Shepherd Bliss is a strong supporter of FVC and its mission. In fact, his work has been one of the major inspirations for what we intend to do. He spoke last fall at our benefit in Sebastopol, CA and in this essay published by Sonoma West, he expands on the main topic of his speech.
Agrotherapy: Farms Can Heal
Wednesday, February 25, 2009 2:37 PM PST
“An apple a day keeps the doctor away,” my Uncle Dale used to say when I worked on his Iowa farm as a child. In recent years I have tried to eat something each day that I have grown, or something that a neighbor or someone local has grown.
Such seasonal eating — which we can fortunately do here in West County — can be physically and mentally nourishing. For example, around here from December through February wild miner’s lettuce is abundant, March through November chickens lay eggs. June to August is berry season, and September to November apples abound.
While farming since the early 1990s South of Sebastopol (which some refer to affectionately as Sebysouth or Sebtati) and sometimes teaching psychology at Sonoma State University and elsewhere, I have come to see that the healing powers of apples, chickens, berries, wildcrafting, and farming itself can be mental, as well as physical. So I have started thinking and writing about what might be called agropsychology and agrotherapy. Farms can heal body, mind, and soul.
Animals, plants, and the elements can be therapists that engage in many healing functions. They can be connective and help break isolation. Pets and farm animals can be funny and help draw someone out of depression. Pruning can rid one of more than unwanted branches, as one’s “stuff” can also be cut. A bright sun can lift one’s spirit and a gentle stream can soothe the soul. Nature heals naturally.
Pet therapy and horticulture therapy are becoming increasingly popular in hospitals, recovery centers, and in work with military veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress, the disabled, and those with Alzheimer’s Disease. Europe even has many agricultural operations they call agrotherapy farms.
As I’ve begun to write and talk about agrotherapy people have described their personal healing processes and how gardening and farming help them. “I farm because it is my work, play, church, school, gym, and therapy,” my agrarian Sebysouth neighbor Jeff Snook recently said as we exchanged food and plants. Farms tend to create relationships — with plants, animals, the elements, and humans — which can promote physical and mental well-being.
Such neighborly relationships will be especially important, even for survival, as we head into an economically uncertain future. Supermarket shelves are not likely to be as full in the future as they currently are, nor will gas stations have as much available cheap fuel. Growing at least part of one’s own food can reduce the stress of worrying about where future meals are going to come from.
“I can vouch for what you call ‘agropsychology.’ It saved me in my recovery from a traumatic childhood and now in middle age. I am once again finding great healing, joy, and contentment in growing my own garden and raising my own farm animals for food, fun and deep connection with the cycles of life and death. It is a spiritual, as well as a practical avocation. My husband says he can tell how happy I am by how much dirt is under my fingernails,” wrote Jennifer York, owner of the Bamboo Sorcery:
“The micro-elements of soil are positively impactful in managing depression. I don’t think we can say the same thing for ‘sterilized’ soil,”writes clinical psychologist Dr. Mary McMahon from Massachusetts.
So if something ails you, paying a professional therapist can be helpful. And you can turn to nature, get down on all fours, get your hands dirty, plant something and then eat it. Farm animals and pets can delight with their beauty and goofiness. When the wind takes a redwood for a spin on the dance floor, it can be a marvelous, uplifting sight.
Shepherd Bliss farms in Sebastopol, teaches psychology part-time at SSU, and has essays on agrotherapy in the book “Enduring War” and the pending “Ecotherapy,” scheduled for publication in May. He can be reached at sb3@pon.net
