Why We Garden
Fin Ferrell and Mike Odle

Fin: “I garden because I can’t not do it. I look at the world and I see exploitation, slavery, death, and the growth of only inanimate objects, poisons, and trash. Then I look at my community here at Koinonia and I see love, life, green and continuous fluid social change and personal struggle. I need this type of growth—God Growth—Life Energy Growth.

“It inspires me to work. My work becomes my play and I live not for tomorrow or yesteryear but for only today. And at the moment my hands are in the soil I am experiencing a primal human appreciation for the Earth’s food, and family. This is an ancient feeling of love and it beams through me. As my hand releases the seed that it holds, I am able to release what I know of the World’s suffering into the Earth where it is absorbed and recreated, resurrected if you will, into pure life-giving energy and new hope for the future. All of my own suffering goes into the ground.

“The garden reconnects me with what I already know: that I am part of the continuous cycle of life, that I am life! This is why I garden.”

Mike: “I feel like the garden does more work on me than I do on it.”