorrow we'll harvest the peas and beans...Wednesday we'll be canning peaches. A couple of weeks ago I was listening to a segment from Deconstructing Dinner examining the food industry. In it they were talking to a woman who had observed pigs at a factory farm. She made the observation that the sows who were fed regularly while enclosed in a very small space (barely enough room to lay down) appeared to be in a state of almost catatonic depression. (I've heard there is prozac for dogs...why wouldn't pigs get depressed? I definitely would if I were forced to live in those conditions.) Anyway, when she was asked about why a pig would be depressed she maintained that it would likely be the same reasons that humans are...disconnection from a purposeful life. So what is a purposeful life for a pig? Foraging for food! This summer my eleven year old daughter discovered berry picking. She was at her grandmother's house (where I grew up) and the ditches on the driveway were filled with wild strawberries and in the forest she found more dewberries than I have ever seen before! Her goal...dewberry jam! She spent hours wandering around in the forest until her eyes became so sharp she could spot the berries from quite a distance. She was very disappointed when we had to leave before she had gathered enough. When I asked her why dewberries were her favorite she said it was like finding treasure. We are surrounded by generous treasures, gifts of love from the earth to us. Thank-you mother earth for finding me in the garden, my daughter in the forest, and reminding us how much we are loved. Now if all of the earth's creatures could experience that spiritual reawakening! The pigs at First Nature Farms are pretty lucky!