דִּבְרֵי תּוֹרָה / Blessing of Revelation

Our sense of inherent value is rooted in the body’s ability to care for itself and in the direct ways we can provide for our own physical needs. When making money becomes a substitute for foraging, gathering, hunting, planting, we lose important sources of power. The zucchini I buy in the store with money is entirely different from the one I pluck off the vine in my garden. The store-bought squash is an object, a dismembered part of the dead world, while the one in my garden is a whole process in which I have participated, from the composting of my garbage to the sense of wonder evoked when I find the vine still producing in November. I am not suggesting that we all turn to subsistence farming, but that our sense of self-worth is dependent on some direct contact with the broader cycles of birth, growth, death, decay, and renewal that do, in reality, sustain our lives. For even Hostess Twinkies are made of flour made of grain, and time still moves in cycles and seasons even when tracked by a digital clock.
Starhawk