Quotes | Kinds of Honey

March is . . .

March 23, 2013 § Leave a comment

“March is a tomboy with tousled hair, a mischievous smile, mud on her shoes and a laugh in her voice.” – Hal Borland

“Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield. O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. . . . You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied.”

A passage to ponder while on my knees in the dirt on these cool/warm, sunny/rainy, almost-spring days. Can gardening be a part of bringing heaven down to earth? I have to think yes.

Among other species

February 1, 2013 § 1 Comment

Here’s a passage I came across in my reading yesterday that made me pause, re-read it, and ponder for a bit:

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Thoreau, and his many heirs among contemporary naturalists and radical environmentalists, assume that human culture is the problem, not the solution. So they urge us to shed our anthropocentrism and learn to live among other species as equals. This sounds like a fine, ecological idea, until you realize that the earth would be even worse off if we started behaving any more like animals than we already do. The survival strategy of most species is to extend their dominion as far and as brutally as they can, until they run up against some equally brutal natural limit that checks their progress. Isn’t this exactly what we’ve been doing?

What sets us apart from other species is culture, and what is culture but forbearance? Conscience, ethical choice, memory, discrimination: it is these very human and decidedly unecological faculties that offer the planet its last best hope. It is true that, historically, we’ve concentrated on exercising these faculties in the human rather than the natural estate, but that doesn’t mean that they cannot be exercised there. Indeed, this is the work that now needs to be done: to bring more culture to our conduct in nature, not less.

– Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education

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(thoughts?)

Advent 4, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and a New Year!

December 31, 2012 § Leave a comment

Oh my goodness, is anyone else in a holiday daze? (But it is good, isn’t it? Family and candy canes and sparkling snow and games and caramel corn and truffles and favorite old movies and the re-telling of stories.)

I’m sorry that Christmas came up without me appropriately finishing my little spiritual reveries, but here’s a quick catch-up for those of you who care:

The fourth candle of advent is the candle of peace. The Prince of Peace comes that we might know what peace truly is, that our hearts might rest in the assurance of salvation, and that we might go on to extend peace outward. Bless and be blessed.

Romans 5: 1-2a: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,²through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.

The Christ Candle is in the center of the wreath, and is lit on Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day. This is what we have all been waiting for – the light of the world come down.

John 1: 1-14

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was with God in the beginning. ³Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴In him was life,and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

⁶There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

⁹The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹²Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—¹³children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

¹⁴The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

And so 2012 wraps up tonight. It has in many ways been a blur, and while much has been learned this has been very much a year of not quite feeling like myself, or at least not the version of myself that I would like to be. And yet perhaps that allows for growth, or the ability to identify areas of needed growth, and noticing the things that matter and the things that are less important, and where compromise is necessary . . . and recognizing how in the midst of what seems it will be nearly constant change in one way or another, there is the need for an anchor. And what will that anchor be? We choose many things to be anchors for ourselves, the things that give us some sense of stability, and some are more solid and sure than others. This year I seem to have been floundering a bit, grasping at ropes attached to all sorts of random anchors and dropping all kinds of compasses from my pockets. But my true anchor is, of course, Christ. And my compass must be His Word. And my traveling companions? Well, Him, of course, the magical and comforting presence of His Holy Spirit. And I hope many of you, my friends, His church. And yes, let there be an assortment of the rest of the world’s characters, that we might bravely search and experience and celebrate this colorful gift of a place, this rollicking gift of life, together.

Here comes 2013.

Breakfast at Home

December 22, 2012 § Leave a comment

The cow is milked. The chickens and ducks and sheep and steers are fed. So is the dog, after she and I romped around in the snow for a bit. She feels better, now that we went to the vet and got the tick diseases diagnosed (sigh) and got her on some antibiotics. There is a time and a place for them, and this is one of them. It’s good to see her old spirit back. And so – happy Saturday!

There is something about a late(ish) breakfast after morning chores. It makes me want to eat healthier, to crave things like, today, kale and eggs and fresh milk (in my coffee). Back in Colorado, when I worked at the horse barn, I would grab a granola bar for my pseudo breakfast at 6:45 a.m. – which didn’t really count, in my mind, as anything more than enough fuel to get me moving for a few hours. I’d go out to the stables to feed and move and turn out horses, and muck stalls, and then around 11:30 or so I’d head back home to my real meal, a substantial and fantastic brunch complete with meat and/or eggs and almost always greens (especially when I was also working at the organic farm several days a week). Yum.

There is surely a mind-body connection here. The physical effort plus the great outdoors seem to send little signals to the brain that we need nourishment! and nourishment that is natural, real, from the earth and its animals as directly as possible! So as much as I love a little pastry or tart as much as the next girl, this isn’t the time for it.

And I think that is part of why I crave this farm-life so much. It builds health up from, out from itself, in so many ways. Done well, it perpetuates health – health for humans, animals, land. And, in my opinion, communities.

I’ve been reading the book Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes – and, lest you be misled, this is not simply about lucky suburban stay-at-home-moms who are financially comfortable enough to be doing what they do, possibly with a nanny in tow, and possibly eco-friendly in the I-can-afford-it kind of way. (There is nothing quite wrong with that, but it isn’t a reality for most of us, right?) So, if you aren’t in this position, and it seems that you have to go to work, whether you like it or not, this book is probably equally if not more so for you. Hayes explores how the home has functioned past to present, how the choices we make are driven by and/or affect our communities and society as a whole, and how many families are assessing the current trends in career and home life and making deliberate deviations in the pursuit of health and happiness. The book is full of examples, quotes, and real people that make you think, “Huh. I could do this if they could.”

So much of what Hayes says here makes sense to me. It explains why, for so long, I wrinkled my nose at nearly every reasonable career option out there. As I read through the book, so many times I thought (in my melodramatic way) Oh my heart! Yes. This is the life I have wanted. Thank goodness the sustainable/environmental movement came along, where I could find a few more folks with my kinds of ideals, and find jobs therein. That said, as a (still) single girl, it’s challenging to think about how I can focus on home and how I can create homegrown community without a partner in this divine crime, this subversion of commercial, corporate society. But I mean to try.

Here’s an excerpt:
When women and men choose to center their lives on their homes, creating strong family units and living in a way that honors our natural resources and local communities, they are doing more than dismantling the extractive economy and taking power away from the corporate plutocrats. They are laying the foundation to re-democratize our society and heal our planet. They are rebuilding the life-serving economy. (57-58)

Read the book! And eat kale for breakfast, at a table, leisurely, like you deserve it. Your body will thank you.

I Taught Myself to Live Simply

November 30, 2012 § 5 Comments

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life’s decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.

-Anna Akhmatova

The month for the axe

November 14, 2012 § Leave a comment

November is, for many reasons, the month for the axe. It is warm enough to grind an axe without freezing, but cold enough to fell a tree in comfort. The leaves are off the hardwoods, so that one can see just how the branches intertwine, and what growth occurred last summer. Without this clear view of treetops, one cannot be sure which tree, if any, needs felling for the good of the land.

I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen, but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.

-Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

Heaven’s Colors

November 11, 2012 § Leave a comment

Looking back you will see that every step was planned. Leave all to Me. Each stone in the mosaic fits into the perfect pattern, designed by the Master Artist.

It is all so wonderful!

But the colors are of Heaven’s hues, so that your eyes could not bear to gaze on the whole, until you are beyond the veil.

So, stone by stone, you see, and trust the pattern to the Designer.

–God Calling, November 11

An inextricable tangle

October 29, 2012 § Leave a comment

“We will never get anywhere unless we can accept the fact that politics is an inextricable tangle of good and evil motives in which, perhaps, the evil predominate but where one must continue to hope doggedly in what little good can still be found.” – Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Point home

October 16, 2012 § 2 Comments

“All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.” – Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River: A Legend of Man’s Hunger in His Youth.

Where Am I?