Working with soil, water, seeds and sunshine, while seeking a space of contemplation. Learning from clay, sand and silt, while starting a dialogue with nature. The kitchen garden is a living space of opportunities, a starting-point for socio-ecological transformation. The green plots of beans and squash teach us, sometimes disappointingly, that life is a creative process, that all forms of life will emerge and develop as soon as they are given the right conditions.

Speaking the language of tomatoes, what is it that makes us hurry through life, makes us blind to everything that deserves our full attention? The main cause to environmental destruction and social despair is our ignorance, our inability to perceive the interrelatedness of everything, the non-independent nature of human beings and human artifacts. When we begin to learn the language of the kitchen garden, we commit ourselves to a lifelong journey, slowly following the winding path of love and compassion.

Living in a culture that celebrates the elimination of barriers, we have become accustomed to technologies that promise us a higher quality of life. The railroads of the 19th century and the motorways of the 20th century are familiar examples of technological, political and economic projects that nowadays are taken for granted.

We may be disturbed by car pollution and airplane noise, but we do not usually question the infrastructure of mobility. No, we seldom question the drive for convenience and immediacy, for higher and higher speeds, for less and less friction. Commuting and long-distance travelling have become integrated aspects of our daily life, permeating our minds and value systems. Speed and mobility have long been terms with positive connotations, paving the way for projects of political and economic “improvements”. How should we otherwise understand the emergence of urban, interurban, regional, interregional, national and international infrastructure projects? What are we without cars, trains and airplanes?

Historical mistakes are not a good excuse for not doing anything today or tomorrow. So, what should we do? Why not begin by asking how we really want to live, how we really want to work, how we really want to use our common habitat. Let us imagine a world guided by slow mobility.

Many of us have distanced ourselves from nature, but quite a few of us would rather move in the opposite direction. The vision of a slow decade is an attempt to start this process of co-evolutionary or, if you prefer, co-revolutionary change. If we are to survive on this beautiful planet, we have to learn to live with nature, or, at least, to cultivate a deep sense of belonging to its ecosystems and bioregions.

In a time when the politics of economic growth have gone bankrupt, nature offers us a model for a less rootless and less restless way of living. From nature we can learn to live in a slower pace, and to meet our needs with less resources than we thought was possible. Nature invites us to its zero-growth community. If we are prepared to listen, it helps us to develop sustainable practices and sustainable societies.

To those who dispute the need of a radically different alternative, I would like to quote David Harvey: “Compound growth for ever is not possible and the troubles that have beset the world these last thirty years signal that a limit is looming to continuous capital accumulation that cannot be transcended except by creating fictions that cannot last.”

Happy Slow Decade!

I have practiced the art of slow living a few years now, and it has profoundly changed my life. By defining myself as slow, I have intentionally turned my life into a laboratory of slow thinking and slow practices.

It all began when I became aware that there was a movement called ’slow food’. Could something really be termed ’slow’ and still be something positive? It was like pushing an orange button, and all of a sudden I remembered my early childhood, a brief period when I used to ponder on my own in a place of my own. Old memories can be dangerous, and these were. Within a few weeks, I realized that I had always been a slow and reflecting person, but never had explored this hidden side of my personality.

As soon as the seal was broken, it seemed impossible to stop the flow, impossible to leave the slow path. It was indeed possible to live differently, but my awakening also raised a number of difficult questions: How many more were suffering from fast living diseases? Was it a structural problem? What was at stake?

Some years have gone now, and it has become more and more obvious to me that slow living has everything to do with ecological living. A slow movement without an ecological dimension is like a plant without soil or a fish without water.

It has also become clear that we have to cooperate, if we are to change the planetary conditions. Concerted slow actions at all geographical levels are badly needed, but we also need a new time concept. Slow Days and Slow Weeks are great initiatives, but deep-seated changes demand a Slow Decade. Why not rename the coming decade that begins in just a few weeks? The planetary ecosystems will not heal in ten years, but ten years will hopefully be enough time to establish a slow and reflective mode of thinking in every corner of the world.