spreading the seed

Nature is wide awake and bursting out with millions of flowers. The carpets of snowdrops and purple crocuses have made way for the striking colors of narcissus and tuilips. The trees and bushes are also exploding, from the delicate puffs of cherry blossoms to the full sensuality of lush magnolias. Even the three little bushes under our balcony have tender shiny new leaves like lime green baby teeth. The world is ready to display its aliveness. I was feeling so elated, reveling in the wonders of the higher power of nature and her regenerative force. And then the “gardening” company came and sprayed the whole area with herbicides to ease their work and keep this place looking humanly controlled.

I went into anger and despair thinking of the lack of control we have over our urban environment which in this part of the city is quite grey. That is how we decided to get into action and turn our balcony into a clandestine workshop. We sat on overturned pots, watching the doves pick holes into the slices of white bread someone threw out a window above, while we rolled soft little balls of clay and compost between our palms. It was a therapeutic and contemplative experience, the soft aliveness of moist clay between the fingers, spiked with a dash of naughtiness. In about an hour we had an arsenal of about 125 seed bombs, or greenades, packed with a blast of medicinal herbs, pumpkin, and butterfly mix.

This is an act of guerrilla gardening, the illicit cultivation of public spaces that are otherwise barren or neglected. Click here for instructions on how to make your own bombs.

Seed bombs are based on the Nendo Dango cultivating method, invented by Masanobu Fukuoka, a Taoist Japanese farmer, who experimented for more than 60 years on a natural, spiritual approach to growing food. In his mid twenties he had a revelation while watching the sun rise over Yokohama Bay, he realized that everything is already perfect in nature, it is just a matter of working harmoniously with it, entering its rhythm, so he devoted his life to do this through decades of careful experimentation on his land. "Natural farming is not just for growing crops”, He would say “it is for the cultivation and perfection of human beings.".

Fukuoka’s Natural Gardening philosophy consists in not disturbing the soil, limiting human manipulation. A precursor and inspirer of permaculture he put the emphasis on a deep observation of the workings of nature works to be able to include edible crops in natural ecosystems.

In his method there is no tilling or breaking of the soil, and this is where the seedballs come in, instead of planting them in the earth he created a system of using balls of clay to place the seeds in the open while keeping them safe from animals until the rains. He would not decide where to place vegetables, he would just throw the seeds around and observe where each variety thrived, he let them choose, and then let some stay there so they could re seed. He would not weed either, he would control weeds with a ground cover of white clover which also acts as a fertilizer as it fixes nitrogen to the soil.

The result of his efforts, as can be seen in his land on the Island of Shikoku, is an extremely efficient system that doesn’t require much human labor, fossil fuels, or chemicals and whose yields are comparable with those of modern farms in Japan.

The nendo dango method is also very efficient for reforestation, which has been done on a big scale using a cement mixer to make several tons of clay seedballs. I can imagine that kids would also be very good at it and have loads of fun.

The seedballs where also adopted by guerrilla gardeners as they make good projectiles for launching seeds to places beyond the reach of a trowel or where it is just not allowed. This is exactly what we are going to do, we are planning a flower attack, I can’t tell you where of course … It will be a secret until the next rainfall

Her majesty, The Tulip

It is spring, so after spending so much time in Holland I finally went for the ultimate Dutch experience: The tulips. Keukenhof is a disneyland of flowers. It’s an atraction park built around the idea of a "perfect" garden, meaning explosive colors, velvety carpets of grass, manicured flower beds and not one weed in sight. Being a gardener myself, I know this is not easily achieved, so I couldn't help thinking how much herbicide must go into the soil and how toxic it must be. Not surprisingly there aren’t many insects around, which seems quite suspicious considering the obscene amount of flowers in full bloom. Mind you, there are no wilted flowers either, any plant that has finished its flowering cycle is promptly removed from view. This is the least sustainable garden one can ever imagine.

Don’t get me wrong. It is stunning and beautiful, a really enjoyable experience. It’s just that being there raised quite some issues for me. Seeing all these magnificent creatures that have resulted from human manipulation and the way they are arranged, an order that has nothing to do with nature and a lot with human aesthetics was disturbing. On one hand it made me think of the endless human desire for control, but also of how the paradigm of what is a garden has changed through history. Gardens used to be places where we would grow our food, and play with flowers.


As Michael Pollan writes, grassy lawns were invented as a status symbol by tudor times aristocrats to set one thing straight "I am so rich, I don’t need to grow my food" and we just have been copying that model. Sadly, today, most people in the western world will never know what it feels like to eat something that they have grown.

The garden for me has always been a place where I could enjoy playing with nature, trying my best to harness my controlling impulse, to really engage in an interactive, joyful relationship. A game that always ends with the realization that She will always do it better and prettier. When I walk in the mountains in Tepoztlan I am always amazed at how any little patch of wild growth can look just perfect to me. And it is something I could never imitate.

It seems to me that Nature has the most refined sense of aesthetics one could ever attain. It is delicate, it is powerful, and yet it manages to maintain a perfect balance. It is also playful, I was reminded of that while watching a white peacock in the gardens. Why if not, would She bestow him with that cute little crown. His entire being is proof that there are reasons well beyond functionality in Natures creation like fun and sheer pleasure.

The tulips are amazing though, and I can see in its blazing petals and elegant stem the reason for the dutch passion that reached at a certain point a level of madness, like the fact that the possession of a certain bulb was enough to purchase a canal side house. And that brings me back to Michael Pollan, who devotes to this flower, a chapter in his book The Botany of Desire. In this book, he proposes the idea that, maybe, plants are playing on our desires and thus using us to ensure their propagation. The Tulip made people fall in love with it, and so, it is now an extremely successful plant. She made them feed her reproduce her, hybridize her, and shift her shape into the most amazing varieties. She made the dutch people devote her an entire attraction park, so millions of visitors each year can admire her radiant grace.

I do recommend a visit to Keukenhof, but also Michael Pollan's, Second Nature, an insightful, honest and funny view of his experience with gardening.

I want to share with you an amazing talk Michael Pollan gave on Ted, called A plant's eye view.

and a sea of spring flowers...

Sunny encounters

For just a moment there I found myself spinning on the point of a sword. A tiptoe away from being slashed. Saudade is the culprit. I was just thinking of something a long lost friend from college told me this morning: a Peruvian friend of hers gets annoyed by how all her Mexican friends are always missing their country. I am tired of this, she said, you guys are always talking about how you want to go back…

And yet who would think of complaining then? It was warm and sunny in the glass bubble that is the Metz café, where we reconnected after… what? 15 years? 2 mexicanas in Holland sharing inspirations and nostalgia like that video on street kids, we edited using two VHS recorders.

Between sips of fresh munt thee. We exchanged life stories and visions on being here and there and the crazy rides the horses of our lives have given us. Our glances pouring from each other over the skyline or down into the street. From the windows of the metz Amsterdam looks like a toy city with its train set going over the canal and through the rows of tall, skinny dollhouses like that wicked building on the corner: glossy red wood framing green windows topped by a witch hat of a tower. The ground level is a smart shop selling a variety of magic mushrooms. On my way home the name Pscilocybe Mexicana grabbed me by the corner of my eye and I stood in front of the window, staring at the little mushroom, so far away from home, among a group of Japanese teenagers, who whispered excitedly to each other, ogling the merchandise.

What a rare delight is a bright sunny day in Amsterdam. Its still kind of chilly but, isn’t it amazing how the sun highlights and magnifies the beauty of things? The water shimmers and the doves display iridescent collars of greenish pink and suddenly they don’t look like winged rats anymore as they do when it is gray and cold and miserable. Or maybe its just me.

I crossed an avenue in the last seconds of the green light, while I thought, well Duh! Of course we miss Mexico, we live on a sun high there, even if things get rough, so much joy is available to be sipped by the senses, so much warmth to celebrate. We live under the influence of the shiny sun perspective… And then I saw it: a roaring silver monster rushing at me. big Mercedes Benz taxi, with no apparent intention of stopping. My mind froze and my reflexes did the opposite of what would have delivered me to safety, I hit the brakes and stopped in front of the car and squealed waiting to be hit. Don’t ask why.

It was like the way they edit action films, prolonging the scene to the point of no escape and then jump cutting to the next where the character is getting away. The car stopped centimeters away from my legs. I heard an undecipherable cursing yell as I rode away stunned. As I reassessed the existence of all my body parts, I was flooded by an intense sense of aliveness. I glided downhill to a lovely snackbar I found a few days earlier. My Burrito on kinkerstraat is a (very lekker!) blologisch mexicaanse snack bar, with tables out in the sun. I had my first quesadilla with salsa verde in months: a perfect way to recover from near death.

I finally did get my fall that day, biking towards the park, my boyfriend cut in front of me. His fault, I swear.

Welcome

Welcome to my Blog

I like the image of a tree to describe the creative process and the way we communicate it. Branches reaching out, dividing. Fractals of growth that may seem chaotic at times, and then something shifts and a divine order is revealed... and the tree blossoms.

I beleive in multiplying connections and sharing ideas as a way of speeding that process.
The deep roots and steady trunk that anchor my efforts are the wish for a shift in human conciousness.

I will write here about the subjects that light up my heart like the environment, womens consciousness, creativity, buddhism, design, and little stories and insights that happen to me.

You are also invited to check out my new online shop where you can see my jewellery creations.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/MilagroTree

Citlalli