Farmer Monk Pride

Last weekend was the Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco. San Francisco Zen Center has a float in the parade every year, thanks to the efforts of some vigilant practitioners at City Center. A few of us from Green Gulch decided to participate, and we brought flowers and rainbow chard decorations from the farm. It was glorious. The parade was stunning - it was huge, with these large, motorized, loudspeakered, dance-music, hordes of people floats. It was so uplifting to see so many people gathered, in the parade and as spectators, to celebrate queer pride and diversity. Our float was decidedly different than many of the others around us. We were quiet (no loudspeakers), not-dancing, carrying parasols or rainbow chard, or sitting zazen on a flatbed truck. So what warmed my heart completely was the outpouring of support from the crowd. People cheered so loudly for us - it was so uplifting. I had this ear-to-ear grin the whole time.

I felt so cheered up by the whole thing, and by the city's embrace for the cause. The streets all over town (not just The Castro) were decked out in rainbow flags. It was a full, city-wide-feeling event. I am also really glad that Zen Center has a presence in the weekend's festivities. No one is excluded from Zen Center based on their sexual orientation.

The past couple of weeks have been great, and mad. So busy, with the markets going now, and harvesting 3 days a week plus all the other normal stuff. It feels good, but it does feel like more of a workout now than it did before the markets started.

The next couple of weeks are busy, too, and i might take some time off from posting as i have friends visiting and then going to Colorado for a vacation and wedding. Here's a photo of a farm dinner we threw together last week - it was glorious! Almost everything, from food grown on the farm.



Eat well, be well!

Green Gulch Farm, wk 9

Planting
Harvesting
All-day all-women's sitting
Tea ceremony with Tracy-sempai
Contra dancing
Organizing the CSA program
Sunday farm stand sales
Pie for snack



We completed the planting in record time this time - we went well into lunch, but we finished before 13.00, with no extra help. We must be getting faster! I think its the harvest. We're all in this speed-mode now, after having harvested 3 weeks now, and we're getting faster and more comfortable. Plus, when i see Emila or Sarajane harvest, i realize that i COULD be going about ten times faster than i am. But with practice, i feel i have gotten faster...i just think i now have this theme of barreling through everything at TOP speed, ingrained in my blood and bones. Also, the soil was particularly soft and forgiving for the first few beds of the planting. We planted "the usual" - two hundred thousand lettuces (not really, but a lot), brassicas (brocc, cauliflower, cabbage, kale), chard, beets, spinach.

We've been having some trouble with the crops that we direct seed in the fields: beets and spinach, mainly (plus some of the herbs). We're not sure why there are problems, but there are these long patches where nothing germinates, and then there are other areas where the plants are really puny, if they ever germinate at all. Its a little frustrating, because we harvest a shedload (hmm, that's about 9 boxes or so) of spinach every week.

It was glorious and warm over the weekend. There was a new moon, and i had the privilege and pleasure to attend an all-women's day long sitting with Wendy Johnson and Linda Ruth Cutts. I enjoyed it a lot - they had adorned the altars in the meditation hall with items representing the four elements, plus symbols of our connection to nature and the ocean. There was some illuminating discussion of some of the figures in the meditation hall, such as Kuan-Yin, who is standing atop two dragons of compassion, each of whom have a pearl of wisdom in their mouths. She is pouring compassion into their mouths, and she holds a mudra which we practiced with (one-handed, the "OK" symbol in the USA).

I also had the sheer pleasure of going out dancing over the weekend - except i have realized i hit the wall of exhaustion much sooner now that i get up before the crack of dawn every day. Its been a bit funny, because this week we had a later schedule, interim schedule, where we get up a bit later - but i'm still totally tired. Go figure.

Anyway, things roll on, and the farm is bursting with food. We're becoming more of an oiled machine, by the week. We also had our first person go on vacation (Dan! We've missed you!) and its quite striking how much we seem to bond and depend on each other, for sharing work and moral support. It was highlighted by the absence (of more than a day) of one of the crew, for me.

Green Gulch Farm, wk 8 - 2 Months! Tired and Happy.

I guess it makes sense that i've been here 2 months. There were a couple of signs, this week, that made me realize that i'm no longer a newcomer here.
- not all tasks are brand new
- we completed the sowing without much supervision from staff
- i'm no longer even tempted to make jokes about "hoeing"
- "the reefer" seems like a perfectly normal name for the walk-in refrigerator down on the farm
- many extraordinary things (Muir Beach, growing vegetables, seedlings, redwood trees, wildflowers) seem ordinary now
- we've started harvesting and selling the food that we put in the ground when i first got here

Last week was a crazy-week. Usually, we either have sowing or planting - last week we did both, because we were planting cucurbits (summer and winter squash). We only plant squash once in the season, like potatoes, instead of the other crops where we have multiple plantings of each crop. So it was squash planting time, and we also harvested for both farmer's markets (our first week at Ferry Plaza on Saturdays). We worked hard, and we rallied together, and got everything done. It felt good, and it felt like we had really given the tasks a solid effort. I was tired, and happy to be providing food to people in a local market - healthy local food. Its a miracle to me, that we can do this, but in the same breath i'd say that we are changing the world by doing this. Each person, each leaf of kale, bunch of spinach and clove of green garlic makes someone's life healthy and delicious (including mine).

We also had students (9th graders) from Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco visiting, working on the farm for an hour each day last week. The students in this freshman class had been taking a course on Meditation and Mindfulness for the past year, and they were also studying water systems. I worked with a small group of the students each day, doing different tasks with them. Each day, i asked my group to try our practice of working in (functional) silence for a bit. After we finished work, i asked the students to reflect on their experience on the farm, and they had diverse and rich insights into their work and the farm. Some of them liked working in silence, others found it difficult or distracting. I guess i was surprised that any of them liked it at all, and there were some other lovely comments about how they noticed the sounds and scents of the farm (birds, green growing plants) when they were working. I was a little nervous to work with the students, and then in the end i felt very uplifted to have shared this piece of the world and a glimpse of our food system with them.

I also attended the 4th installation of a San Francisco Zen Center series commemorating Suzuki Roshi's book, "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind". The series is called "The Experts Mind", and there were two visual artists presenting their work and vision last Thursday evening. I was feeling tired, but i was so delighted to learn about these two artists and their work. The first presenter was Arthur Ganson. He has made a series of "delicate machines" - complex gears and wheels and cranks and shafts, all clicking along and turning, but made of material as fragile as paperclips. He is interested in technology and computers and art, and the intersection of the three - and i was completely captivated by his ideas.

The second presenter was Elizabeth King. She's a sculptor and animator and painter and glass-blower - and an absolutely fascinating person. She had such a passion for what she is doing - she wanted to know the intimate details of all the materials she works with, and she has studied these details for years. She makes a lot of sculptures of the human body, and especially the head, and she studied how to make glass eyes. She had this infectious interest in what she was doing; she seems to want to know everything there is to know about how to make a replica of a person. I couldn't help but be moved by this enthusiasm and passion. I decided its no so unlike any of our lives - if we are really moved by something, we might be best served by pursuing it relentlessly, until something shifts.

I received news that my friend Tanya gave birth to a healthy baby girl! I am overjoyed at this news. She was overdue, and i was glad to hear the news. These momentous miracles are all around us, and i wish to acknowledge them and give thanks that i'm here to witness any of it.

Onward!