Most of where we go, we’re surrounded by straight lines. The lines cut across the sidewalk, or shimmy up the sides of buildings, outlining their edges. We organize ourselves that way, finding the linear relationships between things. We like our equations, our algorithms. They guide us along towards an unknown future, and we talk ourselves into believing that we can see the future if only the lines are straight enough.

We want perfection. We have equations that we want to work the same way every time, the ones that define perfect circles and perfect segments of time. If something doesn’t fit, it’s out of alignment.

It’s not wrong to make plans or use logic or draw straight lines, but that doesn’t always honor our place in the natural world. That way of seeing privileges our minds over our intuition.

What if the thing that doesn’t fit isn’t out of alignment after all? What if it’s just the real world breaking through the order we lay over it?

On the farm, we’re trying to build something more complex. It’s interdependent. It evolves. It has many goals, not just one. Nothing grows perfectly straight. There’s order, but it’s orderly the way a tree is orderly: branching, fractal, changing in the wind. It echoes something inside us, calling us back to our deepest selves.

Your Farmer-
Luke