We got some much needed rain here on the farm over the past several days and the weather has been feeling less like late June and more like early May! It looks like temperatures are going to climb back up into the upper 70s this week, but the weather forecasters can't seem to decide whether things are going to dry back up or keep raining. It seems like every time I check the forecast, our chances of rain have changed or at least changed days.
Which makes it really hard to plan what we are doing in class on the farm this week! One thing that I will be working at this week is starting our next batch of seeds. It's time to start fast-growing, warm season crops like cucumbers, melons, squashes, and pumpkins, which will mean making a lot more soil blocks. I may have you help me plant some of those so you can get some experience with those crops. That is something we can do whatever the outdoor weather might be.
If the soil dries up a bit, I'd like to get our first planting of potatoes in the ground as soon as possible. We definitely want to get all of you involved in potato planting before the end of the quarter, so that may be another possibility, weather permitting. Tuesday group, you haven't spent as much time in the orchard as the Wednesday folks, so we might have you help us out with some orchard management this week. And Wednesday folks, you'd asked about working with mushrooms, so maybe we'll do some mushroom projects and/or help us clean up some bee equipment. Those are both things we can do if the soil is still soggy. We'll just have to wait and see what the weather gods do to us.
After hearing a few of you express frustration with some of the "science-y" articles and language we've been using, I want to try to shift gears a bit and look at what we do through different languages and lenses. Science is only one way of knowing the world, for sure. I'm thinking of an interview with the poet David Whyte, who has a degree in marine zoology and who said, "I went back into poetry because I felt like scientific language wasn’t precise enough to describe the experiences that I had in Galapagos. Science, rightly, is always trying to remove the “I.” But I was really interested in the way that the “I” deepened the more you paid attention." (Here's the whole interview if you are interested; http://www.onbeing.org/program/david-whyte-the-conversational-nature-of-reality/transcript/8581.)
Re-reading that quote, two things strike me. One is the idea that scientific language isn't precise enough to engage with certain experiences. And the other is simply the idea of paying attention to both the outer and inner worlds and how they interact and intersect. Because that is, for me, the work of farming as I am called to it and as I try to practice it. It has something to do with understanding what it means to be alive and to be me, alive and in this body and in this world. Farming is my way of continually asking questions about what my life is about. So even though science often enhances my understanding of what I do, it doesn't encompass it. Poetry might come closer and is another language through which I know the world:
The Seven Of Pentacles
Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
~ Marge Piercy ~
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
~ Marge Piercy ~
In your farm blog responses this week, I'd like to invite you to share a poem, story, song, piece of art, quotation, or other creative expression that is speaking to who you are and how you are experiencing the world right now. You can either type these into the comments field or provide a link to an online source.
Thank you for this prompt, Amy! There are too many poems and slam poetry that feel like a piece of me to choose from. (Note: neither of my selected works are directly earth-based).
ReplyDeleteHere is a powerful speech/prayer by Valarie Kaur, a Sikh activist. It motivates me to find strength in my feelings of helplessness surrounding our state of the nation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2uv6-2FVhA
And here is a poem by Rudy Francisco called "Instructions" that represents one of my current goals--to show myself kindness:
Gather your mistakes,
rinse them with honesty
and self reflection,
let dry until you
can see every choice
and the regret
becomes brittle,
cover the entire surface in forgiveness,
remind yourself that you are human
and this too
is a gift.
I've been thinking a lot about censorship: what we're allowed to say or show in society without 'making waves,' and what that means for different communities and movements. The 'humans versus nature' narrative can be so strong that sometimes it seems that we only have two options: to exploit nature for our own (often capitalistic) means, or to completely separate ourselves from the non-industrial world; at the same time, nature is resilient, and natural selection ensures that life continues in the end. Here is a poem from the early 1900s that I think succinctly encapsulates some of the vulnerability and intimacy of the human-nature relationship that I feel strongly today.
ReplyDeleteGRASS FINGERS by Angelina Weld Grimké
Touch me, touch me
Little cool grass fingers,
Elusive, delicate grass fingers.
With your shy brushings,
Touch my face-
My naked arms-
My thighs-
My feet.
Is there nothing that is kind?
You need not fear me.
Soon I shall be too far beneath you,
For you to reach me, even,
With your tiny timorous toes.
Growing up I'd hear Genesis' "Land of Confusion" quite often. Nowadays it seems that most in my age group are more familiar with Disturbed's atrocious cover of the song, complete with their trademark grunts, but I always feel a slight tingle of frisson when the original song comes on the radio. I'm sure most of you have heard either the cover or, hopefully, the original.
ReplyDeleteHere's a kooky music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHmH1xQ2Pf4
Here's the chorus:
There's too many men
Too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Can't you see
This is a land of confusion.
This is the world we live in
And these are the hands we're given
Use them and let's start trying
To make it a place worth living in.
That's exactly what we're doing in this class! Despite current problems, which have present throughout history, ranging from starting wars based on lies to feeding people nutritionally depleted food, we are able to use what tools and skills we have to make our world a place worth living in.
I have a problem with terms relating to "U.S. interest." People say "we" go into this country, "we" installed this new government, "we" don't value traditional methods of farming, "we" do this and "we" do that.
There is no "we." These decisions are made by a handful of powerful people we can do little to resist or change. Together, though, "we," in the actual sense, do have resources to act in a way that aligns with our interests and furthers them.
I think often science tries to remove emotion out of its language and view of the world to try and be objective and unbiased.
ReplyDeleteThis poem by Rudy Francisco speaks to me in appreciation of life and being alive. Our bodies are so amazing and are fighting everyday to keep us alive. Fun fact: the cell's default is to die, and the cell has to actively stop that pathway to keep the cell alive.
Some days we do things that directly contradict our bodies efforts to keep us alive, and for me this poem reminds me to be thankful for my body's efforts, and to help out and to love and treat my body well.
Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8NVLq2fGLc
And here's an excerpt:
"May 26th 2003 Aron Ralston was hiking, a boulder fell on his right hand. He waited four days, then amputated his arm with a pocket knife.
On New Year’s Eve, a woman was bungee jumping in Zimbabwe. The cord broke, she then fell into a river and had to swim back to land in crocodile infested waters with a broken collarbone.
Claire Champlin was smashed in the face by a five pound watermelon being propelled by a slingshot.
Matthew Brobst was hit by a javelin.
David Striegl was punched in the mouth. By a kangaroo.
The most amazing part about these stories is when asked about the experience they all smiled, shrugged, and said “I guess things could have been worse.”
So go ahead.
Tell me that you’re having a bad day.
Tell me about the traffic. Tell me about your boss. Tell me about the job you’ve been trying to quit for the past four years. Tell me the morning is just a town house burning to the ground and the snooze button is a fire extinguisher. Tell me the alarm clock stole the keys to your smile, drove it into 7:00 AM, and the crash totaled your happiness.
Tell me, how blessed are we to have tragedies so small it can fit on the tips of our tongues?
[...]
Muscle is created by repeatedly lifting things that have been designed to weigh us down. So when your shoulders feel heavy, stand up straight and lift your chin – call it exercise. When the world crumbles around you, you have to look at the wreckage and then build a new one out of the pieces that are still here.
Remember, you are still here.
The human heart beats approximately four thousand times per hour.
Each pulse, each throb, each palpitation is a trophy engraved with the words “You are still alive”.
You are still alive.
Act like it."
-Rudy Francisco
https://youtu.be/J7GY1Xg6X20
ReplyDeleteI chose the great speech, pulled from the end of The Great Dictator. I think it's a beautiful ideal to aspire to.
Thank you so much for this prompt Amy! I have been thinking more lately about the ways that in diaspora (a word that has beautiful references to life) we connect with new environments. I thought immediately of a Samoan-American poet that reflects on the redwood trees of northern California and their diaspora. It is one of the most beautiful pieces of poetry I've ever read. I am so happy to share it with y'all!
ReplyDeletePRESCRIBED FIRE
as some of the tallest trees in the world
redwoods can grow to over 350 feet above the earth
yet their roots, on average only travel 10 feet into it
in isolation, it should be physically impossible for them to stand
however, these enormous trees do not grow in isolation
their roots, each only a single inch thick
wraps around the roots of it’s neighbors
a stubborn foundation of brown fingers
clasps an underground stand
and grows
my family is a group of redwoods
that sought god instead of ground
when my mother immigrated to the united states from Samoa
she taught none of her children how to speak our native tongue
now 26 years later
I cannot feel the hands
of the land I come from
how do you stand when your roots
have been burned away
today I am a tree toppling over
a man cut off at the knees
stuck between a loved language lost
and a sky still out of reach
and that is the true legacy of world war II in the Pacific
a generation of Islander and Asian immigrants who learned
that their foreign accents and different skin
could mean your family in internment camps
learned their place in this society
could only be bought with blood in uniform
they learned their citizenship papers
would only be traded for their severed tongues
it is true
that the branches of a tree may spread no wider than it’s roots
but when parent countries
are just another word for poverty
when you are made to choose
between putting your children in culture or clothing
which blood would you want?
this is how redwoods fall
they forget the only reason
they are able to stand and defy common logic
is how well they hold one another
in Hawai’i
an immigrant mecca
where so many of us try to stand with a lost past
we have old weeping banyan trees who also came from across that sea
these banyan’s start from seeds that are blown to other canopies
and without pity or regard for past
they create their own way to the ground
sprouting aerial roots that crawl to the earth
and make a home wherever they find it
in Polynesia,
we have always learned from the earth around us
so now I do not lament my lack of roots
instead, I grow them myself
so every day I am a windblown seed
I am “foreign” accents and different skin
every day I fall towards the earth and am reborn in dirt
I am blood in uniform and severed tongue
every day, I am the blood I want
every day, I look around
hold on tight to those I love
and I grow
into an extended
family
tree
William Alfred Nu’utupu Giles is the author
DeleteLast weekend was mother's day weekend, so my inspiration for this week's blog is dedicated to my mom. I have been thinking how much effort and care she has supported me. I am excited that she is coming to fly to Michigan to see me graduate. If it were not for her love, support and bravery, I would not be here. The song that resembles my feelings for her is Denise de Kalafe's "Señora Señora." I have provided the English translation for it.
ReplyDeleteTo you who gave me your life, your love and your space
To you who burdened in your belly pain and fatigue
You who fought with nails and teeth
Brave in your home and anywhere
To you fresh April rose
To you my faithful cherubim,
To you I dedicate my verses, my being, my victories
To you, my respects, Señora, Señora, Señora
To you my invincible warrior
To you tireless fighter
To you my constant friend, of all hours,
Your name is a common name, like daisies
Always my little constant presence in my mind
And to not make so much boast
This woman of whom I speak
It's beautiful my friend, seagull
Your name is my mother.
First Breath After Coma, by Explosions in the Sky. Whether or not you're familiar with the song, I'd ask that you listen to it, preferably while sitting and trying to be mindful/in the moment as you do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0o8JCxjjpM
ReplyDeleteI think the way that the song sounds creates an almost electric feeling, especially the way that (I think) the song often uses rhythms that mimic a heartbeat. While doing this, I think there are also rises and falls in the intensity of the song, that I think become whatever the reader is currently feeling; the lack of lyrics allow the song to convey emotional intensity, without any impression of what exactly the writers felt so intense about. I think this pattern captures a recurrent feeling in my life right now of being caught between excitation for what I have done/am doing, but also trepidation about where I will or want to be.
I'm choosing the song "You Gotta Be" by Des'ree, as it is a song I continually listened to growing up. I remember my Dad buying her whole album just for this one song and always listening to it in the car when we went somewhere. I come back to this song very often in my life and continue to keep it in my music playlists, as it often helps me whenever I'm facing particularly hard, stressful, or uncertain times in my life. So, as graduation is coming up and the path that lies ahead of me is uncertain, I think this song helps me push ahead. I especially love the first 3 lines of the song. So simple, yet uplifting. All the lyrics are below.
ReplyDeleteListen as your day unfolds
Challenge what the future holds
Try and keep your head up to the sky
Lovers, they may 'cause you tears
Go ahead release your fears
Stand up and be counted
Don't be ashamed to cry
You gotta be
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day
Herald what your mother said
Read the books your father read
Try to solve the puzzles in your own sweet time
Some may have more cash than you
Others take a different view
My oh my, yea, eh, eh
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day
Time ask no questions, it goes on without you
Leaving you behind if you can't stand the pace
The world keeps on spinning
Can't stop it, if you tried to
This best part is danger staring you in the face
Listen as your day unfolds
Challenge what the future holds
Try and keep your head up to the sky
Lovers, they may cause you tears
Go ahead release your fears
My oh my, eh, eh, eh
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day
Yeah, yeah, yeah
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
All I know, all I know, love will save the day
Yeah, yeah
Got to be bold
Got to be bad
Got to be wise
Do what others say
Got to be hard
Not too too hard
All I know is love will save the day
You gotta be bad, you gotta be bold, you gotta be wiser
You gotta be hard, you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger
You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stay together
After I read the prompt one specific experience came to mind that I think perfectly sums up where I am in the world right now. One of my favorite video games of all time is Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo 64. It is considered to be one of the best games of all time and I have fond memories of waking early on saturday and spend the whole morning playing the game (ahh simpler times). The story of the game is fairly detailed but yo put it simply a boy (Link) is awoken and must save the world from the evil that is Ganon and save the princess.
ReplyDeleteWhy i brought up the game in this specific instance is because I wanted to highlight one specific part of the game in which you stumble into the Lost Woods, take a wrong turn in the Lost Woods and you are sent right to the beginning of them. Through trial and error you find the correct path that needs to be taken in order to advance. The whole time one of the catchiest tunes plays in the background keeping you sucked in the game until you make your way out.
Reflecting upon my four years here at K I would like to compare them to the task of finding my way out of those woods. I came in not knowing one thing about how college is going to be. At the beginning of it I had the sense of awe and excitememt and after all these trials and errors im finally reaching the emd of it all, one step at a time. I can hear the tune in the back of my head now.
Link to song:
https://youtu.be/-uInmFU6JkU
the attached poem is a good representation of where I am currently at in life.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.poemhunter.com/poems/ocean/