here we are on this boat of living

some of us are seasick, some of us are asleep

the horizon is a wave

beckoning us home or saying goodbye

it's uncertain

when the boat becomes the wave we sink into the sea

who's leaving, who's returning?

loving is all that can be

in this mysterious unfolding 

death and life, the constant balance

Here I am, four days after killing a turkey for the first time by slicing its throat with a knife that was sadly not that sharp. My first cut didn't go deep enough, and the next two cuts made me cringe with the feeling that I was torturing this poor, beautiful creature, as red blood poured from its neck onto the green grass.

At the beginning of this year, I had no idea that taking the life of a bird was something I was interested in doing whatsoever, but after spending many deeply fulfilling days with my girlfriend on her farm that is focused on ducks, goats, and turkeys, I have become a man involved in the stewardship of animal lives. For years my farm dream consisted of vegetables, and perhaps some chickens for eggs, and a cow for milk, theoretically in any case. But now I see that this web of life must include the animals in this whole ecstatic circle of life and death. We eat and we are eaten. The only certainty is that life will be born, and that it will die.

As I transition into a shared life with Khaiti and a new business, both involving the creation of a homestead and farm, I am excited about all the challenges and rewards ahead of me, and us. But there is always a small part of me that continues to reflect on the limits of our small lives, the tininess of our existence in this universe. But as I kneeled there on the ground next to our turkey dying on the ground, I couldn't help but reflect on the grandeur of any single life. The awareness and spark that drives the life force is something to be admired with open an heart. Compassoinate killing seems like such an oxymoron until you realize that in fact we all are born and we all die, and when we take on the agricultural stewardship of plants or animals, we take on responsibility for those two constants.

In a factory farm there seems to be almost no responsibility felt to respect the awesome spark of life in each being. It seems the bigger you get, the less time you have for the small things, and the small things are what make up the precious beauty of this world.

I want our farm to be focused on the small precious beauty of all life, and not ever get carried away with business fever, growth for it's own good, which is cancer. One healthy cell can generate thousands more healthy, and one feverish cell can spawn fast and poison the environment.

As a potential farmer bodhisattva, I want to liberate myself and all sentient being from delusion, and be a river through which enlightenment moves. Opening your heart is hard and it hurts sometimes but it is the only way, I believe, to true compassion. I am my own biggest project, but to be fearless and open is my goal.

Moving out. Settling in. Moving out. Settling in.

Finishing a project. Starting a project. Etc...

Cyclical life, endless pulsations.

moving

Although my cocoon is being transformed into a butterfly, I still feel the urge to cocoon myself from the busy madness of life. But as a butterfly you are thrust into the wind whether you like it or not, and you have to negotiate the gusts one at a time.

Here I am, less then a month left to live primarily in the Cities...I still have a lot to do, but I am confident that it will all happen in it's good sweet time. I'm ready to finish this large project I'm working on in Uptown, but it will be a while now. I need to cultivate patience no matter what. Staying in the moment will perhaps help me make it through the next couple of months without any mental or emotional melting.

Here I am sitting in the fan breeze. I dreamt that my truck had fallen into a river. I'm not happy being in the apartment anymore. I think it is time to really move.

LTD Farm Moving Journal

LTD Farm Moving Journal

Check this out to see what Khaiti and are up to these next couple months.

June Update

With the first couple of projects for Shadow Dance Stoneworks under my belt and an eventual move from the Cities to Wisconsin, as well as Khaiti having an amazingly successful and busy year, we decided to up the stakes a bit and become business partners and buy a new farm together. Well, we found our farmland and the offer to purchase is signed and accepted. So now the frenzy begins.

I'm in a bit of downtime between jobs and I am using that time to pack and move things slowly, and to relax my body. I'm thinking of our land now constantly and trying to plan out the layout with Khaiti. We're both running our businesses as well, so we have to find time to do all those things as well, and remember to take some downtime every few days. We did spend a wonderful long weekend with a dear friend down in Iowa and that was excellent through and through except for all the rain, but even that gave us an excuse to stay inside and nap.

We eat like kings and queens, though, let me tell ya. We have had some of the most memorable meals ever this year. Perhaps I will post some pics and descriptions of our meals over the coming weeks as I slowly depart from Minneapolis. It will be odd to live in a really rural area again, but I am looking forward to it immensely. Our land is so full of vitality and diversity.

We have apple trees scattered wildly throughout, strawberries litter the ground under goldenrod, hawkweed, and daisies. Patches of old oaks, scatterings of quaking aspen, brambly raspberries, blackberries, and black raspberries, wild plums, chokeberry, pin cherry...Willows, alders, boxelder, ash, and young maples. There is a small pine grove with red elderberry understory. A huge bowl makes up the northwest corner of the property. There is wetland type area in the middle, and a nice sloping field in the northeast section.

A beautiful place that will allow us to live our dream for years to come.

Blog a little

Okay, I think I might blog a little now that the rain has hampered my workday.
My business is going well, except for this weather mucking up the schedule I had planned for the next few months. Overall I think I am almost booked for the rest of the time I am living here in Minneapolis. I am moving to my girlfriend's (Khaiti's) farm in July, out in Osceola, WI, and we are going to try to farm full-time next year. I may continue to work within my business and do some stonework projects as well, but we'll see how the schedule looks next spring.

Meanwhile I have to pack all my old junk and move it slowly from here to Osceola, but I am still running my business here for now so I need certain things to stay here in Minneapolis. I want to see friends but my schedule is pretty full at this time. Khaiti and I are looking for land in WI to buy, in order to build our dream farm. That, along with both our businesses, moving, and everything else in life has made 2010 pretty intense.

I am sore. Lots of work going on. I will update this blog when things have settled down a bit.

Sundays have become my day of rest

And I am going to keep it that way for now...

It is sort of hard to explain what is going on in my life. Newness is par for the course. I have developed a sort of ecstatic outlook on life, and I'm not sure if that is something that can be easily undone anymore. The grass is green on this side of the fence, and the other side. Wounds heal faster if they are air dried.

Let's get together and celebrate spring. What a great year this is. But then again, I'm getting my taxes done later and perhaps my whole happy bubble will pop! Doubt it though.

Life is an adventure.

walking bliss

I went on three good walks today. One with a really good friend, another with a really good friend, and another with a really cosmic monkey. I enjoyed them all for various reasons, but on my solo walk I bought some organic cheese puffs at the Seward Coop, so that was by far the best one...

Being able to walk again in pleasant weather is bliss: slow, fast, ambling, stupefied, tired, happy, full, hungry. It doesn't matter the state I'm in, the walk brings it all together.

little morning life lesson #1

I made two cups of fresh coffee this morning. Then I added some cream that was a bit old. Then I sipped it. It was bitter and rancid from the cream, but I kept drinking because I didn't want to waste good fresh coffee. Then I thought "What the hell am I doing?" and dumped it down the drain, and poured myself a fresh cup.

little morning lesson #1
you can't save doomed coffee by drinking it

a smile in the drizzle

The gray drizzle has not been my mood of late. I'm reading Thich Nhat Hanh with new eyes. Always new, beginners mind.

If we feel that we don't have have a smile right now, but can see our smile being kept by the dandelion, we are okay, he says. Also in the drizzle, the dirt, the stones, and the pepper plants, I say.

The snow has all but melted away. Carburetors are acting differently now.

goats unravel

Everything is a mess. So what?

patience

What is patience?

Quiet endurance while suffering. Maintaining a state of grace in the midst of pain. Beginning again after failing so many times.

Patience could be seen as a precursor to any attempt at religion, science, or art; evolution/creation. Before the storm hits, with patience we gather our wits and batten down the hatches. Without patience we run around with our heads cut off in a panic and are destroyed by the storm.

Patience is a survival skill. Without patience, hunting wouldn't be a skill or craft, it would merely be an exercise in firepower. Without patience, gardening is the most frustrating undertaking in the world.

Patience is the seed for real meditation and heartfelt communication.

"There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!"

-Rainer Maria Rilke

It is also a song by Guns & Roses:


GUNS N ROSES - Patience
Uploaded by GunsnRoses. - See the latest featured music videos.

The inner world colliding with the outer world
The tension between the two worlds creating life
The surface tension of the drop of water on a strand of hair
The hair woven together like galaxies

What we think of as beautiful is the movement between states of being?

It was beginning winter

It was beginning winter,
An in-between time,
The landscape still partly brown:
The bones of weeds kept swinging in the wind,
Above the blue snow.
It was beginning winter,
The light moved slowly over the frozen field,
Over the dry seed crowns,
The beautiful surviving bones
Swinging in the wind.
Light traveled over the wide field;
Stayed.
The weeds stopped swinging.
The mind moved, not alone,
Through the clear air, in the silence.
Was it light?
Was it light within?
Was it light within light?
Stillness becoming alive,
Yet still?
A lively understandable spirit
Once entertained you.
It will come again.
Be still.
Wait.

-Theodore Roethke

I have meandered to a place where I can see back on the course of my thoughts and feelings.

I am wondering if the spiritual/scientific split is again another attempt to divide the world into black and whites. And if that is necessarily good or bad.

Forward. The growth spiral. Words are not helping anymore.