Letting Fly

I woke up a few weeks ago from a dream with an image painted clear as day in my mind. An imprint of a bird had formed underneath my periwinkle blue shirt and started moving as it tried to push out against me. I could tell it was a bird from the shape that it made against the thin blue shirt and the tickle of its quickening motion beating against my chest. Wings spread wide and flapping, its flight was imminent.

There’s a gentle chill these early fall mornings on the farm and a golden light that lingers low in the evenings. It loosens memories of first days of school and the fading last days of summers freedom. It’s a slow dance of transition reflected through the winds undressing of the trees. This letting go is a colorful one to behold. Leafy gowns of reds, oranges and yellow are willingly pushed to the ground in breathtaking gusts by wind and rainstorms. I wonder at this process of senescence, of leaves designed to let go and decompose, becoming food for another season’s renewal.

This season our family is perched on the precipice of our own transition. Our two youngest are heading to college and I’m left with the work of letting go, once again. Truly we should be old friends by now with the number of times we’ve met, quarreled, and backed into our corners, but with each return we just go deeper. It started a couple weeks ago when we brought our youngest to school in California. It has not escaped me that she has chosen the complete opposite coast from us as her older brother had before her, in another wave of letting go. Our second will head to a local college after having spent a couple of years exploring the wider world of work, choosing to step back into a classroom again, for the next phase of life. His life-ing path so far has a texture similar to his dads who decided to go back to school after some time learning a trade outside of the classroom and as he so wittingly says, “sometimes the apple rolls down a hill when it drops and sometimes it doesn’t fall far from the tree after all.” They all find their way.

Each of our three children has taken wildly different paths in life, but who hasn’t, right? At times we have had all three in three different schools at the same time. I still have vertigo thinking of that season where I drove in circles, all day, every day for a whole year. We have experienced traditional school, home school, boarding school and no school. One has a high school diploma, one has a HiSet diploma and one graduated with no pomp due to unusual circumstance from a hybrid home-school and online situation. I’m still not sure if I was supposed to make a diploma?

I’ve been wondering to myself what the actual work of this letting go might look like? I know that it is something that I am supposed to do and a process I must go through, but what does that even mean? Outside of mentally checking all the marks down the get-them-off-to-school or out-of-the-basement and gainfully employed checkmark list, where does that leave me?  What am I supposed to be feeling here, cuz I’m all over the place. Then I remember the dream of the bird and the wings ready for flight. I’ve heard many stories about empty nesting and empty nesters but not too many about what happens next? Do the birds left behind really just sit in an empty nest or could they also fly the nest, knowing that the cultivation of home, lives within?

According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, once fledglings leave a nest, they do not return and in most cases, neither do the parents. Though some species might return at a later point to raise another brood, that is not the case for most. They move on. And yet, as parents who live out of a societal mythology rooted in becoming “empty nesters” after the kids leave, ours is a sad story sitting with little flight post children. We might find ourselves in the void of fledging children, still tidying the nest and searching for worms, awaiting a return that might never happen, speaking from experience. I’m sure it’s comfortable for some, this tidying up and waiting. But for this free bird, there has to be more.

As I cut back all the dead and spent Sunflower stalks to the ground, I hear the honking sounds of wild Geese, announcing their arrival onto our tiny toadstool laden bog called Beaver Pond. It is always a short layover on their seasonal migration route, but dependable, nonetheless. Working the field at the edge of the pond, my seasons are heralded in and out by the rowdy, sky-bound travelers. I mean, has spring truly begun until a jetlagged, windburned, gaggle of Geese arrives trumpeting the Ms. Julia Warde Howe version of Battle Hymn of the Republic? A graceful cascade of geese that belies their large stature and raucous song, gliding down onto still water, “glory, glory, hallelujah, his truth is marching on.”  We hear it again with their Autumnal departure, a dissonant call similar to fledging children marching into their next phase. Whether it be college, trade school, kindergarten or the local Perkins to serve a hungry late-night crowd, when you hear the sound, you know a migration is underway.

My mind flashes once again to the dream of the bird imprint beating against my periwinkle blue shirt. I wonder if the bird is a Wild Goose, a flashy Red Cardinal or a Pine Warbler, the sweet yellow songbird that lives on the tips of the Evergreens calling forth a mate with its soft, quick, trill? I woke from the dream before I got to see it freed from the confines of my clothing.  A week later I am sitting on a plane traveling from the west coast to the east after leaving our daughter behind in her decked-out, dorm-nest. I gaze out the window and realize with each new stage, I am witnessing my children’s personal flight of migration over and over. I place my hand softly over my heart and fight back a rush of tears that want so badly to flow.  I’d rather wait till I’m home where I can ugly cry my beautiful feelings of seeing my children grow wings. My hand still held over my heart registers the rhythm of a strong beating against my chest, a quickening motion of something wanting escape.  Ahh, yes, I know that songbird. How could I have forgotten. I too am a bird that honors the call of migration and my trill is made through the taste of flight.  

A Crowded House

Walking the freshly mowed path that cuts the field into quarters, I come upon the center. A grass laden intersection sets me in the middle of a large and lengthy ex, from a hawks eye view. Unsure where to go next, I breathe in the midday sun in an open field meadow that is the scent of sunshine sublimating off of leaves of Timothy grass and Queen Anne’s Lace. Its taste is piney and sharp with a sweet low note of baked bread. The outbreath of oxygen from a Brown Eyed Susan is solar alchemy and it never smelled so good. I feel at home.

Standing dead center in the x, I have four directions beckoning me forth. How do I  decide which direction to go? Midday is an awful time to cut flowers. They already feel wilty, like me, under the oppressive heat. I comfort them though by telling them they’re chosen. They get to go the party and I’ll be giving them a huge drink of cool water very soon. Plus, flowers like Rudbeckia and Queen Anne are hardy. They are not your run of the mill, new fangled annual. They have survived more seasons of weather tantrums than I could even dream of. Resilience is baked into them. I spin around and feel the heat starting to bake me a bit as the top of my sunhat absorbs more rays. I’m melting into the meadow and need to move. I spot a large patch of tall Queen Annes Lace and am drawn in that direction. Like a bumblebee, I am nose led by beauty.

After cutting enough stems of Queen Anne I head towards the Brown Eyed Susans that I see further along the path. Before I get there though, my eyes fall upon a sprawling patch of Milkweed to my right and see stem after stem of hefty green pods bursting at the seams. I try to visit every few weeks and by the look of them all, I might have missed a trimester. Giant seed pods loaded with the hot scent of possibility cling to each stem. Eggs about to crack. Mothers heavy bellied and thin skinned with life, ripe below the surface. All that is needed is time to dry the thinning sheaths that have held them all together for one heck of a season. One fine day, one splintered sunray will hit the pod just so, and poof. A sliver of white cloudy cotton, will ooze out into a whole new world. A silky, slinking seedpod licked by air for the first time. I pause to feel the moments expansion, as if that is all there ever is and ever will be. Change.

Standing so hot and still I see in my minds eye what is coming. Upon first splinter, thousands of silky strands of seeds will be wisped away up and onto the gentle breeze. A journey of flight into the blue, over a sea of swaying grasses. Freedom finds you when you least expect it. I wonder if that is what it feels like, nearing death? Birth I mean.  A tightening so taut that it feels you might be smooshed forever until a sudden whoosh of wind propels you forward. In a flash, you are expelled through a red curtain that held you for so long, so tightly and so safe.

My heart perched on hope, I stand watch of the burgeoning bellied Milkweed pods and relax my overheated shoulders for some relief. Birth follows death and death follows birth. The best we can hope for is a crowded house, cheering our every arrival.

Belonging Is A Tendril

Flowers aren’t really growing much but wow, the snap peas are taking off and fueling my mornings.

Belonging is a Tendril

Snap pea sends out a foraging team of tendrils. A search party for stability. Seeking something sturdy enough to grasp and wrap itself around. Rusty wire from an old cattle panel or frayed twine weaved to and fro. Even another tender tendril will do. It’s a movement to merge further into, life beyond life. A push and pull closes the gap between longings.

Newborns reach into nothingness to locate and learn about, life beyond life. Pink tiny tendrils grasp hold and wrap onto mother, father or other. Fingers curl around fingers, homing, one spiral at a time. Growth longs for an anchor yet requires the leap into a great abyss. A paradox of life.

I feel it in the curve of my back and in the shape of my tongue forming words for feelings unspoken. A gentle breeze teases the edge of my porous skin while sunlight fills my belly and makes fire within. Allow me to grow lwild tendrils that hold the blooms of a thousand feral returns. In their fading, release into my mouth, your forbidden fruit.

Snap pea pleasure and yearning tastebuds force a sacred spring to erupt. Holy communing fills the soil full of fertility once again.

 Belonging is a Tendril.

White Flag of Surrender

Flower Field in early July, Summer 2023

Since I started growing plants in the ground, my relationship with the weather has thickened. We have become cozy and intimate. Each day I take time to open the weather app and see what the day might offer and to glance at the week ahead. Seeing little raindrop emojis lined up day after day, for weeks on the screen, I try to keep buoyed. Regardless, I am faced with the reality that this season for some soggy reason feels like no other that I have encountered since I started this unpredictable dance of farming flowers.

Every day feels grey and the potential for rain deluge high. A full sunshiny day has become the oddity. As you’ve likely noted, chances for floods and thunderstorms run high while the need for a rain dance is low. All of this rain has really stunted the growth of the seedlings that I had put into the ground mid-May. Generally, by this point in the season, I’d be swimming in pretty petals and making armfuls of bouquets. Despite having expanded our growing space and planted thousands more seedlings than last year, I am left with empty arms.

As members of this CSA, community supported agriculture, it is my responsibility to let you all in on how things are growing or in this case, how they are not and maybe some thoughts on why. The season is not over and I don’t mean to be alarmist. I do truly believe that we will be graced with some beauty in the form of flowers planted at some point, though I am not in control so I am flying on pure hope.

What really interests me while I take stock of the small stature of so many of the annuals that were planted months back is that there is a surplus of some plants that are growing, just beyond the borders of the flower farm fence. Most perennials that I have either planted years back or those wildflowers throughout the field that nature has nurtured, are thriving!

Part of my apprenticeship with the land where I grow is to look, listen and observe the ecosystem in its entirety. Weather systems, plant habitat, animal and pollinator presence, microbial life and the presence or absence of the health of the whole. What is being shown to me is that in this time of changing and shifting climates, the fast-paced turnover of annuals cannot keep pace with the rooted wisdom of perennials which, year plus year, acclimate to the shifting weather that is inherent in changing times. Seeds that are sown from perennials that have learned to weather the storms, bend with the wind and face the sun when it shines, are the seeds that will survive and the plants that will, in future, thrive. My goal with the farm had been always to work with what is rather than against it. Even when that means, my own plans.

Pollinator Plot of Beardtongue, Penstemon digitalis

What does this mean for flowers this season? I cannot answer this exactly as I too am just learning and observing. What I observe is that St. Johns Wort and the spikey Milk Thistle are thriving in and around the field where I grow. And, Penstemom, planted in the pollinator plot three years back, has become a literal refuge. In this moment, I am a bumble bee. I flock to its tall tubular florettes to sit and wonder awhile. Standing tall and bright, Penstemons constant wave of white in a field of green calls in hummingbirds, hover flies, bees, dragonflies and me. Is this rectangle of white, rippling to and fro from a light wind that precedes the next storm, a floral flag of surrender?

I say often, jokingly, that I have quit on myself more times this season already than I care to admit. Saying it out loud to another makes me feel a bit better, alchemizing the heart break into some laugh lines. As I type this, thunder reigns loud overhead, cutting open a portal in the sky. Repetitive beats of water droplets release onto already dampened dirt below. Where is my white flag of surrender? I am ready to wave it high.

Start Small and Grow Slow

My boss is Mother Nature. So naturally, I take my cues from her. These anemones are a few of the first of the Spring Blooms to open up in the tunnel. They are small, like 3 inches. And they are no mistake! 

Mother Nature shows me time and time again, that most transitions take time, some patience and begin with trust in the baby steps. It means that sometimes, the first blooms are small as the plant wakes up and pushes through the darkness to emerge into it's changing environment like warming temperatures and increasing light. It takes it some time to fully stretch and mature into it’s long, strong and supportive stem that is capable of blooming fully unto itself. And that is just as it should be!

So many of us find ourselves right now in transition. Whether we are moving out of a space of wintering, or out of pandemic hibernation, or out of whatever personal work or rest that we have been doing. We are waking up. May we remember that our trust in the small, baby steps before us is all we need. They are only a start and ease us into adjustment. They are actually what are often called for in such big transitions such as these as we grow into new environments, internally and externally. With patience, compassion and baby steps, we’ll get through and bloom. 

It’s really okay to Start Small and Grow Slow.

St. Patrick’s Day blessings

March 17th, 2021

I walked into the high tunnel today to water the growing plants and was thrilled to see the first blooms of the season. One little purple anemone and a couple of fragrant daffodils. Today is also the birth and death anniversary of my brother Patrick. It doesn’t go unnoticed by me that this is the second year that the seasons first blooms fall on this day. I choose to believe that he might just be “across the way”, working his magic on these blooms to gift me once again with a reminder of him and the joy that he brought to life in how he lived.

To know Patrick was to receive many, many gifts, as a favorite pastime was shopping at the dollar store seeking out the perfect gift for a particular person. To this day, I find pencils, buttons, letters, stickers and jewelry throughout my drawers and cabinets, all treasures I’ve received over the years from Patrick.

One of the most enduring gifts however, when I think of him, was the way he embraced people. He saw them as souls, rather than simply labels. Patrick lived his life as a gay man with a mental and physical disability. He and I were less than 1 year apart and so basically grew up together. I spent my younger years pretending not to know Patrick as his differences and eccentricities garnered way too much attention for my need to “fit in” and be “cool” and go unnoticed. I am not proud to say that I can recall more times than I’d like to remember where I pretended not to know my brother at school or hide from him on the bus so he wouldn’t sit with me or even take part in mean neighborhood pranks on him with other kids. What my younger self was too wrapped up in conforming and fitting in to notice was that Patrick was living his own life, unapologetically himself, and that is way cooler than trying to fit in.

He didn’t care that I dissed him every time we were in public, he greeted me with open arms and loved me anyways. He didn’t care that people could be mean to him for being different or treat him as less-than-equal, he brushed it off, and loved himself anyways. He wouldn’t care if the Vatican didn’t acknowledge his gayness, he would’ve lived it proudly, knowing his mother loves him unconditionally and isn’t that really divine love. Patrick lived his own life, in his own way, loving people for who they were inside and if you were lucky enough to be in his circle, and it was a wide circle, you could feel that love through his actions.

I’ve come to terms with my younger self’s inability to stand up for Patrick or be more protective of him, as I was really just an insecure kid. However, I am an adult now with a voice that can make a difference and stand up for those who are marginalized by society based on their sexuality, disability, race, gender non-conformity, or any other various labels used to oppress.

To honor who Patrick was in life, I am reminded every day of three things; judgement of others is really the most uncool of all actions; there is always room for forgiveness (pretty sure this might be why his heart was so ginormous!) and that LOVE is an action. It’s not enough to say it. We have to make the steps that show it. Cheers to Patrick and the gifts that you continue to give.

Indigenous Land Acknowledgement

Ripple Cut Flower Farm is located on N’dakinna, which is the traditional ancestral homeland of the Abenaki, Pennacook and Wabanaki Peoples, past and present. We acknowledge and honor, with gratitude, the land and waterways and the alnobak (people) who have stewarded it throughout the generations.

Indigenous Land Acknowledgement

Writing out this land acknowledgement feels important. However, it is only one step in the process. When we acknowledge a wrong, what do we do to make it right? I don’t know the answers, but I am asking the questions and I am willing to listen. As the current co-steward of this field and forest where I live and grow, I honor the Indigenous sense of belonging to this plot of land by continuing to care and live in right relationship with it in the best ways I can. This involves time, awareness and a willingness to do the hard work of unlearning in order to re-learn. What does right relationship look like? I quote Robin Wall Kimmerer, mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation,

“You, right now, can choose to set aside the mindset of the colonizer and become native to place, you can choose to belong.

Native people have a different term for public lands: we call them home. We call them our sustainer, our library, our pharmacy, our sacred places. Indigenous identity and language are inseparable from land. Land is the residence of our more-than-human relatives, the dust of our ancestors, the holder of seeds, the makers of rain; our teacher. Land is not capital to which we have property rights; rather it is the place for which we have moral responsibility in reciprocity for its gift of life. Here is the question we must at last confront: Is land merely a source of belongings, or is it the source of our most profound sense of belonging? We can choose.”

The Whisperings of the Land

We have lived on this land where I am growing flowers for 18 years now. The land has always called to me and it has taken me all those years to acknowledge the whisper and follow its sweet asking to enter into a relationship of reciprocity with it. Don’t get me wrong, I have enjoyed so much on this plot of Earth as we raised our home with our own hands and reared our children with all of our hearts in this space. We have tapped the Mighty Maples for the sweet treat of their nectar and grown hay and animals upon the open field as fuel and food. Beaver Pond, following the western arc of the field has been our summer swimming hole and winter skating pond. We have fully lived upon this land, that I know for sure. What stops me though in these sweet memories is a simple question.

What have we given back to the land? How have we protected her?

How have we cared for her as well as the plants and animals alike that call Earth home? What would it look like to truly “belong” and live in reciprocity with the land where we live? How might we think and act differently? To begin with, I transition my mindset from one of the the Earth as solely a resource for our taking. To be in a one-way relationship with anyone, a parent, friend or lover, never ends well. It is not sustainable. To be in a one-way relationship with the Earth, who gives unconditionally, is also not sustainable. We know this. We feel this. We see the results daily. We must do better now, before it is past a point of choice and our mindless actions make the choice for us.

Healing Our Relationship to the Land

We are creating a deeper and more significant relationship of reciprocity with the land, plants, animals and waterways where we live. There are many layers to this relationship and it takes time, as all do.

Do no harm. That means that we do not use toxic chemicals or anything that would harm the wildlife, pollinators and waterways. We realize that the soil we work to develop that is nice and dark and rich and full of microscopic bacteria and fungi and worms is the healthiest way to grow food and flowers and the soil is alive!

Nourish the soil. We employ cover-cropping, no-till farming practices and add nutrients to replace and replenish what we have taken out through the growing of the food and flowers.

Create a haven for the pollinators. We are in year 2 of the establishment of a pollinator plot that will provide a seasonal bounty of tasty flowers specifically for the pollinators to have safe harbor and an all you can eat buffet of beauty and taste.

Foster an attitude of gratitude. Mother Earth is the source of our most basic needs like food, clothing, shelters, etc. all the way to some of our most gracious gifts, beauty and a source of joy. Everything. Our gratitude towards her for all that we have been given and provided for goes a long way to creating peace within ourselves and a want to continue to care for her.

There are so many other ways to transition to right relationship with the Earth. We are in an ongoing learning process and will continue to write and explore these changes here. One other very important aspect of any relationship though is how we are transformed through the process of loving and caring for our slice of nature, whether it be a garden, houseplants, our animals or something as accessible as a favorite tree. The act of caring and nurturing informs love. When we love someone, we never want to hurt them and even more so we want to protect them and see them flourish. Fostering this relationship with nature, as part of nature, is imperative to the sustainability and health of the planet and our lives on this planet.

My days are now joyfully filled with soiled hands, a sore body and a happy heart. I get to watch and nurture the growth of thousands of seedlings grown from seed to blossom and enjoy the ramblings of the red-winged blackbirds as they return from their southern oasis, elate over the sight of the first wriggly worms I find in the soil and look forward to the pushing forth of seedlings and buds from the darkness of winters easing grip. Then, I get to share all of that beauty with all of you, our community. Being immersed with nature has always brought me home to myself and being able to share the results of that joy is priceless and such an honor. Thank you.

Reading Resources:

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

https://www.robinwallkimmerer.com/

Indigenous New Hampshire

https://indigenousnh.com/land-acknowledgement/