Eat More Dirt

A farmer in West Virginia blogs:

My morning routine gets me moving and my brain awakening. After I get my coffee and breakfast prepared, I carry it to my desk where the computer is first turned to email.  I was happy to see today that this blog has a new subscriber who lives in the Philappines. We can safely assume she will not be shopping our farmers markets but something I wrote struck a cord for her and she signed on. Welcome!  The local food movement is growing!

As I wandered down my email I came to my daily subscription for the New York Times. One of the op-ed pieces caught my eye and I want to share it with you: Dirtying Up Our Diets was written by Jeff D. Leach, a science and archaeology writer and founder of the Human Food Project. In the New York Times piece Leach poses one benefit to the increase in farmers market participation that I had not considered: we will be eating more dirt!

During the 20th century more Americans moved off the farm into the cities and no longer grew a good percentage of their own food. As food distribution industrialized, packaging of fresh produce became more prevalent and now we can get prewashed plastic bags of salads, vegetables all cut up ready for stir frying, and even prepared trays of fruit to bring to the next office party.

That popular time saving package saves you germs too. Sounds good, right?

Well, Leach says it is not all good. While he is not truly suggesting that we actually go eat some dirt and therefore ingest some harmful bacteria, he does say that all this washing has resulted in a reduction of the GOOD bacteria that our guts need.” Get more here: Eat More Dirt « wvfarm2u.

Why you’re not getting what you want

Farmer plowing in Fahrenwalde, Mecklenburg-Vor...

I like this perspective from Mastin Kipp at The Daily Love…

Plain and simple, we get what we ask for.

Not just with our words, but also with our actions. In fact, our actions will show us what we are asking for far more than our words. We only take action on what we truly believe, so if we want to see what we are really asking for, let us look towards our actions.

If you say you want to lose weight, but your actions are to eat high calorie food and stay inactive, you aren’t really asking for health.

If you say you have faith but your actions are actions that are faithless, then you don’t really have faith.

If you say you love someone and your actions are unloving, then you don’t really love that person.

Let us be mindful of our actions.

The precursor to action is thought. Sometimes it can be VERY hard to be aware of what we are actually thinking, especially because many of our actions come from unconscious thoughts. If we want to tap into what’s really running us, but are having a hard time, let us see what actions we are taking.

We want love, but we run away when it shows up. There is a misalignment there of desire and thought.

We want weight loss and a healthy body, but we don’t get off our ass and exercise. There is a misalignment there, too.

In this literal Uni-verse, we can LITERALLY create (from the inside out) any type of experience we wish to choose. It is when our desires, our thoughts and our actions are in alignment that this kind of life begins to emerge.

The seed of a desire for something greater lives within all of us, but our lack of action prevents that kind of life from unfolding.

Imagine if a farmer had seeds and land to plant his seeds, but doubted that the seeds would grow if he planted them. So if this doubt were strong enough, the seeds would never get planted. Or, they get planted, but then the farmer can be too impatient and dig up the seeds the next day or the next week because the crop hasn’t come yet.

The farmer still has no harvest. Then a second farmer comes by at harvest time with a full crop of harvest, and the first farmer gets jealous and angry at the second farmer for having abundance. The first farmer may blame The Uni-verse or say, “People like me aren’t supposed to have this harvest”, but in reality, it is the farmers own doubt and impatience that prevents him from reaping his harvest.

We are many times like the first farmer. Our seeds are our desires. Our fields are our daily actions. We must plant our desires in actions and then be patient. If weeds of doubt creep in, we must clear them out. And in perfect time we will be able to harvest the fruit of our faith.

This is how life is. We need to nurture the fertile soil of our actions with faith and patience.

So, today, are you not getting what you want? Look at your desires. Look at your actions. Where is there a disconnect? How can you adjust your actions to sync up with your desires? And, if that feels weird, how can you change your MENTAL habits to allow yourself to take the proper action that is in alignment with your desires?

The answers to the lack you may be temporarily experiencing is all within you. Show up, let go and trust The Uni-verse one day at a time. Get your desires, thoughts and actions in alignment and then let your patience and faith shower down on the fertile soil of your actions.

Your harvest WILL come.

Sorry — I don’t normally curate such a long quote, but I wanted to share the whole post with you. Here’s another perspective on getting what you want…

“1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James 4

How about you? Getting what you want?

Why you’re not getting what you want…

Farmer plowing in Fahrenwalde, Mecklenburg-Vor...
Image via Wikipedia

I like this perspective from Mastin Kipp at The Daily Love…

Plain and simple, we get what we ask for.

Not just with our words, but also with our actions. In fact, our actions will show us what we are asking for far more than our words. We only take action on what we truly believe, so if we want to see what we are really asking for, let us look towards our actions.

If you say you want to lose weight, but your actions are to eat high calorie food and stay inactive, you aren’t really asking for health.

If you say you have faith but your actions are actions that are faithless, then you don’t really have faith.

If you say you love someone and your actions are unloving, then you don’t really love that person.

Let us be mindful of our actions. Continue reading “Why you’re not getting what you want…”

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