Category: homestead

Quail-Egg-Trust

September 7, 2017

These moments pass between us, each one different, like tiny speckled quail eggs we’re sharing with each other. Trust becomes a tangible thing when you’re on a journey like this. Its become part of my daily mantra: trust & patience, trust & patience, trust & patience…

License to Fish

May 4, 2015

When we were out on a lake, Dad thought of me less as a son he’d taken fishing and more like a somewhat lame first-mate. He needed me to get the boat on and off the trailer, so I would do, but just barely so. He was kind to me, but within the understanding that, as far as fishing went I was a bit limited.

Hatchling

November 25, 2014

The crucible of the alchemist, the container for his life opus, is symbolized by the egg. It is out of this crucible the true self, radiant self, finally emerges after the struggle of transformation. Tonight I’m stricken by the transformation of my daughter, considering the last two years and nine months – the world that made the crucible that fosters her emergence.

Scavengers First

June 6, 2012

When you live on land thats been abused and neglected, you get to know the scavengers first. Ants, yellow jackets, black widows, gophers and coyotes were the residents when we first arrived.

Attracting Wild Geese

May 22, 2012

Still high from watching Dan Barber’s Ted talk: foie gras parable, I’d come up with a phrase to illuminate a theme in his talk on a new way to approach raising food: self-reinforcing magical-delight synergistic loop.

Donora

April 17, 2012

Fog’s powerful presence has existed on our Earth for billions of years. It has inspired innumerable mystics and likely served the spirits in ways we can’t even begin to understand

The Mighty Mighty Seed

January 31, 2012

I get to live in green. When I drive home, I pass farms and oak groves. I wake up to a forest floating on an emerald green understory that will become ignited at sunset when the orange tipped leaves of the native Pajaro manzanita turn into a million dancing candles.

Sustainable Me

December 12, 2011

I used to think sustainability was all about what the land could support season after season without undue toxic amendment by us. As the space between the land and me diminishes, I’m learning that sustainability doesn’t mean a lot without including what I can sustain.

Raindrops

November 8, 2011

I want every day to feel like this, maybe you have a time of season and place that feel that way to you. Ever since I was a child this is the time of year that makes me feel like I belong here and now, I feel loved.

True Harvest

October 18, 2011

I’m struck by the feeling of newness+oldness this time of year brings. Life bursts forth while ancient energies abound. Like practicing shamanic techniques in a modern culture, old and new are intimately entwined.

Embracing Lunacy

August 16, 2011

Lunacy overcame me this morning at about 1am. Laying in bed I was intensely aware of pockets of decay in my own spirit, and the palpable full moon energy showering me with its blessings. This is the second full moon in as many months to offer me energy to help in late night transformative work.

Its About The Beets

July 26, 2011

Amazing foods have been hiding behind our industrial farming complex. Not just veggies like beets that have been packaged so far beyond their original form as to be unrecognizable as food.

Assemblage

July 19, 2011

I’ve come to believe traveling is unnatural in some way. If you really live somewhere, you leave a part of yourself behind when you go.The more invested in our homestead I become, the more it feels like I have to break myself up into pieces as I go. “I can’t take the compost part with me, defiantly not the chicken coop-cleaner part.”

Bien Now

June 28, 2011

The bien of the land requires the same attention and consideration. When it makes its presence known it is time to really show up and pay attention. As the years roll by I expect to be absorbed more and more into that presence.

Chainsaw Wisdom

May 9, 2011

They’re called wake-up calls. When nothing else will bump us out of the groove we’re stuck in, life delivers something that will. In my case a newly sharpened chainsaw served as the messenger.

Warrior

September 14, 2009

We stumbled across the Barrel Race on a lazy Saturday afternoon drive in our new neighborhood. A strong tradition of horsemanship permeates life here, we…

Habitat

July 28, 2009

This morning I arose at dawn to dance. Its a ritual I began over a year ago, just before we moved into our new home….

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