From Soil to Society: Celebrating the Essential Connections Between All Living Things  
       
  HISTORY    
       
 

When the glaciers of old retreated from the land we now call Nova Scotia, they sculpted in their wake the beautiful rolling hills that typify the geography of the LaHave Drumlins Ecodistrict. The glacial till of these rolling drumlins came to be known as the “hardwood hills” as it is here that the hardwood trees grew and flourished. It was these same hills that the settlers would choose as the site for their future homes. Their first job was to cut and clear the trees, removing and sometimes burning the massive stumps and then rolling the numerous rocks and boulders to the bottom of the hills so that they could eventually create enough cleared land on the hilltop for pasture, grain and vegetable growing.

  
Sylvia describes her childhood on the farm with the dairy cow providing milk, cream and butter, the pigs that kept them in meat and the horse that her father worked with in the woods and field. She remembers watching her father scythe the oats that he grew and then load up on to the horse drawn wagon for the journey to Newcombville and the threshing machine. “We never had to buy much except for tea and flour and maybe some salt and molasses, Mom pickled meat and we bottled just about everything we could. The apples would keep through most of the winter in the cold room with the squash. And the potatoes and beets and turnips in the bins in the basement would last us almost till we were picking the fresh ones again. We were warm and had love and lots to eat and not much else and that was more than enough. We all worked hard but we didn’t see it as work, it was just life ...and it was a good and happy life.
     
  Camelia Frieberg was pregnant with her son, Isaac, when she first met Sylvia and Robert Wile. As the longtime stewards of the land and woods, Sylvia and Robert wanted to meet the potential new owners of their land before signing any papers. Sylvia was thrilled to hear of the plans to have an organic farm and raise a family on the hilltop that had once been her home and the source of so much joy in her life. “There hasn’t been a child up there since we all grew up and moved on. I just wish every child today could spend even just one week living as we did back then, with no power and eating from their own garden and working hard and enjoying the life up there on that hill. It’s an experience they would never forget and I can guarantee they would never once use those words I hear too often today from kids, I’m tired, or I’m bored.”  
     
  Sylvia and Robert still live nearby and are often called upon for their advice, their friendship and their generous goodwill to those of us who have chosen to be on the hilltop where we never have time to grow tired or bored. When we clamber over those rocks and boulders to explore the woods and enjoy the fresh flavour of the wintergreen berries and splash in the lake or river, we know that Sylvia is very pleased that a new generation is discovering the wonders of her old home place that we now call Watershed Farm, Chanterelle Forest and Pollination Project.  
 
 
  Camelia had long harboured the dream of establishing a retreat centre where people would come together in an idyllic setting to cultivate and tend to the land and to their spirits and where they would make wonderful music and beautiful creations fashioned out of nature’s bounty. When she disclosed her ambition to her partner, Peter Biro, he was initially sceptical about the viability of such a venture. Did the world really need another “retreat centre”, and one located in the Nova Scotia countryside? What kind of difference could we truly make from such a remote spot on the map?  
     
  Peter had been steeped in the traditions of political philosophy, from Plato to Rawls, with pit stops along the way to commune with the likes of Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Mill. He had enlisted on both sides (at different times!) of the war between the liberals and the communitarians. Human nature, it seemed to him, simply would not admit of the sort of community Camelia aspired to live in.  
     
  But then Camelia introduced Peter to a different literature, one very much animated by an activism and worldly engagement not always present in the ivory towers of academic life. These were intellectuals who were also highly spiritual, artistic, pragmatic and who had invested themselves fully in the problems, challenges and opportunities of their own time and place. These were people who sought to articulate, apply and promote a system of practical ethics grounded in a commitment to sustainable agriculture, food security, environmentally responsible markets and industrial practices, empowerment and engagement of the disabled and special needs populations, social justice, human rights, international peace and cooperation, holistic health practices, and the like.  
     
  Meanwhile, conventional political institutions seemed to be increasingly incapable of responding to the most urgent needs of society and to the imperatives of environmental protection and the global economy was in the process of unravelling and of calling into question some of the most sacred conventional wisdoms of twentieth century capitalism. In Canada, Parliament faced a constitutional crisis as the 2009 New Year was rung in, and its ability to govern effectively was in doubt. And on World Water Day Canada's Minister of the Environment refused to acknowledge access to clean, fresh water as being a human right.  
     
  As they read together, discussed (and, not infrequently, debated) the issues, and as they considered how best to respond to the failure of leadership and to the efficacy deficit in conventional political institutions and in the traditional economies, Camelia and Peter concurred that what was most needed was a positive, constructive, loving "civil society" initiative based in our own backyard. Instead of hanging our heads in resignation and frustration, we would put the blessings of the resources available to us to good use and begin the process of reimagining society based upon the cardinal values and principles that inform our social and political outlook and that educate our artistic and spiritual sensibilities. The idea was to establish a social enterprise which, while being privately operated (so as to avoid the "politics", bureaucracy and inefficiencies of typical non-profit organizations), would nevertheless measure its success in terms of the social benefits produced for its participants and for the broader communities with which it intersects rather than in terms of revenues generated for its shareholders.  
     
  Peter's vocation is that of lawyer and advocate. Camelia's is that of film-maker. They have each devoted their careers to giving expression to the voices, grievances, aspirations, fears and dreams of others while also finding ways to explore and communicate their own sensibilities, priorities and values. This was often accomplished vicariously . For Peter, it was by way of the proxy of the "client's cause". For Camelia, it was via the proxy of the characters on the screen.  
     
  But, without either abandoning or diminishing their commitments to law or film-making respectively, Peter and Camelia knew that a more direct form of commitment and engagement was called for. Camelia led the way, pointing to the possibility of direct action, not merely through criticism and protest, but through community-building and reconnecting with the natural environment.  
     
 

And when Camelia proposed the name of the initiative,evoking as it does hope, fertility, renewal, optimism, love and life, "Pollination Project" was born!

  
     
  "Every individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every individual makes a difference." Jane Goodall