w00t! This article: ''Food Among the Ruins'', gets five stars from me. I especially love this quote:
-- "Farming and gardening are therapeutic."
Yes. And can help cure depression. In more ways than one.
So let's talk about "depression" for a moment.
To my mind, depression as a personal problem, and depression as a social blight, and depression as an economic problem form an excellent example of the phrase,
''The personal is the political.''
While I don't want to over-simplify things, to imply that everyone's depression can be cured in this manner, I noticed that my own extended period of depressive syndrome (roughly two years long) lifted when I started getting outdoors in the sun on a regular basis.
At first, I contacted the earth simply by sitting on the grass. I was seeing a counselor then; this was her idea. So we started meeting in outdoor settings, such as parks.
Eventually, I started putting my hands in the dirt -- and doing some simple gardening. (Hey, give me a break! I'd spent the previous twenty-five years living in a big city and working indoors.)
I am sure that there are plenty of people who garden and still suffer from depression. But if you haven't tried it yet, why not? The sun is a great natural anti-depressant. Where do you think we get all those phrases about having a sunny disposition and so forth?
Getting in the habit of growing things -- being around living things besides other people -- can really help improve your mood. They enable us to see and appreciate the cycle of life.
Is there any reason to believe that, if we tried this project on a national basis, especially within our inner cities, it couldn't help to solve some of our urban problems?
This is exactly what urban renewal is about. The solution begins with you. Grow something you can feed yourself with. Even if the only space you have is in a small window box.
So often we don't try things because we're afraid of looking stupid. Guess what? We already do. So what have we got to lose?
Detroit, the urban prairie. Embrace the concept.
[NOTE: This article comes to us via BUTTERCUP, who summarizes:
"An excellent look into the urban farming movement in Detroit. Reinventing Detroit from wasteland to farmland is slowly happening with many different initiatives."]
Wishing you a beautiful day,
Bill Brent
[this page last updated: 2009.08.17, 11:35 a.m. Hawaii time]
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keywords for this post: American renewal, cure for depression, Detroit, inner city planning, revitalize America, urban agriculture, urban farming
