Heart & Soil
Heart & Soil
The Revolutionary Good of Gardens
Des Kennedy
Copyright © 2014 Des Kennedy
Photographs copyright Des Kennedy except where noted
1 2 3 4 5 — 18 17 16 15 14
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca, 1-800-893-5777, [email protected].
Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.
P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0
www.harbourpublishing.com
Front cover photograph of Des Kennedy by Boomer Jerritt
Edited by Carol Pope
Index by Stephen Ullstrom
Cover and text design by Carleton Wilson
Printed on 30% PCW recycled stock
Printed and bound in Canada
Harbour Publishing acknowledges financial support from the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and from the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-1-55017-632-2 (paper)
ISBN 978-1-55017-634-6 (ebook)
Mud on boots
Kooky grin on your face
Love in your heart
And the whole earth waiting
Grow for it!
PREFACE
As editor of GardenWise magazine for more than a decade, I enjoyed the distinct pleasure of receiving, with every issue, what can only be described as “garden literature” from the ever-eloquent Des Kennedy.
Just what is garden literature? For me, it’s the examination of gardening within the wider context of human experience. The recognition that choosing to live the life of a gardener is essentially a political act, a dedication to values and principles entirely at odds with consumer culture. That gardening is a day-by-day reverence of the life flow of earth, of the harmony so vitally required for the survival of this planet.
And—true to the nature of all literature—this literature must be expressed richly and compellingly in language that seeds a garden of imagery. For me, there is no one who does so more poignantly than Des, author of eight highly acclaimed books and considered by the Globe and Mail to be “one of the best gardening writers in Canada.”
Now as a garden-book editor, I am privileged to support Des in this compilation of heartfelt, often humorous, always thought-provoking reflections about life from the cornerstone of a garden—a collection that honours those who, like the author, have chosen to love a little piece of earth as their way of expressing a greater love for Earth.
Four decades ago—with his partner, Sandy—Des salvaged “a dispiriting miasma of logging slash and stumps” on Denman Island. Pushing back against the dictates of a throwaway society, the couple replanted the sanctuary of forest for native plants and creatures, raised their own food and built a homestead from the very sticks and stones that lay beneath their feet.
And while cultivating the land, Des fought for it, working over many years to enhance the community and environment of Denman Island, including his role as a founding director of a community land trust and his direct involvement in campaigns farther afield—from aboriginal rights to the struggles in both Strathcona Provincial Park and Clayoquot Sound.
Throughout this volume, Des’s richly textured background—including stretches as a monk and a scholar—shines through his musings on the “near-magical properties” and healing powers of a garden. Yet his voice as always remains comfortingly down-to-earth. For as contemplative and far-reaching as his thoughts may be, he is not afraid to poke fun at himself. “Earth laughs in flowers,” says Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Des—shortlisted three times for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour—laughs too. But whether it is at himself wielding a “delinquent pole pruner like a jousting knight his lance” or wheelbarrowing downhill in a slide of “terrifying beauty,” he remains keenly aware of the importance of all those who literally have the earth in their hands.
This is a book that joyfully celebrates the resilience of both the garden and the gardener, that helps us to find our way forward in the championing of the environment that sustains us—and that finds genuine hopefulness for both ourselves and our planet in “the abiding strength of resurgent earth.”
—Carol Pope
INTRODUCTION
It’s a delicious paradox really: that gardening, which may seem from a distance the mildest and most innocuous of activities, can be at heart a revolutionary act. But so it seems to me, as to various guerrilla and renegade gardeners loose upon the landscape. Revolutionary in the sense of precipitating a fundamental alteration of affairs, as well as the overthrow of tyranny. The notion conjures images of wild-eyed gardeners massed in their thousands, brandishing hoes and manure forks as they march up Parliament Hill to oust the scoundrels.
I wish. But, of course, that’s not the gardener’s way. The uprising that begins down among the roots and rhizomes is first of all a transformation of perception. Of how we see the earth, how it feels to our touch, of how showers and breezes and sunshine form the backdrop of our days. We are earthstruck people and that makes all the difference. Seeing the earth for what it is, we are moved to treat it, always, with affectionate attention. We may or may not choose to struggle directly against the forces of uglification and pollution and oppression, but our primary purpose is to go the next step, to help in the work—alongside artists, healers, mystics and others—of creating inspired environments and opportunities for enlightenment.
Up to our gumboots in that process, we come to realize that working with plants in the creation of beauty and the production of food is, in its most highly evolved forms, just what our beleaguered planet needs most urgently: an exercise in harmony. Harmony: the combining of parts, elements or related things, so as to form a consistent and orderly whole, likely to produce an esthetically pleasing effect.
Extracting genetic material from an Arctic flounder and embedding it in the genetic makeup of a strawberry in order to enhance the fruit’s tolerance to cold is not an act of harmony. Consuming forty-five thousand fossil-fuel calories to produce a one-pound steak containing less than a thousand calories is not an act of harmony. Roundup Ready terminator seeds are, at their kernel, tiny packets of profound disharmony.
All of that’s old hat to seasoned gardeners. We have moved beyond identifying and lamenting the problems associated with dominance-driven strategies like genetic engineering and chemical pesticides, not to mention the overarching issue of climate change. And there’s where the true revolution begins: looking instead to develop strategies and solutions based on harmony with the natural world and the human community. That’s our endgame, building communities aligned with nature’s wisdom, places of true beauty, places that provide healthful and abundant food for everyone.
Components of that revolution, although perhaps not reported amid the deluge of mayhem in the daily news, are arising in many places and many people working all over the globe. And the coalescing of those efforts—encompassing