Nourishing Bites | Sowing Gratitude Part II
Community | Summer squash blooms alongside nasturtium, alyssum, marigold, borage.
Part I | Part II
There is so much to report out here from the farm I hardly can collect myself enough to find the doorway in.
At night I lie in bed and put one hand on my heart and think, amazed, at the amount of care poured into the farm that day. This time of year, this act happens every day. The work of the farm by necessity has grown to bring more hands, more hearts into its fold, and the hive is humming more steadily and happily than since its beginning- no, since my beginning, when I first decided ambitiously to “farm.”
I wonder now, did I really truly decide or did this all unfold, one small resolution leading to the next, one choice, and then another and another, like the unfurling events of germinating seed: many forms, stemming from one small act?
Every day I return to the fields I love dearly.
Now I am astonished to find there is human community in these rows. I think of my Aunt Dusty, who retired to help me make a start, who sheltered and kindled my dream when the winds were blowing fiercely and I felt alone. I think of those long early days, those long solitary rows, of my single self, pouring all I am, all I have into the Earth with hopes that my dream would be tenacious enough to thrive.
And then the stories of this place, of this farm, begin to surface, these building blocks of community, that, like the cycling energy at the farm, come round again and again into my head, that fill my body with a buoyancy and contentedness that can’t be bought.
Here, now, I can see, most certainly, the dream has not died. By fits and struggles, leaps of joy and miraculous gifts, the farm has begun to find its footing, climbing and vining and coming forth with a life and vibrancy all its own-- cracked open and rising tall from the tiny seed husk of a hope for what might be. I think of this tiny seed I carried for years in my own heart - no words to describe it, no way to explain the whats or whys and certainly no answers to the hows, HOWS? that one after another were asked and for which I had no answers, only that this farm, this work, I was compelled to do, to keep doing.
To farm is not a decision one makes once, but rather a choice one makes each day as the sun rises, as the rains throttle the metal roofs, as the old sow dies, as the body speaks - sometimes loudly, as the knees bend, fold and unfold like a book, my body traversing the rows transplanting tens, hundreds, thousands of new seedlings.
Farming is choice after choice - every seed, every plant, every furrow, every vine, every word, every connection- culminating in all this glorious nourishment, moving from my hands to yours, my heart to yours, year after year.
Last week, I wrote of the mighty lettuce seed. This week, I write of the mighty seed of hope, of intention and attention, of devotion, of trust. I write of the seeds we all carry inside us, and the power we unknowingly wield.
What seeds fall wastefully from our pockets, our mouths, our careless actions?
What lingers behind the rooms we walk out of?
What seeds are we gently, patiently, kneeling to plant?
What energy are we consciously setting in motion through our special brand of sunshine?
Are we planting stability? Kindness? Hope? Connection? Joy?
Life is choice after choice.
***
Each day I get to farm is a gift.
Which is why each night, while the Swainson’s Thrushes echo their plaintive, questioning songs into the woods behind the house, I put my hand to my heart. I attempt to distill down all the stories, the work, the hands, the hearts at this farm- all this abundance- into a single, essential seed of gratitude to which I can feasibly hold, to which I can fall asleep cradling like the precious newborn gift each moment of our lives truly is. ~AJ
Sweet Williams | This must be the color of love. And can you see the little insect taking flight?