One Straw Revolution

Masanobu Fukuoka. Photographer Unknown.

I am not a farmer.
I have never worked in agriculture.
I am a stonemason.

 “Leaning against the long handle of my scythe, I pause in my work in the orchard and gaze out at the mountains and the village below. I wonder how it is that people’s philosophies have come to spin faster than the changing seasons” – Masanobu Fukuoka.

 In 1975, Masanobu Fukuoka wrote a book, that in 2014 would subtly, but greatly, shape my outlook on the way of the world.
A small green paperback, its name, The One Straw Revolution, an introduction to natural farming. When I read Fukuoka’s book, I was rocked; a leaf on a rapid. Thrown downstream into 1960’s Japan, on the small Southern island of Shikoku, my being was opened to a world of non-action. I was introduced to the deep well of duality by means of rice farming.

 I didn’t know it at the time, but Fukuoka’s lessons were going to stick with me, years after the last page was turned.

 He speaks of “the world becoming so specialised that it has become impossible for people to grasp anything in its entirety”.

 Of not always being able to see the bigger picture, I am guilty.
I suspect you are too.

There is nothing innately wrong with specialisation. Your own, and my own unique skills are a very large part of what has allowed Homo Sapiens to move from hunter gatherers, to small agrarian societies and eventually into cities as we know them today. But we cannot discount our connection to everyone and everything around us. We are all of nature.

 Stonemasonry, like growing rice, is inextricably linked to nature. Stone by its very definition is the concentration of hard mineral matter, formed over millions of years. To work with finite material older than human life itself demands contemplation. It is a privilege in an era of disposability to connect with and build from a source that is much larger than any individual.