One thing is all things. To resolve one matter, one must resolve all matters. Changing one thing changes all things. Once I made the decision to sow rice in the fall, I found that I could also stop transplanting, and plowing, and applying chemical fertilizers, and preparing compost, and spraying pesticides.

I wonder how it is that people's philosophies have come to spin faster than the changing seasons.

As far as my planting program goes, I simply broadcast rye and barley seed on separate fields in the fall . . . while the rice in those areas is still standing. A few weeks after that I harvest the rice, and then spread its straw back over the fields as mulch.

The healing of the land and the purification of the human spirit is the same process.

Although natural farming - since it can teach people to cultivate a deep understanding of nature - may lead to spiritual insight, it's not strictly a spiritual practice.

A farmer does not grow something in the sense that he or she creates it. That human is only a small part of the whole process by which nature expresses its being.

Farming is not just for growing crops, it is for the cultivation...o f human beings!