By Zardusht Chet Van Wert
I work in the heart of New York City, at a business school no less, and yet I think of the work I do there as a form of Ziraat. My work focuses on finding ways to improve the accessibility and affordability of fresh and healthy food to communities that are currently not well served. Could we consider this a form of Ziraat?
By Maboud Swierkosz
This year there was one raspberry bush that offered a bumper crop. It was dusk, and I went to harvest and eat some of those orange orbs of sweetness. I have to admit that there was lust, a sugary hunger that drove me to primitive impulsiveness. I was just one creature feeding, surviving and self-soothing.
By Martina Vega
Taking Ayahuasca in ritual ceremony is part of the South American shamanistic tradition. Please click here to view the video Abuelito Ayahuasca - Plantas Maestras (English Subtitles Available)
By Martina Vega
Please click here to view the video Abuelito Tabaco - Plantas Maestras (English Subtitles Available)
By Martina Vega
Taking the San Pedro cactus in ritual ceremony is part of the South American shamanistic tradition. Please click here to view the video Abuelito San Pedro - Plantas Maestras (English Subtitles Available)
By Shivadam Adam Burke
Early summer wind
Deposits last winter's leaves
Atop fresh green shoots.
By Grace D. Marie
We are born with natural instincts and power that remains in our bodies always. We access these instincts at any time. For example, a “gut” feeling may tell you about a person or situation. When we feel and smell moisture in the air and know that rain is coming. With continuous education of working with our natural instincts and power, we can refine ourselves to become a conscious, powerful human being, connected with all forces of nature.
From Pir Moineddin Jablonski:
Ziraat is a heart-based approach to gardening and food production outwardly, and to spiritual growth inwardly.
The heart, like the earth, is regarded as sacred soil to be prepared for planting. Rocks and roots are removed; last year's stubble is plowed under. New seed is placed in the furrow. Sunshine and rain attend the turning of the seasons, and the ancient cycles of sowing, growth, fruition and harvest are realized in ourselves and in our gardens and farms.
by Darvesha Victoria MacDonald
“Each morsel of food is an ambassador from the cosmos,” says Thich Nhat Hanh. He is telling us that in each bite we know the warmth of the sun and the moisture of the rain. Who can imagine that this morsel comes from the earth itself? This earth that is made of the bones of our ancestors. Each seed is a computer chip that no human can fathom. In every bite we participate in the miracle of life. With every bite we know we “inter-are”. (“Inter-are” was Thich Nhat Hanh’s whimsical way of referring to Interdependence.)
by Greg Schoen
Most of us are aware that there has been for years a vibrant movement regarding the preservation of heirloom seeds, or as I prefer to call them, ‘heritage seeds’. Through the thousands of years of human civilization, there was developed a kaleidoscope of variation in all the kinds of seeds of food crops—grains, beans, vegetables, and fruits. And let’s not forget fiber plants and colorful flowers. Some, like the medicinal herbs, are gathered and have remained mostly wild, while others were domesticated. As the cultures formed and people migrated around the world, they carried their seeds, along with their stories and traditions. The seeds themselves carry memory in their genetic code, along with the subtle record of all the experiences of those planting them through the many generations.
by Shivadam
Rather than looking broadly and perhaps too vaguely at our responsibilities toward "the earth," we might specifically look at our relationship with animals (not only our pets) and recognize their essential equality with us, awakening our true identity with them, in our bodies, minds and hearts, as fellow children of God.
My own impulse in this direction has been strengthened and affirmed not only by sessions at the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions concerning faith traditions and our relations with animals, but even more so by the dream I had about one week before the Parliament, where the brand new word "biovinity" appeared and meant: We must awaken to a condition of reverence for all life - for every individual living being - not only in word, but in our daily deeds, in what we buy and what we eat and do not eat, those being the most direct actions which most of us have the great fortune and affluence to be able to most easily change. Every living being is sacred. Any harm we do to others is serious and consequential error.
by Shafiya Majid Sharon Mijares, Ph.D.
“I have become an artist in the music of the plants.”
Don Juan Flores Salazar
The Ruhaniat is founded upon the ideal of universality of world religions, following the teachings of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Murshid Samuel Lewis, as well as Rama Krishna, and other teachers, recognizing that the same universal presence is included in all spiritual traditions. This article is intended to add to our knowledge of indigenous traditions as it specifically focuses on the upper Amazonian as well as Kamsá spiritual practices of Sibundoy Valley in Colombia. Many of our newer Latin American initiates have experienced, and continue to experience, some of these healing practices that directly connect participants to the healing power and wisdom of Nature (Mother Earth, Madre Tierra, Pachamama)—directly associated with ingesting plant medicines.
