Yesterday, my mother reminded me of the most incredible story, passed down from her great-grandfather, about food forestry on our ancestral lands in northern Iran. Generations that worked and grew food in forests of wild, thorny pomegranate trees.
In my grandfather’s generation, a turn to supposedly modernized ag and row cropping meant that they dug up all of those old trees and cleared the land. They continued growing saved seeds for a long time (some of which I still grow and propogate)
Until corn, cotton, and soybean crops became more lucrative. And then my uncle was disappeared during the revolution, the house was burned down, and the land was seized. This was an apocalyptic time.
After like 15 years, my uncle was found and released from the prison where he had been tortured. He made his way back to my grandparents and somehow they got part of the land back, but not all of it. The parts where ancestors are buried are now just open fields in the countryside
My grandmother grew a massive rose garden (again with the thorns) to replace the one that had been razed in the fire. It’s still there. I have a special stash of damask roses from her garden for tea, carefully doled out to last a lifetime.
A few years ago, my uncle told me about how he had been persuaded to grow GMO corn (I think terminator seeds) and this totally destroyed the seed-saving that had taken place for hundreds of years.
And once again, the government is trying to seize what little of the land is left in his care, threatening to disappear him again if he resists. All of this during a pandemic. And he is in his late 70s. And fighting, as we do.
My mom reminded me that hopelessness and tenacity have characterized this entire family history, from growing food in thorny pomegranate forests to surviving and finding ways to keep going aftet human rights abuses.
I was puzzling through my own thorns yesterday. She told me to look in my orchard and embodied memories for the answers I am seeking. And it’s true, they’re all there. I already work with them every day.
The most significant being the Tennessee persimmons that I planted as a pollinating pair in the same hole with long-term changes and climate in mind. Maybe I will also dedicate a little spot to some extra thorny (devotional) pomegranate trees.
