Yesterday's harvest

I posted this yesterday, for those who follow Shundahai on Facebook, and wanted to re-post here for those who don't. (The weather is so different today, but more sunny days are sure to come).

Welcome spring! I can't get enough of this day! The earth is waking up, and it's so beautiful. I spent all morning and afternoon outside, harvesting and preparing salad greens for delivery to Fiddleheads Food Co-op in New London and Oyster Club restaurant in Mystic. I plan to start having farm sales again soon too, and I'll be sure to post an announcement.

These greens are so delicious right now, sweet from having survived the cold, and spicy from being mature.

Washing the salad greens

Welcome, little friends!

These crocuses, which Sena and Aiyana planted a couple of years ago are such a joy

 

Peace

What I really want is...

A plastic ocean

“You might not care, even if you know,

but you can’t care if you don’t know”

Dr Sylvia Earle

I wanted to share this quote and the movie "A Plastic Ocean" (check out the trailer), which we watched as a family this weekend. We all really liked it, and I highly recommend it. It will inform you and inspire you and empower you.

 

Peace

Pysansky eggs

Sena and Aiyana decorated these eggs at their friend's house last Sunday. They are real chicken eggs, which the girls pierced and blew out the interior of. Then, they painstakingly decorated them in the Ukranian tradition of pysansky eggs, using different dyes and wax (the Romanian tradition is very similar). It took about 4 hours to decorate two eggs each. But both Sena and Aiyana were completely absorbed and loved the whole process. They'll be making more soon.

The nest we put the eggs in, is a real bird's nest we found fallen on the ground a few years ago. Sena made the egg on the left and Aiyana the one on the right.

Peace

Deer remains

Aiyana and her friend found this deer at the back edge of our property. They came to get me, and we went back there with a field guide. We identified coyote tracks, lots of them, leading in all directions. But I don't think these coyotes were the ones that killed the deer though, because the carcass was much older than the tracks; they were just feasting on the remains. It's very likely that a hunter shot the deer, and the deer was able to get away just enough to find a spot to lie down and die.

This picture is of deer hair and coyote tracks. We often hear coyotes howling at night, and I 'm happy to know that we, humans haven't totally taken over this neighborhood yet. I love that there's still a little bit of wildness around.

Peace

The value of your voice

My own personal and social experience supports this quote below. I too found that, after running myself into certain situations over and over, gradually and at a painfully slow pace, I began to transform. At some point, I began to realized that I am less afraid of speaking truth, be it in social, political or personal matters. Of course I am nowhere near done with this process, but I have experienced it enough to recognize that it's happening, and to trust it a little.
Peace

Giving

I love humans for how we can be irrational in the name of beauty, truth and love.
I am so grateful to all the people who try, and sometimes succeed, to transcend their brokenness and desperation, and give of themselves to create something good and beautiful.

Such people as Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago, which I just finished reading and highly recommend (it's the kind of book that made me want to hide in the hay, among the cows, and steal some time to read more); and the authors of this beautiful illustrated book "Cry Heart but Don't Break", reviewed at brainpickings.org; and many other, unknown people who give of themselves in whichever way they can.

Peace

Together, alone

A Fearful Dream

For many years, I've had this recurring dream:
I'm in a room, looking at the window.
Outside is dark; I cannot see anything.
I'm vaguely anxious,
and as I look towards the window,
all of a sudden it becomes clear that someone's there,
on the other side,
about to get in, about to come after me.

Terrified, I run, with the chaser close behind me.
I never turn around,
I never see him.

Last night I woke up from this dream,
heart pounding, mind reeling,
but whereas in the past I tried to put it out of my mind,
forget about it, go back to sleep,
this time, I thought,
I must do something different.

This dream and its fear has tormented me for too long.
I always run away, and that never saves me.
Next time, I will myself to turn around,
and face whoever's coming after me.
I will myself to see them in the light, and ask them:
Who are you?
What do you want?
What is your story?

Already, planning to do this,
has helped me shed the fear, a little bit.
And I am ready for the next encounter.

Maybe this dream is here to teach me something,
and it won't go away until it has.

RIP Vlad

My cousin, Vlad, passed away last week in Paris. He was my age. May he rest in peace and may his family find peace.

As for the rest of us who still have today: Enjoy this beautiful first day of spring! May we find what we need and walk in peace with ourselves and others; may we know and be known, and may we feel love.

Peace

Pics of the high tunnel

Nicu called me this morning, from Romania. We talked about the weather, and he told me about what he's been planting, his early potatoes, and peas, and how he cleaned up the grape vine at his neighbor's house. He told me about the latest drink he fermented and how well it came out, and how he can't wait to go forage for berries in the forest again and make more of it. I love listening to him. He's like a voice from another time. When he talks to me, the stories he tells, I feel his love and closeness to the land. His conversations always bring something up in me, a sort of wistfulness mixed with hope for good, simple things. It's not necessarily the words he says, but how he says them. I always tell myself that when he goes, the world will lose an invaluable resource. He has so many skills that we no longer have, and that you can't really learn anywhere. Skills from a lifetime spent close to the land and the forest.

I also shared a bit about what I've been planting, my greens, and peas and carrots and radishes. I always feel like such an amateur compared to him. But he never talks down to me.

Peace

Someone called me by my name

I listen to the news, I take in as much as I can, and decide what I can do, how I can make a difference. But after some time, keeping informed and active can become overwhelming, and I've experienced this with the proposed health care changes, and the attacks on the EPA, and other things happening right now under Trump.

So I always find myself needing to balance this kind of information and activity with something of a different nature, something that nurtures me. Something like this poem by Yeats.
I love how in it, he expresses the relentless human drive to seek and hope, like having a "fire in the head", and the essential yearning of the human heart of being seen and recognized, of being "called me by one's name".

The song of the wondering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lads and hilly lands.
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Happy Birthday Roxi!

This week was my sister's birthday. A very happy day!

My sister is the most selfless, giving person I know. Really.
I always worry that she gives so much, and doesn't have enough left for herself, but it turns out that giving is what actually fills her own cup. She gives to her family, by cooking, cleaning and spending time caring for them in all the ways a mother would want to care. She gives to the community by listening to people, and bringing them food when they're down, or doing what she can to help.
And she gives me so much.

She's been a source of continuity throughout my life. She's known me through all the changes, the moves from Romania to Canada and then to the US. She's seen me though all my phases and moods: the childhood we shared, the hard teenage years when we came to Canada, the anorexia/bulimia phase, the college partying phase, the Doc Marten / grunge phase, the Pratt&Whitney phase, the world traveler phase, the farmer phase, the mothering phase, and others I forgot.

I am most grateful to her for knowing me, really knowing me, and accepting me. We are similar in many ways, but also different in many. For example, I am much more irresponsible and unreliable than she is. But the thing that feels the best is that despite seeing my faults and the parts of myself that I am most ashamed about, she does not make feel cast out. On the contrary, she makes me feel loved, accepted and appreciated for who I am. That, to me, is the greatest gift one person can give another, and I am so lucky to have her.

I have a picture of us from 1978; I was 6 and she was 3. We were still in Romania at that time, and the picture is taken at Christmas, at my aunt and uncle's house.

It's funny that in the picture, it looks like I'm holding her hand, when in truth, I feel like at least throughout adulthood, she's been the one holding my hand.

Peace

Oh my goodness, these poems....

Because lately I've been so raw, that even beauty, especially beauty, aches. Like that hawk i saw yesterday in the field. It landed right in front of me, only for a second, and then it flew again and perched in the distance. I froze into place, stunned - I've never had a hawk come so close to me before - and watched it, willing it to come back, not wanting to frighten it. Such an encounter, of course I could not hold on to it. He watched me from a distance, and although I wanted to be in his presence more, he flew away and left me in the empty field.
But, this morning, he came back again.

Reflection

Without the slightest movement,

I stand in the blizzard.

Wind raging,

Ice lashing my face.

I have no strength,

And no desire for comfort.

Spring, I am not ready!

But you, Blizzard, are perfect.

You let me show everyone,

The way it’s been inside.

Blizzard, I plead,

Erase me!

Dissolve these thoughts.

Take with you, this hope and resistance,

And sweep this mind empty.

Crack the shell

The scar

Yesterday was my first delivery of the season. I harvested salad mix and arugula and drove to New London in the snow (although the roads were not bad at all), and it was nice to see how excited people were to have fresh greens again. They opened up the container and looked at what I brought, and their faces lit right up with the hope of spring. That made me feel good.

Today it's crazy windy, and bitter cold outside. I took care of the cows and covered my greens in the high tunnel with three layers of cloth. Hopefully they'll make it through tonight, as the temps are supposed to be in the single digits.

Now I'm warm inside, with a whole bunch of books for company.
This is Blue Squills from Sara Teasdale's Collected Poems. I love Sara Teasdale, and it kills me that she committed suicide. I wish I could tell her how much her poems make life more beautiful for me.

How many million Aprils came
   Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
   A bed of squills, how blue!

And many a dancing April
   When life is done with me,
Will lift the blue flame of the flower
   And the white flame of the tree.

Oh, burn me with your beauty, then,
   Oh, hurt me, tree and flower,
Lest in the end death try to take
   Even this glistening hour.

O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,
   O sunlit white and blue,
Wound me, that I through endless sleep
   May bear the scar of you.

Token

Sometimes it's like this

I had a conversation with someone today. I hadn't seen them in a while, and our interaction reminded me about the balance we need to keep between being open/genuine, and being mindful of the other person, of what they're ready or able to hear and take in.  Just because we decide to be open and meet the world from a place of honesty and vulnerability, does not mean that everyone we come in contact with is ready for the same. And that is OK.

You ask me how I am.
I want to be genuine,
I tell you something about myself -
Only a little snippet, but authentic -
And I see your eyes shifting,
I see your discomfort,
This is not what you expected.

I don't want to rock your world,
Make you face inconvenient truths about yourself, myself, all of us.
So I make you happy,
Back off and raise my mask,
Say everything is fine.

Now you relax,
And smile, relieved
That you can go on about your day,
Pretending.

And I,
I'll just keep watching.

A day of homeschooling: learning how to lobby

Yesterday Sena and I went to the Hartford Legislative Building and the Capitol for an event organized by Sierra Club to teach people how to lobby on environmental issues. We saw a few representatives and senators speak, and listened to Sierra Club and CT Fund for the Environment and other environmental organizations discuss strategies for lobbying. We also got to see what the legislative building and Capitol physically look like, and how the offices of elected officials are organized, who their staff is, etc.

We got out of there with a headache and exhausted as it was very noisy and busy (I felt bad for the people working there too, because underneath their business suits and their artificial face mask, most of them seemed tired and harried).

But we learned a few things, including, very importantly, what not to do. All in all, we both agreed that it was worth going.

Peace

Fun

Aiyana put together this sweet little video yesterday (1.5min. long). Enjoy!

Peace

So true

Maya Angelou's words are so meaningful. Never just empty words, carelessly thrown around; always born out of real life experience. That's why they're so powerful.

The timeless theme of wanting to be seen

It's bitter cold today, but sunny. I milked the cows, but there's not much milk now, as they are near the end of their lactation. So I only milk them 3-4 days a week, and I could stop altogether, but I cherish the time outside, in the morning, when it's just me and them.

Nevertheless, it was nice to come in from the cold, and read Maria Popova's Brain Pickings of the week. I came across this beautiful passage, written by Khalil Gibran in 1911, in a letter to Mary Haskell, with whom he had a deep connection.  (source):

There is an old Arabic song which begins “Only God and I know what is in my heart” — and today, after rereading your last three letters, I said out loud “Only God and Mary and I know what is in my heart.” I would open my heart and carry it in my hand so that others may know also; for there is no deeper desire than the desire of being revealed. We all want that little light in us to be taken from under the bushel.

Peace

Question and an answer

Mary Oliver asks:
"What can we do about God, who makes and then breaks every beautiful thing?"

There is no easy answer, but this is what I have:

Keep walking towards light,
Keep your heart open,
And keep loving the world,
Even if it breaks you
Into a million pieces.

Dis-connect