A rainy day & several hours in the car led us to the legendary Strauss Creamery, & that dashing man up top. Along with being incredibly charming & handsome, he & his wife have been raising, loving & milking over 200 cows a day, twice a day, for 34 years. 34 years. I am 33. So. A baby in the world of right livelihood & spiritual practice. And I've so much to learn from folks like these. I have never seen someone having so much fun, so in love with his day-to-day life. He toured our group around with a spring in his step, a giggle on his chest. You should have seen his delight at getting the kids to pop their fingers in the milking machines. So much fun was he having, that he went around the group, 3 or four times so they really got the nature of the sucking action. A man who gets breast feeding!! I mean, he really gets it & is a true admirer of the sport, the miracle of the process. Not to mention he has been midwifing these gracious animals in every possible way. I think when he began talking about the birthing process & asking the kids to demonstrate how they look when taking a dump, a couple of kids peed their pants. And when he began talking about the insemination process! Well, I think one of the moms pooped her pants. I don't mean to be crass. But that was a really, really fun tour. Rain & all. And he does it for free, a commitment to sharing the wonderful world of organic dairy farming. Angels on earth, organic dairy farmers. When flies take over the farm, they bottle feed each & every cow to prevent salmonella. When a cow goes sick, it's all about the homeopathics & natural care. If the lady might be lost, they give her some antibiotics & pop a big X on her ear, never to be milked again. A loss for the farm, a boon for the rest of us. These are the kind I wish to learn from, I wish the children of the world to know & gaze upon. But that's the last thing he wants. After popping some bottles in their hands, he wrestled down some giddy young bulls & got our kids feeding. What else can I say but thank you? For the tour, the things they do that we'll never know about, the heart break of animal husbandry, the magical ivory milk... And for the rest of us, for buying organic dairy, & supporting men & women such as this. We are blessed.
social dynamics are amazing. there's much good conversation happening in our parts around creating community, maintaining community. we are so full, creating new business partnerships, selecting board members, working with our children's eccentric educational communities, getting ready for old & new family to arrive into a thriving, bustling soup of bay area artists & activists. not to mention it's our birthday season in october. 3 weddings, harvesting opportunities. and all the people involved with all of this. for some reason i find caterpillars to be a reassuring reminder of how unique & perfect each human being is. of the source-given individuality, the miracle of bits both strange & enchanting. and the vulnerability, even of the big huge ones. we are all at the hands of eachother, at the end of the day. and we must remember to stay open. and stay kind. it can be hard with all the personalities involved. but we don't know where each person is going, what they will need to go through to become who they are becoming & where they are at in their journeys. what they have eaten, what they still need to fed. the dangers that have been dodged & the instincts at play. i have to assume that we act the way we were designed, doing our best to live into the very best possibility of ourselves.
the possibilities are so exciting...what are we all to become when we're done being so very interesting?
In 2005 my darling, funny & very wise friend John Chen gave me some sage advice on re-entry. He's someone I consider a visionary & business mentor, so I listened closely as he explained that the main reason most "transformational experiences" do not sustain themselves back in the real world is a failed "re-entry." People need to plan for what happens when we return to our communities as new beings, & realize that they weren't there to see what happened. At the time I was feeling grounded, supported & clear from nine days with my Jamily at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California. And, about to return to D & our then 3 year-old in New Hampshire, whom I had left feeling anxious & more than a little heart-sick. Now I was bursting at the seams with ideas about giving circles, inspired philanthropy & new models of social entrepreneurism. I easily could have blow them out of the water, but instead I took John's advice & planned for a smooth re-entry. As female, it's hard for me to be interrupted by males that I love. So instead I filled my notebook with photos from the week & said nothing. Yes, nothing. When they picked me up from the airport I listened to their adventures, how they had bonded & the tiny challenges they dealt with alone on the island for so long. When they asked questions, I just said, "It's all here in my notes." And it was. By putting my own transformation aside I was able to take in theirs, receiving gifts I might have missed otherwise. My son was taller, able to stand up to his neck in the lake & leaned into his father with a whole new confidence. My husband was taller, having proved to himself that he was entirely self-sufficient as a parent, able to deliver tenderness, discipline & security without my wifely peanut gallery. By holding my experience sacred & not trying to have anyone else get it, I got to keep it. *** So this year, D & the 3 boys were in CA & I was in NH for the Squam Art Workshops. 3 weeks on, & my family still hasn't seen my photos of Squam Lake. They have a couple of paintings up & some goodies I brought home from Reform School, owned by my roommates Billie & Tootie. What they did see is my name tag up there, & 3 short videos over the course of the week.
make your own name tags (sharpie pens on canvas + baby scrabbles)
ice candles light the way to the craft fair. there's no shortage of magic, here
the ice house...harvested from the lake in winter. delivered daily to your cottage.
"oh, what's that?" they exclaimed! a refrigerator cabinet. yes! with no electricity. just ice! "ooh. really?"
#1 :: What, to my mind, is what kids most want to know about Squam Lake but never ever heard of. The Uber-Crazy team effort that is ice-harvesting.
Honey Harvest from Smarts & Crafts on Vimeo.
#2 A short on how Derek (+ Laura, though you never see her) harvests their honey. This is relevant because they have a shop in the City which is just our kind of shop, so the kids will actually meet them someday. And in our family we maintain that honey is always, at all times totally relevant.#3 The swoonfest SAW slideshow by my honorary roommate, Merrilee. There's a goofy picture of me from a little antique stop & a shot of the paintings they now know. But I didn't point it out.
I arrived at SAW at 2:30 am before it all began & was assured that no one else was there. It was pitch black, the driver was lost & nervous, & I had a sudden intense bear phobia. I was being as loud as possible, yelling to the driver & slamming doors before I realized Merr, Eileen & Yvette were in my cabin. They were sleeping before I got there & needless to say, I was mortified that I had woken them, but they insist they were waiting for me. Well, I'll never know, but I do love those gracious ladies. I loved all of it.
Before the lil' heads can conduct business behind the table...
they gotta learn their product line,
learn standards & distinguish which of their commodities...
are sold by the bunch
the basket
& the pound.
They have to practice greeting, adding fractions & bits. Give totals.
Pick their favorite produce. Be patient.
Compost is both a loss & a treasure. A chance to re-invest.
There is marketing to do, products to display. It must be beautiful & true, easy-to-see.
Then they tell their mamas what to make for dinner.
At our house? I was told very clearly to make a "sweet pepper-basil torta with feta & one dozen eggs. A side of green beans. With lots of butter. Lots." And so it was.
***
Every day at 3 my downstairs turns into a small emporium with chalkboard menus, baskets of walnuts, play produce & football helmets for sale. The local kids charge siblings between $1-1000 for any given item, but they've learned in their play that giving change is easier when dealing with whole, small bills. Yesterday they were all wearing Fez hats from Egypt & running a cafe that sold fish tacos. There are still no limits apparently. I so treasure this age, the final glimpse at the dreamscapes of their toddler-selves before they begin asking for allowances & creating websites of their own.
I have a 3-inch binder packed with eloquent, heart-melting letters & delicious recipes from Jeff & Annie Main, purveyors of Good Humus Produce. We just met on their property for the first time: those letters are 2-page bits they deliver to all of their farm members, & came in our weekly CSA-treasure boxes for several years. I adore the farmer's market & co-op, so we stopped getting the boxes, but I have missed the perspective on those sheets. Yellowed & broth-stained, they have been a constant source of grounding & consciousness for our family for about 9 years. Annie is the original authentic blogger in my mind. I have memorized quotes from her inquiries regarding true community/individual sustainability & been jaw-dropped at an organic farmer's actual wages. (Yes, we need to pay our teachers more. But farmers. They are the invisible heroes in this world.) She taught me how to gratin kohlrabi, how to prep dark greens & passed me a favorite soup of thin onions, coconut milk, peas & cilantro. She doesn't know any of this. But I can actually feel my heart swelling with gratitude. Once Jeff gave a nail-biting account of the morning's delivery when the area had been flooded. As he recounted the condition of their van & his calculations of what was needing to be delivered & the impact of if he didn't make it, or even make it home at all (!) brought to mind the mailman's creed. Not Wind Nor Rain Nor Sleet or Snow... We had a chance to spend a couple of days with them, their jam maker Jen & their son Zachary. It was nothing less than epic. The kids ran scavenger hunts looking for treasures - like water, compost/soil, habitat & insects before doing skits right there in the orchards. They made connections about the systems of the farm while weeding,trimming, making ice cream, compost piles, pressed apple juice, garden stones & dinner from produce they picked themselves. My son, who hates peppers came out of the field chewing a long, neon-red chili pepper that turned out to be bright & sweet. Before leaving, they found their new "class pet:" Tiger Eye, the biggest, prettiest caterpillar I have ever seen. Big, like, oh, 3/4" thick & 7 inches long with a red horn on it's acid-green bum. Apparently they eat tomato crops, so they must go. And so must I go to sleep. But the best part of trip was just...Oh, the best...
set up by farmer annie, jammaker jen + the kids
molly
culling apples for juice + cider
organic farming = layered ecosystems, building habitats for pest predators
snack time :: dried apricots, cherry tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, melon
field workers getting to know heirloom berries by taste, size
apples, once-pressed by the children
zach, firefighter, farm-boy picking his lunch
midwives for our entire country's produce (muchas gracias, sweet madre!!)
a chair, a shingled porch after an honest day. what more do we really need?
This is a little sample (sans impeccable embroidery) made Wednesday for our wonderful craftswomen friends in Fond de Blancs, Haiti. Exquisite stitching is their specialty, so I left that piece for them. Hopefully the lotus root will end up on the pocket, but who knows! I trust those mamas to make it their own.
Mamas have a way of doing the right thing their own way. I just think we should all walk around, trusting the mamas.
The colors & bubble layout were done by my girl Poppy Peach. I love it! 5 years ago D was in knots outside of the Golden Boat Waldorf daycare, realizing he'd have to go in & get our son. There was another mother there; her daughter was inside, but her son was needing to be picked up from kindergarten. She sat there & cried on another mom's shoulder, while D sat there & cried inside before retrieving our own sweet boy. That was Poppy. We've had a similar road, she & I. Northern California hippy girls married to our dream boys from more conservative families. She homeschooled for a few years & lives in a village community that's pretty much the Garden of Eating. I mean Eden. Now we share meals together as often as possible while our kids take turns being way too wild in the hammock. This week she came over to pick up some sewing skills. Poppy's also just trying out the blog thing, & I'm delighted because she's a thriving & beautiful wellspring of herbal, gardening, whole foods cooking & Waldorf educational knowledge. Not to mention an open & generous heart who makes me laugh & laugh. I'm hoping she gets into it, & so maybe you could peek over to her blog with an encouraging hey?
rigging: exquisite, black & tarred, massive
one way to get to shore...
crow's nest
a calendar? a compass? a game? if you know, please share!
these woolen layers would put any waldorf teacher to shame. lined wool knickers over salmon jersey thigh-highs. knit salmon knee highs with grey tie + poppy socks and handmade leather mary-janes to boot. on a colonial man, to boot (again).
I never knew the women of the Mayflower stayed on board, to care for the ill & dying while the men built their shelters. That they had lost half of their loved ones on the way over. I didn't realize how small the ship was - way too small for over 100 people, let alone men, women & children all buzzed or drunk because they had to drink beer for hydration. I didn't know the ship & crew had planned to return home, but it was too cold for the colonists to survive, so they remained as home base. I'm seeing for the first time that the Pilgrims were people suffering from shock.
I'm reminded of the triumph it is that we continue to build our lives when we each have felt the texture of trauma. That we continue to accept, long for & melt into our loved ones when we have all experienced great loss. Or if we haven't yet, we've heard the crack in our mother's voice or seen the vacuous glance of our grandfather as he got up from his chair. They've been there. And yet we continue to be hopeful & hope-filled. And life comes through.
I'm also reminded of the reality of sequencing. History has been handed to me in a linear, masculine sequence. Men built things, & the landmarks of their lives continued to be built upon by the decades of those that followed them. We don't know what we build here, ultimately. We just build, take in the contributions of others & hopefully give everything we possibly can.
As women, our lives move in a spiral sequence. Each phase of our lives is a rounded movement, touching on what's happened, what's coming & what's always been there. Or maybe it looks like sequencing work or children or marriage while spinning the plates of everything else we are accountable for, everything we are up to & everything life throws in. And here now I am spinning memories for my children & I find signs of these women - baskets, bedding, clothing, food - & I feel like I can hear crying, see them smiling. Feel their bravery. Some kind of weird hug across time & space. (Or maybe I'm just picturing Laura Linney in John Adams?)
I wonder how the women of the Mayflower felt about the Indigenous women they found here, with their established home lives, surrounded by their children, men & sisters, capable & clear on their roles in their communities. Did they wish to learn from them, join them, know them & love them as women innately do? Did they feel thwarted in those longings by their community culture, their own beliefs, their grief or the locals themselves? Or were some meaningful relationships established - if only meaningful to themselves? What futures might have been possible if those heart strings had been able to become the foundational threads of this country? If only I had been handed that history. The dance of women.
tool, Patuxet Village, Plimouth Plantation
It's time to head forward to school. Yes, school. Sure we could go back, since we were there, March-through-June. Going "back to school" is exciting, an adventure into the daily faces of friends & beloved teachers, a chance to tackle new & interesting material. That happens, & would be the case for us.
As life-learners, we are looking at this Fall as a totally new experience, & it is. We've never done something like this, walked into a class of kids a bit older, but still all about the same age with the same general developmental needs. It's interesting! And I think each Fall will be new, with new faces on the same people, new interests, new capacities. Let us always go forward, why don't we.
Are we still homeschoolers? Yeah, we are. We call it the "long class" each morning. We still belong to our local homeschooling bookclub, though it takes place during "school hours." We will faithfully continue our "family curriculum" of cooking, marketing, growing, making, finding, drawing, tasting, discovering, dancing, assembling, dismantling, field-tripping, music-making & whatever else falls our way.
And the Waldorf curriculum is one of those things. I had always intended on homeschooling the boys when they were older. When our oldest was one, I found our local Waldorf school during a year-long Early Childhood Training at Rudolf Steiner College. We fell in love with it & with the Early Childhood teacher. Not so much with the kindergarten & now we have found a great 3rd-grade community. The teacher also has three boys, is a farmer & a nurse, & she homebirthed & homeschooled, as well. So we have much in common, & she's an elder I can learn from. And learning is the commitment for us. That, & surrounding our children with people who have diverse values - but values that support life.
leather "lacrosse" for catching on sticks
There's been issues, nothing to go back about. Like hyper-competitive parents. Bullying. Kids thinking they can only play with one age, or only one gender. But these are not issues in the grand scheme of things. I'm so grateful that every moment is a chance to move forward towards more connections.
beautiful
"score!"
***** Speaking of making connections... This village, Patuxet, is one of the first Native villages where no one made it, due to diseases introduced by colonists. I have so many questions I want to ask some of the folks I saw there, but they are personal ones, & we are advised not to ask those. But coming from a colonized culture myself, & a community of community servants, I'm so curious: "Do you consider yourself an activist?" "Does being here during the day shift how you live at home?" "How do you feel about the colonists given that you work in partnership with the recreated colonial village?" But we aren't to ask questions like, "What percentage Native are you?" I understand that. Although people ask me that kind of question at least once a month. We can't go backwards, & a part of me wants to. Everything there is a great reminder of the possibility- the past, present & future great possibility of letting our product - what we make - be the wellbeing of our communities. Imagine. More chances to forward connections. (The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight has wonderful ideas on how to integrate the past & the present in a way that supports our global home & community.) Moving on...
longhouse
dolls, canoe, games
burned-out canoe, paddles, fish-drying station
grinding maize
an elder messing with the kids & showing off her bear
inside a longhouse
women-made mats as walls
Maya has consulted A-list celebrities, Fortune 500 CEO's, supermodels & world-renowned global activists in bringing values-based creativity & purpose-driven clarity to their expressions. Her sexy edible designs (nori slips + wonton origami aprons!) have been featured at Fred Segal, on Oprah's Oxygen Network, & Pajama Party. A life-long unschooler, Maya has helped raise millions for small companies & non-profits, danced both hip-hop & hula professionally, and co-owned businesses in radio, medical records, cosmetic surgery, exotic cars, & film. She lives with her best friend & their three home-birthed, home-schooled boys, True, Free & Real.
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