Faith

This is what faith means to me:

Faith is holding the belief that the dots of your life will connect somehow, to reveal a beautiful pattern someday. That day could be tomorrow, next year, or it could be in the next generation, after your own life is over. But the belief in the beauty and wholeness of the pattern is with you now and every day, and is what gives you strength and comfort when you feel alone, confused, exhausted and empty. That is what faith means to me when I can hold it.

Enjoy these beautiful spring days!

Peace 

Field

I love the way this field looks right now. I've harvest a lot from it already since March, and it's past its prime as far as production, but isn't it beautiful? I feel so blessed and privileged that this is my work: I work with the Earth.

Yellow

Risks of going barefoot: flowers stuck between the toes. (Clearly not a foot model...)

I found this beautiful dead bird in the field this morning...Rest in peace little bird.

Do it, New York, do it!!

Great news: NYC introduced a bill to ban plastic straws earlier this week. Here's a short article on it. New York is also working on banning single-use plastic bags state wide. Way to go New York!!! If you're live in NYC, please call your city council and let them know you support these bans.

Alaska Airlines (which Sena will be flying back home on, and she'll be sure to thank them) also announced that they will be getting rid of plastic coffee stirers. Sealttle and Malibu have bans on plastic straws already, and Vancouver just voted to ban plastic straws, foam cups and containers by June next year.

This is so exciting!!!

Meanwhile, here in Mansfield, CT things are moving along too. The single use plastic bag ban I wrote about previously will be discussed at the next Town Council meeting on June 25th. Please show up and voice your support for this. Town Council is still unsure of how they want to proceed. We need to tell them how we want them to proceed. They represent us. Please show up, or, if you can't, make sure to write a letter in support of the ban. Email it to Town Council at Townclerk@mansfieldct.org. Please take a few minutes to do this. It is so worthwhile! Let me know if you need any help.

Thank you New York, California, Alaska Airlines, Seattle, and all the places and people that are working to help!!!!

Spring

She went for a little walk around our house this morning and came back with this sweet bouquet of wild flowers.

To my daughters

Give everything
But let nobody own you

Picture is of Aiyana at one of the places we stayed, in Monterrey, Ca.

John O'Donohue's "The Interim Time."

John O'Donohue is the author who also wrote Anam Cara. I love everything I have read by him so far.

"You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.
The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.
"The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born."
You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.
Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you can see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.
As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.
What is being transfigured here in your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn."

My latest farm video

Check it out here.

Resist out of love, not out of hate

Resist because you love that which is being harmed, destroyed, or disrespected, not because you hate the perpetrators. Pray for the perpetrators. Wish on them that they may find peace, love, clarity, or whatever they need in their lives.

Many people that cause pain and destruction have been hurt, and they're just passing it on, not knowing what else to do, not knowing how to transform their pain. Few of us are able to take our fear, pain, disappointment and turn them into something positive. Mostly, we carry them along, hurting ourselves and others.

So help those you perceive as enemies and wrongdoers in whichever way you can, wish them the very best, and resist the destruction of what you love out of love.

I wrote the above thinking mostly of environmental concerns, because that is the work I am mostly engaged in right now. It's easy to do this work out of love: I just have to think of my kids and the connection I feel with the earth, and love is there. But this approach is applicable to other areas as well, as you can see in this moving, outstanding article describing the transformation and the insights of a man who formerly identified himself as a neo Nazi.

 Peace

Sena's letter to Town Council

Sena just sent the letter below to Town Council, asking them to implement a single use plastic ban bag in Mansfield. If you're a Mansfield resident, please voice your own support. You can email Town Council at: TownClerk@mansfieldct.org

Remember what Sylvia Earle said: "Everyone has power. But it doesn't help if we don't use it".

Dear Council Members,

I am writing to you to show my support for banning plastic bags in Mansfield. I feel that this a really important step towards becoming a greener, more sustainable town and community. It is also a great chance for us to stand out as a leader in CT.

I know that the town council has been concerned about how businesses will fair and I want to assure you that this will not be a problem. Many other towns have done this; for example, approximately 60 towns in Massachusetts and the whole state of the California have banned single use plastic bags. Businesses are still flourishing in towns where plastic bags have been banned.

I also want to remind you that the reason we are asking for this ban is not to be inconvenient, but rather to secure a safe future for this and future generations. If you have kids, or care about somebody’s kids, then I want to remind you that we are trying to do this for them. If we do not take small steps like this, the consequences are enormous: we will have contaminated our entire planet with plastic and, for example, seafood will no longer be safe to eat because of the amounts of plastic in it. Some very alarming things are already happening (most seafood has plastic contamination in it, and in some places people are basically living in their plastic garbage because it has nowhere to go; this is showing on a smaller scale what may eventually happen to the entire planet if we do not act now). That is why I urge you to ban plastic bags with all possible speed.

Thank you!

Sincerely,
Sena Wazer

Sena

So proud of our beautiful Sena! She's killing it in college: straight A's so far. She just finished Biology and Algebra this semester, and last semester she took an English composition class.

All her professors have been very impressed and also very supportive of her. They can't believe she's only 14 and already so motivated. I am grateful to all of them for making her transition from homeschooling a very smooth one. Next semester she'll be taking 4 courses, so really moving away from the homeschooling, towards full time college. 

I'd like to slow her down a little, but she feels the urgency of wanting to do something concrete for the whales and the environment, and wants to get her schooling out of the way.

I am so very grateful for this bright light in my life, and for the chance to be by her side for a while.

Peace 

Sylvia Earle

"Everyone has power. But it doesn't help if we don't use it". -Sylvia Earle

Many of us have gradually, unknowingly, given away our power: to a person, a corporation, an organization , a religion, an ideology.

But it's never too late to reclaim it. Never too late to ask ourselves: how do I want to use my power and my energy for the time I have left? 

Never too late to take even the smallest genuine step in that direction.

For me, personally, I know that a big part of the answer lies in using what I've learned and experienced to contribute in a good way to the health and wellbeing of our beautiful earth and all living beings.

The pictures were taken in Monterrey a couple of days ago.

San Francisco

Golden Gate Bridge

Fishermen's warf 

The city 

More Yosemite

Breakfast and a round house kick on top of El Capitan. It was early enough and we had the place all to ourselves.

Hiking away from El Capitan and towards Yosemite Valley 

On the trail

Sena, Aiyana and Ed look like ants at the bottom of this picture.

Hiking down by the side of the waterfall 


Peace 

Yosemite

We spent 2 nights camping and backpacking in Yosemite. We hiked 18 miles and it was tough- we were all hurting. But the views were incredible and I don't think any of us will forget this experience, both because of the beauty we saw and the physical/ mental pains we experienced.

These are pictures from our first day, and I'll post more later.

The four of us on entering Yosemite and thrilled by the scenery.

Sena and half dome in the background.

Coffee. Then, I'm ready.

Sena and Aiyana pumping water. I just drank it straight, and eventually they ditched the filter too. The water was delicious and cold.

Aiyana with her cowgirl hat, which she got as a special memento from the horesemanship workshop we attended.

Sena is much stronger than I am. Her pack was significantly heavier than mine and she and Ed did most of the work carrying our stuff and setting up/ taking down our tents and campsite each day.

Resting on the side of the trail. There were some steep climbs and Ed's pack weighed almost 50lbs. He was feeling it.

Our campsite, about 1 mile from El Capitan.

Peace 

Experiential

In my experience, the head cannot solve the problems created in the head by years of education, conditioning, over thinking and other such things.

I want to say that you need to search your heart for answers, but often I don't know exactly what that means or exactly how to do it.

But I am quite sure that answers to important life questions are in large part experiential.

You experience different things and life teaches you things, and over time you come to trust that. You come to trust your own life and honor your experience. They are the teachers. For me it's great relief to trust my life like that.

Chogyam Trungpa said:

"Waiting and letting what arises reflect within our intelligence is the meditation practice. It is like letting a pond settle down so the true reflection can be seen. There are already so many mental activities going on constantly. Adding further mental activities does not sharpen intelligence. The only way is just to let the intelligence develop, grow."

Be still and know.

Peace 

Awe

Yesterday Aiyana and I went to visit a redwood forest at Henry Cowell State Park. I was in awe. Some of the trees were over 1000 years old, and as tall as a football field is long.

This is a cross section from a 2200 year old tree they had on display. The tree was cut down in 1934. They had markers on the various rings of the tree, to show when they were growing. The first one, which I'm pointing at in the picture, was before the birth of Christ. 

That some of these trees have been around for that long, witness to all that history, is just amazing to me. I felt reverence just being able to be in their presence, and touch them. One tree had a huge opening inside its trunk, the size of a small teepee, made by fire long ago, and you were allowed to go in. I was there by myself for a little while and I sat still inside it. I felt like I was in a sacred place. I kept thinking of the mother tree in Avatar. I am so grateful for this experience.

For lunch, we found a cute town nearby, with one of the best food coops I've ever been to. 

These are pictures from various places we ate at. A couple of days ago we ate in a proper tea room. The food culture is really strong in this area, and it's easy to find diverse, high quality food as well as quicker, on the go stuff.

Last night we went back to the beach.

Peace 

Santa Cruz

Be raw and tender 

Be not afraid to feel

This tenderness you think you cannot stand 

Walking around half broken 

The fertile ground

For true love to spring from

Look how the bitter days of winter 

Give rise in spring to flowers 

Patchwork

Truth is a patchwork, not a single strand. Our work is to figure out how to allow the different patches of our life to blend together and create one beautiful story in the end- our own unique story.

Living in the truth means accepting our story for what it is right now, even when the different pieces seem incoherent or contradictory, and learning to live it without shutting down, with an open heart and open mind.

Look how nature holds together all of its parts in one beautiful whole, including those that may seem contradictory to us.

Peace 

Skyline drive

Beautiful view point off of Skyline drive, near Paradise and Butte Creek, California 

Heading to Santa Cruz today.

Peace