I'm backtracking a bit here to do some catch up. I'm currently in LA down in the Venice Beach area trying to get my bearings on what content I've come here for.

A few weeks ago after my starter motor burnt out in Hopi and I had it fixed in Flagstaff I found myself dropping down to Cornville, AZ for an interview with Bill McDorman of Seeds Trust. Bill, wife Belle and his father and mother run this small seed saving and distribution company out of their home which is surrounded by glorious gardens filled with life and love.

I first met Belle who, after warm smiles, led me back through the gardens to Bill who sat on a stationary bike peddling away. Bill it seems is an avid cyclist. While he peddled I gave him my usual spiel on where I've been, what I'm doing and where I plan on going. His eyes shone giving away the fact that despite his lengthy time on the cycle he still had energy to spare and I was about to encounter it.

With certain people I've met on my journey, like all of us on our journeys through life, there are instant kin ships that present themselves. Bill was one of those people for me, reflecting a brother, father, son, and teacher back at me. And when we got into it the torrents of energy moving with our conversations were beautiful magical and deeply profound.

Bill has been collecting seeds for over 25years, it started way back when he realized it was on of the most profound ways he could preserve our world for future generations. At one point in our dialog he held out both his hands saying, (I'm paraphrasing) "In one hand I can hold a diamond, in the other I can hold a seed. By our current standards the diamond is seen as a thing of great value and the seed is just a seed. While in truth the diamond is just a diamond, while the seed contains the ability to produce food, multiply itself hundreds of times to feed thousands of people, and carries thousands of years genetic information, human labor and selection processes to come to the attributes and information that it now carries within it for all of us."

We live in a world where huge multinational corporations are patenting genetic information and creating seeds that are unable to produce seeds. Corporations understand what Bill is pointing out and they are determined to control every aspect of our food production. What does it mean for us that large corporations are suing small farmers whose crops are naturally cross pollinated with corporate patented seed genes. Why would they want to control all food production and make it almost impossible for people to cultivate and collect seeds on their own.

People like Bill are not only safeguarding seeds, they are safeguarding our freedom. Freedom to live peacefully, to produce food and is void of monoculture, free of pesticides, hearty, healthy, resilient, and carries with it all of our traditional knowledge and the wisdom of generations of human beings.

Bill knows all this, he's not becoming a rich man doing what he's doing, but he does it because in this world in increasing disconnection and insanity he recognizes the importance of holding onto things that are real, and truths that are in my opinion fundamental ones.

In speaking about his vision he repeatedly states that it's not about selling seeds and making money, but instead it's about education and dissemination of knowledge and the genetic information vital to all of our survival. Without food we are nothing, and without seeds there is no food...

peace,d