Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Waiting

I bought some vegetable starts to plant, some kohlrabi, lettuce, beets and broccoli. I am not very good with starting seeds indoors. For one thing, there really is not enough space in the house, and for another, the vegetables that are best started indoors can easily be purchased as starts at the local organic food store. The truth? Buying starts gives me some instant gardening gratification while the seeds I sow outdoors are still germinating.
The art of waiting starting slipping away from me a while back. I got a cell phone and a faster computer and found ever ready excuses for driving instead of taking the bus. I wonder how I ever found the time to wait for a library search of books in order to learn some bit of information. With a swipe of my finger there is more information than I could ever need. The sex of my unborn grandchildren can be known long before they are born. Gone are the days of waiting for a letter to come in the mail.
It is true that waiting is not always an experience that is grace filled. It often comes hand in hand with anxiety, frustration and sometimes, fear. Perhaps that is why waiting is so easily bypassed whenever there is an option.
There are many things to feel anxious about. I don't know how the story will end in Japan. The ongoing wars are frustrating and cause for concern. I don't know when life as it is now known will shift to accommodate climate change, localized economies, and an end to cheap energy. It is possible to conjure up images of a future time that create anxiety, frustration and fear. But living in those images cuts me off from the now that is in the presence of the people and the community that I love.
So I practice the steps needed to be light on my feet, able to flex and move with changes that are as yet unknown. Strengthened by relationships of trust and joy I prepare by re-learning old skills, writing letters, soaking beans, searching the encyclopedia, darning socks, embroidering a little name, sowing seeds. It is not surprising that the old skills take time, time that is readily available when waiting.
The hour that I had to put my newly purchased plants in the ground featured a pretty intense rainstorm followed quickly by nightfall. And then my work week began. The plants are sitting on the back porch now waiting for me. I think I will write a letter.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Connecting with the Earth


I woke up to rain and more rain but as the day went by the breaks between showers began to grow long enough that it seemed like a good idea to venture out. Motivating myself to get out into the yard, into the mud and wet of springtime is not easy after the dulling effect of wintertime gloom, but once I am out there, the freshness of the damp earth and clean air is invigorating.
While the grandchildren jumped on the trampoline I began clearing one of the small spaces of chickweed which had overwintered nicely, and got the soil ready for seeds.
I found a nice fat carrot forgotten from the fall and put it aside for dinner while the chickens stood greedily outside the garden fence hoping I would toss them some roots covered with bugs. The malaise of winter slowly began to seep out of my soul into the earth.
With each seed dropped into the wet earth came thoughts of people in Japan, of farmers whose crops cannot be eaten, of parents worried about how much radiation their children might absorb from the failing reactors, of floodplains covered with death, of springtime ruined by disaster. I thought too, of lands experiencing drought, where the abundance of water that has been falling in this very wet Pacific Northwest Spring would be a cause to celebrate. These thoughts make me grateful for the mud and the fertile ground with its small green sprouts lifting their heads towards the sky in search of sunshine.
After a while, the muddy-wet-joyful venture of digging up burdock roots began under the supervision of chickens looking for tasty worms. My task was to take a few pictures without getting mud on the camera.
Burdock grows in disturbed soil by the side of the road or in places where grandchildren like to dig. It was a surprise to me a few years ago to discover that the same annoying weed that sends out copious burrs to stick to your clothes and tangle your hair is really a biennial plant with a pleasant tasting edible root. Unlike yellow dock and plain old dock which are not edible, the burdock - surely named for its burrs!- is one of creation's gifts for those who hunger for foods that thrive without a lot of care and are as local as that patch of unsupervised ground off the deck. Simmered with potatoes, beets or other root crops it adds a mild but distinctive taste to an at home, from-the-garden-dinner.
There was just enough time to plant kale and lettuce, and to harvest a few roots and greens before the rain started again in earnest. Later the household sat down to a dinner that included from the garden: Brussels sprouts leaves simmered with mustard greens, arugula and sorrel salad, and sliced sunchokes (previously harvested) simmered with local mushrooms, butter and garam marsala spices. The burdock was saved for another day as I like to soak it first to remove all the mud.
I am grateful for the time and space to become more connected to the earth, and for the opportunity to transition from an old way of living that was disconnected from the earth and all living things. It is painful to realize how much damage has occurred while I, and others like me, slumbered. But pain, wisely used, can motivate positive change.
I am awake now, at least most of the time and I offer prayers and send good thoughts to the farmers whose crops cannot be sold, to those whose crops will fail due to drought, to those farmers who cannot afford to buy the seed or the chemicals that will make their crops grow in soil that has been drained of nutrients, and to all whose land will be contaminated for years and years to come.
I also send money via Mercy Corps as it is one way I can share my abundance with those so far away.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Cycles of Life

One of my chickens died.
Each morning I go out and open up the door to their chicken house so that the chickens can spend the day rummaging around in the yard. When the days are long they want to be let out earlier of course. I usually bring them some leftover foods or at least a little corn and toss it out where they can find it easily. On a normal day the chickens will be right inside the door ready to rush out the minute the door is open to search for goodies. Occasionally, one will already be in a nesting box. This time was different.
Two of my Australorp Hens were by the door waiting to be let out but the other was sitting underneath the nesting boxes in the farthest corner. Nonetheless as the first two began their rush out the door, she started out as well and then abruptly sat down about half way across the floor.
I went in to look for eggs and then stopped by the sitting hen and reached down to pet her. Are you okay? I asked before heading back to the house. I made a note to come out in a short while to check on her. When I did, she was dead, having fallen over right where I had last seen her. In the way of creatures in tune to their own bodies and the cycles of nature, she had known that something was coming.
Death is a normal part of the cycle of life. All creatures, all living things, begin and end but in between the beginning and the end, there is life to be lived on this amazing planet, Earth. Facing the reality of death makes me want to live with greater intentionality and care. My focus being not on frantically doing what I can to live as long as I can personally, but rather on enjoying the days and the people and the creatures who are around me, knowing that life is fragile as well as resilient but that everything ends eventually. It is the natural rhythm.
I woke up listening to the news. Drones in Pakistan are creating fear, anxiety, and depression in the people who hear them as well as a growing hate towards those who send them. In Libya missiles are falling in "remote areas" and still there is war in Afghanistan and Iraq and in countless other places in the world which may be remote in distance from where I live, but are not at all remote to the people and the creatures who are there. There is nothing natural about life and death in places where there is war. The cycles are disrupted, torn apart and turned upside down as children die and old people live, as creatures that have no way of sensing what is about to occur die in the midst of their lives.
I woke my husband up and he came out to help me bury the chicken. My grandson came out to pet her before we put her into the ground. I tossed a few treats in and then we closed up the bed we had made for her in the Earth. I cried for a while but the tears were not all for the chicken.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

We are capable and we can learn.

When I was a little girl growing up in the post WWII-baby boomer 1950's I had recurring dreams about the atomic bomb. I am sure that it was related to the bomb drills we participated in at school. Every so often we had a drill and we all lined up and went out into the hall where we knelt down facing the wall with heads down on our knees and hands across the back of our necks. Generally we were two rows deep, little boys and girls getting ready for a bomb. I know now that that drill did nothing except make the post WWII parents-of-baby-boomers generation think we were doing something to be prepared.
When the nuclear reactors began to fail in Japan last week all the old fears that I thought had been long ago purged from my heart and spirit began to surface. Unlike an earthquake or a tsunami or a hurricane or tornado or other natural disasters, nuclear disasters are human made. Although human activity can contribute to natural disasters, human made disasters like nuclear attacks and meltdowns are completely avoidable because humans made them and we don't have to use them. We are capable and we can learn what is dangerous and what is safe.
The power of the nuclear explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki should never ever have happened. Yet in the aftermath it seems that those who had created that power could not let go of it. Not only were newer more precise atomic/nuclear weapons created by people in the war industry, but people in the domestic/peace world could not let go either. Surely they dreamed, we could use all that power for peaceful purposes.
I remember standing in my mother's kitchen as she told me about the wonders of nuclear energy. Just a little bit of nuclear energy could power a whole city she explained. That was a dream that others were peddling as they sought to change people's minds about what had happened when nuclear power was unleashed on the world. We humans wanted to believe that creating that powerful source of energy was not a horrible mistake. Using that power, that dreadful, overwhelming, and deadly power for good would justify its creation. And so we were convinced that it was possible.
My mother also taught me not to play with fire, and yet it seems that from those early nuclear days there are some who insist that we should be able to play safely with an energy vastly more dangerous than fire.
My spirit tells me that evil is evil. There are some things that are not worth harnessing. Like a wild beast captured to entertain or to labor for others, powerful energies keep striving to get loose.
Nuclear energy is dangerous. We are unable to keep it captive. That is a lesson we have not yet taken to heart even though the disasters have happened over and over with death and fear and destruction and human and creature death and devastation.
But I believe we are capable and we can learn.
Today I will remember my childhood fears, combine them with the fears of the Japanese people, and use that fear as a reasonable source of energy to keep on simplifying my life.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Japan is heavy on my heart

It is hard to concentrate today. First there was a massive earthquake, then a tsunami and now a nuclear threat.
I had the opportunity to visit in Japan a dozen years ago. I don't know what I expected when I went there, but what I found was a place that reminded me very much of home, of the Pacific Northwest. From the antique wooden furniture in the houses to the majestic mountains and waterfalls that looked like the Columbia River Gorge, I experienced a comfortable familiarity coupled with the distinctively Japanese language and cuisine, paper walls, floor mats and ever so polite and respectful people. My mind keeps going back to their land, to the stresses they have experienced and the traumas yet to come as they bury their people and come to terms with a loss so big it is hard to imagine.
I feel their loss, not as they do certainly, but as a hole in the spirit of the world to which we are all connected.
As the nuclear threat increases voices from the proponents of nuclear energy in the United States are also rising.
"We are not like them." "Our systems are better." "Nuclear energy is the best way to combat Climate Change." "There is no need to be afraid because, we are not like them."
The Japanese people have one of the most technologically advanced societies in the world. I have been there and I know, as do others who have also been there. They are like us. We are like them.
In our day the world is very small. We can hear one another from around the world and watch as destruction overpowers whole cities far away. We cannot change our ways unless we feel their pain and know that it is our pain too. The world is one and we must learn from one another. There is no invisible barrier to protect one people from another. There is no shield to stop the waves or the wind as it moves destruction from one place to another.   
Today I feel small and vulnerable. It is hard to concentrate. I believe the spirit is at work.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Bag lady for the earth

   A few days ago I had some errands to run and since I try not to drive unless I really really have to, I gathered up some cloth bags and headed out. I had on some comfortable old stay at home clothes and boots because there were lots of puddles on the trail. It was quite a ways to the Good Will store where I hoped to find some picture frames for an art project, but with a break in the northwest rain, a spring-is-coming smell in the air, and a mild temperature, it was a good day to walk. I passed several people walking their dogs or taking a stroll down the old trolley trail but no one I knew, and since I was dressed for comfort not style, that was okay.
  After filling up my bags and making a second stop for supplies, I headed home going at a somewhat slower pace now that my bags were heavy. Seeing my reflection in a window that I passed made me smile since I looked very much like a stereotypical bag lady with my boots and long skirt and bags stuffed full of second hand things. I made a note to myself not to start talking to myself lest I really fit the description. This got me to thinking about those pioneering eco-friendly ladies with their well worn shoes and clothes, who used and reused, and carried their goods with them as they traveled on foot or by bus. Yes, I know from my work that many of these ladies suffer from mental or emotional stresses and that they are often lonely having been abandoned by family and friends, but pioneers often suffer in these ways. The example of their ability to set aside concern for appearance, to travel gently on the earth, and to survive with very little has merit.
   As I approached a major thoroughfare I encountered a gentleman of the road who smiled broadly as I approached. He was about my age, well over 50, seemed to be a little mentally challenged but he was eager to help me if I needed help crossing the street or carrying my bags. I thanked him but kept on going, noting to myself that my appearance this day connected me to people who were not of my usual crowd. This too got me to thinking until my daughter called me on my cell phone needing to talk. I continued walking while conversing with her using my hands-free Bluetooth gizmo.
  Around another block, just before getting back on the trail, a distinguished looking elderly man approached from the opposite direction. He called out to me in a firm voice as he passed, such as I often do with people in my work place who are mentally wandering and need to be called back to reality. I nodded at him but was a little confused by his manner until a few steps down the path. Of course! With my bag lady ensemble and my conversation to someone who was not visible, I had completed the picture. There I was, a bag lady for the Earth.
My appreciation goes to the pioneering eco-friendly fore-mothers who have lived with little and set an example for all. Transitioning to a kinder, gentler way of living requires breaking through stereotypes and learning new ways to be in solidarity with the poor and with the earth.   

Monday, March 7, 2011

Getting in Touch with Nature

After the short cold egg-less days of winter it is very exciting that my chickens have begun to lay eggs again. March is the beginning of what Jessica Prentiss in her book, Full Moon Feast: Food and the Hunger for Connection, (White River Junction, Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2006) refers to as Egg Moon since it is the month when hens on old fashioned farms begin to lay again. In modern techno-egg farming, hens are forced to lay all year long under artificial light, and of course their bodies wear out and they stop laying and living much earlier. But in the rhythm of creation, hens are stimulated to lay eggs as the days grow longer.This helps me to understand why Easter and Spring are celebrated with eggs - a connection that is easily missed when we buy our eggs in neat little boxes from the store year around.
Today, I am rejoicing for fresh eggs. And I realize that I need not eat them year round. I can live in tune with the earth.

Happy Egg Moon.

Changing from the Heart

Welcome to Spirit in Transition!

There is a great deal of information available about green living/carbon footprint reduction/ecopsychology/simple living etc. etc. but the way to transition is not simply through the head, it is through the heart. Spiritual guides, mystics and religious traditions know that deep transformation or conversion takes place under circumstances very different than learning or absorbing knowledge. Knowledge is important, but the task of getting that knowledge from the head to the heart where it can move a person to transition their life, is a work of the Spirit. It takes an environment designed to permit such a movement and a supportive community that will walk with, challenge, and guide those who are on the journey.
In the coming weeks this process will be considered here.
I hope you will join me as we think through this head to heart to real living together. The poor of the Earth and all Creatures are waiting in hope.

 V Chapman