Keeping The Seeds Alive

I have this quote from Martin Prechtel as a footer on my emails. It is from his book "An Uneasy 

Peace at Cuchumaquic," an amazing book which took me about a year to read. I kept fighting

with his reality when it didn't conform with mine. In the end, surrendered to what he 

was saying and I believe this message is the most important, and eye opening, message 

from the book: 

This is what is at the core of keeping the seeds alive and 

must be done physically for years to comprehend and make 

happen. It cannot be thought into reality; it can only be done 

with work. And because “seed” culture has been discarded 

from the “progress” -oriented  world, keeping this kind of seed 

consciousness alive in one's life can look somewhat like 

planting olive trees in an active warzone, a psychological war 

going on within ourselves, where like olives that don't bear for 

a long while we must nevertheless continue to cultivate with 

the faith of seeds that we are actually planting for a time 

beyond our own.  

– Martín Prechtel, An Uneasy Peace at Cuchumaquic

These last few years, with so much divisiveness in our public lives, without a common 

discourse from the Left and the Right, affirms Prechtel's words, that "we must nevertheless 

continue with the faith of seeds." 

The concept that we we are planting seeds not for us, but for future generations can be an 

intellectual exercise, but Prechtel, is concise when he says we must do the "work" of saving

seed, over and over and over again until we can know what "saving seed" means. Our little 

work in our little seed library is dwarfed by this understanding. 

It is very important that we do this. We will know we are making progress when we can hold

a seed in our hands and think of future generations, in that time beyond our own," blessed 

with the nutrition and flavors that we refused to let die.

david