Gardens for Earth Zines

We can plant trees, grow gardens, reach out to people with mental illness, and start local co-ops….

But will we all get along? We could look to spirituality for answers.

The Dalia Lama once said in a speech…that ‘Because we all share this small planet earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature.’

To make money and bring people together we could start a co-op at Gardens For Earth It could be called Garden Health Food.

For every piece of processed food there should be a local company, like a local bakery, local ice cream company, a local pasta company, local spices and local tomato sauce. The grocery stores would only have local food. This would create environmentally friendly work. We could learn to make these products ourselves in a community kitchen.

This business can pick up the slack in an economy that does not have enough opportunities for young people who need work. This sort of work is ideal because it is healthy for the environment, and the mind and body too. We need to show our workers respect and pay them a fair wage. We also need to develop the local economies…our food has an advantage because we do not have to pay for shipping.

Our lives should have a purpose and making money is not it. There are a lot of evil ways to spend money…it could be buying food from the rain forests which we do all the time.

It might be that through helping people to start gardens that we can begin to be mindful of where food comes from? Like does it come from the rainforests?

There is a lesson to be learned here…. Once we plant the seeds of caring for people with mental illness in community gardens we will start to care about everything a lot more too! We need to start caring about food that comes from the rainforests because we are all connected…we may not know the people that chop down the rainforests but we eat food that comes there every day. 

This can create community…people from different walks of life can be assigned to work together.

We need to be united to save the environment.

One way to help is to have a really sympathetic community…this is a human right…every person born into this world should have a community that you can be connected to. That is why we need a volunteer hub.

So how does it work?…When we bring people with and without mental illness or drinking problems together it creates unity … .and with unity we take care of each other better… there is more reciprocity and more sharing. Unity means that we have more compassion for one another, we feel united in this mission to save the environment…and because of this connection we don’t feel the urge to drink, we don’t let the stressors of the environment bother one another as much.

Gardening is therapeutic and it is my belief that everyone on the planet has the human right to work at a community garden.

We all need to pull together to save the environment, and helping to heal mental illness and the environment together might be the answer. Gardens for Earth could be a volunteer hub, where people getting out of the hospital can find a community working with volunteers. ‘Gardens For Earth’ is a community garden for everyone. It helps to heal the mind, body and spirit while building community.

 Participants can stay busy finding work planting trees, trail maintenance, greenhouse, on the farm, in the kitchen, making local products, watering plants…everyone has a task that they can do. A community garden is good for the mind, the body and the spirit.

There are many problems that we could solve with compassion but one of the most important ones is mental health. Many people are suffering in this economy and they come from all walks of life.

People sometimes go to the mental hospital for help and when they get out…they cannot find work… they get out…they go to the homeless shelter…then they end up back in the hospital because they are tired of living on the street and all the things that go along with it like drugs and alcohol. It is sad but many young people end up in bad environments with no work as soon as they leave the psych ward or rehab.

So what do we need? A compassionate economy. How could we solve this problem with compassion? One idea is to start a group called the Garden Rangers where people can come together, and find work. This is for our young people but also for volunteers, social workers, master gardeners, college students or whoever wants to help heal the mentally ill. Garden Rangers can include everyone. There is a place to go to meet friends. How do we treat people who are alcoholics? We give them a change of scenery where they don’t have to be around alcohol. This can happen if we have enough volunteers.

Compassion is not only loving kindness for your neighbors but also how to save the environment. A compassionate economy asks questions about how the economy operates? Like what should we do about climate change? And why do some people suffer in our economy and some do not? If we practice compassion it will brighten the world and the environment.

The Famous Vietnamese Buddhist Teacher Thich Naht Hanh explains how

“The more compassionate you are, the more generous you can be. The more generous you are, the more loving friendliness you can be in the world.” Thich Nhat Hanh

We need to be kind to ourselves, to others, and the environment.

If we practice selfishness it will harm the environment and us too, because we will accumulate too much stuff without thinking of the environment or others.

A quote from the Baha’i faith is as follows:

“We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved…man is organic with the world. His inner life molds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it.” 

– Shoghi Effendi

If we start to care about the environment it means that we care about the effects it has on every person. If we start to practice with a human heart we realize and are grateful that our environment does provide us with everything we need to be alive. And if we treat the human spirit then we will find joy in tending to the needs of the environment. There is a symbiotic relationship between mental illness and the environment we need to treat both together.

Looking at nature is like therapy… It calms you down like a meditation when you absorb the sights and sounds of the animals and plants.

Growing your own vegetable or flower garden is amazing too. Through powers we don’t entirely understand they grow like magic. We need nature to be whole, and being one with nature at Gardens for Earth Community Garden will help us to care for the earth.

What I am proposing is to create an environmental path to mental health treatment. Perhaps create a series of healing centers at our national parks, state parks, and land conservancies…these healing farms can be called “Gardens for Earth.” And the people that work there are called “Garden Rangers.”

This is where people from all walks of life can find work growing trees and planting gardens. This is the kind of therapy we all need, and being closer to nature will help  us to be more environmental too. Being close to nature and working in the garden is a human right. This is the sort of closeness to the environment that we are missing in life.