Farmer Rishi: How regenerative language can light the way towards planetary healing (ep232)
Farmer Rishi, a former software engineer, is a gardening evangelist and small-scale farmer who uses gardening for personal, social, and ecological healing. He's also the Executive Director of Sarvodaya Institute and the co-founder of Healing Gardens Community.
In this podcast episode, Rishi sheds light on what regenerative gardening is all about; why we need to distinguish the differences between degenerative vocabulary and regenerative vocabulary; why the concept of waste in of itself may set us up for failure when trying to live in more sustainable ways; and more.
To start, get a glimpse below into the conversation between Rishi and Green Dreamer Podcast's host, Kamea Chayne.
Musical feature: Trust The Sun by Mission to Earth by NYADO
“My number one rule with regenerative gardening is if it’s not regenerating you, it’s not regenerative because you are the earth and you are the garden.”
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This is a conversation on Green Dreamer with Kamea Chayne, a podcast and multimedia journal illuminating our paths towards ecological balance, intersectional sustainability, and true abundance and wellness for all. This preview has been edited for clarity. Subscribe to Green Dreamer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or any podcast app to stay informed and updated on our latest episodes.
On urban gardening's power to heal:
"I think urban gardening is important because it helps us see that under the asphalt and under that concrete, there is soil. That soil has worth, and she's never lost her worth. She has value, and she has never lost her value. She has power, and she has never lost her power.
What has been done is she has been suffocated—she's been abused, she has been covered over, and she's been told she's worthless.
What we do as gardeners is we come to that soil, and we're kind of like therapists. We say, 'Hey, I understand what's happened to you. The same thing has happened to myself, and as I'm understanding what's happening myself, I'm understanding what's happened to you. And let's come into a relationship again where we build each other up.'"
On describing our relationship with nature:
“I hear a lot of people use the language, ‘We're disconnected from nature.’ How can we be disconnected from nature? If you are the earth, how can you be disconnected from her?
I learned a new word in the last two years that I think is a more accurate description of what our current relationship is with nature: that word is disassociation. Disassociation meaning something that you are that you no longer associate or recognize as yourself.
What I see is that we are no longer recognizing ourselves in the earth, in the soil, in plants, and in trees. It's not that we're disconnected—we can't be disconnected—we are disassociated.
So, what gardening helps us do is understand this relationship that we don't need to get back in connection with the earth. There's no bridge I need to cross. I just need to realize who I am.”
On self-healing through regenerative gardening:
"If you're trying to control everything, you're going to feel stressed, and you're going to feel anxious.
My number one rule with regenerative gardening is if it's not regenerating you, it's not regenerative, because you are the earth and you are the garden. So, if you're stressed and your to-do list has cascaded into a thousand different things, then that's not regenerative gardening.
I find that if you have that control mindset—that mastery mindset—then it's going to affect you."
Final words of wisdom:
"Turn everything off as much as you can. Turn your mind off. Try to find the space where you can listen and where you can heal. I think that's more important than anything else.”
