8.10.13

the day the garden died

i woke up in a haze.
 recall: the bonfire raged and all that was bottled up -bottled in-- floated like ash in the updraft.

Wake up. Stoke the flame. Carry on.

or
the reason we call now the present

   I seem to learn lessons cyclicly & one of them is that i'm bad at moving.  If it wasn't for the help of some wonderful humans i'd no doubt be mired in a pit of my own kipple. Thanks folks, from the bottom of my heart.  Some days are spastic, others are mindful, and still others tend towards spectrumy statuses.es.es. On moving day, I was downright spastic.
loads of nodes on some cowpeas!
N-fixin bacteria root colonies!
Nature in Action.action.action

   There's something gut-wrenching about seeing a fluffy patch of fertile soil being raked smooth, spread throughout the grass'n'weeds.  But a solid crew came through to help dig up & save a load of useful plants. And every act is educational.

  It's important to me to treat every place as if i were gonna live there forever.  
  It's important to leave fertile footprints, even if those footprints are just an annoyingly fast-growing patch of grass in the middle of a suburban front yard.

And yes, i have a strong desire-impulse--drive to root, but as a human i might not root in like a tree. i might just root in through the base of my spine, wherever my barefeet are grounded with the earth.


Or it could be that i just need to migrate for awhile until i find the right spot, who knows? But so far a bunch of spots have sung the song of my heart and bones, so I feel it would be wise to keep exploring...drink in the magic of each place...share knowledge, tips, tricks and techniques, build, grow, eat & shit & breathe.  I think that is a natural urge of mine, and has more to do with an explorer imprint -with being a neophile, as Robert Anton Wilson puts it- than an escapists' need to gogogo.
chicken coop on wheels on wheels.


Thankfully, the portable coop ended up being remarkably portable.  Using a borrowed truck ramp from the neighbors we wheeled it and the ladies into the back of one pickup and slid the chicken run into a second truck.  The ladies seemed a lil ruffled after their 20-or-so minute excursion into the paved part of reality, but no worse for the wear.

Although i lament the loss of my garden out in the burbs, a good friend pointed out that the garden didn't so much die as sporulate. Plants found their way to new homes, to feed good friends and family, to thrive outside my narrow sphere of influence. And that is good.


I've shucked off a fair bit of stuff'n'things'n'baggage'n'sedentary debris. There's certainly more to sort and process, but for now i've made it to Taproot: the place where I first learned to build with the earth, where I was first exposed to the works of Helen & Scott Nearing, the place that's always been welcoming, where good friends and good food meld together into a helluva good time.  Everytime i've come here i've left feeling more than rejuvenated, i've felt a little more complete.  And here i'll be for 3 weeks helping get the new farm intern cabin live-in-able and working on a permaculture patch design... but more on that next time.
Meanwhile... back in time...  


As I walked the house and the yard one final time, shell-shocked by the sudden lack of biodiversity and the quick erasure of the signs of a life that wasn't meant to be, I happened to spot a perfect little chicken feather, one of kodo or podo's, resting lightly against the fence.  Carefully picking it up, I thought it to be a memento or a fond farewell.  And as I drove away from that house for the last time, that feather on my dashboard caught the wind,
        that feather soared out the window
                          and shot upwards
as if caught in the updraft.

for a moment i was struck by a profound sadness

then I laughed

 & laughed.

   

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