Alchemy 2 (the Micro Picture)

My father came to visit last week. When I said that now that I grow 12 months per year of fruit and vegetables, I've started growing carbohydrates, he asked why. I was tempted to quote the dào dé jīng:
"The dao that can be expressed is not the eternal dao."
But that is the first sentence of the dào dé jīng, so what I said instead is because of the way it connects me up. To the circle of life (find the common element in the picture above and the Alchemy picture). I could also have said because I signed up to 10:10, and I thought this would be both the nicest and easiest way to decrease my carbon footprint by 10% in 2010. Or because it eliminates waste. A word or two about this connecting. Reconnection to Nature is the most talked about topic on this blog. What I like about these posts is the implicit recognition that the spiritual side of this reconnection is inseparable from the practical side. To paraphrase Robert Pirsig: Talk about spirituality can get very confusing unless the topics with which spirituality is concerned are also included. So in this series of posts I would break a lance for talking more about closing the elemental cycles (carbon, nitrogen, etc.). This is one of the strengths of home gardening. My vision for the year 2100 is that there will be no more flush toilets.