Keira McArthur

The soil beneath the empty lots of our industrial sector is completely saturated with toxic chemicals. You’d think nothing can grow there, but not so. Wild carrot, chickoree, ragweed and a plethora of other astonishing plants all grow alongside each other through the asphalt cracks, a neighborhood of tough, defiant, determined souls. They do the work of soil restoration just by being what and how they are.

Dig deep, loosen soil, grow, die into compost then grow again. Every green leaf breathes sunlight down through stem to root. Roots find and link to mycelial networks that connect each plant to the next, to the tough trees along the fences that drink carbon dioxide and give us clean oxygen, those magnificent (however scrawny) trees that anchor it all.

I know people who are tough like dandelions. Others as tall and delicate-seeming as queen anne’s lace, some who push up from old gnarled roots with chickoree-blue blossoms of poetry, and still others as unstoppable and prolific as ragweed. I know mayflower people, bloodroot people, wild grape folk who can topple old structures with patience and determination. Raspberries, wild roses whose thorns can rip through skin but oh the fruit and the flowers are a balm to body and soul.

Each shaped by their experience, these folk bring life to abandoned, dark spaces. They know where the light is and reach for it, they grow and die then grow again, nourish themselves with the stories of others. They are connected by the free inter-network of curiosity and willingness to explore, to Be who they are, wherever they are.

I say ‘They’, but I mean Us-All. We all have these abilities, we know to make use of discarded things, how grow our food in park allotments and windowsills, how to teach others what we know. It is a collective human art, to thrive and grow in depleted soil, to regenerate.

As water finds a way (even uphill, if necessary), we do too- artists to make art, musicians to make music, writers to write. Gardeners find ways to grow healthy food, neighbours find ways to neighbour. In a world that condemns income-compromised folk to poverty, we struggle and adapt. We dig deeper roots and find richer nourishment, build new connections, each of us according to how and what we are. It truly is a matter of perspective: this world is what we imagine it to be.

So yes (forgive me – a yawn), politics. Yes, tariffs, energy grid blackouts, global food network breakdowns, bank failures, possible epidemics, pandemics. Yes more hurricanes, cyclones, tsunamis, earthquakes, war, death and destruction. Yes internet failures that turn our phones back into… phones. All of this is on the table now – as probability, if not fact. We live in extreme times where terrible, unspeakable loss and destruction occurs in every minute. I write in acknowledgment of this, and to honour and share grief with my deepest compassion.

The only way forward is through, now. So. What if, rather than clinging to fear, we take a breath and notice that our global ‘toxic soil’ can be regenerated by this chaos. What if we choose trust over panic and blossom anyway, beautifully, defiantly, as plants do.

The ground beneath our feet is moving; we can choose to move with it: nobody has money? Nobody has electricity, grocery stores, internet or phones? Get out and meet your neighbours and cull together some meals to share around. Longer food shortages? Dig up the boulevards and the front lawns and plant food (i’ve got a stash of heritage seeds; many others do), build a system where everyone weeds & waters, and the harvest is shared. Better than pears grown on the other side of the planet that are sprayed with chemicals then shipped across an ocean, I’d say. No clean drinking water? Collect the rain and design a simple filtration system that works with barrels. We figure it out.

We can grow clean spinach in our windowsills, real carrots in a bucket, garlic and tomatoes in a shared community garden – with no pesticide; in fact we’re doing this already. We can garden on the roofs of grocery stores if we want to (doing this already), plant food forests and build greenhouses on former industrial sites (already), figure out new ways to cook and share meals together (time-honoured already). We can make art, music and new stories together, and new technologies that are not extractive or exclusive, but regenerative, open-sourced. This is already happening, all around the planet.

This is a world that makes sense to me. It’s already developing in pockets where our old systems have completely failed – just dig a little in the search engines and you’ll find the new solutions and collaborations, from bio-fuel to dissolvable plastic to shared organic farms where people live for a fraction of the average cost of living. This planet, and the curious, ingenious human beings we are can grow anything, including a world where money is not the most important resource (and is certainly not hoarded and controlled – what IS that?). This is the world I choose to build, where weapons are repurposed into something useful and kindness connects us.

Don’t scoff, now. Ask any experienced gardener and they’ll tell you that it’s about good soil and honouring death as well as life. You need a decent vision, some shared effort and the desire and love to make it so, and so the garden grows. We already have the passion, the compassion, the curiosity, and our neighbourhoods – and now the ground beneath our feet is moving. Shall we move with it, and blossom, anyway?