poem 'bout me, by another

garden lady

Come to the garden,

Come see what I see;

The dandelions, creeping charlie, wild strawberries intertwined among the blades of grass.

you see invasive weeds with gnarly roots

a chaotic array of disorder

tampering with the hours of neat

you create

i see medicinal herbs

growing freely in a spacious meadow

all in the shadows of the academy

nurturing the ground

in the acidic grounds of Lunenburg

Class Afloat community garden was approved

mint, herbs, tomatoes and more

to be for all in the summer sun

return

I have not been to this site or writing here for a long time. Gillie called me back, sending me an email that she had read it. It is good to be called back again.

I cracked this morning. I have been being really hard on myself about how lame i am socially; how akward and boring I am. Within moments, a circle of my women friends circled me in support. And it sure does help me to cry.

It is okay and understandable to be grieving right now. It is a death. And it is Kili's impetus; we are beginning to cleave; I do feel rejected, and am projecting that onto all of my relationships, so am feeling broken over everything.

Candles inside while it snows outside. Fat white flakes through the black and white lace/architecture of trees, roads, and powerlines. A point to light in the warmth inside, to the bluster of an Atlantic blizzard outside.

I fell in love with Kili three years ago, hungry for the security of the Cortes Island family and his impassioned drive, to watch him leave me 4000km from home. Halifax. It is a wonderful place; I love it; I wonder when I will leave it.

It seems that there is an amazing family (families of connnected families) here that calls me to a higher level, as well as the working-class grub I am used to.

Yes, I feel like there is room for me here, but I am still so ashamed of myself. I feel socially incompetent: i don't even know what it is or is not, but that I just feel like not enough or too much: just not a like-able balance.

Kira and Leslie both heard me say that, and supported that these are neurotic notions and my friends love me. This makes me cry. I have never felt very loved. Never felt lovable, and never believed people loved me.

This framework sure causes a lot of pain and feelings of failure in me.

So, I have a mountain of sghoolwork in front of me. I have not yet approached any of my profs to say that I am going through a divorce and will need extensions yet.

While I have some questions about whether or not this is really what I want to be doing, I am deeply excited about my path and do not seek to change the trajectory. I will continue to work, step by slow step, to being more conscious: more awake, present, joyful, open, thinking. Less scared and reaction-ing.

Thanks for listening.
j

april

I have flown Vancouver,
having finished the workshops,
and landed on Cortes Island.


the workshops:

In summary, the workshops went well, with room for improvement.

The first, about soil/compost/mulch: well attended, about 20 people in the pouring rain. We sat, and I talked too much. There was so much i wanted to get through, and that was my downfall. Next time I will talk less, about less, and invite others to speak more, providing a framework for our offerings. I only got back 4 feedback loops, and they were good, but I didnt feel so great after it.

The second, Eat your Weeds!, was a nice sunny morning and about 17 people showed. I had danced until 3 am to adham shaikh the night before; i felt so clear and grounded. I talked less, everyone talked more, and it was great. I got back 11 feedback loops and they were bright. Treasure phrases include "- gardening is the new black". People connected, interconnected, and we remembered to see our surroundings.

The third, gardening with the cosmos, even got some press! I prepared this workshop more carefully, knowing it was a dense amount of material in order to really get it, and in light of the first one, i knew i had be dynamic and facilitate the emerging of the knowledge, rather than the teaching of it. I thought of it almost as a square dance through some of the patterns. I scheduled out a timeframe and trajectory, with maps for people to follow. The energy was a bit scattered that day, and I was not fully on-it. It was a bit loose through the first part, and a bit sloppy in the second, but we pulled it together and people got it. There was a group eureka moment when all the pieces fell together. In hindsight I would have given that moment of getting it more time, then done another observation sit, and then closed the directions and circled out. And the map could be tightened up a bunch. But, all in all, it was great. I learned, others learnt. And more people met and engaged.

Some seeds planted.
I would love to hear what reverberations sound.

$35 went to Guerilla Gardeners Meetup site upkeep, of the $250 (minus printing costs) that i made.
thank you everyone for your support.

big Love.


and now!
Cortes sweet sacred island.
so gentle, so stormy.

i arrived sunday night, sweet rides with new friends all up and over. a graceful and interesting delivery.
straight to the door of the cabin claus built, with nigh a nail to be seen, on the edge of the western shoreline and the lamb-dotted fields of Joy's flock. redwinged blackbirds, deer 30 feet away jumping fences, and frogs in the pond.

if i could embed a sound file of the frogs at night,
i would. it is fun to try and pick out their particular voices.
the soundscape! eagles and hummingbirds.
eagles flirting, their high sweet notes playing above the trees,
boy hummingbirds do the zoommm-and-chir-chir divebomb in their mating dance.


it is amazing being in community here... to be recognized, remembered, seen again...

yeah, lots is amazing. conversations, politics, the shift, nudging, releasing, reconnecting...
derrick jensen is in vancouver on the 18th. new moon women's circle at linnaea on the 17th.


working again in kalaya's garden is wonderful.
i worked for her the year i took the linnaea garden program.
then all that following winter, when kili and i married,
and the following summer, up until i left.
then a summer has gone by, and now i return for another spring unpack and unferl.

it is wonderful to work in the gardens, and feel this soil!
when i began here, the soil was very warm and sandy, and a bit fine.
we began mulching, and tightened up the composting method.
kalaya gathered a lot of seaweed off their beach.
we began to sheet compost.

she has kept the gardens mulched,
and now the soil is dank!
the worms are huge,
the soil is salt and pepper, with the silver sand grains on
slick, round spheres of black soil. so rich, and infused with light the sand reflects down.

- composting is the new black .


things look better mulched i think. aren't they cute and cozy?
feel free to use this photo to sell someone on a mulched garden.
may the forest be with you!


so i started this whole blog because i wanted to post these photos.
i took them from the window of the a-frame today.
what a fantastically stormy, sexy day.

garden ninja: working with the source

presents
workshops 2007, east vancouver,
three sessions for earthworkers on the ecosystems we live within, how to be better animals to our landbase.

* soil/compost/mulch march 24
* eat your weeds! march 31
* intro to gardening with the cosmos april 07

10 am to noon.
@the M.O.B.Y. gardens, between 10th & 11th on Commercial Drive, under the skytrain.
by donation. (suggested donation $5)

please rsvp so i can get an idea of numbers; ineffable@riseup.net


* soil/compost/mulch

Exposed soil is wounded soil. Soil is a living skin.
This session lays out the basis of soil components and their functions -bacteria, fungi, and carbon-nitrogen ratios- for a holistic perspective of how fertility is built and maintained by the soil ecosystem; and how to accelate and accentuate these processes with composts and mulch.


* eat your weeds!

What plants arrive first to wounded soil? 'Weeds', and as they are medicines for wounded soils, they are also medicines for animals. Learn which weeds are medicines, what they do for the soil, what they indicate, and how they help you.

* intro to gardening with the cosmos

The Egyptians, the Mayans, the Pagans, the ancient Chinese all gardened according to cosmological patterns. Biodynamics is a modern language for how to hold the cosmos in mind while dancing through the web of life. This class is an introductory class; I do not position myself as 'expert' but as fellow student. A base framework from which to begin observing patterns of moon, season, growth, and energy .



As Plato said, we are midwifes to knowledge,
and for the love of earth,
I want passionately to encourage a more engaged way of working with our land.
My motive is the love of life, of biodiversity, of Earth; of food and medicine; for the grace of the future.

My education comes from Linnaea Ecological Gardening Program, the 8 month intensive on Cortes Island that includes an indepth Permaculture component, taught by Oliver Kellhammer (of M.O.P., Greening the Grandview Cut, and Cottonwood Gardens). I worked in the Hollyhock gardens, farmed in Ontario, and landscaped. Last year in Ontario I ran the Garden Ninja school, and co-facilitated the Master Organic Gardeners course for Canadian Organic Growers, from which these workshops are based.

I use the term 'earthworker' after my summer working at Hollyhock (Retreat Center). There are a lot of bodyworkers - massage therapist, yoga instructors, reiki practitioners, - and on the island there are many gardeners. I love playing upon the parallel of working the help the bodies of healing humans and working to help our body of earth are both elements of healing ourselves. This is work.


*custom settings:
If there is a bunch of you interested, I can come to you. Email me: ineffable@riseup.net

PS. I am only in town until mid-April.
(Then out to Nova Scotia for schooling).

gardening season again...

Gardening season again; this year I am in Vancouver, hanging out with mamaK and Naima bean, Ki Living Art and Kermodi Design.

Being pretty tired of hanging out on this box, i am going to make some miso and go for a walk. I am hanging out with my honey in Edmonton tonight: we are off to see the Glitch Mob. (It sureis nice to be in love, to be with someone synchronised to me, someone who 'gardens' me so well).

sweet violets

Gueph, Ontario.
37 Macdonnell st.

kdub and the bump

kdub has gardened herself. her mother knit the pants and booties. naima aurora wiley
is in the world. She is gorgeous. Quiet. Really sweet. Today is her fifth day. Every day she 'wakes up' more, her eyes open more.

Last night we were reading out of Starhawk's book The Earth Path, from the "Center: Patterns" section. We read of branching patterns, of relationships and ratios; of creeks flowing into rivers like the pattern of leaves flowing into trees, and also of a drumbeat, pattern and ratios.

These are the flow forms of transportation via water. Water is what is used by most everything to move things. ( That gives me some thoughts about how car culture liberates us from that, which could also be seen as unspringing a population control mechanism, and being a big part of the reason we are so disconnected from the land. ya think?!)

Water also moves in spirals, always. The bottom of a river is slowed by friction, as are the sides, especially the inside of the meander. The river is moving in a long, horizontal spiral, like a fluid drill, carving curves in the land.
There are different drumbeats.

So Keona and her wee antique-new-born treasure (how to possibly desribe all of the layers - fine, crystalline strands of connection, possibility, emotion, energy, history - like spider webs)
are sleeping in the room beside me.

I have worked three days since I arrived here. I have lots of work, but not right now. I have been able to be here all week, 'though I have done a lot of other work-related stuff - but a new mama needs someone around to keep on top of everything, like laundry and tiding, for the first week at least. The Universe is totally supporting us: I have secured work, I have pulled in a tad on income, then got a gst cheque, then one from my mama for my birthday, which was really nice. And I have work at the flower factory on Saturday.

It all feels really good.
Kay, then, to work with me.

Blessed be.