[Soil & Land - VIII]
The Hebrew people, despite generations of oppression, were promised land flowing with milk and honey. Milk, the liquid symbol of successful livestock husbandry, and honey, the sweet gold of abundant agriculture, are ecological shorthand for access to fertile soil, clean waterways, manageable topography, ample sun, sufficient precipitation, and clean air.
For a technological society like ours, access to land flowing with milk and honey is mere symbol; it’s just an idea with metaphoric meaning. For an agrarian society, access to abundant land means the possibility of flourishing into the future. It is literally the gift of posterity.
There is one thing about the promise, I think, that speaks directly (and maybe literally) to ancient agrarians and contemporary technologists: milk and honey, livestock and pollination, fertile soil and floral nectar all connote an ecological system that works. In other words, the promise of good land is a radical idea: either a system works and serves life or is doesn’t work and depletes life.
I think that’s a good rubric for advancement in any field, in any era: Does it serve life?
