With spring upon us, it is time again to plant seeds. For many years I have been growing small plots of upland rice, sometimes no more than a hundred plants, saving seed from year to year from the most balanced individual specimens. For the past two years I have been planting larger plots, and we have
been eating home grown rice here at South River Farm. With each meal it seems to taste better and better. Nourished in this way, I have been weighing and measuring, inwardly and outwardly, both the rice and our human plight. The rice has something to say:
If you were to plant one single grain of rice seed this spring, and care for this plant so that it could complete its life cycle to fruition, in October you could harvest at least 250 grains of new rice seed from this one plant.
A year from now, if you planted each of those 250 seeds 6 inches apart in rows one foot apart, you would need a garden space about 128 feet square (8′ x 16′). From this small plot of rice, you would harvest about 5 pounds of un-hulled rice [62,500 (250 x 250) grains of rice].
Two years from now, if you were to plant out the 5 pounds of seed, you would need about threequarters of an acre of land. Each plant would yield 250 grains, and you would harvest about 1,250 pounds of rice seed. This would equal about 930 pounds of hulled, brown rice, enough to feed a small community.
That’s already more than enough rice for one person to handle; but just to follow the progression one more round, let’s say your community got together, three years from now, to plant out all your seed (1,250 pounds). Your planting would require about 184 acres of land; your total harvest would be about 116 tons of hulled, brown rice!
To summarize: we start with one single grain of rice; 3½ years later we have 116 tons!
The above figures are not based on commercial yields of rice; such figures would be even more staggering. The figures are based on observations and measurements I have made while growing upland rice as a novice here in Conway, Massachusetts, for 20 years, where rice has never, ever been grown before, in a climate unthinkable for its cultivation.
Over the years I have been able to work with the rice as a close friend. I have come to know her from seed to seed, through 21 generations, each one adapting to the ever present Now. As with other beings of the plant kingdom, her beauty, her simple needs, her obedience to the lawfulness of cosmic life, her generosity, her tolerance and total forgiveness are altogether like a still small voice calling to us, reminding us to attend to our own potential within. She tells us that we, too, are like seeds in the process of becoming. Have we the faith of a single grain of rice, we can, in the fullness of time, bring about enormous and real positive change, inside and out.
Our apprenticeship position beginning in the fall of 2002 is still open. Please inquire.
I revive within myself the thought:
Each day holds the chance for a new beginning.
I place all my thoughts and actions
Into a space of renunciation:
That space becomes a space of freedom.
In it dwell neither haste nor sloth,
Neither fear nor expectation:
Hopefulness, love, and humility abide there.
— Hans Glaser , as quoted by
Jostein Saether in his book, Living with
Invisible People (England: Clairview Books,
2001), page 305. www.clairviewbooks.com.
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We are here to learn from each other and to help each other grow in the True Spirit of all people.
Dr. Amor Vida, who fell in love with our Hearty Brown Rice miso, submitted the original recipe, which Meagan Calogeras modified for our once-a-week staff lunch. This dish was a big hit here at South River!
½ to 1 pound shrimp, de-veined
2 cups of “shrimp water” (see below)
1 cup of sweet (glutinous) brown rice
2 Tbsps South River Hearty Brown Rice miso
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 stalks chive, chopped
½ cup walnuts, chopped
½ cup pecans, chopped
2 Tbsps extra virgin olive oil Parsley for garnish
Bring shrimp with shells to a boil, and then simmer for 30 minutes. Discard shells and save 2–3 cups of the shrimp water as the base for cooking the rice.
Wash and rinse the sweet rice. Sauté the rice with the garlic in olive oil for a few minutes over low to medium heat.
Add the nuts and miso (dissolved in a little bit of the shrimp water) and cook for a few minutes.
Add the shrimp water, cover, and let cook over low heat for 50 minutes or until the rice has absorbed all the water. Check to see that there is enough liquid so that the rice doesn’t burn.
Serve the boiled shrimp on top of the rice and garnish with parsley.
Ordinarily, miso is not boiled, since cooking destroys the beneficial microorganisms. In this recipe, however, the miso is being used for its special flavor, not for its enzymatic power.
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