airflow in a railroad apartment. hues of yellow and slow mornings/afternoons. it hurts when you think about it, it hurts when you don't. the word sadness doesn't do justice; it's too real to be sad...
the coming and going of spirits in this life is the most common and most earth-shaking thing. the biggest part of my mind is instructing, almost begging to move forward. seems cruel.
this life is short
this apartment is long
both of these things containing my self
are sick, sick too
and must collapse
(if only for tahday)

brian under the brooklyn bridge - summer 2009

yew nork

Uh so it's four AM. Clang cling union pool is closing and jason told the bouncer with the teeth not to get any funny ideas. Like kicking me out. Golden ponies. Jesus Clark rolled in from the commonwealth at 1:30, grabbed simon, myself & a Jameson and we moved my earthly possessions into a charming house on huron street. It was dark and quiet, a couple was asleep on the couch, we felt like ninjas because 20 minutes later we were back on the dance floor. The story of how I got my job is similarly magical, especially to the naked eye. I have yet to interview but I am dehydrating, blending, chopping, tasting the best raw food in my life thus far. Alongside none other than Bell, an old tea house colleague. I couldn't ask for more because if I did I'd be a glutton. I am still spinning at how huge and easy and fun and rediculous this move has been. My whole world has changed, but its like stepping into a new skin that has always been me. I'm on a ride, folks, I'm just showing up and paying attention and telling the truth and trying not to attach myself to the outcome. Smiling and sittin' pretty. Its hard to swallow blessings this huge. But I do because it means this was all given to me. I am a steward of the universal order, also just a fly in the web. I'm a small town girl and this is one, too, believe it or not. Yew Nork is a rich, rich place. I do believe in magic, living it.

I know nothing except you are a burning between my fingers. I light you each time and each time you go out. My body is full of memories of you. I don't want to sleep; you live in my dreams. Why do you bother my like this? At least, you can enter my real world, lay down by my side and we'll dream and burn together...

papa del mar

so the palm i was clutching like sap; the glorified mountain of my girlhood; the footprints in the snow that i so needed to match; the roar of a sea and its depths; the weight of guilt; the terminal fear...
all of it is yours.
we entangled ourselves like soul mates. we lived in a sanctuary of sawdust and pine needles; we needed each other and glorified one another and broke the other's heart...
i met you today in your safe world, buffered with miles of silent forest (how you always liked it), your person knows only perfect ritual: the slow pour, the straight lines, the incessant need to please. sending your grains and offerings out to that satellite world, the one you could never trust.
you might never know this, but it receives you...
it loves you and you will never know this.
i can't help but mourn for you, sawdust soul mate.
i can't help you so i am leaving you here.
to travel the scope of my lightness, a savior from your sea,
and burn with all you ever wanted to be.
i will be your satellite world, i will bear you gifts...
i will receive you and love you
but mourn you no more

on beginning to begin:

"we must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."
i'm a baby, baby girl and that feels good. she is building from what she has this time, rather than from what she doesn't. releasing, leaning into what is, little eyes opened to the fragility, preciousness of everything, feet holding still for once, hands opening, coyly dancing with the idea of ownership, not forced but invited by something bigger than herself, humbled by that, inspired by this, realizing confusion will inevitably return but nothing is sweeter, nothing is sweeter than bright blessings against a deep black.

i love you to the max

a bone-chilling damp day in san francisco, finally. i opened the window in a second floor apartment to send some smoke and the silver jews out. they're testing this weather for me because it'll be even colder over there. so time freezes for a moment and this is what it tells me
megan is sculpting nature with toddlers; jacquie is being beautifully in canada; dede is in the midst of everything she deserves; mim is resting, tasting it; my mother is calm and warm and alive; i imagine lucas as either a pterodactyl or a shark today; somewhere an empty urban lot doesn't have a clue what's coming; maggie is choosing her battles and passing along the streets of a town nestled up to the blue ridge mountains; two plumbers left the bathroom fan on and have gone to lunch so
focusing on what give me strength, which is blind love, a thick solitude, the disappearing legs and incredible distances they tread, the holiness the ambiguity strange familiarity, the risks and the cards that play themselves
i still don't get it but might as well make something out of it. here's to this frozen moment, resuming retiring and rendering what it will. oh, and it will.
check out max out--->

ya se fue

i didn't push any buttons in the elevator, the man with the grey jacket did. there were no available computers so i climbed a flight of stairs. womb of sound, click-click, ding, a-hem-hem, muted roar of machine and man alike, pages turning, years crashing to an end. big clumsy one this was, big dumb heavy. the city outside (that one with the sirens) keeps letting blue warmth in depsite it being winter and all. i made it outside at the peak of it, thanks to 12 pills of varying levels of vita-eca-mushro-superpower standing between me and my head cold. mission is busy, love it busy like it always is, am part of it today. i'll wake up on the east coast any day now. i'd like it if the silver jews were there for me when i do. in the mean time: falling sunlight and long quiet walks and contimplating the second photograph and the next move and cooking for one and writing real small and greiving and being more alive than i know.

scene ii: the pink carpet

since i sleep in the living room of our christmas beach rental, i get to be around when santa distributes. there she is, sleepy-eyed slender lady snipping apart little japanese confections but avoiding the plate of rum balls and chocolate-covered peanut-butter stuffed pretzles. mom is sitting in one of the plastic patio chair pulled up as close to the lamp as she can get--furiously knitting a purple hat she's been working on since they left virginia. santa/deb just switched off the faux fireplace because she's worried the heat will melt the stocking contents. can you imagine? it's christmas morning and you reach into that faithful red sock only to retrieve little rice crackers heat sealed in crusty plastic with the print so distorted not even bob could tell if it says sesame or plain.
we just finished "it's a wonderful life". i cried. a lot. the kicker for me was, of course, at the end when all his friends came with the money. i have seen this movie countless times but not actually until tonight. how sweet it is to feel who your friends are. the ones who want to see you shine, prosper. the ones who want to hear your stories. maybe even the ones that are glad to be couped up in a beach house or a small town with you. maybe it actually is a wonderful life. i'm trying to kick this bad habit of needing more from the moment than it actually has, or believing the illusion of lack, however you want to look at it. i'm trying to love each game of boggle or cranium, appreciate each hug and meal, make space for different view points, etc. i feel like it shouldn't be this hard. but it is. and i am probably still healing from a lot of things. the river just got deeper, at least i know that for sure.
in the spirit of prayer, because there's been a fair share of that floating around here, i'm asking the source for grace. grace enough to float more and flail less. grace enough to see my family wholly, without needing them to be different for me. grace enough to forgive myself for what feels like failed attempts at life and love over the past couple years.

god bless this beautiful moment 'till it's gone

on faith

I never wanted to stop being a Christian.
Growing up, love was always demonstrated to me as loyalty: unconditional, persistent, eternal. I had a family and community that demanded integrity, so what we were taught at church was translated and grafted into our friendships, jobs and schools. I was excited for whatever Jesus had planned for me, even if it was scrubbing toilets, and especially if it involved living in a foreign country. I felt pretty lucky to be born into a Christian family and privileged to have been shown the right way to live at such an early age. One of the most valuable things to a human psyche is hope. I consider myself blessed to have had a childhood void of violence, poverty, death or any significant trauma. Moreover, I had parents and friends who loved me and supported my path. Community. Loyalty. My little mind and heart had no reason not to believe that everything was going to be okay. Somebody else was in control, I just had to follow and believe. So I did. Because it was right.
It started when I was seventeen and honest to a fault. I honestly loved Jesus Christ; I honestly loved being alive and all consequent experiences; I honestly loved my punk rock friends and I honestly loved my boyfriend. So many things merited my loyalty; it was all so huge and beautiful. Surely Jesus understood the vast beauty of the world he himself created. Surely I wasn't the first Christian who needed more room on her plate. I knew my heart was open and loyal, which was always the bottom line, so why did I feel so torn? It must've been something I wasn't doing. Honesty. Just be honest and integrate all your sides and everything will be okay. I opened up with full abandon, trusting my family and my faith to support me in my exploration of truth. I needed the love that raised me to take me on and guide me. It turned out that my parents loved their religion before their daughter, whose experience of reality was more than any of them could handle. For all the loyalty I had pouring from eyes and heart, It was strange to be so parched on the receiving end.
So I went to bible school. And I asked questions, lots of questions. I still believed and I was daring, begging to be taken on, all of me. I spent countless nights outside my dorm with my blanket, writing, writing, writing. I couldn't back down with the fire inside of me, I couldn't stop being pissed at the church for each of it's shortcomings. The Jesus I followed was a radical, a revolutionary, a lover of all, excluder of none. He was huge and I was determined to find a way for us to get along.
I remember when I stopped believing in hell. To me, god was pure Love, the absence of which was dark enough in and of itself, in my understanding negating the purpose of a place. Furthermore, 'perfect love drives out all fear' and in a world where I was wholly loyal to the former, I had no faith to spend on the latter. It stopped making sense. The bible and it's stories started seeming smaller to me, mere poetic metaphors for the mysteries of life and the pursuit of light. I kept writing and telling the truth. To myself, to my Jesus, to my peers. Most of the Christians around me didn't want to be immersed in real life, they wanted reasons to be above it. We were studying stories of a god who ultimately represented reconciliation, but building strategies to either change people or practice segregation. Still, I believed god was bigger than our student body, than the christian church, possibly even the christian faith, but how big? I wanted to know, I wanted to push the edges, I wanted to see.
I moved back to the states with such an sensitive awareness of our world and its reality. Everything: the poverty, the loneliness, the suffering, the hate, the greed. Of course there was beauty, but it was tainted by sin, by the absence of light. I couldn't handle it. All I saw in the people around me was their hurt, however acute. The worst part was that, according to my faith, there was a chasm between our human condition and the only thing truly needed: pure Love. There didn't seem room for chasms, politics, conditions of salvation. I could feel that Love was the bottom line and I think it was Love that bottomed out Christianity for me.
I proceeded to turn down my awareness as to be able to be with people more wholly and love them as they came. I moved Love from my heart out into my skin and kept that search going one person at a time. I didn't know what I believed. I didn't know if Jesus was more than just a man in history, I didn't know if, I didn't care. Then I met people that were doing things, affecting their environment, teaching each other, indulging in life, exploring meditation and their own ideals, still asking questions but with light in their eyes and less attachment to what form the answer takes. They were promoting their own kind of loyalty: self loyalty. It was a crazy beautiful concept. Could I believe in myself? Could I build my own life, make my own decisions, carry my own weight? What is Love without religion? What is spirit without law? I started building. I moved out of my parents' house, I taught myself how to cook, I began practicing yoga. I woke up to my own body, Its miracles, and nutrition. I explored poetry and philosophy. I started making things, anything. I paid attention to music, I paid attention to ritual, I enrolled in college, I asked questions, I practiced non-judgement. My new community took me in, all of me. They trusted me, they validated me, they demonstrated what felt like unconditional love. I was floored, I was home. Gratitude and beauty radiated from everything around me. I felt like man and god were being reconciled presently, perfectly; I was reborn.
When I moved to Philadelphia the next year I met even more people who were living like this. I fell in love with that city because of it's potential, because it had room for investment, belief, because it's real. I wanted to be part of the Love that was willing to take it on. I wanted to see reconciliation on a social level like I had experienced on a spiritual level. I wanted to see Philly fall in love with itself. I still don't understand what happened, but somewhere in there I got spooked. I think American society in general started to really freak me out. The more I learned about permaculture, the more I felt drawn to nature. I think I blew my love for travel and need for spiritual stimulation out of proportion and my self took the backseat to my own ideals. I was so willing to stretch and shrink everything in order to be more available to the answers that I neglected to see that such distortion wasn't even necessary.
As the story goes on, it gets cloudier for me. I don't think I've really begun to process what the hell happened when I lived in central america. I guess life happened. And I guess it was mine. There is no question that Love has been my first love, yet it's been imperfect because the self love was missing. I chose a man to fall in love with and I lived & travelled with him for five months. He spoke no english, I gave all I had just to see what came of it. I believed so deeply that intention and time beget destiny, transcending culture, transcending reason or practicality. I'm not saying nothing came of it, but sometimes you get to the other side only to find you've got bits of all sorts of things but yourself. You can't even remember what it was you wanted in the first place; the wanting has taken on a momentum of its own.
These days ideals are being challenged and life still proves itself quite huge. That wanting seems both absurd and urgently necessary. One thing that has been clear in my transience and endless search for home & path is How: Not what, but How. Not who, but How. Not where, but How. Can I be far gone in my own head but present with what is in front of me? Can I be honest, can I be productive, can I be loving? Can imperfection function like that of which it is a fraction? (Because it sort of has to...) Can faith be broken and still serve us? (Maybe broken is all it will ever be.) Is faith's purpose even to serve us? What does one believe in when nothing is known? More specifically, can I know something's impermanence and still believe in its eternal significance? How do you act toward water? You can't hold it, you can't breathe it in deep. You may float on it, you may swim in it. You can't live in it but you sure can die in it.
Tonight I went to a surprise birthday gathering for a loving woman named Nancy who lives on the farm next to us. We toasted to her life and what a wonderful life it is. Somehow she got part of the sky and put it in her childrens eyes. Somehow she maintains a marriage, a farm, a business, laughter. Something about small talk and not enough solitude lately got me out of the red celebration and onto the cold street. I let my fists drop to the bottom of my flimsy jacket pockets and tilted my face toward the sky. I walked a few blocks before I decided this would be a search for some rolling tobacco, a vice I let in on nights like this when I have greater battles to win. When I got back, someone had done their job and cleared my wine from its hiding spot. None of the waitresses had any sympathy, I had left the building, I wasn't getting a replacement. This is well and good for restaurant rules, but not fine for a girl who lives in metaphors or a farm camp. I couldn't let it go, I was pissed. I had three sips at most. What's another glass of wine to you? By the time I got in the car I was done for. Sobs muffled any outside sounds and I shook shook shook with Airielle's arm draped across my shoulders. I told her I was lonely. She knew: "it's not even about the wine..."
Sometimes I get really tired when I think about all that has happened since I stepped out from under my mother dogma. I try not to make it about loneliness or homelessness or anything victimizing. I guess what I'm getting at is the pure fucking awe I feel when I stand up next to myself and the life journey of believing in her. Her strength, her gut, her heart, her stories, her voice. It's a lot to love a god in the sky, but what about the one under your skin? Things definitely seem easier when they are far away, separate. But they're not, they never are, they always are. At the same time it feels like such an endless plane with no voices or music. I want to know how to love what I choose and choose what I love. I want to love like a child but I want to be loved as a woman. I want the world I live in to respond to the beliefs I author inside. I need to feel that I'm doing the right thing, even though there is no such thing. I want another glass of wine.

like butter

delicate adjustments on the plane of the heart, intersected, perpendicularly penetrated, bated. never been so wholly aware of the presence i am in myself, of the power, flowerlike fragility, everything in between swollen and wet. finding myself in san francisco for a long holiday weekend. beautiful women, dear friends, chosen family, at least for the moment, at most forever. my roots have grown heavy and i've got one last plane ride before i unpack the brown & orange backpack, holy womb of my baggage in the interim between then & when. the calender betrays me, i hate that it's november, i love that it's november. it doesn't hold enough, that backpack. the trail of things i'm leaving behind me is wide and sacred and deserving of every sunset there is. i'm scared to be a vessle, a woman. i've gotta keep dropping 'em low, though, and trust that it's all just right.

this is EE cummings

let it go-the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise-let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go-the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers-you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go-the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things-let all go
dear
so comes love

wake up little eyes

these are some long-lost (to me, anyway) photographs i made a couple years ago
luke and i shot this wedding/bible school reunion (they sure marry early, don't they?) in san diego. my favorite part of that week was getting lost in mexico after the rehearsal dinner. marisa and jón moved to iceland after this and it's been the plan for awhile to visit and maybe catch bjork at the grocery store buying crackers or imported bananas. i love you guys.

my indian summer

this is an obvious one, but i'm just gonna say it: i love farm life.
we sit on a little basin sloping down toward the coast with mountains on three sides and eucalyptus groves in front of us. from the hill my yurt is on (dubbed 'coyote hill' by my friend louis) you can see the ocean and hear the elephant seals. there is a constant occidental breeze to balance out the sweltering sun. the cold nights are a plus too. i am very into the extremes in temperature. it has been non-stop harvesting this week. every time someone asked me what i'll be doing on the farm, i always answered with an i don't know. oh, the labor! i mean it's not that hard, its just constant. my first day was on tuesday and we had to harvest for our 50-something CSA boxes. then twice a week we harvest for farmers markets in palo alto and pacifica respectively. my favorite harvest this week was the potatoes. it was cool enough watching airielle (the farm manager) and sarah (all-around bad ass lady) drive the plow through the beds to upturn the plants; but taking my shoes off, sitting down in a ditch of dry california soil and digging for spuds with my bare hands takes the cake! the work day starts around 8 each morning and we go till about 5:30 with an hour break for lunch. we rotate lunch duty and it is always delicious. sometimes we go down to our neighbors PIE RANCH for lunch. they make fresh chevre. we like them. the fields are nice to spend the day with, harvesting greens in the morning before the sun wilts them and giving the strawberry patch a once-over in the late afternoon. the ol' back has had some fits, but it's nothing a little yoga can't fix. after work, it's straight to the outdoor solar shower where i let all the dust from the day run down the drain. night time is my favorite time on the farm. yesterday after work i started cooking some beans and definitely underestimated the time they needed. so until 1a.m. we were having a bonfire, drinking some quality trader joe's wine, eating pot cookies and just staring at the sky. the beans came out fine and i slept in this morning. got up, and the aforementioned louis and i hitched to santa cruz! i have a feeling this little cycle of life is how it will go for me the rest of the season. i will eventually work the farmers markets. nothing big. but i can say that there is something about having a little canyon all to yourself; having the whole sky as thinking space; hearing coyotes and barn owls and sea lions at night; reading the time from the way your shadow falls under the sun; choosing what you will eat by walking up and down rows of various vegetables; keeping your hands constantly moving all for one reason- growing food. which i haven't even begun to wrap my mind around what that means. i call it my indian summer because of the dust even my pee kicks up and because of how invisible yet crucial i am to the greater society and because the sun is why i am able to do any of this. i also call it my indian summer because it came late but was worth the wait. i haven't felt this good in years. not even just the farm but this general time in my life. maybe she was right when she said it hasn't even begun to begin. each of my san francisco visitors and experiences were a perfect interim between taking a break from life and fully getting back into it. everything finally feels okay and makes sense. everything that has happened brought me to this pinnacle of gratitude and grace. i've been here before and i call it my indian summer because that's all i know right now. it's showing on my skin and the darkness has vanished from under my eyes. it's showing up in how i am experiencing the dynamic of living: community, food, being outside and surrounded by nature. it's good man, it's great! i'm totally into it, i love life, etc!
and now, a poem sent my way by the lovely isabella scott, whom i will pounce on so hard next time i see her:

Gravelly Run

I don't know somehow it seems sufficient
to see and hear whatever coming and going is,
losing the self to the victory
of stones and trees,
of bending sandpit lakes, crescent
round groves of dwarf pine:

for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if birth had never found it
and death could never end it:

the swamp's slow water comes
down Gravelly Run fanning the long
stone-held algal
hair and narrowing roils between
the shoulders of the highway bridge:

holly grows on the banks in the woods there,
and the cedars' gothic-clustered
spires could make
green religion in winter bones:

so I look and reflect, but the air's glass
jail seals each thing in its entity:

no use to make any philosophies here:
I see no
god in the holly, hear no song from
the snowbroken weeds: Hegel is not the winter
yellow in the pines: the sunlight has never
heard of trees: surrendered self among
unwelcoming forms: stranger,
hoist your burdens, get on down the road.

A.R. Ammons

MY FARM

it's the latest, it's the greatest: it's my farm!
i had coffee this morning with my friend dan (who i know from punta mona, the farm i worked on in CR) & Z, the girlfriend of the guy that started this rediculously brilliant project. it's only been ten weeks since the project started and they already have a heafty waiting list. dan is their first hire and they are working every day installing gardens, maintenancing, and harvesting. i checked up on a site with them this morning and am now at the library doing organic pest control research to help them out. in the spirit of getting ahead of myself--if you can't beat it, celebrate it!--i really want to do this. it's urban farming, it's a csa, it's riding your bike every day, it's investing in your community, it's getting everyone excited; it's coming to philadelphia if i have anything to do with it! after my apprenticeship at green oaks creek, i might just spend the winter in sf planting (because you can do that year-round here) and after awhile with these guys i can start the philadelphia chapter! i guess by then the word will have spread that far. i mean, they are already getting more responses than they can handle, celebs in malibu wanting my farm in their backyard. WHO'S WITH ME??

--worth repeating--
from 'out of the earth: civilization and the life of the soil'
the chapter entitled "the tenuous balance"
(for an abridged version, just read the first and last paragraphs of this excerpt)

it follows that the very nature of life on earth requires every individual and species to adjust constantly, in order to reconcile innate capacity and urge for growth with the opportunities and constraints that arise in interactions with the environment and with other beings sharing the same habitat. a simple analogy is that of a single species of bacteria introduced in a nutrient-rich medium in a petri dish. an initial period of vigorous growth occurs, but as the colony fills the limited space and uses up the available nutrients, and as its waste products accumulate, the initial bloom in bacteria is inevitably followed by stagnation and then by decline and death. if other species are present and are able to recycle the waste products, regenerating the nutrients needed by the first species, then a symbiotic steady state may develop, leading to a stable population of the two (or more) species. the stability of such a steady state would depend on the mutually complementary or competitive relationship among the coexisting species, and on the maintenance of stable environmental conditions. in any case, none of the species would be able to continue proliferating without disrupting the stability of the community as a whole (the biome), thus ultimately destroying the basis for its own survival.
our human species seems to have transcended those constraints as it has ranged over the entire earth and as it has learned to manipulate the environment everywhere so as to create conditions more advantageous to itself. so far, our success has been phenomenal. but the story is not ended, and what has so far seemed like success may yet set the stage for ultimate failure.
the chief agent of anthropogenic (man-influenced) transformation of the land has been agriculture. by its very nature, it is an intrusion and hence a disruption of the environment,a s it replaces a natural ecosystem with an artificial one, established and maintained by man. the moment a farmer delineates a tract of land, separating it form the contiguous area by arbitrary boundaries and establishing it has h is field, he is in effect declaring war on the pre-existing environmental order. wishing to grow a particular crop (which may be of a species or a type not indigenous to the area, and therefore incapable of establishing itself here on its own), the farmer must now treat all the native species as noxious weeds or pests, to be eradicated by all possible means. however, in an open environment the wild species continue to re-invade their stolen domain, so the farmer's war is never finally won.
the constant effort to prepare the field for seasonal planting and to eradicate weeds has traditionally involved repeated cultivations of the soil, often leading to excessive pulverization and compaction. such mechanical manipulation tends to destroy the soil's natural aggregated structure and to render the soil surface particularly vulnerable to erosion.
besides using mechanical means, farmers in recent decades have been relying increasingly on chemical pesticides to control weeds, pests, and diseases. this involves the application of a bewildering variety of both natural and--to an increasing extent--synthetic chemicals, and it charges the soil with potential and actual pollutants. some of these substances are immobilized or degraded in the soil, but other toxic substances or their derivatives persist and eventually find their way into the biological chain. they may migrate by runoff and transported sediment to surface water reservoirs, b leaching through the soil to the groundwater, or by absorption into plants that are later consumed by animals (including humans).
all plants in general, and crop plants in particular, require certain essential mineral nutrients. the major elements as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. various additional "minor" elements such as sulfur, calcium, magnesium, and iron are required in smaller quantities. in natural ecosystems, the soil supplies nutrients to plants and thus sustains new growth by continuously recycling the residues of antecedent plant and animal life, including leaf litter, dead roots, and animal wastes.
in agricultural fields, some of the products of each season are harvested and removed from the field, rather than left to decay and return their nutrients to the soil. if left without proper replenishment, a cultivated soil tends to use up its initial reserves and to be depleted of readily available nutrients after a number of years, so a gradual loss of fertility typically follows the practice of cropping. fertility can be maintained, however, by the regular addition of organic manures or of balanced mineral fertilizers. modern agriculture relies on massive applications of chemical fertilizers to boost yields. as with pesticides, some of the residues of these fertilizers may migrate beyond the field and concentrate in groundwater or in surface water bodies, where they tend to cause eutrophication--a condition in which nutrient-rich waters induce the proliferation of algae and the consequent depletion of dissolved oxygen, much to the detriment of fish and other aquatic animals.
as long as agriculture was confined to small enclaves or limited tracts of land, while the greater continental area of the world remained undisturbed, the earth's environment as a whole was not seriously threatened. degraded lands could be abandoned and new frontiers conquered, and still the earth's resources seemed limitless. but no more. population growth has nearly filled all the empty spaces. loss of natural fertility, erosion, waterlogging, salinization, polution, and the annihilation of numerous species of plants and animals--such as the initially unforseen but new global consequences of man's injudicious management of soil and water, in his unrestrained exploitation of the earth's resources.

pardon me because this might seem like a high horse, but i assure you i'm no preacher :
"god yahweh formed man out of the soil of the earth and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. and god yahweh planted a garden in eden in the east and placed the man therein. god yahweh took the man and put him in the garden of eden to serve and preserve it."

viva la granjera

well folks, i'm going back to the land. it's funny how we live ahead of ourselves in different ways: both in the way that our egos try to dictate the future and in the way that our souls have already been there. moreover, if all this doesn't keep us out of the present moment, the stressing & waiting we do in the mean time does. i am left practically speechless (and humbled once again) as i come to the crash of my naive anticipation & the effortless merging with a truer path. maybe you just gotta see my eyes to understand but i have been in a real good place since yesterday.

this is all surrounding my decision to go live on a farm down toward santa cruz. green oaks creek grows organic vegetables for CSA and farmers markets. it's utilizing some permaculture concepts, but from what i can tell that's not necessarily the flag they wave. the ladies that are apprenticing there right now say it's pretty diy & self-propelled. the environment created by residents and workers alike is communal but still independent, which i like. there are chickens, there are yurts; it's just a farm. and i'm just gonna work on it. what moved me is the way the air is through the eucalyptus-lined driveway and how clearly one can see the stars and hear the sea lions at night and how carefully we seeded flats of broccoli and the way that conversation validates things like this and revolves around this partnership with the earth. i feel like everything shifted and unraveled and clicked and landed me there. but at the same time i was making the choices all along. it was like every stress that has been nesting in my nerves & every doubt or fear about my place in this moment dissipated when i asked myself how it would feel if i did this. although leaving the city feels slightly like i am giving up on something (because in a way i am) maybe it's more about choosing Bliss over forcing it. long story short: although my nature can adapt to many things, nothing beats what makes you laugh and feel light and whole. i am stoked that for me that thing apparently involves dirty toes and milking goats.

sleep train left me at the station

nerves are HOT man! i think it's a full moon. it's gotta be. i know it's at least a full SOLAR eclipse in china in approx. 2.5 hours. they are having an all night party at the observatory tonight and watching the broadcast from across the globe. i didn't go because i am moving out in the morning. where? yet to be determined. other good news on the home front is: i was offered a job today. i got the call when i was on the 38 downtown on my way to meet up with a friend from england. i will be cooking at this place come september. well, their new place. i am stoked. i am happy that i finally decided to bite the bullet and pursue one of my big passions. i feel blessed to get such a rad job with rad people in a rad city. maybe that is why i can't sleep tonight. i am so full. this week i am having one, two, three surprise visits of varying lengths from my golden ponies from all over. coffee with ducci yesterday; patrick is coming on monday for a week; maeg dive bombs in from portland on thursday for some tea adventures. and i can't even get into later visits or i will pee my pants. only one word can describe my state: whatever the hybrid of providence-gratefulness-bliss would be. who am i to call anything at any time insufficient? holy magic, at the very least. but never, ever not enough. it seems like a novel idea but attainable enough to celebrate a plethora of options rather than be cursed. i don't know why it has been so depressing to have potential homes on either end of this continent, or so painful to know that people like me and want me around. i guess i am just terrified of making a wrong choice or staying away from the right people for too long. afraid of disappointing people or ideals with my indecisiveness. it really simplifies the situation to categorise my emotions into either fear or bliss. ditch the former and party on with the latter dude!

a woman's intuition - 48 hour film project

the panama part really chokes me all up

the spirit of the yuca

i am 3/4ths through the botany of desire, this most recent chapter dealing with the human desire for intoxication, profiled through cannabis. herein quoted is a bit of the conclusion:
"the garden is a place of many sacraments, an arena--at once as common as any room and as special as a church--where we can go not just to witness but to enact in a ritual way our abiding ties to the natural world. abiding, yet by now badly attenuated, for civilization seems bent on breaking or at least forgetting our connections to the earth. but in the garden the old bonds are preserved, and not merely as symbols. so we eat from the vegetable patch, and, if we're not paying attention, we're recalled to our dependence on the sun and the rain and the everyday leaf-by-leaf alchemy we call photosynthesis. likewise, the poultice of comfrey leaves that lifts a wasp's sting from our skin returns us to a quasi-magic world of healing plants from which modern medicine would cast us out. such sacraments are so benign that few of us have any trouble embracing them, even if they do sound a faintly pagan note. i'd guess that's because our bodies, at least, remain linked in such ways to the world of plants and animals, to nature's cycles.
but what about our minds? here we're not so sure anymore. to take a leaf or flower and use it to change our experience of consciousness suggests a very different sort of sacrament, one at odds with our loftier notions of self, not to mention civilized society. but i'm inclined to think that such a sacrament may on occasion be worthwhile just the same, if only as a check on our hubris. plants with the power to revise our thoughts and perceptions, to provoke metaphor and wonder, challenge the cherished judeo-christian belief that our conscious, thinking selves somehow stand apart from nature, have achieved a kind of transcendence.
just what happens to this fluttering self-portrait if we discover that transcendence itself owes to molecules that flow through our brains and at the same time through the plants in the garden? if some of the brightest fruits of human culture are in fact rooted deeply in this black earth, with the plants and fungi? is matter, then, still as mute as we've come to think? does it mean that spirit too is part of nature?"

michael pollan writes well from an explorer's stance, assuming nothing about his readers yet drawing us to consider it all. i will probably seek out omnivore's dilemma after i finish this one.
next order of business: I GOT A CELL PHONE TODAY. which, if you have tried to be in contact with me for the past month or so, you might be as happy as i am. but probably not. i posted the number on my facebook, but email me if you want it.
i am currently boiling yucca, which i enjoy most out of the whole root vegetable family. i paid over a dollar for this particular bulb (?) of yuca, a travesty compared to caribe prices. heck, back on the farm, we would just go at the ground with a machete and some leverage and eat yucca for free. every time i wander around the mission (the largely hispanic neighborhood of s.f. & the one that most reminds me of philly--double points!) i always buy something just to practice my spanish. even if the cashier or server greets me in english, i respond in spanish. even if they respond back to me in english, i continue on in spanish. even if i can find nothing of interest to buy, i ask pointless qustions just to get my fix. it's a fun little funny thing i do, and really the only reason why i find myself in yucca, constant horchata, tacos, and peruvian earrings.
did i mention that i finally got a cell phone today?