EcoHearth: Come Home to the Earth

When I was 20, I worked as a nanny for a family in Toulon on the French Mediterranean coast. In exchange for working as housekeeper, babysitter and granny-sitter for three boarding mémés (grandmothers), I learned French. But the greater compensation was the opportunity to encounter plant foods that were treated with reverence—and to experience local food as an art form and cultural celebration. Read on…

LAUNCELOT: Nay, indeed, if you had your eyes, you might fail of the knowing me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of your son: give me your blessing: truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son may, but at the length truth will out.
  - William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, 1596

Many would argue that the Internet has given rise to more lies, more misinformation and more scams—and that it is eroding our society. Like slime mold sussing out the shortest route to the food source, any of us will seek out the sites that appeal most to our individual interests and ideologies. Websites have the power to suck in millions and sway them to a particular point of view. If readers are unlikely to see issues within a broader historical perspective—and carry fear of losing their present way of life in an ever-changing world—there is no shortage of websites to exploit their fears to misinform them. They enchant their fans like the circus master drawing crowds to see the freak. Read on…

As I shared in my previous two blogs, my family recently WWOOFed for three weeks in Italy. Among the farm’s products, pecorino cheese and a sweet, mild yogurt counted toward the virtues of sheep. Additionally, sheep’s wool is nice and their lambs are cute. Otherwise, they are despicable creatures. I quickly understood why these beasts collectively became a religious metaphor for the flock of followers. They look pious but are devious. And they cower when someone seeks to exercise power over them. Read on…

As I described in my previous blog entry, my husband, daughter and I spent three weeks in Italy as WWOOFers (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). I usually began my workday with the youngsters—lambs, kids, chickens and bunnies—helping muck out stalls, clean the coop, and water and feed the critters.

On one spectacular Italian morning, the farm owner’s daughter handed me a juicy cherry. I looked up and noticed its source, the centerpiece of the pen’s piazza. So after breakfast, with no other pressing assignment, I returned to the corral to harvest cherries. Fruits and vegetables were in short supply at mealtime, so gathering what was on hand seemed like a good idea. Read on…

It was a good thing I rode in the back seat on the ride from Innsbruck, Austria, to the farm. My knee-jerk braking against the collision that never happened was not noticeable to our Italian driver. Topping out at about 160 km per hour, we ripped through South Tyrol beyond Trento. A left turn onto a narrow, winding road led us up a tight canyon, flanked by conifer and deciduous forests blanketing steep hillsides to the chin of vertical stone faces. Driving past a medieval castle on a solitary perch, we hair-pinned through the village of Mezzomonte. A couple of switchbacks higher lay our destination: La Fonte—an organic, biodynamic farm. Read on…