Awakening

I spent all last week in silent retreat, a practice the Sisters here observe for one week each year, and one day each month.  I had never embarked on such an extended retreat, and--let me tell you--it was a wonderful experience.  If you ever have the opportunity to carve out some time for yourself, consider it.

I tried to more closely follow the daily rhythm of sunrise and sunset, rising early and going to bed early.  I also followed a modified fast, where I ate only two bowls of a vegetable broth and drank tea for the first three days, then ate simple grains (polenta, oatmeal) and fruit on the last two days.  I did yoga and meditated each day.  And I read, and read, and read.  I read about meditating, about an Indian holy man named Sri Ramana Maharshi, about spiritual-physical exercises, about forest gardening, and about Reiki.  This was especially gratifying, because even though I had been an avid reader most of my life, I had largely stopped reading non-academic books during graduate school, and for the three years since.  To be able to pick up a book and be totally engrossed once more was so refreshing, like falling back into a pool of myself.  Deep reading as a kind of sense memory...

During the retreat, I calmed down, moved more slowly, and inhabited my body more deeply.  I've been learning about how to calm the mind, to stop the incessant activity of thinking that defines our modern lives.  In that more integrated mind/body way of being, I made connections, experienced realizations, and released emotions--early one morning, I woke myself up with deep laughter, that lasted for minutes.  I have no idea what I was laughing about, but it felt wonderful, exhilarating.

On Sunday, Sister Catherine Grace gave a sermon about darkness and light, our human fixation with all things light, and our avoidance of the dark.  In the sermon, she cited some recent research* about how our sleep has been affected by the pushing back of the dark through electricity.  In that research, a group of people were in darkness for 14 hours a day; after correcting an accumulated sleep deficit, they all began exhibiting an interesting sleep pattern.  They would lay in bed for two hours resting, then sleep for 4 hours, then they would wake up--not to full awareness, but not in sleep either, but a different state altogether that was like a wakeful dream state.  They would remain in that state for two hours, then sleep for about another 4 hours.  

The researcher took them seriously when all the subjects remarked that, when awake, they felt more awake than they ever had been--he studied their brain activity after sleeping in this other pattern, and found that they were indeed experiencing something that few of us ever do.  When awake, their brains were actually significantly more active--more awake--than the rest of us.  Our "regular" sleep pattern of 6-8 hours, unbroken, apparently does not allow us to experience the benefits of that in-between state, which the researcher hypothesized was more readily available to our ancestors, given the fact that they more closely tracked their activities to sunrise and sunset.

I think that kind of enhanced wakefulness that was found in the sleep study was similar to the state I was sometimes in during my retreat--where my mind seemed to find associations and make connections between diverse literatures very easily, where my writing seemed to simply flow.  I felt much more integrated and whole, and my very being felt lighter, more sensitive and energized.

Imagine what our world might look like if we all put down our iPhones and computers, shut off our TVs, and settled into bed when darkness fell.  What if we rested, rather than driving ourselves to fight and push away the darkness, to squeeze productivity and high-stimulus entertainment into every possible minute?  Would we have a little more patience with one another, a little more compassion for one another, a little more perspective on life and what matters?

For Lent, the Sisters and I have decided to observe not only a fast every Friday, but to be in silent retreat as well.  And further, to fast from the use of electricity after dark.  It's a bit surprising to find myself, with the days getting longer and calendar turning toward spring, to be welcoming more darkness into my life.  But here I am, turning down the lights, opening myself up to those wakeful dream states, and hoping for intense awakening.

*Unfortunately, the article she cited is available to subscribers only--here is the link: http://www.tricycle.com/feature/turn-out-lights

a new webite, and letting go

I'm heading into a five-day silent retreat, and will be offline for the duration. I'm looking forward to this time of meditation, yoga, prayer, writing, and rest.

It's been an intense 2010 thus far, as I've been working hard to finish a social media project for the Sisters. And it's done: everything is launched and operational. The project included redesigning and expanding their website, creating a Facebook page, and creating and mailing out an e-newsletter through Constant Contact. Take a look at the website (and sign up for the e-newsletter there, if you want): www.chssisters.org

I am so thankful for the opportunity to learn how to do this work--I got to play with HTML and CSS coding, learn Squarespace (the web platform) inside and out, and think through structural and content design in an extensive process. I'm even more thankful for the chance to get to know the Sisters and the Community better, in writing and editing the website content.

So far the response has been tremendous: more than 220 Facebook fans, and many, many encouraging and excited comments and emails. The Sisters are thrilled to be connecting with their friends and Associates--and the feeling is mutual. It makes me so happy to have been able to help bring this about.

Now the challenge will be to let it go. This is a project that has been my main focus for six weeks, and intensively so as we neared its completion. I let it go, technically, when the site went live, when the facebook page was posted, and the emails were sent. But now I have to let it go emotionally--release my attachment to how many hits the website gets, how many fans CHS has, how many people have opened the e-newsletter . . .

I've been writing Morning Pages (a creativity practice that's the foundation of the book The Artist's Way) each day for the last six weeks. It's been enormously helpful to me, in recognizing my ego and attachments to things and outcomes. It is too easy to get caught up in the technicalities of things, and in the desire to be successful; it takes conscious work on my part to let go--and free flow writing helps me do that. I highly recommend the practice to anyone seeking clarity and a calmer mind. In writing each morning, I became more fully aware that this media project was an offering, an act to support the work of the Sisters, and in a way, a prayer.

So with gratitude for this opportunity to learn so much more about the sisters, and to gain some social media experience, I release this prayer to the world.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

life lessons from a farming conference

Two of the sisters and I recently attended the New York regional meeting of the New England Organic Farming Association (NOFA).  It was inspirational, informative, and light-hearted.  I hope my anthropology peeps won’t take offense at this, but NOFA conferences are infinitely friendlier and more encouraging than the academic conferences I’ve attended.  People are there to share information, to try to help one another succeed, to relate stories of what works and what doesn’t work, to introduce new paradigms and scientific theories… You just don’t see any grandstanding from audience members, no one is trying to poke holes in the presenter’s talk, and there's no sycophant-ing around “big name” speakers.  

Instead, there’s energy, and excitement, and a lot of respect for folks who’ve gained experience—even if they’re relatively young.  And there are a lot of young people there!  Many, many young farmers, interns, and food activists were there, some with young families, making this event a truly multi-generational happening.

But beyond the distinctly optimistic and energetic mood of the conference, I was just struck, as I was at the big NOFA meeting this summer in Amherst, Massachusetts, at just how much there is to learn.  Want to learn how to make great compost?  Want to learn how to run an artisanal cheese business based on sheep flocks?  Want to learn medicinal herbs and their properties?  Integrated pest management?  They had all that, and more.

Some of the panels and presentations I attended included:

• creative farm infrastructure (how to plan the various spaces of your farm)
• the health benefits of raw milk and the government’s (long-running!) campaign against it (see http://www.realmilk.com/)
• the no-till corn cultivation methods of the Iroquois in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, which far surpassed contemporaneous European yields of wheat
• culinary herbs
• handcrafting soap

and I took a full-day, hands-on workshop on cheesemaking, and came home with my own chunk of bleu cheese that now must ripen for 6 months!!

Perhaps more important than any specific piece of information, here’s what I took away: you can learn how to do most anything. 

The young farmer who gave a talk on farm infrastructure had done a short apprenticeship with a carpenter, and then learned as he went, tearing down his old farm house, rebuilding it, building a new barn and a new vegetable washing and refrigeration building.  He kept telling us that we could build too, that it isn’t that hard, and that one way to get started is by observing and assisting someone with experience.  He also encouraged us to tell people our story, to relate our goals and vision to others; he had received tremendous help from other people who were inspired by him and who wanted to help him on his way.

“Take-away” number two: it is wise to reconsider things that we think we know.  Farming, like all human activity, is cultural.  There are things we take for granted, things we assume to be true because that’s the way folks have done it for a long time.  But looking across cultures, across eras, we can see that there are many ways to approach the same problem—and there is much to learn from others.  Whether or not to till is a debate in farming; proponents point to the fact that tilling breaks up the soil and makes it easier to plant, and opponents argue that breaking up the soil kills some of the valuable soil biology and breathes life into dormant weed seeds.  Culturally, we associate farming with plows; the plow is an iconic artifact and most of us probably assume that plows are necessary. 

But at the conference, I learned that the Iroquois, when encountered by European colonists in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, weren’t tilling their fields to grow corn.  The colonists’ letters express amazement at the size and the plenitude of the crops.  Instead of plowing, the Iroquois created mounds of dirt and planted the corn seeds in the mounds.  A few times during the season, they’d come and clear away any weed growth on the mounds, and at the end of the season, they’d harvest the corn and leave the mound as it was until the next year.  The stalk would decompose and the next year, all they’d have to do is clean up the mounds and plant new seeds. 

The agronomist who gave the talk theorizes that the soil the Iroquois were working with had a nitrogen level of 4%, and that this high level of nitrogen contributed to the vitality of their corn crops.  She tied this practice to the Iroquois’ no-till method, because tilling soil reduces the amount of nitrogen in the soil over time (which is why factory farming adds chemical fertilizers, too boost nitrogen and other levels).  At Bluestone Farm, we’re going to experiment with creating some of these mounds this year, and see how it works; one difference is that now we have a whole different set of weeds than the Iroquois did, so the low-level weeding of the Iroquois may not turn out to be true for us.

Finally, I came away with deep respect for experimentation, and for the patience that it requires.  Larry, the “soap guy” from Vermont Soap,  gave a great presentation on soapmaking. If you’re looking for a brand of good, organic soap to use, I’d definitely encourage you to check out his products!  At his presentation, I  learned the basic chemistry of soap making, and how to think about the variables that might cause any particular soap recipe to go wrong.  Rather than tips, he gave us tools for thinking about soap making, and I felt like I really learned something.  Basically, soap is formed by a chemical reaction that takes place when you combine a fat (acidic) with an alkali (basic) and water.  But beyond the information he imparted, I got a real sense of how much trial and error goes into his work.  

And, actually, it’s like that with farming in general.  Each year, you have to observe what is happening with each of the crops, their germination, their placement, the weather, the soil conditions, and then use all that information when planning for the next year.  Try to do a little more of this, shift this crop’s location over there, start this one a little earlier, harvest that one even later.  Add more minerals to the soil, introduce more fungi, bring in plants that attract beneficial insects.  Use row covers, a hoophouse, a greenhouse. . . So many variables to account for, so many strategies to consider, so many experiments to try.  And in the end, you do your best and leave it in the hands of God.

When I was working in education, I followed the work of James Gee, a great scholar  and someone you should definitely check out if you are interested in what we know about learning .  At one presentation, he talked about an experiment on motivation that had been done with chimps (I think) in which they were instructed to solve some puzzle, and after solving it, they were given a treat.  The scientists hypothesized that when the treats were taken away, the chimps would lose interest and eventually refuse to solve the puzzle.  But it turns out that the chimps kept on solving the puzzle with or without the treats—this is, Gee says, because they enjoy it!  And we humans, just like our closest relatives, simply enjoy solving problems too.  Gee’s point is about situational learning—that people can learn things in context that are difficult to grasp in the abstract, that giving a kid a real chemistry situation to solve is more compelling than memorizing abstract facts—but I think it extends to farming as well.  Farming is like one big problem to solve, and there is great pleasure in just puzzling through it…like a giant crossword, with nearly unlimited variables.

So here I am, six months into this experience of being on the farm, and I’m energized and excited to tackle new things and to experiment, to observe closely, and problem-solve.  Maybe that’s one of the larger lessons I’ve been learning here: to think of my entire life as an experiment, a chance to learn new things, to push my comfort zones, and to have fun.

After the digital detox.

I'm trying to begin a meditation practice, and I thought starting the New Year with some "e-down time" would be a good way to kick that off.  That was the originating impulse, getting focused.  On New Year's Eve, I started a week of "digital detox"--no Facebook, Twitter, news, web-surfing, and only very limited email.  I thought that at the end of the week, I'd be leaping for the iPhone. But my experience was so enjoyable that I'm now rethinking how I want to be connected through social media, and to what ends. I liked it so much, that I've barely been online for another week. 

Why did I like it so much?  Because I calmed down.

Maybe that's a no-brainer, and you're saying, "Duh."  But I'm telling you, it's one thing to imagine ahead of time that going digi-free would be relaxing, and it's another thing altogether to experience it, deep down in my cells. 

After an initial adjustment period, I found that my itch to know "What's happening now??"  And now??? And what about now?????" subsided.  And that itch seems kind of silly, with a little perspective.

To understand fully what I'm talking about here, you need to have a little context.  And for those of you who haven't spent a lot of face-time with me in the last few years, you should know:  I have been a compulsive email- and news-checker.  I've got my news feed reader so I can follow each and every move on about 40 blogs and websites, and I read the news feed throughout the day.  I check my email throughout the day, and keep my "inbox" under 50 items always; anything in the inbox is like a "to do" item--something I need to respond to or do something about.  In the last few years, my consumption of e-media has been on the order of at least a couple hours a day.  During the year of the 2008 campaign, I added a few hours of cable news on top of this computer time.  And when I got the iPhone a year and a half ago, I could (and did) constantly check my email, feed reader, Twitter and Facebook applications; when I finished checking all four, I would often start back at the beginning.  Hours of this.  Every day.

(Sound familiar to anyone?)

When I moved to the farm, a good deal of this changed.  No TV, so no cable.  Less time on subways and busses to check the news, so I began reading blogs through the feed reader only once or twice a day.  I found that I always skipped over some blogs, so I excised them from my reader.  Twitter still took a lot of my attention, and I still checked email at least five times a day.  I was still reading my iPhone in bed at night, and sometimes cursing myself for it, when sleeplessness followed.  But still, probably at least an hour, sometimes two, per day, reading news, emails, Facebook and Twitter.

That's a lot of time to be plugged in.  And really, I wasn't ever truly unplugged in the moments when I wasn't reading email or news, because I had that media-world way up in the front of my consciousness, and my iPhone always in my pocket.

In the first two days of my digital detox, I found that I missed knowing what was going on, and that I missed having my iPhone on me.  I had to consciously leave it behind or in the other room, so I wouldn't think about checking it.  In those first few days, I noticed a couple things that were revealing: I missed the iPhone especially when there was a lot of hubbub around me, when I felt a pull to "retreat" into the iPhone and block out some of the commotion.  I also missed the iPhone strongly when I was in a state of "deferral"--when I was waiting for someone, or wanting something that I couldn't have at that moment.  I was surprised to find these more psychological gratifications for being plugged in, when I had always and more easily characterized myself as simply a news-junkie.  Yet it was undeniable: I use the iPhone to buffer me and to distract me, especially when I'm not fully comfortable.

But just as surprising was how easily I just began to forget about the iPhone, leaving it in my room without even thinking about it.  And how quickly the incessant question "What's happening now?" subsided.  Turns out that I actually don't need to know. Life goes on around me, whether or not I know every detail of every news story or what so-and-so wrote on Facebook.

And without all that digital electricity flowing through me, all that social adrenaline keeping me buzzing, I was able to "come down" a bit.  I fell asleep earlier, read a few books, and started keeping a journal.  I made sourdough bread with my own home-made starter, cooked venison stock, and learned a few new fermentation recipes (more on that, later!).  Nothing was dramatically new, except my internal sense of restfulness.  I think that my e-connectivity is based on a near-constant expenditure of "scanning" energy, and living for a week without spending out that energy, I see what a drain it is.

There is a great deal of value in being connected and in being informed.  But there is also a cost to it, and that's what I now have to consider. 

When my detox ended, I was actually a bit sad.  Although I wanted to be in touch with friends, I found I didn't have much to say on Facebook and Twitter.  I had a hard time reading through the news feeder, because so much of it is speculation, snark, and repetition.  Turns out, I don't actually need to know every detail or slant of commentary.  And taking more time to learn about spiritual practices, farming and seeds, or cooking just feels more compelling right now.

So that's my reflection post-detox.  Less electricity, more natural light. 

status: taking a digital detox

I am taking a brief hiatus from my so-called digital life--no Facebook, no Twitter, no blogs, no news feeds, and no email.

So what am I doing here, writing on my blog???

That's a good question.  I made a promise to myself that I would update the blog once a week, so this is to fulfill that intention.  And to let you know where I've run off to.

I promise you that I'll write about what I've been experiencing and learning about myself during this week away from all those ones and zeroes.

Until then, I leave you with this beautiful picture, taken by Sister Catherine Grace.  I hope it inspires you to look for the inherent beauty that surrounds us, in everyday things:

A slice of tomato, dried.