Glory

written by

Drausin Wulsin

posted on

April 25, 2019

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This brief perennial embrace between dogwood and redbud celebrates the glory of spring.

What an exquisite moment this is when both trees are blooming, to expire within a mere week, but bringing a sense of beauty, grace, and glory to all that follows.

This observation raises a question, what is glory? We don't employ this word much in common vernacular, but it is defined as praise, honor, or distinction, extended by common consent. Joel Salatin was recently in town for a food symposium and employed this term. He offered that we need to glorify all that is beneath and around us before we can begin to attain the same for ourselves.

The regenerative food movement, of which you and we are essential parts, glorifies that beneath and around us, while the industrial food system denigrates for financial gain. The regenerative movement allows pigs to wallow, beeves to migrate, chickens to know fresh grass, and hens to roam. It honors the soil that is home to billions of life-giving microbes, it protects springs offering water, it takes lightly from forests, and it reveres the literal bedrock upon which all stands. It is also kind to fellow human beings.

Shakespeare, in As You Like It, addresses this very ethic of respectful living:

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.  

This is what it means to glorify; it is the ability to find conversation with all matter and to find good in every thing. This entails listening and caring about every link in one's chain. Glorifying others, animate and inanimate, is a loving act, reflecting a form of craftsmanship. When we extend this love to our landscape, our being is elevated. We become authentic to ourselves, and forces of spirit can then rise up through our middle, miraculously enabling us to go where we need to go and be who we need to be. This is strength and power, and though small by count in each of us, it is mighty when aggregated with like spirits.

The industrial food system, by contrast, extracts, demeans, and overrides the symphony of messages emanating from the landscape. These messages are too complex for the industrial algorithm to consider, given the simple mandate for least-cost production. Least-cost production reduces the spirit of humans, animals, and inanimates, eliminates individual expression, and disregards the whole. But it does deliver at least-cost, in the short run. In the long-run, the cost of its narcissistic disregard becomes staggering. Toxic calories are being delivered to unsuspecting populations, who are clearly suffering from ever-rising costs of health care. There is no love in the industrial food equation and there is no glory in its products. 

In contrast, regenerative agriculture lets the pig be the pig, delivering its entire spectrum of nutrients and its rich spirit to you for your nurture. Glory is love and love is health. There is no short cut to health.





This week we dug deep to work further on our all-important water-system, both draining 900 feet of water from a wet area and delivering water to two locations in a highly used field, via 1,000 feet of underground pipe. It seems we are always moving water, either away from a location or to a location, each for different purposes. In the picture below, a 2-inch brass saddle is attached to the current 2-inch water main. A 1-inch hose is attached to the saddle, and runs to the end of the field, providing 2 new watering points, 500 feet apart. We believe this investment will pay off in terms of improved animal and human performance. 



Last week we hosted a group of naturalists from the nearby Highland Nature Sanctuary. It was gratifying and inspiring to be with those who care so much about the ecosystem, similar to customers at HPFM. Our dependence on each other is total.






Easter dinner delivered aged lamb chops, fried eggs sauteed in beef broth, and rappini. The chops were cooked 2 minutes per side. So good.



Beth and Bob will be attending the market on Sunday, generously affording us the glory of a visit from young grandchildren.

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