An act of hope and defiance

I am in the middle of writing an article for Suite 101 on how forest gardens can provide food security over the long haul as a buffer against the food shortages that are likely to occur during an economic collapse caused by __________ (name your poison--peak oil, astronomical U.S. debt, etc.). But food forests are not only about feeding ourselves. If we are successful, they are a long-term committment to the future, a legacy and a gift we can give to nameless others for potentially generations to come. And in the present, while the gardens are being established one seemingly insignificant plant, tree, or bush at a time, the act of planting is both an expression of hope and an act of defiance. Hope because with evidence mounting that humanity is on the edge of a great and wrenching shift, planting a tree is an act of faith that we will indeed survive this somehow. And defiance because with all the news of impending collapse and disaster, we will not be immobilized like deer in the proverbial headlights into a passive acceptance of this civilization's demise. The act  of planting empowers radical thinking.