Yom Kippur Thoughts

Since today is Yom Kippur, I thought I would read through some of what the book of Leviticus has to say about the occasion.  Of course in English, we know Yom Kippur as the Day or Atonement, and while it is primarily celebrated by Jews it has great meaning for the Christian as well.  What many people may not realize is the connection between Yom Kippur and conservation.

In Leviticus 23 the Lord says to Moses that the Day of Atonement is meant to be a day of purification and rest.  What I find very interesting is there connection between rest and the Sabbath Year in Leviticus 25.  In general the Sabbath, the holiest day, is meant to be a day of rest.  Purity, rest, and holiness are all tied together on this day.  Of course, there is also the parallel between the Sabbath and the creation week, ending in the seventh day when God rested.  Wholeness is bound to holiness which is bound to rest.

The Sabbath Year was a seventh year in a cycle and, like the seventh day of creation, was meant to be a holy year of rest.  God told Moses that no one was supposed to work the ground.  Rather, the land would provide for the people out of the abundance of the sixth year.  In that year the Israelites were to eat whatever the land provided on its own from the seeds and plants remaining from the sixth year.  Today we recognize the wisdom of this principal: A year of rest would let the land recover from intensive farming.  The soil would regain nutrients from lying fallow.  Today sustainable farmers use forms of crop rotation to produce a similar effect.

After seven sevenths years of Sabbath came the Year of Jubilee; a fiftieth year of supreme rest and holiness.  In this year the Israelites were again prohibited from working the land.  This time, the abundance of the land from the sixth year would be so much that it would sustain the Israelites through the seventh year of Sabbath and the following year of Jubilee.  God says to Moses in Leviticus 25:23 "When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the large crop of the sixth year. In fact, you will still be eating from that large crop when the new crop is harvested in the ninth year."

But the Jubilee year didn't stop with sowing and harvest.  In that year land was meant to return to its original owners based on tradition family claims.  Homes within walled cities reverted to their original owners.  Indentured servants were absolved of their work responsibilities and released to be independent citizens again.  The essence of the year was to ensure that the every Israelite had the provisions he or she needed to sustain their familys' livelihoods.  God recognized that a period of rest and restoration was needed to ensure the sustainability of His people.

And so we circle round to the connections between Yom Kippur and the mission of Domicile Ecophile.  We may not all celebrate the Day of Atonement, but we all need to recognize that the land on which we rely for the survival of the human race needs a sabbath.  Without a healthy planet we are all on the path to losing the air we breathe, water we drink, and food we eat.  Living sustainably means treating God's creation in such a way that it gets the rest that it needs to provide us with our livelihoods.

God provided the Sabbath Year and Year of Jubilee to ensure both the survival of His people and His creation.  In that way sustainability is the spirit behind the Sabbath and Yom Kippur.  Paul writes in Romans 8:20-21 that, "Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay."  Though humanity's imperfection and sin is the source of creation's decay, the redemption that comes through Christ will redeem not only people, but God's whole creation.  The day of Atonement is a symbol for that redemption.  As we who love God act in a way so as to see "Heaven on Earth" through our actions, let's not forget that God longs for a day when His entire creation will be whole.  Let's let our actions not only be an example of Christ-like character, but also an example of sustainable respect for God's creation.

Species Updates

After a long summer we needed to make some updates to our species lists.  With the addition of many new bird sightings and new plantings like the chokeberry, Swamp Milkweed, Cardinal Flower, and other, the list was becoming a bit outdated.  Unfortunately, we here at DomEc didn't have the availability to make these updates incrementally over the summer as we would have liked.

We logged our first reptile at DomEc this summer--a young Black Rat Snake.  We don't have a category in the sidebar for reptiles because they are so rare here.  The same is true for amphibians; none of which have yet been logged.  Hopefully that will change.  Birds are now up to 106 species with Yellow-bellied Flycatcher and Cape May Warbler added in just the last few days.

Sadly some of the native plants didn't survive the heat wave and lack of rain that has afflicted the Domicile Ecophile property this August.  The American Chestnut seedling was one of the victims.  Many years ago a fallen tree created a hole in the canopy along the eastern edge of the property.  The chestnut had been planted in that hole in hopes of one day replacing the missing tree.  There are Eastern Poplar seedlings around the property.  One of them might get transferred in as substitute.

Butterfly Weed, a milkweed species, is now finally reproducing on its own.  About half-a-dozen seedlings have come up around the small hillside patch that was planted in the summer of 2014.  I suspect that since it is a temperate species the seeds may require a form of stratification (temperature changes to break down growth inhibitors in the seed).  Temperate plants often employ growth inhibitors to prevent them from germinating late in fall and dying in winter.  I suspect our new recruits are born of the 2014 seeds, not the plentiful 2015 crop that is blowing around the property now.

The Dappled Willow that was part of the horrendous (but typical) exotic-based landscape installation present when we took over the property has been pulled.  Many of the exotics are now being removed in conjunction with the vinyl siding project that is ongoing.  Two Burning Bush, two huge Japanese Barberry, and the willow have been removed so far.  In time these will all be replaced with natives or (human) food-producing plants.  More updates to come...