[Scpg] Agrotherapy -- Farms that Heal

[LBUZZELL at aol.com]

Local farms can do a lot more than grow food. Small family farms are now  
being used to heal Iraq war vets and others suffering from psychological 
trauma,  as reported in this article from HopeDance.
 
Linda
 
_http://www.hopedance.org/cms/content/view/618/86/_ 
(http://www.hopedance.org/cms/content/view/618/86/) 
     

Agrotherapy – Farms that Heal 
 
(http://www.hopedance.org/cms/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=618&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=86#) 
    by Shepherd  Bliss 

After farming for most of the last sixteen  years in semi-rural Sonoma 
County in 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 may  be 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.

Working outside on a regular basis and listening to hawks  and other birds, 
my neighbor’s cows and many other beautiful sounds, like  the wind with its 
multiple dance partners – including the mighty redwoods  and the flexible 
bamboo – has increased my appreciation for natural music.  I am often 
overwhelmed and beaten down by urban and industrial sounds,  which trigger the 
sound trauma that I accumulated from the military.  Music, paintings, poetry, 
and other arts can enhance one’s  healing.

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 hand 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 trees.

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 in Northern California 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 _sbliss at hawaii.edu_ (mailto:sbliss at hawaii.edu)   .



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