Growing in isolation

*This article was written by a real human. AI will never be used in any creative work of The Natural Self.

Food is expensive these days and so many people seem to be taking an interest in growing their own. As the commercialized approach to food seems to be devolving, what seems to be evolving in us is a hunger (pun intended) to understand ancient practices of food production. How did our ancient ancestors produce food in the past? What are we doing wrong now that’s led to such an imbalance in our food, finances and health?

Food goes way beyond putting calories in our bodies that keep the physical machine going. Food gives us a direct image of what is taking place in our inner world. Observing the crops that we eat will tell you everything about the state of the human race. If you drive through agricultural areas of the United States, you’ll see a glaring problem. Isolation.

Many people who have traveled through the heartland describe it as “boring”, “flat”, “empty.” It didn’t used to be that way, but in 2026 they make a good point. Most land holds an endless pattern of a soybean field followed by a corn field, followed by a soybean field, followed by corn, etc. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll get to see sunflowers, flax or canola in full bloom. Even these fields are suffering from profound isolation.

To keep a plant growing in isolation, a few things are necessary. Everything else has to die. Rabbits, snakes, bees, beetles, lizards, birds, mice, prairie dogs, raccoons, butterflies, skunks, turtles or coyotes are helpful in the production of monocrop agriculture. Neither are the many herbs and trees that exist in nature. Dandelions, thistles, wild grasses, chokecherries, plums, sagebrush, ...everything that is free and wild is scorned as a “pest.” For the isolation machine (monocrop agriculture) to stay alive, everything must be spray, poisoned and killed.

The outer world paints a picture of what’s going on within us. If we’re honest, most of us will admit that we’re a lot like these monocrops. We’re trying to make things work in isolation. To build our own little kingdom. To live in this way, everyone else has to be conquered. We have to out-compete people with similar skills, desires and life ambitions. Out of the billions of people on planet earth, many of us live as if it’s possible to somehow stand alone. Not only is this futile, but a highly unconscious way to live.

The truth is that all things are connected and nothing can grow well and nourish the world in isolation. If we are mindful, we can observe this in nature. Life in all forms wants to be connected, generous and to reciprocate love. The ancients embodied this in everything they did, including growing food.

The practice of the Three Sisters Garden is something that was brought to my attention by a former student and colleague, Shana Holiday. As a brand new gardener, I knew next to nothing about growing food. She shared with me that many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas would plant beans, corn and squash all together in one mound. This came as a surprise because it went against everything that I’d heard about gardening. I had been told that everything should be grown in isolation. To remove competing “weeds” from the landscape and to keep every vegetable in it’s own sectioned off space in the garden.

Shana helped me understand why the three sisters approach works so much better. The three sisters, beans, corn and squash, all have unique challenges.

1. The bean’s challenge is that it doesn’t have a firm stalk. It has trouble reaching the sun because of it’s thin vines.

2. The corn’s challenge is that it requires too much nitrogen from the soil to produce grain. It can’t sustain itself in one place for more than a season or too because of how much energy it takes from the soil.

3. The Squash’s challenge is that it likes to travel and its fruit is vulnerable to raccoons and other animals if it has no place to hide.

When these three plants work together, there are more than three solutions that they provide for each other.

1. The corn sees the bean’s sunlight problem and says, “you can climb my stalk to get to the sunlight.”

2. The bean wants to reciprocate this favor and says “I’ll put nitrogen back into the soil so you can grow more grain.”

3. The corn and beans see the squash’s vulnerable fruit problem and say “you can hide your fruit with us so that it doesn’t get eaten before it’s ripe.”

4. The squash says “Thanks for protecting me. I also have a way to protect you. I’ll use my spiny leaves to ward off intruders. I also see that you both could use more water to grow. I’ll shade the soil with my big leaves so that the water won’t evaporate so much.

5. The corn says “with all this extra water from the help of the Squash, I’ll hold the soil together with my broad root system so that we don’t get washed away by the rain.”

And on and on it goes. The results of reciprocity are always more abundant than the results of isolation. The proof is in the harvest. One study showed that the three sisters method produced more food than planting them separately.

I’m inspired by this example from the natural world and know that human beings can create something beautiful when we step out of isolation. We need a tribe. I’m doing my part to bring it back. If you want to learn more, visit naturalselfexperience.com.