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A Certain Kind of Truth

by Helge Hellberg | April 16th, 2011

I am experiencing a certain kind of truth every day in my work. It’s the kind of truth that one does not need to argue – the kind that does not depend on who is the more skillful debater. It’s the truth that I knew when I was six or seven years old – an undeniable, agenda-less, observed, felt-in-your-face truth. It’s the kind of straightforward truth adults have to laugh about, blushing, when children catch them with it.

In their hearts, local organic food producers relate to the land in this truthful way – caring, observing, learning, and adjusting, constantly and respectfully, as tenants of the land. They understand, accept and even embrace that it is nature that feeds us. Not the grocery store, not the food manufacturer, but something so much bigger. Working with farmers warms my heart, feeds my soul, and reminds me of my childhood’s innocence. What a precious gift this experience is.

This truthful and humble dialog with nature has endless rewards. At a time when the pressure of economics and development has caused the death of 400 family farms in the United States every week for the last 30 years – that’s 56 farms a day, or one farm every 25 minutes – small-scale local organic producers throughout the country are able to survive as we begin to remember the importance of the story of our food, to know where our food comes from and to care about how it was produced. At a time when signs around the San Francisco Bay warn us to not ingest more than one fish a month because of the toxic pollution levels in the water and bay bottom, the Coho salmon are beginning to return to Marin County, just north of the Golden Gate, after 30 years of near extinction.

A rise in awareness of and eco-literacy about the food we eat and the choices we make every day, is taking place.

In this context, the debate over “organic versus local” food production seems incomplete and missing the point, as neither one in itself offers a true solution. “Industrial organic” could mean that one single crop is grown on thousands of acres and then shipped halfway around the globe. This brings as many challenges to our society as local non-organic production, which could potentially mean that toxic pesticides are used closer to your home. Local and organic farmers who follow small-scale, artisan production methods and add a personal story to their work will thrive in the future because they offer a truly wholesome product. Theirs is the kind of food that respects life and nourishes not just our bodies, but our spirit, heart, environment, and community, as well.

In fact, by definition, food that tells the story of the land, the season and the farmer is the only real food that exists. According to Webster’s Dictionary, “food” is defined as “something that nourishes us” and “nourishment” is defined as “…to foster and sustain life” – attributes that many so-called “foods” in the marketplace no longer possess, or never had to begin with.

Even though our minds may forget that it is the land that feeds us, our bodies will not. Our love for the land is cellular.

So, the next time you hold that bunch of local organic carrots up to your nose to take a deep, earthy whiff of healthy soil, close your eyes for a moment, and pause. You might connect to something deep inside you and realize that by eating local organic food your innocence and internal truth is nurtured too.

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The Space Between Exhale and Inhale

by Helge Hellberg | October 10th, 2009

Usually, breathing is referred to as inhale and exhale. But when we relax and pay attention, we’ll find that there is a third part, a space in-between the time of the exhale and the inhale – a pause, a few seconds, a space in time when there is nothing, a moment during which the world inside of us quiets.

That space is my universe. In that space, I know I don’t need to remember to breathe in, my body remembers for me. And I don’t have to control its length, my body knows how long it should be.

In that space, I actually don’t feel that I am breathing, but that I am breathed.

In that space, for a moment, I can stop chasing whatever we chase in life: happiness, money, the train, the kids, the dog, or our own tail. No more chasing – for a moment.

In the space between out-breath and in-breath I reside, and, consciously or not, I am surrendered to something much larger than me.

Instead of chasing the world, I can follow. And by following, I have arrived, manifested in my essence, which is always there, and always has been, to find a language older than words*, to find the letter to myself that was written a long time ago.

And the most amazing thing is that this space, this opportunity, resides in my chest every twelve seconds.

Thank you, to whoever is breathing me.

(“A Language older than Words” – inspired by Derrick Jensen, http://derrickjensen.org)

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Life Beneath the Surface

by Helge Hellberg | May 13th, 2009

There is a universe beneath our feet – billions of micro-organisms in a teaspoon full of healthy, organic soil. Fungi, earth worms, bacteria, nematodes, and other organisms, arranging themselves in a constantly changing world of death and live, dormantness and decay – all doing their part to make plants grow.

Scientists believe that there is more biological life in a shoe-box full of healthy soil than on the entire surface of the continental United States.

While this world that we call dirt could teach us amazing things, only a tiny fraction of these micro-organisms have been studied, much less their relationship to each other.

It’s beautiful to see how far we have come as a society, and that we are able to reach the moon, and even further – yet amazingly surprising that we don’t understand the very soil we are launching our truly brilliant technology from.

As a society, our well-being is dependant on our relationship to the earth, and any future must be grounded in a deeply rooted understanding of ecology. Soil – soil that one day we will turn back into – is a study of relationships that is missing in this society.

Relationships between us as a people, our natural environment, our food, and ultimately ourselves, all connected in the web of life. The carrot we eat is the result of billions of relationships underneath the surface, plus hundreds of relationships above it.

Life is the result of relationships, and soil teaches us about our interdependencies between one another, if we look closely enough.

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A Carrot is a Memory Stick

by Helge Hellberg | April 8th, 2009

A carrot seed is less than half a millimeter in diameter; a tiny speck of dirt, dust in the wind. And yet it contains millions of years of DNA, intelligence that, once put into soil with a bit of water, turns the seed into a big, orange, healthy, nutrient rich, delicious, bioflavonoid packed, eye disease preventing vegetable. And if this is not enough, halfway through the growing cycle, the seed knows to produce carrot tops – an exceptionally efficient solar power plant that supplies the carrot with energy converted straight from sunlight through photosynthesis. During the growth from seed to carrot, the carrot collects and stores the climate data, including all environmental nuances of the region, such as soil quality, duration of sunshine, etc., so that the next generation of seeds will be better equipped and adapted than the generations of carrots that have been eaten before. A carrot is a natural memory stick. What a miracle.

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