- 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!
No comments:
Post a Comment