If you've ever purchased anything organic from a grocery store or food cooperative, you might've noticed a logo on its label that looks something like this:
Oregon Tilth, a "nonprofit membership organization advocating organic food and farming," was co-founded by organic farmer and educator Harry MacCormack in 1975 in Corvallis, Oregon. (It's worth noting here that organic certification by Oregon Tilth is not the same thing as USDA Organic, which is a highly diluted, corporate-friendly knockoff.)
I first became aware of Harry through a monthly gardening column he wrote for the Corvallis Gazette-Times back in the late 1980s. His columns were always interesting, if a bit esoteric—especially when espousing the effects of the full moon and other celestial phenomena on planting and harvesting. But I was in my 30s then, and not quite ready to digest such mystical concepts. It wasn't until years later that I would begin to fully appreciate Harry's unique perceptions and wisdom.
I gradually became acquainted with Harry, the man, through his presence at Corvallis-area farmers' markets. He was the guy behind the table full of produce from his organic farm, Sunbow Farm. Strangely, while his produce always looked fresh, beautiful, and healthful, Harry often appeared to be irritable, even angry. Or was he just stressed? And if so, stressed about what?
Over the course of the next few decades, as I got to know Harry on a more personal level, the things that he was irritable, angry, and/or stressed about would eventually become clear. I would also acquire a better understanding of what he was passionate about—and optimistic about.
It was during the years 2010 through 2021, when my wife and I were running a small hobby farm and making regular trips to Sunbow Farm for pickup loads of Harry's famous leaf compost and wood chips, that I really began to appreciate Harry as a person, as an environmental activist and futurist, as a gifted creative writer, and as a friend. That's because, during each visit to Harry's farm for a yard of compost or chips, Harry would talk…and I would listen.
These conversations invariably were centered on Harry's passions: farming, the warming climate, and writing. And the conversations were always fascinating…stirring…enlightening…and sometimes terrifying. Fascinating when he would talk about his plans for a hydrogen-generating garbage digester; stirring when he would wax eloquently about his latest book of poetry; enlightening when he would speculate about the future of farming in the drying climate of Oregon's Willamette Valley; terrifying when he would speculate about the eventual disappearance of the valley's most important river, the Willamette, due to a potential absence of snowpack in the Cascade Mountains.
Surprisingly, Harry would expound on these weighty topics not with a frown or a crotchety old-man snarl, but with a wry grin, like he had exclusive access to the punchline of some outrageous cosmic joke. And it wouldn't have surprised me if he did, considering the depth of his intellect and the frequencies to which he seemed tuned. Sometimes Harry would talk about things that were so out there, or so practically unfathomable, that I found myself just nodding and saying, "Uh huh" as he spoke. But then later, after I got home or after I'd taken a few days to think about it, Harry's words and ideas would return to me in a flash of light, as if he had somehow flipped a switch in my brain—or my heart. I would have a sudden realization of what Harry was trying to say, accompanied by an intuitive, almost dreamlike understanding of its meaning and importance.
This was Harry's gift to anyone who would take the time to listen to him, to hear him out, to open his or her mind and heart to concepts that may or may not have a precedent or a literal context or even a factual basis in what we commonly refer to as the "real world." With a little patience, along with a willingness to submit to a fine-tuning of one's own frequencies, one might be rewarded with an exquisite peek at life in all its wondrous beauty, as Harry perceives it.
The experience that perhaps comes closest to what I'm trying to convey here is witnessing an aurora borealis. I've only seen the phenomenon as a filmed or recorded image myself, so I can only imagine what it must be like to see one in person. And until you've met Harry in person, I suppose your imagination will have to suffice as well.
Meanwhile, you might be interested in reading one of Harry's many
literary endeavors, and if you aren't already eating organic, maybe knowing a little something about this remarkable co-founder of Oregon Tilth will inspire you.
Harry, the Earth, and I hope so.
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