Rising to the Call of Spring…Hope and Renewal
I think about culture and meaning all the time. It’s pretty much at the root of my life’s work. As a Board Member of the Co-op and chair of our Communications Committee, I tap into those roots to consider how we as an organization strive to provide healthy living options to nourish our community’s bodies and souls. Spring fills me with light – and it’s not just the longer days, it’s because we all rise up to greet each other with a little more energy and a little more warmth. To me, it comes down to these smallest interactions, human to human, living being to living being.
Of late I have been considering how we come to know the meaning of our place, our responsibilities, our safe havens. How do we as a community open to love and acceptance, and inclusivity? I am so proud of what I see happening all around me. I see so many of us leaning towards hope and doing our best to avoid being trapped by the manufactured cynicism and fear that dominate what Donella Meadows called” the information sphere”.
As a Co-op, our culture is all about interdependence. Member-owners rely upon the sound business practices of our management team and board of directors to bring us healthy choices because after all “food is the most important pharmaceutical we have,” according to neuroscientist Richard Davidson in a recent On Being Interview.
Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Dr. King’s “we” refers to humans, but what if adjust the meaning of “we” to be inclusive of all living beings? I am truly grateful for the local families and individuals who farm in Vermont braving the elements and uncertainties to bring us local meats, vegetables, fruits, and even some grains. What if we thanked not only the growers of our food, but the food itself for nourishing us as Robin Wall Kimmerer points out is done in her native traditions.
And this month brings us spring in the lunar calendar – the well of hope to be replenished. It’s a reward for getting through the darkest hours in the northern hemisphere. The days are getting longer, the sugar maple’s sap is rising from the root to sweeten our lives. I am so very grateful for this time of year where I can stand up tall, reach for the sky and plant my feet deep into the ground – so that my sap can rise with that of our fellow being, the Sugar Maple Tree.
