A Dirty Story

A Dirty Story – Permaculture Poetry & the Microbial Beats

Fresh from the final party of our 2009 Permaculture Design Course at the Virgin Island Sustainable Farm Institute – Listen to these mp3s, download’em, and spread’em around. Lyrics are in the comments below…

Bale Shabaka –

“Abundance”

Gabriel Vieira –

“A Dirty Story”

Is anyone interested in pulling together images for these pieces? I think they could be very powerful a la Greening the Desert, Project Survival Media, WeForest, etc.

Harvested abundance at the Virgin Island Sustainable Farm Institute

One thought on “A Dirty Story

  1. Here’s the Lrics for ‘A Dirty Story’ by Gabriel Vieira –

    soil, dirty subject,
    we’ve got to protect
    that thin skin wrapped around the earth
    a living being, womb giving birth
    not a dead, harsh cold, and static ground,
    but a breathing growing changing place where life abounds.
    a billion living beings in a teaspoon of ground, ]50 million kinds of fungi holdin it down.

    feed soil
    build it
    help it grow
    ponds swales and ditches dont let it flow,
    away prevent erosion
    to leave it for the children of our children’s children’s, children’s children.

    let me tell you a story about farmer joe,
    wakes up one morning says its time to sow
    a thousand acres of soy, try to hustle some dough.
    first thing ill do is to till the ground,
    move all of that good topsoil around,
    make it easy for me to plant my beds,
    but he doesn’t know that that means his soil is dead.
    so he plants his field in long straight rows,
    all the same seed he bought cheap from monsanto.
    he wants to grow big quick, throws down npk
    but that mineral salt sucks all the water away.
    but the plants seem to love it, on the outside at least,
    nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium feast.
    all that soy looks good to inects flying about
    they come from miles around to check it out.
    damn these pests, says farmer joe,
    ive put too much in this crop to let it go,
    im gonna kill all these insects with insecticide,
    doesnt leave a single bug alive
    once again, he doesnt know that not all bugs are bad
    didnt know how to make use of what he already had,
    so hes just killed the bugs when the fungi come in,
    start eating soy leaves, and so he begins
    with the fungicide spray, kill the fungus away,
    destroys his mycorihzal network in a single day.
    now his soils got no structure, no resistance to erosion,
    nothing holds it together so itll soon be gone

    and thats why we’ve got to
    feed soil
    build it
    help it grow
    ponds swales and ditches dont let it flow,
    away, prevent erosion
    to leave it for the children of our children’s children’s, children’s children.

    momma nature knows how to heal herself when shes bleeding,
    medicine is waiting beneath the soil to be needed,
    every weed has a function, ready to repair,
    damaged ground, left dry, compacted, and bare.
    so the weeds come in quick in farmer joe’s fields,
    damage, danger, disaster, its time to heal,
    but farmer joe doesnt know, wont let them grow
    too much invested for his crop to fail
    so herbicide completes his biocide cocktail
    a vicious cycle of death and destruction
    robs his soil of its ability to serve its function
    his soy looks green, but its sadly malnourished
    hes made a swath of death where their could have been a forest.
    here to save the day comes compost man
    with his earth healing, soil creating plan
    with compost we can easily make dirt,
    humble humans make humus to heal the earth
    berklee method eighteen days, hot pile of shit
    nice dirt quick, thermophillic
    just get the proper ratio of carbon to nitrogen,
    25 to one, bacteria will thrive again,
    one part green, one part brown,
    plants living and dead grown from the ground,
    one part manure, or other stinky stuff,
    and a little bit of water, just enough,
    that you squeeze a handful and you get one drop
    four days later, time to flip flop
    turn that pile upside down
    and let all those living things mix around
    bacteria orgy, its a party in there
    turn it every two days to let in air
    in eighteen days life has done its job,
    nothing in there is as it was,
    just beautiful, life giving, healthy dirt,
    to put on your ground and regenerate the earth.

    thats how we
    feed soil
    build it
    help it grow
    ponds swales and ditches dont let it flow,
    away, prevent erosion
    to leave it for the children of our children’s children’s, children’s children.

    so what about farmer joe, why do we care?
    well the thing is that this happens everywhere.
    this is how we grow almost everything we eat,
    and if we keep on doing it the future looks bleak.
    were destroying the soil, poisoning the land,
    and you and me and all of us have got to take a stand,
    if humans on this planet are gonna pull through,
    then i think that you know what were gonna have to do,

    we’ve got to
    feed soil
    build it
    help it grow
    ponds swales and ditches dont let it flow,
    away, prevent erosion
    to leave it for the children of our children’s children’s, children’s children.

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