Roots in the Garden and in Our Lives

We are often captivated by nature’s visible beauty, whether it’s a blossoming flower or the grand canopy of a noble oak. When asked to visualize a tree, most of us picture its trunk and canopy, but rarely do we consider its hidden, underground root system. Yet it’s the roots that anchor the tree, absorb water and nutrients from the ground, and store food reserves. No tree can survive without its roots. Additionally, roots play a crucial role in preventing soil erosion by binding the soil together.

But how do roots manifest in our human lives? How can we anchor ourselves to stay steady and resilient, even in challenging circumstances?

This intriguing question was the focus of a workshop we organized with the SET&Neighbourhood (SET&Debuurt) community in IJburg, Amsterdam, as part of the Social_Peas project.

IJburg is an eastern district of Amsterdam, situated on an archipelago of artificial islands in the IJmeer. The first residents moved in 2002, and six years later, the neighborhood had 10,000 inhabitants. Today, it is home to nearly 31,000 residents from diverse backgrounds. In this vibrant part of Amsterdam, SET is a socially engaged community of newcomers and students who share their life experiences and knowledge to nurture the community.

What an exciting setting to explore how roots are present in our lives!

With a group of people from six different countries and cultures, it was fascinating to witness the various ways roots manifest in our lives. “My roots are where I’m coming from” was a frequent answer, but upon deeper reflection, family (and ancestors), friends, and the place of growing up were most often listed as significant anchors.

It was also interesting to see that mother tongue was often cited as a crucial element of one’s roots by those living in a non-native language environment. When it comes to the challenges of interacting with people from different backgrounds, language and nuanced communication seemed to be the biggest obstacles.

Not surprisingly, food is also considered an important element of our roots. What and how we eat reflects our culture and the way we interact with others in our local community. Music and songs were also mentioned as great supports for finding grounding in challenging times.

With all the shared examples of roots in our lives, everyone agreed with one participant who said, “You might not see the shared roots with someone, but you can immediately feel it.” Like a plant’s roots, our human roots often remain invisible and unconscious, yet they enormously influence our behaviour, feelings of connectedness, well-being - almost every aspect of our lives.

We often forget that humans and our societies are part of a much larger system: Earth's global ecosystem. The solutions and principles developed by nature over billions of years can and must be recognized and adopted in our human systems, whether at an individual, community, or societal level.

When applying (social) permaculture, we are doing exactly this. We rely on nature’s wisdom to implement sustainability and balance in our lives, communities, and societies.

In the Social_Peas project, we are now concluding the exciting exploration and development of tools to apply nature’s wisdom using the permaculture framework in social settings. But the work has just begun, and we are eager to continue spreading social permaculture with SET&Debuurt and other communities and organizations.