"American cities lack production; they don't manufacture anything. But everyone's got an agenda, an iphone, everyone's drawn up into a superficial reality..." Adam observes after his return from San Francisco to No-Yo Gardens, home to revolving human rootsy/gypsy types, 14 mama goats, ten kids, lots of chickens, two cats, and Ayla, the majestic long-haired white dog who protects the goats from cougars and coyotes during their afternoon grazes on the mountain. What a blissed out hard-working reality we thrive in here! Morning chores of goat-milking, dairy processing, taking care of the chickens, cooking breakfast on the wood stove, and then garden-time: plant, weed, dig, harvest (so many different types of earth!), on to a personal hot springs, chakra toning on the mountaintop, and late night jun bottling sessions.
Wow.
I feel good to be doing hard work here with concrete rewards that nourish this community and all who will pass through it.
But I also feel the strangeness, at my age and power in life, to be so isolated within a small group of people. They may not manufacture food in cities, but they do create an infinity of projects, communities, and dance floors that sometimes beckon me from my tiny mata mud hut.
And also recognizing that somehow this isolation is what gives me power. Recently solo at Harbin hot springs, I felt people circle me... city people escaping to those healing waters for a retreat and drawn towards me, nature child ("your eyes, they speak of the earth,"). Of course I can't help but smile, but there's a part of me that's turned off, that wants all those conscious city folk to take the jump themselves and live what they preach (ROOTS, PERMACULTURE!)
I took a trip up to Ashland, Oregon (thought I'd be spending the season up in those parts, but was drawn back down to Mendocino). I can see myself living in Ashland eventually... a terrific conscious dance scene, sincerely nice relaxed people, and a hot springs where I ran into my herbalist friend Luna who lives up on a green pasture mountain making gardens, goat milk, and a baby! Fascinating to see how different people structure their lives. How many different realities there are (and how some, some who are close to me, live their reality through a screened web of information. And some live it through stoking the morning fire.) I am blessed, blissed, and grateful to be where I am now, but also know that one day I will find my perfect mix of social life and productive, grounded isolation.
This Scorpio full moon brought with it a full-on healing for my body: liquid fasting for three days and self-inducing sickness with epsom salts, olive oil, and grapefruit juice to flush out my liver. I am grateful for feeling my weakness in those days and then having my power return. My core and solar plexus feel newly energized and ready to take in the sunlight and these ten days of the Mayan Galactic Portal! How will I journey within the parameters of the farm? How can I be most open to the endless lessons that this parcel of land can teach me.....without mentally drifting elsewhere? Power is in presence.
Off to the Farmer's Market; turns out you can make money selling vegetables! It just takes nice community and a smile. (Rich compost helps, too).
