The Way of Change

Yesterday I attended my community garden’s Fall Harvest Party. Someone had rigged up an overhead projector with photos documenting the project from the first meetings, to the lawn before it was dug, the arduous double dig process, the marking of plots and finally the gardeners gardening, and their growing plants.
 

Later, we cycled downtown where protesters demonstrated against corporate greed, and a host of other social injustices. The systems we rely upon have failed us for decades - the food system, the healthcare system, the government system that cares more for business profits than for the common good of all citizens and the planet.

On our way home we saw a strange animal. It hopped like bunny, but clearly was some kind of rodent. It moved slowly, and without grace. Finally it dawned on us that it was a squirrel without its tail – a necessary balance to its body for speed and agility. Society today is like the squirrel without its tail; it limps along getting by, but is not really thriving, and we need to start growing it a new tail.

The protests and the garden party are intricately connected; The more community gardens the more healthy communities they help build, which leads to less isolation, less mental and physical illness. And when we change our neighbourhoods, we change our cities, and we change our province. And by then the government will have had to change too, because more and more of us will be strong enough to say: this isn’t right for me, for my neighbour, or for my landscape.