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We have for some time wanted to come together to express our sadness and grief for the animals and plants who have died in conjunction with our efforts in organic farming and gardening at Green Gulch Farm and Tassajara. Recently we performed a memorial service for these beings at Green Gulch Farm. At the end of the ceremony we made the following dedication:
We welcome you—we invite you in—we ask your forgiveness and your understanding. Listen as we invoke your names, as we also listen for you:
Little sparrows, quail, robins and house finches who have died in our strawberry nets;
Young Cooper’s hawk who flew into our sweet pea trellis and broke your neck;
Numerous orange-bellied newts who died in our shears, in our irrigation pipes, by our cars and by our feet;
Slugs and snails whom we have pursued for years, feeding you to the ducks, crushing you, trapping you, picking you off and tossing you over our fences;
Gophers and moles, trapped and scorned by us, and also watched with love, admiration and awe for your one-mindedness;
Sowbugs, spitbugs, earwigs, flea beetles, woolly aphids, rose-suckers, cutworms, millipedes and other insects whom we have lured and stopped;
Snakes and mice who have been caught in our water system and killed by our mowers;
Families of mice who have died in irrigation pipes, by electricity in our pump box and by predators while nesting in our greenhouses;
Manure worms and earthworms, severed by spades, and numerous microscopic life-forms in our compost system who have been burned by sunlight;
Feral cats and raccoons whom we’ve steadily chased from the garden;
Rats whom we poisoned and trapped and drowned.
Deer, chased at dawn and at midnight, routed by dogs, by farmers, by fences and numerous barriers;
Plants: colored lettuces, young broccoli, ripe strawberries and sweet apples; all of you who have lured the animals to your sides, and all plants we have shunned: poison hemlock, pigweed, bindweed, stinging nettle, bull thistle;
We call up plants we have removed by dividing you and separating you, and by deciding you no longer grow well here;
We invoke you and thank you and continue to learn from you. We dedicate this ceremony to you. We will continue to practice with you and for you.
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