[Scpg] AGROTHERAPY: FARMS HEAL by Shepherd Bliss

Sun Feb 1 15:41:43 PST 2009

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   AGROTHERAPY: FARMS HEAL, By Shepherd Bliss  
(http://carolynbaker.net/site/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=963&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=1#)     
Sunday, 01 February 2009  "...farming  has helped me recover from post-traumatic 
stress from being in the  military family that gave its name to Ft. 
Bliss,Texas, and having served in the U.S.  Army during the Vietnam War era. Living on 
or even visiting farms puts  people in direct contact with nature in ways that 
can improve mental  health."  
After farming for most of the last sixteen  years in semi-rural Sonoma 
County, Northern California, and being raised  partly on our family farm in Iowa, I 
have come to understand that  agriculture can serve many functions, in 
addition to producing food,  fibers, and beverages. Some farms--especially 
non-industrial small family  farms--are places where working the Earth can be good for 
body, mind and  soul. Farms can heal. 

"I farm because it is my  work, play, church, school, gym, and therapy," my 
agrarian neighbor Jeff  Snook recently said as we exchanged food and plants, as 
we sometimes do.  Farms tend to create relationships--with plants, animals, 
the elements,  and humans--which can promote physical and mental well-being. 

Agropsychology is a  growing field of study, whose practice is called 
agrotherapy. For example,  farming has helped me recover from post-traumatic stress 
from being in the  military family that gave its name to Ft. Bliss, Texas, and 
having served  in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War era. Living on or even 
visiting  farms puts people in direct contact with nature in ways that can 
improve  mental health. 

Though the words  agropsychology and agrotherapy are bulky and relatively 
new, and perhaps a  bit too academic, their practices are simple and ancient. 
Farms on  monasteries and elsewhere have long been places in many cultures where  
people have gone for both physical and mental relief and  healing. 

Psychological literature  documents that what has been called pet therapy and 
horticulture therapy  can heal.  Animals can help comfort people and draw 
them away from  passivity and depression. Gardens are increasingly popular in 
hospitals  for the beauty and healing they offer. People have long gone to nature 
and  the countryside for relaxation. 

Regular physical  work--essential to successful agriculture-has been proven 
to enhance  mental functioning and health and even extend one's life span. It 
releases  chemicals that make people feel better and stimulates a feeling of  
well-being. 

"Ecopsychology:  Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind" titles a popular  
anthology published by Sierra Club Books in l996. Its sequel  "Ecotherapy: 
Healing with Nature in Mind" is scheduled  to appear this May. It includes chapters 
with titles such as "Gardens That  Heal," "Horses, Humans, and Healing," and 
"Tailoring Nature Therapy to the  Client." Trees, animals, rivers and other 
natural elements can make good  listeners and great therapists. Simply watching 
and helping plants and  animals grow and feeling seasonal changes can be 
nurturing and lift one's  spirits. 

Though they do not use  the word, recent articles in our daily newspaper, the 
Press  Democrat, report examples of agrotherapy, including the use of animals 
 for psychological healing. "With a year-old retriever at his feet, Iraq  war 
veteran Christopher Hill slept soundly through the night-something the  
muscular Marine staff sergeant hadn't experienced in four years," reports  a recent 
story headlined "Canine  Compassion."  Animals can offer protection of both  
body and soul, and thus increase feelings of  safety. Caring for them can help 
humans care for each  other. 

"Farm  Sanctuary" titles a new book  by Gene Baur, sub-titled "Changing 
Hearts and Minds About Animals and  Food." Long before the professional fields of 
psychology and psychotherapy  developed, people knew that pre-industrial farms 
in agrarian communities  could be sanctuaries where they could go for 
protection and recovery.  Farmers used to have the highest life expectancy of any 
profession in the  U.S., before the advent of chemicalized industrial agriculture. 

Farms can provide  healing fields-especially for those who have been on 
killing fields-for  damaged animals, including humans. Farm animals and humans, as 
well as the  wildlife that roams farms like mine, can benefit, comfort and 
even help  heal each other. 

The national group Farms  Not Arms, which has active chapters here in the San 
Francisco Bay Area,  and the related Farmers-Veterans Coalition help locate 
farms for returning  veterans, who can find meaningful work and recover from 
the ravages of  war. Various groups use the biblical concept "from swords to  
ploughshares." Others affirm "from tanks to tractors." 

Chickens are the farm  animals that I personally find most healing. At our 
Iowa family farm  in the late 1940s, we did not yet have electricity. Instead of 
radios and  televisions for entertainment, we had animals, which I still 
prefer to TV.  They can be funny, as well as beautiful. I enjoy watching and 
hearing  chickens dance, talk to each other, clown around, dig into the Earth with  
glee, and herald the dawn. Many adults could benefit from learning from  
chickens how to play more, which can be deeply healing. 

Chicken wisdom is based  on the alertness necessary for prey to survive. I 
sometimes take chickens  as "Teaching Assistants" to my psychology classes at 
Sonoma State  University, much to the delight of students. Learning how to 
lighten up,  especially in the face of crises, can reduce stress and literally 
extend  one's life. 

We can all benefit from  having an animal of choice and a plant of choice. 
Near my chicken village  is a field of boysenberries. The beautiful, sweet, 
succulent boysens are  my plant of choice and chickens are my animal of choice; 
they help me heal  better than any drug of choice. 

I began writing about  agrotherapy at a gathering of the Veterans' Writing 
Group, which I have  met with in the Sebastopol countryside for over a dozen 
years.  Our  book "Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace," edited by Maxine  Hong 
Kingston, includes essays, stories, and poems by some eighty  veterans. My 
contribution is about sound trauma and working to recover  from this post-traumatic 
stress of having sounds trigger my military  upbringing and service. The 
serenity and peace of my farm, where I use  traditional tools such as scythes and 
shovels, helps ground and heal  me. 

Support groups and  writing can also be healing. The written and oral telling 
of one's stories  can be regenerative. It is important to discharge some 
things, rather than  allow them to linger only within and thus damage the body, 
diminish the  mind and erode the soul. 

In the summer of 2007 I  was summoned to Chile by an attorney to appear 
before a judge in the  torture and execution of my friend Frank Teruggi in l973 by 
Gen. Augusto  Pinochet's dictatorship. The testimony went well, but after 
interviewing  torture victims and visiting torture centers, I left earlier than 
planned  to rush home to my small farm.  I could not wait to be with my  
chickens, who welcomed me back with flapping wings and exuberant cackles,  and to 
walk among the healing redwood, apple, and oak treess. 

Sometimes dealing with  people is just too much, especially when they are 
mean, cruel, and even  deadly. Times come to take it to the trees, vegetables, 
animals, and  elements. They can hold it. Weeds help me. Pulling them out can 
release  anger - better than punching someone. Livestock appreciate attention 
and  vigorous conversation. They bark, bellow, howl, scream, and make all kinds  
of sounds; they listen better when one yells back, which can be a  release. 

We live in an uncertain,  challenging time of diminishing resources and a 
growing global food  crisis. Many veterans are returning from wars, some with 
deep mental  wounds. Those wars and their damage are likely to continue and 
perhaps  even escalate as competition for natural resources, such as water and  
energy sources, expands. Farms can help returning warriors to re-enter  civil 
society and be productive contributors. 

We face unprecedented  and unpredictable threats, such as chaotic climate 
change, petroleum and  other natural resources depletion, vanishing pollinating 
bees, rising  oceans, thinning forests, and a host of other dangers. Such 
perils are  good reasons to grow some of one's own food, which can also help 
relieve  various forms of suffering. For those wanting to survive, growing at least  
part of one's own food by gardening or farming would be prudent and help  
enhance one's security. 

What some people call a  "Recession" seems deeper even than a Depression-more 
like a Collapse,  which is likely to cause substantial financial, physical, 
and  psychological damage to people. Farms, rural areas, and helpful agrarian  
communities can be good places to absorb the hits that are likely to come  our 
way. 

Connecting to the land  and seeing beauty can help alleviate anxiety and 
restore a damaged soul.  Farming and gardening can be effective therapy for the 
slings and arrows  of bad fortune that befall people. 

Plus that, instead of  paying for professional therapy, on a farm one can 
have meaningful work,  produce an income, and feed one's self and family. 

(Dr. Shepherd Bliss  farms outside Sebastopol and teaches psychology 
part-time at Sonoma State  University. An essay of his on agrotherapy was recently 
published in the  new University of Hawaii Press anthology "Enduring War: Stories 
of What  We've Learned" and another will be published in May in the Sierra  
Club Book's "Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind." He can  be reached at  
(mailto:%20<script%20language='JavaScript'%20type='text/javascript'>%20/n%20</s
cript><script%20language='JavaScript'%20type='text/javascript'>%20%20</script>Thi
s%20e-mail%20address%20is%20being%20protected%20from%20spam%20bots,%20you%20ne
ed%20JavaScript%20enabled%20to%20view%20it%20<script%20language='JavaScript'%2
0type='text/javascript'>%20%20</script>) _sbliss at hawaii.edu_ 
(mailto:sbliss at hawaii.edu) .)

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