Does Your Sabzeh Scale?
A sizdah bedar, turf tossing meditation
Happy Nowruz to All! This Nowruz, don’t just bling out your haft sin table, and for sizdah bedar, don’t just toss your turf. Hear its call to action. Scale that Sabzeh!
Persian New Year (Nowruz) occurs the moment the sun crosses the equator on the Spring equinox. It’s the same moment all around the world — the first moment of Spring.
Every nowruz, each Iranian household sets their haft sin table, complete with a plate of grass (sabzeh). And then, thirteen days later, for sizdah bedar, they all head outdoors for a picnic, where they release the sabzeh into a flowing stream of water, as seen in this sizdah bedar video.
It’s an elegant tradition with a deep environmental message. A systematic call to social and environmental action.
“haft sin”
“Haft” هفت is the number seven, “sin” سین is the letter “s” — س and is pronounced “scene”. For Nowruz, Iranians set their haftsin table with certain symbolic objects, including seven things that start with the letter “s” (the eponymous “haft sin”. Apparently, this is a recent tradition, per this post on NPR, “Persian New Years Table Celebrates Nature’s Rebirth Deliciously”
The item that takes the most work is, of course, the sabzeh (سبزه — greens, plate of grass).
Sabzeh — سبزه
Did I say, “plate of grass”? ّIt’s basically sprouts. Sabz also means green. Here are DIY instructions (BRAVO, Fig & Quince!) on how to grow sabzeh.
You can tell a lot about a person by the state of their sabzeh. #NotJudging. Looking forward to #FacebookQuiz where you can analyze your personality based on what your sabzeh most resembles.
State of the Environment: Sabzeh vs. Tree Metrics
What does this tradition say about Iran’s environment? Compare this to the Christmas tradition of celebrating the seasonal holiday by cutting down an entire tree.
The major environmental differences — inequalities — between arid and wet environments are embodied in these two traditions. Iranians hydroponically nurture plates of sprouts. Meanwhile, Americans casually select whole trees to chop at tree farms.
In these holiday vegetation choices lies an insight so obvious, most people ignore it: Some people have environmental abundance (more water and resulting biomass), some don’t.
Those who don’t, don’t have a margin of error. They need to be the most environmentally conscious people on the planet. That’s Iranians.
Those in temperate climates, blessed with regular rain and reservoirs, can afford to chop down a tree — or 33 million of them each year. It’s sustainable! FYI, fake trees are worse for the environment. The tree farms are on a ten year cycle. You chop 10% of the trees each year. 330 million trees are planted at any given time. What eco abundance.
Scarcity of Trees
Meanwhile, in Iran, trees are few and far between. And SO IS GRASS! The ground is mostly barren. Don’t be fooled by photographs. Take a look at this lovely picture of a Persian garden. It looks like you’re in a forest with a waterfall.
Here’s that same garden, as seen from space. باغ شازده — bAqe shAzdeh, aka bAqe shAhzAdeh in KermAn, irAn. It is obviously kept green by groundwater while the land all around is depleted and dessicated.
Call to Action: Restore the Grass; Restore the Water
The haft sin sabzeh contains an immediate, urgent call to action.
Nowruz festivities are bracketed by two events related to the sabzeh. First, you have to coax it to grow. Then, at the end, you have to find a river, and release the grass into it. This corresponds to the dual calls to action of building topsoil, and managing water.
Restore the Grass: Building Topsoil
When you coax a plate of grass to life, you are meditating on the practice of building soil. You are growing seedlings on a plate. The plate is not living. It is just a plate. The grass is alive. And it can only survive so long on the plate. Most of the planet is not living, like the plate. In order for life to be sustained, there must be a layer of soil between the living and the mineral. Living things act upon the inert minerals to create that soil and expand the area for life. More in this awesome documentary:
Every year, we grow the plate of grass. We need to be thinking of how to scale this grass to the whole country and beyond. This means building topsoil.
The most meaningful indicator for the health of the land, and the long-term wealth of a nation, is whether soil is being formed or lost. — Christine Jones
Here is what it looks like as your soil improves:
Who is working on these issues?
Dr. Taghi Farvar works on the traditional role of indigenous communities in managing the scarce resources of water and rangelands. Dr Stephane Ostrowski reports on Iran’s flora, fauna and natural habitat and the challenges that climate change and lack of enforcement resources are causing to forests, rangelands, and endangered species. Mrs Laleh Daraie has news of the success of the UNDP/GEF Small Grants Programme in engaging local communities in environmental regeneration programmes in Iran. Who else? Let me know!
Restore the Water
Part two of the Nowruz sabzeh saga comes on the thirteenth day of the new year — sizdah-bedar. At the conclusion of the spring festivities, we seek out a body of flowing water to release the plate of grass into.
And how do we act on the water issues? Again a point of departure from Iran’s Natural Heritage Symposium:
In a passionate keynote speech, Gary Lewis suggested that Iran’s most fundamental environmental challenge of this century is its depleting water resources. Per capita water resources have dropped from 7,000 cubic meters in 1956 to 1,900 cubic meters in 2014. With the population growing to 90 million by 2025 Iran would need access to 30 billion cubic meters of extra water, an impossible objective at the current rates of consumption and depletion. “The water crisis is the biggest challenge to Iran’s human security.”
Dr Kaveh Madani of Imperial College took up from Gary Lewis’ theme of water scarcity and provided a concise picture of the causes of Iran’s water crisis. Some 90% of Iran’s water is being used in agriculture, an industry which is heavily subsidised and is allowed to use water as a “free resource.” Dam building has been the centre–piece of Iran’s water policy for decades. The policy has neglected the social and environmental impact of interfering with water systems and caused serious damage to sustainability of supplies. “A holistic approach to water management, backed by pricing water as a precious resource, is the key to addressing Iran’s water crisis.”
Visit the Iran Heritage Foundation (IHF) Youtube Channel for more videos on this topic.
Happy Nowruz my friends! Nowruz resolution. Let’s restore the soil, and restore the water. And have many more wonderful Nowruz’s to come!
Originally published at ajaban.com.
