A Beacon of Hope

 "...no need for greed or hunger/A brotherhood of Man/Imagine all the people/Sharing all the world..."

--John Lennon, "Imagine"

In these days, when greed and hunger are rampant throughout our country and all over our desperate planet, these verses from John Lennon's iconic song "Imagine" seem impossibly naive--almost a bad joke. Or so I thought--until I stumbled across a community project in Seattle that seems like a real-world embodiment of John Lennon's idyllic vision.

The project, appropriately named Beacon Food Forest,  is located on city-owned land in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Seattle.  Staffed entirely by volunteers, it is a community garden, based on agroforestry and permaculture principles, that was established on a barren patch of grass.  It now provides free food to citizens, as well as educational outreach and a convivial public gathering space. Altogether, it includes the following elements (taken from their website):

• Food forest: This semi-natural area is made up of fruit and nut tree guilds and berry bushes. Groundcover includes some edible greens like kale and chard. Perennial plants are dispersed all over the site (including edible plants such as sunchokes, orache, burdock, cardoon).

• Helix vegetable garden: The 2,000 square foot garden grows annual greens, roots, squash and nightshades. More familiar food plants are an easy entry point into foraging at Beacon Food Forest.

• Medicinal and culinary herbs: There are several herb gardens/spirals and individual plants around the site.

• Gathering and teaching spaces: Phase 1 and Phase 2 of the Beacon Food Forest project each have a large gathering plaza with benches next to a tool shed and notice board/map. This is where our potlucks and workshops take place and visitors can rest and observe the site.

• Native plant guild: The wetland and prairie at the southeast border of the site have been restored and now grow native food plants such as wapato, camas and native berries, as well as grasses traditionally used for basket weaving.

The enthusiasm of the volunteers who run this magical place is evident in their promotional videoclip, and in greater depth, in a series of interviews that my friend and teacher, Andrew Millison, recorded here.

I found this project deeply inspiring because it models a gift economy--one where social and experiential capital are exchanged for the biological capital--vegetables, fruits, and herbs--necessary to our survival. And this is a positive sum, win-win arrangement: the more social and experiential capital we share with others, the more we get in return, without losing any of what we already have. And so the mutually beneficial cooperative relationship between plants in the various guilds here are reinforced, and reciprocally reinforce, the mutually beneficial cooperative relationship between the people--both volunteers and visitors. This is a marvelous illustration, on a small scale, of a mutually beneficial Gaian economy, as opposed to our extractive, dysfunctional zero-sum Glomart economy (based only on money). It is what happens when you replace "the bottom line" with the flourishing and propagation of life itself--including our own--as our ultimate personal and social goal.