Connect With the Land

"When was the last time we looked at a flower with love as it asks nothing of us but to please us..."

In the mid 1990s, the Russian economy was experiencing severe difficulties, a country struggling in its attempt to move from a central planned economy to a modern market economy.   GDP was dropping rapidly (-12%), unemployment growing and there was rampant inflation (21% per month).  Despite all of the economic uncertainty the people managed to somehow survive.  One reason may have had to do with the peoples' right to individually own a plot of land.  Most Russians were (and are) avid gardeners - 54% percent of Russia's food supply is generated by backyard gardens.

Now the Russian predisposition towards gardening is not a surprise to me.  My wife came to Canada from Russia about six years ago and her first activity upon arrival was to transform our backyard into vegetable, fruit and flower gardens.  When visitors of Russian decent come to visit our backyard they invariably state that they feel like they are back in Russia.  My wife talks a great deal about a person called Anastasia and the books written about her dating back to the mid-1990's.  See  Anastasia (The Ringing Cedars, Book 1) .  

The series of 9 books were written in Russian but the first book, written in the mid-1990s, had been translated into English and more were in the works.  The books took Russia by storm.  Simply by word of mouth (no advertising) the book series sold more than 10 Million copies and had convinced some Russians to change their way of life - move to the countryside and start farming.  When a book about the universe and gardening takes a country like Russia (known for gardening) by storm you have to take notice. 

And so I did take notice.  In 2003, I was ordered to read the first book (by my wife).  I must confess that I found the book to be way out there in terms of credibility.  It certainly requires the ability to suspend one's belief to make it through the book.  The style of writing causes a polarized reaction among readers.  You will either love it or hate it.  There is no in between.  You can see this from the reviews of the first book at Amazon.com. 

Instead of trying to write my own book report I would provide some direct quotes from customer reviews at amazon.com:

"Anastasia has a powerful story to tell. Once you hear the story you will not look at the blade of grass reaching up through the cement side walk in the same way. The blue sky will radiate with new meaning. The animals who call earth their home will no longer seem like artifacts of the background noise. In fact, the background noise will suddenly narrow to all the superficial gadgets, social artifice, political posturing, historical manipulation, economic fallacy, physical disfiguration, and the ever increasing "data cloud" of distraction that we call our lives... Since reading the first book, and even more since reading all 9 books, I am obsessed with getting back to the land. I am designing our family's "space of love" or domain in my head until I am able to find the physical place. I am planning our future gardens. In the meantime, I am buying only organic, biodynamic foods that are not poisoned by chemicals and genetic monkey business so that my family can have a chance at healing. The incredible relevance of these simple acts becomes crystal clear upon reading these books. Farming has never had the revolutionary potential it has today."

"I found her insights into growing food to be superior to anything I have ever read on the subject. I put this method into practice and the value her words added to my communion with living edible plants pre and post consumption was and continues to be monumental."

The message I extracted from my read of the first book in the Anastasia series was that our ancestors had a connection with the land and that we must rediscover this connection.  As if to reinforce this message, my wife insisted that I submit to some (apparently) whacko ritiuals when planting tomato seeds.  This included placing the seeds in my mouth under my tongue for nine minutes before planting them. Now this seemed pretty silly at the time but modern science is now starting to clue into the symbiotic relationship between an entity and it's environment.  For example, we are now learning that ants use bacteria to protect their food supply against predators.  The "ritual" that Anastasia uses when planting seeds could be the deposition of one's own bacteria on and around the garden...

If you do nothing else today then at least watch this interview of Leonid Sharaskin, the man who translated the Anastasia series into English.