How Glyphosate Led Me To Forgiveness

By the sound of this title, you’re probably wondering what the heck I’m going to talk about, but I promise this story is one that will not only inspire you to educate yourself on organic farming, but will also make you think about the beautiful polarity that life offers us in every moment.

If you’re at all aware that nature runs its own course, you will understand that wildfires, tsunamis, tornados and heavy storms are almost always out of our control. And the more we start to experience these events, the easier it is to see that human behavior and how we’ve treated Mother Nature is a direct result of the climate crisis we are facing today.

This reality reminds me of the resistance we may feel towards certain people in our lives. The more we manipulate, force, and control how other people respond to us, the more devastating and undesirable the outcome will become.

Tracing this analogy back to my childhood, I did everything I could to resist the relationship between me and my father. A dead-beat dad who left me at the age of thirteen due to his own childhood wounds. I grew up with an unhealthy relationship to masculine energy. Never trusting men for fear that they would leave, just like my dad left me.

When you speak to any farmer or groundskeeper, and ask them a specific question about their relationship to weeds, depending on who you’re speaking to, you will get completely different answers.

In operations using conventional farming methods, you will almost always hear about how weeds are the arch nemesis to your farm or land. In organic or traditional farming however, you will hear the opposite.

Many regenerative farmers who work with weeds, use them to their advantage. Afterall weeds are simply messengers telling us what our soil needs. We can use weeds to our advantage, and we should in order to understand the role they play in our operations.

But because of the long standing perception of weeds in our society, many have come to the conclusion that killing them entirely is mandatory for our plants to survive, when in reality the use of Glyphosate to do this, ends up hurting human health instead.

The love hate relationship that weeds provide humans is one to be cherished. One week you may be overflowing with a luscious garden and the next you could be plucking strawberries out of your garden beds having to start over because you failed to pay attention to the rows that needed maintenance the week prior.

Just as in life we are seeking instant gratification and answers that will yield what we perceive to be “success”– farming with the use of agrochemicals does the opposite. The more we try to control the abundance of our crops in any given season, the faster we fail. Farming is a consistent learning process, and you can never predict when the “right” time is, to plant seeds, harvest fruits, or lay compost. This is why it’s so fun, but also frustrating at the same time.

Human relationships are no different. One day we love our parents, the next day we want to strangle them. In my own experience, I erred more on the side of the feelings of resentment, anger and hate towards my father growing up, instead of love and understanding.

All of this; based on one thing– perception.

The way my father treated me as a child was perceived by me as hate, neglect and misunderstanding. Had I stopped to ask my father why he treated me the way he did, maybe I would have gained a deeper understanding of him and the way he perceived the world.

When planting seeds, and watching them grow we get a feeling of joy and curiosity. Until one day something goes wrong. The leaves start to brown, the soil becomes dry and we immediately feel like we’ve failed our little babies. In these moments we look for answers.

Asking questions as to why this may have happened, until we get to the root cause.

In 2019, I met up with my father for the first time in seventeen years after selfishly pushing him out of my life at the age of thirteen. I, too, wanted answers.

I asked a lot of questions, and a lot of tears were shed. The reason my dad never reached out during all of this time was because he too was neglected by his parents at a young age. He left home at the age of fifteen and never saw his parents again.

From a very young age, my dad felt like his parents never cared about him, and unfortunately, that same sentiment was passed down to me, due to the programming that my dad never resolved. Hurt people, hurt people.

In nature, the same thing happens.

If we don’t get to the root cause of something, we will continually see the same patterns show up year after year. When we use Glyphosate to kill weeds, claiming it will protect our produce, we’re really just masking an issue that can never be resolved. The poisoning of those weeds makes them come back stronger, which amounts to a much harder upcoming season and eventually a complete extinction of the land.

The more we avoid our issues, the deeper our wounds become.

After reuniting with my dad, I found out that he had been battling Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of cancer caused by the exposure of Glyphosate. I too, had been battling many chronic health issues leading up to this moment so I wasn’t surprised at this knowing, but I did feel a deep sense of guilt.

After talking to my dad about our relationship, he said the reason he never reached out all of these years was because he told himself that he would never force his children to talk to him if they didn’t want to. Because we all have freedom of choice. We can choose who walks into our lives, and who walks out. And he was right.

From that moment forward, I consciously chose forgiveness. Forgiving my dad for thinking that I was unworthy of receiving the love I deserved as a child, but also forgiving myself for realizing that life is precious and the connection between our parents is one that can never be broken. Once the seed has been planted, our roots stay connected to one another until our last breath.

The final message in all of this is that nature is forgiving too. Even though we’ve dug ourselves into the nightmare that is Glyphosate, we can dig ourselves out if we choose.

Namaste,

Nicole

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