Two songbirds & Stone-Three Awakenings

Just a sharing from a beginning-minded fella picking away at the keyboard.
Summer Flowers (aka Stef) and I went out Sunday around 3:30 PM to gather sacred soil.

I landed in the central garden and continued on out to the north pasture. Alone, I worried "Nuts, it's dead quiet out here. I shoulda come out earlier. I'm never gonna get a sign now". I offered sacred tobacco. Within a very quick time I heard a bird singing.

"Well, that's a brand new sound here at the farm, but too puny to be a sign -- too this and that. It's a solar eclipse in Cancer, I'm a triple Cancer, and I was expecting a bobcat or at least a moose. Still, that's a new sound -- a sweet sound at that. Quiet down Mr. Inner Critic-Judgeaholic -- it's a sign -- gather your soil."

Soil in hand, I walked back towards Stephanie who was standing very still, very focused. A similar bird song was coming from South of her. Not wanting to disrupt her very still state, I crept past her and headed up to the house. At the house, a bullfrog was singing away. I carefully crept past him also and went into the house to research Frog in Ted Andrews' Animals book.

While I was in a reverie around frog, I remembered Stef did not have her hearing aid in, so she probably didn't hear the songbird. I approached her and asked if she was waiting for a sign. Steph shook her head yes. "Do you hear that bird singing in the pine trees?" "No--you know I can't hear birds singing without my hearing aid." We had a good laugh at the absurdity and joy of life, and Stef gathered her soil.

The next morning, Steph bounded out the door with a bucket of vegetable seeds, heading to the new garden in the North Pasture where I had dug trenches and applied composted manure for her to follow me and do her gardening/planting.

"Please Steph, it's way too humid -- just an hour out there. After at least 5 hours she bounded back into the house. "Steph, I've been on the phone with the horsedriver roughneck crowd and they are all sitting this heatwave out!".

Ignoring this, she said "Marc, it's a white-throated sparrow -- it sat eight feet away from me while I gardened, unafraid of me, and I could hear her sweet song without my hearing aid -- she was that close to me!".

On a farm there's always SOMETHING -- and many somethings are gold moments if you are open to them.

Re-inventing the Wheel of Life

I/we are reinventing the homestead. I, we, Changing Mother Earth, Heavenly Father, Teachers and Guides: "the old gray farm, it ain't what it used to be..."

Horse-drawn plow and cultivators from an old farm in SE Vermont, 1940 manure spreader from Burton Hodges' 300-acre farm, old seed drill from farm on North Troy, a 30+ year-old draft work mule from the Amish renamed Ahab... 65 year-old half-breed farmer outa Multitudinous, West VA, 64 year-old gardener outa Paris-Haiti-NY-JP, Mass., and a teacher, finally--a true teacher outa Quero Apaches in New Mex. Her presence is a spiritual fact here... The reborn farm awaiting grandchildren coming home...

So we bought this 10-acre 200-yr-old farm in the dead [ahhh...] of winter... Snow melted, revealing 8 acres of stumps, highly acidic soil from the now-departed softwood trees, and a fair amount of hard clay. Bought this farm to farm the land... shucks. De-stumped for three years: first bulldozed West pasture; did it correctly the following year (no bulldozing--used an excavator), and cleared & seeded the North pasture.

South and West pastures seeded for horses last year--horse and mule are now chowing down out there--not haying them 'cept a bushel of tall grass which Paris scythes... Donkey, Clair-audient, stays in her barn 'cause of the deerflies. And that is her listening-tuning station.

Oh, a garden near the rental house and West garden soon to be fenced in and cultivated and planted with what's being germinated indoors. Inch by inch, we are getting there! All sorts of loving guiding, ancestral and otherwise, spirits.

Worksongs, Headphones, North Pasture Stumps

Rhythm to sustain. An extra dimension of creativity.

Headphones and rhythms--sustaining momentum: joyful workings: dissolving the Puritanical stiffness into poetic flowings. "That ain't the way we do things around here..." We just don't work to the cadence of brain-chatter, see? So you just work, think, comment & chatter, finish up, and naturally go listen to the news or a talk show for a couple hours.

Nah. Work songs to dissolve precisely that mindless chattering into oneness. Yeah, them headphones only look funny and threatening to some--and they add joy and heartfelt appreciation to others... Get the left-brained tyranny outta its own way Archie... and the Tao in the barn manure -- and in the new garden, and in your/my body -- can naturally discover a whole new now, together.

In maybe 7 hours, the removal of the up-rooted stumps in the North Pasture will begin, and hopefully be completed... Are we creating the land--the landscaping? Re-creating it?

I don't know, my inner eye is seeing and feeling the terrain under what is now an elephant grave yard of tree-stumps and logs, and I see the musical/flowing potential of that 2.5 acres, as well as listening to expert agriculture advice on what to do with the land next...

I would like to think my choice will come out of the song that is in the land, earth and eight-directions vibration 'singings'.
No matter what my 'inner realist' tries to impose onto the land, the horses, wind, rain, crops are gonna have the final say-so. And the musical life/aliveness in my limbs, amplified and sustained through these earphones, is going to bring me all that much closer and quicker to that mysterious 'yes'.

Just listening to the bull frogs, guinea hens, donkey hee haws, horse neighs, mule grunts, wind, and yes, the music from the radio or head phones, gives me a vision; a movement into, towards LIFE. Towards appreciation...

Going for Broke

Tilled guest garden & a part of the West garden -- and new tiller broke. 1947 Case tractor broke. Old sturdy disc harrow broke. Maybe I need to listen to messages carried on the wind ...

Dance of the 4-Leggeds

Put electric tape & posts into the maybe 3-acre West pasture -- for the mule and the haflinger -- along the creek beds. Black flies on my back, in my hair, ears, elbows, pants... along the creek.

Had to be done--the mule devoured everything edible out in the South pasture; scalped all the oats & timothy & clover out there in no time flat. Then, alongsde the mule, the haflinger thinks she is a starving 4-legged state-of-the-art muncher. Ate up the grass in what was the goat garden -- now brown dirt. Out there, right now, munching & competing with one another -- two kids fighting for 2nds on desert.

Mammoth donkey gave up on them -- watches from afar, "Plenty to eat around here y'all... just chill..."

Heat wave coming Tuesday; got swarming flying insects manure to shit-shovel; fly bite swellings all over my body--feel like 80 ... Gardener says 'too dry--no commercial garden this year, just eats for family and friends and the very hungry [been there].

Put red, blue & orange ribbon tape on the electric tape line so the moose might walk on by. Gave the moose the SW pasture as a trade off -- worked for two years... except for the young moose buck that acts like it's in a romantic swoon for my Clair mammoth donkey. Go pick on a MOOSE yer own size...

Impatience!!

Impatience is my chief feature--the primary self: wanna see results NOWWW!! Black or white/either-or, qualifiers: all or nothing. Either it was a total transformative event, or it wasn't.

How I sabotage wisdom, intuition, love, abundance. Just slow down to the pace of the heartdrum-beating in the bones--the mindful, warm breath--as if I have arrived.

Tractor still broken. Rain and snow abated for a couple days. Mantis tilling, horse-fence rebuilding. Moving stumps and branches.

West garden & the Medicine wheel... Eototo: wind ices up half my body--left side warm: yin and yang.

Mule Fence

Mule fence is started--just waiting for Dennis and his trusty bulldozer to arrive tomorrow and finish the stump pulling/relocation job he created late last Fall. Pulled stumps have been shedding their rich topsoil from the ganglion-like roots, and waiting all winter for the bulldozer to move the entire tangle of stumps 50' along the back dirt road,so we can stump dem mooses crossing there and pulling apart my horse fences.

Steph already went to work yesterday with the lighter weight stumps -- creating the beginnings of the soon-to-be-the-end-of-the-Mount-Harmony-Farm-moose-crossing.

The new double-ized double-duty Mantis cultivator is assembled and at work on the carriage house guest house garden...

I am chain-sawing broken branches all over the farm...

Bear and Goose

Bear[Eototo] decapitates/eviscerates goose [Nene], leaving intact an incompletely-formed egg inside her.

Mother Goose and I have an intimacy. Only, my head is in the way. Now it 'comes down to' honoring, by listening to my heart's yes & no, and I-don't-know -yet. I can choose to listen, and ask "What do I want truly, goose and child-man Marc?

The Harvardians arrive. They study the trail of goose feathers. "It was definitely a bear that took your goose. You see, the bear got the suet and emptied all the sunflower seeds from your feeders, even twisted your iron feeders--it musta been ravenous."

"Nah, it is connected to my doo-wha-gon-chada" I blurt out, speaking before thinking. They study me very hard.

"Hey folks, I ain't a trail of goose feathers. I ain't a this or a that. I am a me, I am Goose."

So, how about the timing of the inner me/myself/and I, and the external timing of interrupted farming after upset--the most authentic, creative blending of the two: I completely rely on my new-found inner guides to navigate this ever-changing, unfamiliar agriculture/farm reconstruction landscaping. Three years ago, for example, I converted what had been goat paddocks into lush, generative vegetable gardens, which I sold at local markets. Last year, with all the rain, it turned the gardens' organic fertilizer, years of labor, raised beds, mature manure & returning crops--into an aquarium--a fishbowl.

This year, this agriculture year--it is gonna be, for me, about the how before the what. Sorry, I am here for the poetry folks. Turn up the music mate. The bear don't lose track of the scent of her path to her cave/den, no matter what--and goose is in the bear cave/den, with her golden eggs.

A Goose in China That Lays Golden Eggs

I had a teacher, in the early 1980s, who would tell me privately that there was a goose in China that lays golden eggs. Years pass, I forget all about it. More years pass, I buy a small farm. Then I buy a bigger farm and I buy a gaggle of geese and ducks.

I bond with them, sacrifice so they have good food & lodging. I sell that farm and bring them here to Vermont. I sacrifice so they have Vet checkups, comfy transportation, the works. By now I am into them 11 years.

In Vermont I turn 'em loose onto a fenced-in manure pit-created pond with a couple of sheds and a small barn. Now I'm into them going on 12 years when, one by one, they start disappearing. Soon I am down to four geese--Papa Goose, Mother Goose, and her 2 sisters. A game warden shows up, "You see that moving speck way out there? That is a coyote." Then weasel takes out the 2 sisters, and finally Papa Goose is mortally wounded and lingers for a week, staying protectively by Mama Goose's side before disappearing. Mama Goose roams here for a year, always listening & keeping a vigil for Papa Goose, sometimes calling for him.

Urban, well-dressed renters comment, "Oh, Marc you are so funny. It is very entertaining to watch you talking to the goose as if she understands you..." Then, we see the goose flap her wings and cackle. To some of them, very posh, I say "I am practicing a stand-up routine." To some I say, "Well, she misses her husband, and was reminiscing, as we understand one another..."

So, not too long ago, when I saw a large white pile of feathers that wasn't moving out in the north pasture, I rushed around to find Stephanie, "I haven't heard goose all day and there is a pile of feathers out in the north pasture--please go see."

Steph rolls up her sleeves and heads north, stops, bows her head, comes back to the farmhouse, grabs a bag for her sacred feathers, scissors, shovel & smudge. "Get outta the house, get out on the land, I will take care of your goose."

Maria's Apache wisdom & lessons pages came in earlier this week. I grab them since the chant in them spoke to me, and I amble up to the creek-side 'wheel' to give Mama Goose some Passing On rituals, ,to try to find a measure of closure, and to honor her and Grandmother Nene.

Loss and Mortification

Mama Goose has been missing all day. No good, no good at all. Sunset, and I see a white patch out in the north pasture. "Stephanie, Stephanie -- Mama Goose has been missing all day and I see a big white patch -- please go take a look."

Steph goes, returns, "Go for a walk, Marc. Get on out to your medicine wheel." She grabs a shovel, etc. I am dazed, going numb. I don't want to let go and cry. Too much sadness. I go into the farmhouse to avoid true me. I check the computer -- Apache words from Maria. Oh good, Calling Energies chant. I write it down. I chant and then cry, and chant some more. I walk down to the creekside and go to my wheel. "Now you have done it, Marc -- you shoulda locked goose in the barn." I feel like I should be anywhere but taking time to nurture -- what with the truck & tractor problems, etc.

I begin my rituals with chanting, and feeling love for old friend Goose in my heart's core. A duck circles 3x overhead. I pray and journey into dreaming: Mama Goose joins me, then long-gone companion Papa Goose: "We are right here with you Marc -- alive in your heart. We are to show you a path to a realm in your heart -- we are your guides into the dreaming, just contemplate us and we will all go into dreaming together."

SUNDOWN: I find my way back to the farmhouse. Steph meets me in the entrance, "Marc, I buried Goose -- you were out doing Maria's work, right?" I nodded, and she went on, "I felt it, Marc--the whole farm felt it. It is so important you do her work every day, no matter how things seem..." True story.

I have a recurring dream: I am doing the lead in a play. It is opening night and I have not read the play, nor learned my lines. The director has put her all into the production. The theater is filled to capacity and I am mortified. This is the end. The sky has fallen.

I have hit a snag/wall/stagnation in my daily prayers, Stone homework, and it is manifesting in my lungs also. I fall asleep asking for resolution. I am in the dream again, but it is the last night. The backdrop turns into a marble stone wall. The stage curtain rises and, "Oh no -- I haven't learned my lines. I hear an inner guide instruct me, "Marc, turn around and see the stone wall. All your lines are on the wall in Braille. Do your role as if you are a blind high priest. It is all okay."

gladkiss !!

I faam south Nakia 'a,d who grandma goose and grandpa are with me -maybe forever,hadadidla :dance marc-remember who you are-put the headphones on and dance your chores away.eototo amd i am in the body of a bear-a dancind bear.i get back to the house.a truck is stuck in front of my house.i give him a hand .he says he is a mechanic and neighbor and he will return to fix my tractor when the snow melts..

mr and mrs gladkiss' daylillies

7th day rewrite.
greatest challenge that makes adventure? to remember to still all these memorized reruns going on in my breath,posture,inner dialogues,'just put it on pause',nd then,the self mesmerized reruns transform naturally into all sorts of unfamiliar dimensions of just being creative flow.
here,earlier this week we finally got spring and warmth to plant -which i pretty much got my pasture reseed in..and the farm tractor died,farm pickup died and my great trusting friend ,grandma goosre -died.. and today,here and now,we are in a malor snowstorm. I feed the,mule,the donkey,and the horse. I shovel pathways left and right-i am mad as a hatter...have to's and gotta's and or else's coming at me at way too frenetic pace.Oh no"."I left my manure spreader uncovered way out in the west pasture-i gotta trudge out there and cover it and i am soaked to the bone-not a second to waste-no time to change my socks ...Charge!"
I make it out there without falling in the creek."hey,waddya know-i am pretty near where i have one of my ceremony wheels ,maybe i could take a little time out and do my enter the silence""the wind answers me with a north to south gust that pushes rearranges me to facing southwards,my feet root into the mother,i feel a total opening and a great grateful joy sets in

Mama Goose Lives On

"Aw, crap". Goose, Mama Goose, has been missing all day. It is late in the day when I spot a white patch far off in the NE pasture. "Aw, crap". Mrs. Shmee comes out. No words. She gets her tool kit: scissors, shovel. I cannot bear it. Shmee digs the grave--I go on over to Logstown, where the Allegheny and Monongahela join to create the Ohio. It is 'old Logstowwn, pre-1700 Logstown... I go ahead to the Medicine Wheel I built. I sit and do my Quero rituals. Goose is alive in my heart--in the consciousness in my heart. Great trusting old friend, Goose. Thank you Ten Bears.