Human Nature, Mother Nature - On Surrender

The gale force winds that have blown on the bright, clear days in recent weeks have plunged me into reflection on whether my mood is influenced by Mother Nature’s state or, conversely, Mother Nature is just one of the many living things mirroring back my mood. Researchers, policemen, emergency room doctors, psychics, and mystics have waxed scientific and poetic on the direct correlation between the full moon and the spike in the incidence of acts strange, aggressive, paranormal, or otherwise mystical. There’s also solid data indicating that it takes about 20 minutes of sitting in silent stillness in the forest before the birds and animals will resume their normal activity, so deep is the disruption caused by humans’ typical incursions into their habitat, all chatter and heavy footfall or iPod-connected disconnection.  And perhaps you, too, experience a tendency toward gladness on glistening sunlit days, a more melancholic mood when the gray or wet weather sets in? So there is some basis to claim resonance between Human Nature’s inner states and Mother Nature’s outer states.

Lately, I’ve noticed that on the days on which tumult reigns in my head, it seems to mimic the high-tempered winter wind’s awesome force, terrific speed, and ever-changing direction. The very days that I find myself stymied in my job search, pierced by the delivery or reception of particularly hurtful or angry words, questioning the providence even the basic elements of a stable life absent a paycheck, the wind seems to reach crescendo pitches. It whips the Bay into a white-capped froth, tears limbs from trees, and nearly halts the progress of winged creatures.

I was sharing this observation with a friend recently. Well-apprised of my current endeavor to re-make my life so that it harmonizes more fully with my values, passions, and understanding of my particular path of service, she astutely observed that any good home remodel typically necessitates demolition.  “It’s as if Mother Nature is in sync with you, Caitlin, like She understands that you might need to knock a few walls down, to push out some boundaries. She’s offering her own special signature of affirmation, encouraging you to press onward into the chaos and trust that the wind storm will subside, that peace and clarity will meet you on the other side.”

In her poem The Journey, Mary Oliver shares her own experience of navigating the more stormy period of life:

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice--

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save.

We each come to the practice of meditation with hearts and minds full of whatever calm or chaos our Human Nature has dialed in for that particular day and hour. At times, my practice can be akin to sitting down next to a crystal clear blue-green sea, a gentle breeze kissing my cheek, golden sunlight bathing me in warmth and comfort. My breath’s steady inflow and outflow harmonizes with the tide’s gurgle toward the shore and babbling retreat seaward. I drop deep into a state of openness, trust, spaciousness, connection – almost as if I am floating atop the open ocean perched on a secure, comfortable life raft.

Other times – perhaps closer to the majority of the time these days - I sit to meditate and the simple gesture of closing my eyes brings up a garish stream of painful memories, biting self-judgments, fearful prognostications about the future. I struggle to disengage the Super 8 movie reel that spews scenes of rejection, disappointment, wounding, anger, fearfulness. My breath is there, then it’s gone. When I’ve lost it, I lose all connection to the deep well of sanity and clarity at the heart of meditation. The wind scares up towering waves that pitch my life raft about, and I’m white-knuckling to keep my seat. I can’t wait ‘til the ride is over.

What I’m discovering is that what stands in the way of my enjoyment and nourishment from both types of meditation experiences – indeed, of my capacity to engage life’s challenges with certain knowledge that I have abundant resources to meet and overcome them – is my own perception, which is linked fundamentally to my capacity to accept what is, without judgment. Consider Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, just moments before he is seized by Roman soldiers, imprisoned, and subject to a horribly painful, slow, humiliating death. Testimony to His humanity, Jesus prays first that the cup of suffering He anticipates be taken from Him – He prays for escape. Moving more deeply into his period of silent prayer, Jesus acknowledging the unlikelihood of being spared the indignities and pain of His crucifixion journey. Next, He prays for acceptance – simply to be with what is, and to trust that He will have the physical and emotional stamina to meet each challenge as it comes. Jesus specifically chooses these moments to be in solitude and silence, to go inward and commune with the Divine in order to reaffirm His unfailing connection to the source of love and of life, to the wellspring of forgiveness, healing, resourcefulness, comfort, resiliency, creativity, and possibility.

These days, I feel as if my meditation practice has a lot in common with Christ’s prayer time in the Garden. I picture the wind howling through the olive trees with a force capable of uprooting them. I imagine the cheetahs, leopards, and squirrels taking cover in their caves and middens. I see the unwavering stream of moonlight illuminating Jesus as he sits, perhaps brooding on the turmoil present in his life. I see Jesus sitting silently, unmoving, dropping into a state of deep and open receptiveness.

Like Jesus, in my own moments of anguish, visceral fear, heartbreaking disappointment, in confusion and uncertainty, I am trying to commit myself to sit is stillness, in silence. I assure myself that Jesus took from this period of meditative prayer all that He needed to navigate the ultimate transition – the journey from life, through intense suffering, to death. So, too, I know that the Buddha’s own unwavering dedication to silence and stillness resulted in his attainment of Enlightenment, to his release from suffering.

In faith and trust, then, I’m striving to surrender within my meditation practice, to allow my life raft to float on the open ocean, whatever the weather. I’m choosing to believe in the practice’s life-sustaining and life-saving benefits and to have faith that clarity and peace do rest on some far shore that is, nonetheless, within reach.

I’ll leave you with a simple prayer, a set of Beatitudes for 2015 called The Greatest Gifts.

May we break down boundaries, tear down walls, and build on the foundation of goodness inside each of us.

May we look past differences, gain understanding, embrace acceptance. May we reach out to each other, rather than resist.

May we be better stewards of the earth, protecting, nurturing, and replenishing the beauties of nature.

May we practice gratitude for all we have, rather than complain about our needs.

May we seek cures for the sick, help for the hungry, and love for the lonely.

May we share our talents, give our time, and teach our children.

May we hold hope for the future very tenderly in our hearts and do all we can to build for bright tomorrows.

And may we love with our whole hearts, for that’s the only way to love.

Lessons I’m Learning from my Sit Spot

The Messenger

Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.

Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird — equal seekers of sweetness.

Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.

Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?

Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium. T

he sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.

Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart

and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth

and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all,

over and over, how it is that we live forever.



In our digital age, this epoch in which we glorify multi-tasking and busy-ness, where sensory-mental stimulation seems to ooze from omnipresent electronic gadgetry, I am ever questing for silence, solitude, solace from the torrent of hyprmessaging and hyperactivity. Like H.D. Thoreau and Mary Oliver after him, I go to my version of the woods to recover my senses. Each morning, I situate myself on the bank of Richardson Bay on a bench fortuitously positioned between two healthy sheltering oak trees. I try to hold my perch for 20 minutes, opening myself to whatever traffic comes and goes in my immediate environment, allowing my senses to keep their inventory. Here are a few lessons that I'm learning:

1.    We’re all flowing to and from the same Source. Gaze at any open body of natural water for just a few moments and it’s impossible not to feel the stirring of the fluids within your own skin. After all, we’re just a couple hundred gallons of water, blood, and other flowing substances enclosed within a human skin. Taking time to sit beside a tidal bay each day reminds me that we all flow from and to the same divine source, that the same molecules that unite to form the bay also join together within me to give me form and substance. Can I allow this knowledge to help me draw from a deeper well of wisdom, understanding, desire for connection, soul quenching, and healing?

2.    You may look or feel drab or small, but – WOW – can you sing a beautiful song! The small brown birds – nuthatches, chickadees, oak titmouses - that inhabit the oak tree beside my sit spot delight me with their chorus. Their appearance is deceptive. Fist-sized and cardboard-colored, they appear rather generic when held beside the pure white great egret or the stately blue heron. But one full-throated lungful of song advises me that beauty lies within.

3.    Stop, sit still, survey the scene, and take a rest from time to time. Hummingbirds provide a bird species metaphor to our modern day lives:  flitting from one enticing treat or activity to the next, hovering a wee while, and then moving on to the next greatest thing. But observe the hummingbird a while longer. See how she pauses, stock still, balanced gingerly on a bare branch. Looking. Resting. Allowing the fruits of her activity to be integrated within. Readying herself for another period of activity. Then, from this place of profound stillness, she takes flight.

4.    Even something as mundane, unremarkable, or uninspiring as a playing field can serve an essential purpose and hold abundant nourishment. Vibrant emerald green turf holds a special place in the hearts of my neighborhood’s gulls and geese. They spread themselves by the dozens over the soft surface, drawing into themselves for shelter from the elements or carefully plying the turf for nourishing morsels. The mundane surface of the playing field becomes a communion of beings, a source of safety and respite, a cafeteria. The gulls and geese ask me, “What comfort and nourishment can you find in the ordinary, the everyday, the collective?”

5.    It’s not necessarily how high you go, but how you get there. The flight of the turkey vulture provides eloquent commentary on artful journeying. Launching from bare earth or jagged edge of hill, its wings spread impressively and – oh! – catch an updraft and propel its oversized body a bit higher. From a meaningful vantage point, the hulking yet graceful form turns in wide gyres as if blessing all beneath. Eagle or vulture? Only the studied eye can discern, as the gorgeous spirals of flight mask all perceived ugliness. Make your journey artful.

6.    Circling a destination or a course of action a few (or many!) times before your settle on it can be a useful, prudent practice. I watch innumerable gulls convene in seeming disarray and chaos in the steam rising from the wastewater treatment plant. A moment unfolds in which they place themselves head to tail with their kin until the whole twisted knot of gray-white feathers has become a gently revolving circle that mirrors the shape of the holding tank beneath. For dozens of seconds they rotate, with each rotation a few more birds setting off in their own directions or, dropping to cement surface, settling to rest, just so. There’s a certain wisdom in going ‘round and ‘round a few times before landing at your decision or destination.

7.    Let the sun find you and catch your colors, dry out your feathers. The shiny ebony cormorant’s telltale gesture for drying its wings serves as a sort of sun salute. Chest lifts, wingtips thrust skyward, head gently inclines, arches backward in a graceful curve. Heart exposed to sun, wings full spread, wind gently caressing the full surface of its body. Ah, how important to routinely allow nature to soothe and heal the cold, soggy parts of yourself that could potentially bog you down.

8.    Be utterly, irrepressibly you. Yesterday morning, I searched and searched with my ears and eyes ‘til I found the source of the happiest, most sincere and exuberant upwelling of song. They came to rest on a tiny bird feathered in shades of brown, beak turned to the heavens, belting out its own original aria. He seemed to counsel me, “Hey – all you can do is be utterly, irrepressibly you!” So get on with it. Sing your song!”

9.    Be resourceful and also patient; work diligently, but also wait and watch. Every type of feathered creature has shown me the significance of resourcefulness:  from berry harvesting to collecting puffs of fur and wads of thread for nest lining, they’re wise users of resources. Their unique vantage points often give them a window onto opportunity to which busy upright creatures may only rarely, if ever, be privy. For many species, this resourcefulness comes coupled with an embedded capacity for patience. Simply watch a great egret or blue heron searching for breakfast and you’ll embrace a new understanding of patience. I’m learning that there’s both a need to apply oneself diligently to one’s daily labor, and also to take things slowly, to survey the broader scene before plunging deeply into activity.

10.Even a minor miracle such as landing gracefully on water can come to be second nature with practice, which helps to transform self-doubt, fear, skepticism, and lassitude into polished performance. I watch the skinny-legged rail come to a skidding but graceful landing in a shallow pool beside the bike path. Grace triumphs over physical form, as its small football-shaped body, gangly neck, large almond-shaped head, and overly long orange beak do not advertise, “Look at graceful me!” Clearly, practice has enabled the adult rail to alight and land with an artful polish that seems the result of committed practice (coupled with some wonderful assistance in the genetic realm from Mother Nature).

11. Bloom where you are planted. I tend to wait until the conditions are “just right” before beginning something, especially a new endeavor. From the proliferation of all types of rather marvelous fungi, I’m taking the counsel to bloom in whatever soil or leaf litter or tree bark you find yourself, as you may just be able to nourish others from the nutrients you draw from whatever medium in which you find yourself.

Winter Gardening

We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all.     ~ Dorothy Day

The winter rains have found us. After three years of enduring dryness that seemed to turn every stem and leaf a sickly sort of brown, that sucked all semblance of moisture from the soil, that caused many a farmer and gardener sleepless nights and wrought furrows in brows deeper than those in fields, we are gurgling in winter wetness. Sodden sandbags stand guard at entryways, bracing for the next downpour. Water eddies and pools amidst the obstacles posed by leaf matter and soil runoff. And Mother Nature sports a hundred shades of green  - tiny blades of grass appear where before was barren earth. New growth gleams brightly on meadows and hillsides. The deer and coyotes are abandoning survival backyard picnicking for their preferred wild foraging. Even winged creatures seem to have a new lightness to their flight, relieved by the languor of dry, desolate days that had turned meals to tasteless morsels, cozy bedding to prickly, poking furniture unfit for even the grumpiest of visitors.

Abundance is a word befitting harvest time or, in this precious Mediterranean climate, the height of summer rather than the dead of winter. Yet Mother Nature laughingly shrugs at the calendar. “Now!” she seems to say, with glinted eye, “Abundance cannot be hemmed in by season or custom. Always is the time for new growth and rich harvest.”

Her wisdom is legendary. I’m trying to take it to heart.  

Dorothy Day’s words guide my heart’s musings and my heart’s homework, especially in these weeks when shameful acts of injustice, violence, unfathomable cruelty, and mind-numbing irresponsibility grab headlines. Rather than dwell on what inevitably springs from these – “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence . . .”, MLK observed – I prefer to invest in sowing the seeds of nonviolent speech, considerate and compassionate action, words  and actions that repair and renew so that they may be fed by these winter rains and multiply a thousand-fold.

Dr. King went on to counsel, “We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.” Nature has shown me how rainwater has the capacity to re-new – to make new again – and to re-generate – to join tiny seeds and lifeless and struggling plants and animals to the life force that so essentially nourishes them so that they might experience vitality and abundance.

It’s hardly the season for sowing, though I know many a diligent farmer who is nonetheless meticulously tending upstarts. After all, Nature sometimes laughs at the calendar, and wise farmers take their lead from Her. If we can’t all be sowing, why not make time for weeding, for tending the soil? During this season of honoring darkness, perhaps each of us could look into the darkness in our own hearts, identify any weeds rooted there that might be ripe for removal, and set about the difficult but satisfying work of weeding? Perhaps we can participate in cultivating our healthy crops by tenderly yet decisively uprooting the seeds and shoots of malice, violence, judgment, pettiness, and fear so that these don’t proliferate in our gardens?

Just maybe, when the rains have run their course and sunlight’s again heaped generously upon us, we will glean mended relationships, softened hearts, mutual understanding, forgiveness, tenderness, and the peace that comes from having engaged wholeheartedly in good, hard work. What abundance that would be . . . 

Enthralled by Tinier Beings

In recent weeks, I've found myself enthralled by tiny beings:  infinitesimally small spiders; avocado-sized baby coots; perfectly etched miniature Japanese maple leaves; thumbnail-big sand dollars; spritely evening grosbeaks, with their inspiring yellow throats. Perhaps it's the waning of light that's prompted me to ponder the beauty and gifts of smallness, or perhaps my earnest search for ways to assert more bravery in the face of big emotions and big questions about how to deal with the violence, ignorance, divisiveness, and destruction in our world, or maybe just my subconscious acknowledgement that bigger is not always better, that mass and volume are not the only markers of greatness . . .

I sat for 20 minutes in a rain-soaked meadow on Sunday morning following the aerial choreography of a microscopic ebony spider. She effortlessly glided through the air, eschewing contact with saturated stalks of meadow grass, avoiding the byways offered by thistle stems and countless green blades of new growth. Suspended by an invisible filament, she propelled herself, the air itself her highway. An intrepid explorer, she evidently delighted in free floating. Then, as if the second hand of some great Nature clock lagged, I observed her slow, elegant collision with a sodden golden stalk. Contact - matter beneath feet - seemed profoundly disorienting. Sprite-like meandering through open air turned to effortful trudging, the ascent of the 10-inch stalk requiring minutes rather than milliseconds. Would that I could find such grace and surety in the face of wide open possibility, of no ground beneath my feet.

This morning, I beheld the bundle of exuberant curiosity that is the tiny black coot. Boldly ranging beyond the concentric circles cast by her Momma's progress, she purposefully seeks the deepest water. Mid-way between shores, where the chasm is greatest and the predators most likely to eyeball her delicious backside, she dips and dives and dives and dives. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven seconds I count, the water now bearing no trace of her watery pike. My peripheral vision finds her next, restoring herself to surface, continuing her fearless exploration. The prehistoric form of brother Pelican looms overhead, dangerously near and frighteningly large. She appears unperturbed, happily making her watery sojourn in search of novelty and nourishment, no need for sign of Mother or shore.

Now I am delighting in the yellow-throated grosbeaks conferencing outside my window. Oblivious to the cacophony of city noises - table saw and siren, jackhammer and pick axe, hammer and horn - they share their secrets as they savor bright orange berries. "The world's a crazy, bountiful place," they seem to chatter, and "Aren't you glad we have each other?"

As I muddle through my days, these little creatures help me to see the merits of curiosity and community. They encourage me to abandon fear for fearlessness, chide me to trust that spaciousness and possibility can harbor more opportunities for freedom and creativity than stability and security. In their own way, to paraphrase Brene Brown, they show me that vulnerability is the clearest way we have of measuring courage.

Learning from Nature

My soft early morning eyes follow the chubby tuxedoed bodies of Buffleheads plying the jade surface of Richardson Bay. I watch. A poofy cottonball head and small gray beak tilt forward, puncturing the water’s skin; fat black and white rump slip noiselessly after. The water ripples out in concentric circles that give way to glassy stillness. In my somewhat unfocused line of sight, all is momentarily unmoving, silent. Submerged, the bird works his underwater duties, gleaning nourishment for the day, counsel for others about where real treasure lies.

She stands at the shoreline, elliptical body balanced on pencil-thin ebony legs, graceful neck folded neatly at its midpoint, watchful eyes observing, thoughtfully consuming. Motionless, long schooled in moving at nature’s pace. Her wedge-shaped beak begins a descent, lowers millimeters at a time, almost imperceptibly. Neck slowly unfurls, trailing golden beak. A momentary hovering, stillness gathered and held. At lightening’s speed, mouth drops to water, jaws open, shut. Gullet takes over, efficiently processing the morning’s latest morsel. Thirty seconds pass, gullet and figure working in seamless harmony. Gradually, she again assumes regal stance, presiding over the green Bay, the Mallards and Grebes, the Snowy Egrets. Pale eyes resume encompassing gaze.

Round and round she travels, rhythmically, purposefully, gossamer strand trailing then artfully catching a cross-thread, lending the work its telltale shape. Her squat gold and black body pushes along her eight deft weaving tools, forelegs gingerly guiding the thread’s placement – just so – before engineering a change in direction, a coupling of the new strand with a cross-thread to sturdy up the new home. Her path spirals inward, each revolution tighter, more focused. A silver dollar-sized eight-sided ring culminates the masterful weaver’s work. Noiselessly, with practiced efficiency, she crosses to the two o’clock corner of the web and settles in rest. Almost motionless, I can see-hear-feel her breathing. The sun finally rounds the girth of the eucalyptus grove and, warmth unfurling, casts its autumn morning light on the weaver, the web, and the witness.

Earlier this month, I spent three days and two nights camping in a meadow edging the Pacific. The meadow rests among the 17 acres that comprise The Regenerative Design Institute’s patch of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Design Institute is a 2-acre permaculture garden and varied patch of wild lands within the park’s marvelous expanse. While the prospect of three days of camping in such a scenic refuge sounds idyllic, the weekend entailed more than lounging under my tent’s safe nylon canopy lulled by the waves’ music.  Rather, it involved more than 30 hours of solitary and group exercises, reflection, journaling, and activities otherwise aimed to facilitate a stock-taking of my life. The days marked the opening session of a six-month program called The Ecology of Leadership, or EOL. Per its website description, EOL aims to “awaken our unique gifts and [support us] to more fully participate in the extraordinary cultural and planetary transformation of our time.” For those familiar with the activist ecologist and philosopher Joanna Macy, the program responds to the opportunities inherent in what Macy describes as “The GreatTurning” – the turning away from an industrial growth society toward a life-sustaining civilization. For me, the program appeared as if by Grace, another step stone on this path to align my work and the daily pattern of my life to be synchronous with my belief in the interconnectedness of all beings and my desire to be a more active and effective healing resource. In truth, the program also provides me with a way to direct my energy from the despair and isolation of mid-career unemployment and uncertainty to pursuit of my vision of a wholehearted life of integrity and meaningful contribution. It enables me to commune with other seekers trying to discern their proper place on this Earth, yearning to discover and take up their particular and significant work in the world.

I count my new practice of sitting quietly in nature among the gifts already gleaned from EOL. In addition to nurturing a daily meditation practice, I have added the daily discipline of sitting quietly for 20 minutes in the same “sit spot” bordering Richardson Bay. There, I am instructed by my guides from EOL to simply observe. From this practice and my summer of farming, I am slowly learning that soundly immersing myself in our natural world helps me to re-member my place within the unfolding fabric, to claim my membership in the family of things. Observing the Great Blue Heron and the Bufflehead, I am re-learning the significance of standing still and diving deep. From the Great Egret, I am discovering that open and watchful waiting yields rich desserts, that I need not muscle and strive to earn my daily bread, that there is always enough – and often abundance. From the Robins outside my kitchen window, I take the lesson that small morsels consumed thoughtfully accrete to sufficient food for the journey, and that companionship and community are as important – if not more so – than a ready supply of bright red berries.

As in the practice of meditation, my sit spot practice also invokes the most basic onboard tool – the breath – as a means of restoring my attention and emotions to the here and now. Now, I’m finding it helpful to envision myself breathing alongside the regal Egrets and Herons, humming through my activities propelled by the self-same breath imbibed by Buffleheads and Mallards, respiring with the formidable stillness of Redwoods and Cypresses. These visualizations readily guide me into my Heart’s center, to its beating, which mirrors that of the Creator that sustains every living being. By consciously settling into silence, resting in breath and mantra, I hope that I am gradually becoming more adept at listening and responding to the way life continuously evokes us forward on a path with Heart. If it’s good enough for Mary Oliver, it’s good enough for me.

And so I try, moment by moment and day by day, to keep moving forward. I invoke the company of my breath and of faithful companions on this journey toward awareness, non-violence, and service in healing the earth. I sometimes falter. I sometimes check out. I've been known, too, to stumble and lose heart. It’s then that I close my eyes, find my breath, conjure the faces of those who encourage and inspire me. It’s then that I take myself to the edge of the Bay and regard the Buffleheads and the Blue Heron. I am learning to join them on their path, to rest and trust in abundance, in revelation, in nourishment enough for the unfolding journey.

And when I need further cajoling to re-join the path, to re-engage in the practice of slowing down and opening up, I turn to poetry - what poet David Whyte describes as, "Language against which we have no defenses." These words of Denise Levertov recently undid me . . .

We live our lives of human passions,
cruelties, dreams, concepts,
crimes and the exercise of virtue
in and beside a world devoid
of our preoccupations, free
from apprehension -- though affected,
certainly, by our actions. A world
parallel to our own though overlapping.
We call it "Nature"; only reluctantly
admitting ourselves to be "Nature" too.
Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,
our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,
an hour even, of pure (almost pure)
response to that insouciant life:
cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing
pilgrimage of water, vast stillness
of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,
animal voices, mineral hum, wind
conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering
of fire to coal--then something tethered
in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch
of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.
No one discovers
just where we've been, when we're caught up again
into our own sphere (where we must
return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)
-- but we have changed, a little.

~ Denise Levertov ~

(Sands of the Well)

The Mutuality of Nourishment

As 2009 opened, I was issued a challenge – extended by my youngest sister to each of her six siblings - to make at least 500 pb&j sandwiches for the local soup kitchen or outreach center of my choosing. After strong-arming my Solstice partygoers into a couple of hours of focused sandwich making, my wife Christine and I had a mere 150 or so sandwiches to our credit. I dutifully dropped them at Santa Cruz’s Homeless Services Center and noted the rather lukewarm reception that greeted of our collective labor of love. Turning our Corolla-turned-meal-wagon into Trader Joe’s parking lot to restock our sandwich making supplies, I began to question, “What does it mean to truly nourish people?”

This seemingly innocent line of inquiry took on a life of its own, spawning a new round of meal preparation that seemed more in keeping with our community’s needs. Over the following weeks, Christine and I lovingly (if sloppily!) prepared 75-or-so bag lunches – complete with small bean, cheese, and salsa burritos, tortilla chips, and cookies – and distributed them to the omnipresent row of Latino men walking the day laborer line. Tentative at first, the guys shyly scooped up brown paper sacks with mumbles of, “Gracias.” The task became equally fun and fulfilling, but I still pondered whether there might be a more meaningful way to foster community and address basic nutritional needs with my rather limited culinary skills (but abundant desire and energy!).

By April, I managed to expand my query enough to identify a couple of folks equally keen to spread nourishment and – joy of joys! – a community that exuberantly offered to participate in our foolhardy act of gastronomic kindness. Former pb&j sandwich makers and dear friends Karen Lambert and Clay Madden agreed to join me in making lunch each Wednesday for a team of organic farming trainees and the staff of the Homeless Garden Project (HGP – see www.homelessgardenproject.org). Our little café would use primarily ingredients grown on the HGP’s 2.5-acre organic farm and distributed to HGP’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscribers. Indeed, we instantly became contestants on Organic Grab Bag Iron Chef, charged with generating a tasty, nutritious meal for 12 – 18 people with the veggies tucked in the walk-in fridge in a large brown grocery sack every Tuesday evening. And we agreed to do this for approximately 28 weeks: the duration of the trainees’ apprenticeship on the farm.

We enthusiastically showed up our first day with a steaming, humongous pot of spicy black bean chili-n-greens with a side dish of cornbread and farm-inspired salad, all of which were devoured quicker than you can say, “Homeless Garden Project.” We learned early on not to begrudge any ingredient that would lend a little fire to the meal, and that fire was best calmed by sugar, preferably delivered in the form of homemade cookies. When enthusiasm threatened to devolve into lackluster meals, we called in the reinforcements. Christine became my faithful sous-chef (OK, at times substitute chef!) and Karen & Clay’s daughter, Kendall, routinely rescued us with batches of lovingly-prepared cookies. The Triple C Double K Kitchen seemed to garner rave reviews. Secretly, though, I think that our panel of organic farming trainee/judges had bonded to us with such fondness that they became compromised critics! Mike – talented sculptor of the spiral garlic & onion bed, gifted carpenter, and wise mentor – offered to start a cookbook called Imagine Flavor based upon some of the dishes we dreamed up. Carmen always had stories of her four year-old’s achievements and antics for us, and we delighted when she shared the news of finding secure housing. Floppy sun hat-bedecked Barbara, skirt billowing in the ever-present coastal winds, frequently sent us off with armfuls of the farm’s brightest flowers.

Habitually slow to emerge from the greenhouse or tiny farm office, Susie would inevitably appear. Sandy gray-brown hair loosely caught in a rubber band, brown weather-kissed skin catching the sun, she’d squint up at us and inquire what delectable feast we had fabricated. Should she not appear, I would wander toward the greenhouse and find her carefully finishing off a seed tray, deep in concentration. As we walked toward the makeshift kitchen/dining area, she would lament that the frenetic pace of the season – which had started without the farm’s co-directors in place – meant that she did not have time to be present to people in the way she deeply wanted to. Seemingly in perpetual motion, I always took it to our credit that Susie actually paused to savor our Wednesday lunches for a good 10 or 15 minutes, which seemed luxurious. Ultimately, this proved to be enough time for us to shape a friendship based squarely in laughter, grousing, and shared admiration at the everyday miracles that abounded at the farm.

Mid-season, she added a few mouse-hunting (OK, rat-hunting) kitties to the farm’s small menagerie. Susie derived no end of pleasure from watching the girls (as she called them) learn the art of pouncing, which they perfected on each other and on assorted inanimate objects . . . She looked after the kittens as if they were her first born, balancing care and attention with the benign neglect that they needed to become true farm kitties. In this way, I glimpsed Susie’s knack for parenting. I was honored to meet one of the prizes of her true art of parenting when her son, Tashi, visited the farm with his girlfriend, Caitlin. Confident and kind, outfitted with Susie’s disarming gentle smile, Tashi warmed up the farm every time he visited. Susie seemed not to take her eyes off of him while he was there. It was clear they shared a remarkable bond, one which any single mother who has had to sacrifice much to hold her family together can speak to.

Among my brightest memories of this grand experiment in mutual nourishment – because Clay, Karen and I soon began to look forward to our Wednesdays at the farm as one might anticipate a great meal – I will never forget the sight of Susie standing in the buffet line at the 20^th Anniversary festivities at the farm. Cloth-covered tables and chairs spread in a pattern out behind her, she beamed at Tashi and laughed her deep, resonant Susie laughed at a shared joke, eyes twinkling. She seemed in her element, surrounded by years of friends and the land –both of which she had taken pains to cultivate – and gazing upon the extraordinary produce of her efforts: the buffet of glorious dishes and the family she so dearly loved. Gazing at Susie and the entire HGP community – some of the two decades of formerly homeless HGP trainees, current and emeritus staff members, donors, friends, and children and pets galore – I thought, “This is what it means to nourish people.”

Susie MacMillan, ripened to 57 years of age, was somehow called back to the Creator in the wee hours of the morning on December 26^th. She died when fire consumed her haven of peace, a trailer tucked on the far edge of a winery approximately 8 miles from town. As I think about her death, the lyrics of a favorite Mary Chapin Carpenter song ease into my mind: “I keep thinking I’ll flame out/ Leave noone with a doubt/ That I was meant to fire like a rocket.” Susie had far too much sparkle to die a conventional death. In this, I take great comfort as I try to honor and propagate her inspired commitment to hard work, to live ‘til it hurts, and to nourish the land and its inhabitants with every particle of one’s being.