Engagement is the good life. What could be more exciting than getting involved in something that you care about and joining with others and seeing something change? What could be more thrilling?

A life-long mission has been to counter the notion that political engagement is the spinach we must eat in order to have the dessert of freedom.

What is different and exciting is how much we have learned. We learned we were right that we don't need the chemical model of agriculture. We know so much more about the life of soil now and we understand how plants synergistically work together with microbes and animals to create healthy conditions.

We can't see ahead of time what actions are going to be the ones that move history in dramatic ways.

I'm neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I am a dyed-in-the-woo l possibilist! By this, I mean with an eco-mind, we see that everything's connected and change is the only constant.

Approaches to growing food that align with nature changed human relationships.

Making conscious choices about what we eat, based on what the earth can sustain and what our bodies need, can help remind us that our whole society must begin to balance sustainable production with human need.