Blessing for one about to be born

Posted on June 24, 2013 by seedybeans

I am so pleased, tickled, teary really, to announce the debut of a video project my photography was just featured in, ‘Blessing for one about to be Born’.

You see I have amazing and talented friends, and one special someone hooked me up with another friend who is an exceptionally wise and eloquent poet. You see Kyce has been at many, many of our birth blessings here in Santa Fe and being a poet herself she always shares the perfect prose on any given occasion. Jennifer Ferraro’s ‘Blessing for one about to be born ‘ has had us all tearing up time after time and when Kyce had the brilliant idea of pairing my pregnancy photography and Jennifer’s poem, it was and instant match. Not only did the essence of our work align perfectly, but we clicked right away, only to discover we grew up within 100 miles of each other so we will forever be bonded by a certain understanding of the world.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present you with the work of Jennifer Ferraro, poet, author, wise woman & shining light of our times. This poem is only the tip of the iceberg of her genius and the video the perfect birth to our future collaborations. I am honored to work with her and delighted to share her with you.

So many thanks to the beautiful mamas who have allowed me to witness their grace, strength, wisdom and beauty and allowed me to capture their truest essence in my pictures. Your are all my teachers, my muses, & my friends.

Here is the poem for all to share, as I think every soul who braves to venture to this blessed Earth should be so welcomed!

Blessing for one About to be Born by Jennifer Ferraro

What shall we call you,

one who comes across a vast distance

bearing secrets of the future,

your mother’s hidden wishing,

and the remembrance of beauty that hung diffusely in the air

all those long years without you?

We call you the awaited one,

the dreamt of one, the sung one,

for we sing to you now a symphony of welcomes,

and a wish for your smooth passage to this world.

As if you were sweet basil, as if you were mountain rosemary,

as if you were the golden sweetness of the apple and the pear

at harvest time—

You sweeten your mother’s innermost heart

and ripen her for ever greater mystery—

For she has kissed the hem of the most Beloved

in calling you forth, sheltering a wild faith in life

in the darkness of her belly.

Like a rose folded inward, hiding great fragrance,

like a host watching over the sleep of the most cherished guest,

You are so tenderly awaited.

Little one, we sing to you now,

calling you joy, calling you promise fulfilled,

calling you sheer vastness and little drop of honey—

Join us here,

and your earthly journey

will be cloaked with songs and praises evermore.

Your mother’s vast heart, deepening as she awaits you;

Every tear she’s ever shed for joy gathering and intensifying–

For you, little drop of honey,

coming across great distances

just to see her face at last,

just to gaze upon the face of Love at last.

— Jennifer Ferraro

‘Work is Love Made Visable’

Posted on April 8, 2013 by seedybeans

“Work is love made visible” these words of Kahlil Gibran were carved by hand onto a wooden sign that hung on the main lodge of my beloved Vermont summer camp, Farm & Wilderness. This was a place where teens from all walks of East coast life would come together for 2 months to work the land, swim in the waters and learn to create community together. As my dad reminded me yesterday, not only have those words been carved into my soul & life purpose, but also the community spirit. In the years since summer camp I have found myself surrounded with similar earth loving angels actively loving the world & each other through their hands

. They came smiling and laughing, eager to spend the day in the sunshine with me and my tomatoes.

Not only did they work, but they sang, told stories and charmed the baby & us all while doing so.

There were parents, neighbors, old friends and new, this incredible little hard-working crew just breezed in with great blessings and warmed our little home until it sang right along. In return dad cooked the burgers & freshly picked ‘Lovely Day Farm’ (on our street!!) Asparagus on the grill and we feed them well. When I sent out the invite I mentioned that I would feed them all but ‘if any one wanted to ‘WOW’ us with desert or beverages they were welcome’ and WOW us they did! Handmade Mojitos and Fresh Pear Pie and Raspberry Tart and homemade yogurt on top!! OH MY!!!

And now the greenhouse is at maximum capacity with 250 tomatoes, all in brand new little pots, the only question now is, where will I put everything else? Plant sale anyone?

I almost felt guilty having them do all that work for me on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, but then I remembered all the seeds I have sown, beds I have dug, weeds I have pulled out of other people’s gardens and like them, I sang too… so happy to have dirt to put my hands in and a hard task to put my strong body to real use. As we were working Jaengy jumped in helping with sorting the pots after shying from the crowd for the first hour.

I commented how he is happiest when he has a job to do. Casey responded, “I think we all are!” and I thought, ‘Well you are my kind of people!’ So Thank You garden angels with your kind and helpful hands, you have shown me that there should be no guilt in asking for help and that for many of us there is no greater gift than working together to complete the task at hand, to share the load and to enjoy being of use together.

To Be of Use

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Marge Piercy

Seedy Times

Posted on March 5, 2013 by seedybeans

I know you all are dusting of those seed packets, or maybe eagerly awaiting a packet just order from those bountiful seed catalogs. It is such an exciting time of promise and potential…But seeds are big business these days and besides serious issues with GMO’s at the forefront on the news, seed business’ have other dirty secrets. I thought I would share this article from the NY Times about choosing your seed wisely, it may be one of the most important choices you make in the long run. There is also a Community Seed Swap coming up in Santa Fe on March 20th hosted by HomeGrown in case you want to get out of the consumer cycle altogether and swap seeds and knowledge instead.

Practice Resurrection

Posted on January 1, 2013 by seedybeans

On the first day of this promising year, my heart is both heavy and hopeful; a long growthful year gone by and the new dawn that sings to me in my dreams, full of promise. Warm, well and rested I am quiet today, but the sky gifted me with this glory, and Wendell Berry, the truest poet of our times, gifted me with the words to express my inner whispers.

“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
― Wendell Berry, Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community

“So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute…Give your approval to all you cannot understand…Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years…Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts….Practice resurrection.”
― Wendell Berry, The Country of Marriage

Happy New Year to all. May we all practice our own resurrection and may the world come with us.

Transitions

Posted on November 25, 2012 by seedybeans

I have heard before that during the solstices’ & the equinoxes’ is when the universal energies are at their most extremes, and thus can be intense times for us humans. Though this may be true for many, tracking myself and my own rhythms, especially in these self-aware times of staying at home & mothering a baby, I have noticed that it is actually the in-between-times that seem to be the trickiest for me. Usually the transitions out of one season and into the next usually fall between the heighten times of Equinox and Solstice and it is these transitions that take me a while to adjust to, especially this one right here– Autumn to winter.

The first fallen leaf

I have a hard time letting go of the garden, the long days of fresh air and sunshine, harvesting, weighing, and eating fresh picked produce and of course those delicious baby bare feet. Don’t get me wrong, I love our nights by the fire, cozy flannel sheets, sweaters and soups and slippers as much as the next girl, but something about the cold sneaking in and the harvest being down truly gets me down. All the ghouls and goblins come out, the veil between the living and the gone are thin…I don’t know I guess the darkness just makes me feel, well dark.

Even the garden has gone under cover for the winter

A dear friend reminded me this fall, ‘as the leaves fall they are just reminding us to let it all go’. Ah what a sigh of relief, but clearly that was hard for me to let go somehow this season. I thrive in summer, my garden being my time-keeper, my guide, my boss really. Staying at home this year was a wonderful thing for me and my little family, but I will be the first to admit, I was an intense transition from being a woman of the world, to a woman of the home. My life changed so much and there was a lot of internal rearranging that was in order, and frankly still is. I am learning to let the rhythms of nature guide me completely and let go of all the 9 to 5, which is truly a beautiful liberation, but an adjustment none the less. Some how though, in the summer things seemed to flow more naturally. I did not worry myself too much with who I was, I was too busy being who I am, a grower of life in all forms. Yes, I know, dormancy is a part of the life cycle, the wise old mother earth knows this well; in winter she rests, restores, renews….and this I will indeed, it is just settling into that without recoiling is my challenge.

Winter- by Alphonse Mucha

My mother reminds me every year since I was a child, ‘you always get sick in the fall’, and yes mom, I do. She is right, though I may have not ever really noticed or wanted to admit it, I do get sick every year when the leaves all fall and chilly nights come in, I get ill of body & heart. When I can no longer play outside and must be indoors more than I would like, the sniffles find me and take me down, sometimes kicking, sometimes happy to be put to rest. Now that I have a family of my own, the same pattern continues, but now with the three of us sniffling it is no fun at all… but we are learning, taking turns in hot baths and making tea time a mandatory time of day.

Another transition that we are settling into is the baby to toddler transition; delighting in the walking, talking, laughing, playing, kissing hugging and feeling a little less enthused about the hitting, throwing, refusing and temper tantruming, yep all the glory of the 18 month mark.

I realize that all these shifts would of course contribute to a rough patch. I hope knowing this time of year transitions are hard for me (us) will help me receive them a bit more gracefully in the future. Maybe prepare better, boosting the immune systems and inner sunshine, or maybe just softening to it, allowing myself to be more graceful, receptive and forgiving of the inner darkness that takes it’s turn to shine. Either way, I can finally feel an acceptance, an internal surrender finally to the season of sleep, solitude, darkness, quiet, reflection, inward journeying as well as great creativity.

Ah, the sweet sound of clicking knitting needles, music to my ears

I see why we now sit at this time of year and align our darkness with our deepest gratitude, shedding light on what gives us life and joy helps us re-orient our habits and minds. It is now the season to praise the light in us as it slips from the sky. A time to remember, rekindle and recreate that sunshine that has blessed us so generously throughout the year and now shed it from the inside out. So this is just my way of saying hello winter, Hello darkness, hello shadows and sweaters and soup. Welcome, I accept your teachings, I am grateful and I will stop moping and step up and shine my inner light just for you.

Let the light shine from inside

Happy Harvest Moon

Posted on September 29, 2012 by seedybeans

Thus subtle shift in light, the slight tilt of this precious world seems to have changed everything in me and all around me. The exhale at the end of our days are luminous and splendid

And first light, direct and perfectly focused through our east facing window, awakens me. Shining directly on our family alter, these rays bring me to each day with a reminder to be present with what I hold so dear.

The garden continues bestowing us with her generosity,

Reminding us of the deep nourishment of beauty so needed as we let go into this senescent season

And as the darkness comes, how important it will be to bring that beauty inside us for the long winter

The comfort of homegrown food warms us deeply as we eat together and share now three years of marriage under this bright, abundant moon.

We are blessed, so grateful and so humbly grown by yet another cycle around the sun, with the moon and all the power of the stars.

Happy Harvest Moon.

Sleeping in the Forest

Posted on September 17, 2012 by seedybeans

The morning light shifts notably these mornings….And I feel it in me when I rise

I too am shifting, down, into a lower gear, softly falling to the earth as the golden leaves to the ground

I exhale and release gratefully into this time of letting go.

The one last gift I longed for from summer was a family camping night and some forest herb gathering

and so it was, cozy under bright stars, waking to frost on the logs we leaned into by fire light the night before.

I now feel a season complete, having been so generous with us, I feel so happy for the return of the season of internal times and retreat

As I slept in the forest this weekend, This poem kept coming to me, one of my very favorites, reminding me that what truly sets me straight is being outside, being in nature and being nurtured by her.

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth

remembered me, she

took me back so tenderly, arranging

her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds. I slept

as never before, a stone

on the riverbed, nothing

between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated

light as moths among the branches

of the perfect trees, All night

I heard the small kingdoms breathing

around me, the insects, and the birds

who do their work in the darkness. All night

I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling

with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into somethings better.- Mary Oliver

Ode to a Woman Gardening

Posted on August 14, 2012 by seedybeans

I feel in love with this poem years ago alone in a book store in San Fransisco…It took me years to find it again, but as I was in the garden today it was running through my mind. If you know a woman gardener, pass it on, I guarantee she will appreciate it.

Ode to Woman Gardening

Yes, I knew that your hands were

the sweet Dianthus, the silvery

Lily:

knew that you were allied

with the soil,

with the flowering of the earth,

but

when

I saw you digging, digging,

removing rocks

and coping with roots,

I knew at once,

my little farmer,

that

not only

your hands

but your heart

were of the earth,

that there

you were working

your wonders,

touching

moist

doors

where

seeds

come

and go.

So, from

one

newly planted

plant

to another,

your face

stained

with an earthy

kiss,

you went

back and firth

flowering,

and

from you hand

the stalk

of the Amaryllis

raised its solitary elegance,

the jasmine

adorned

the mist of your brow

with stars of aroma and dew.

Everything

grew from you,

penetrating

the earth,

immediately

becoming

green light,

foliage and strength.

you communicated your seeds

to the earth,

my beloved

auburn-haired gardener:

your hand

spoke lovingly

to the earth,

and bright budding

was instantaneous.

Love, so too

your hand

of water,

your heart of earth,

lent

fertility

and force tot my songs.

You touch

my chest

while I sleep

and trees bud

from my dream.

Awake, I open my eyes,

and you have planted

in me

astonished stars

that soar

with my song.

It is true, gardener:

our love

is earthly:

your mouth is the plant of light, corolla,

my heart toils among the roots.

-Paula Neruda-( From Selected Odes of Pablo Neruda Translated by Margaret Sayers Penden)

And the winner is……

Posted on August 12, 2012 by seedybeans

My mom!! Yep she won it unamously! Got to love the supportive mother!! Thanks mom for playing along in my first giveaway and supporting me every step (well almost every) of the way. I will send you The Language of Flowers ASAP, you are gonna love it & cry your eyes out!!

Mom, Me & baby Jango in Maui

The Lanuage of Flowers- Giveaway

Posted on August 7, 2012 by seedybeans

I have noticed it is kind of a Thing to have Giveaways on one’s blog, which I am all for, but never really knew what to giveaway..but now I do, so here it is…My first Giveaway.

The main motivation for this giving is that I simply LOVED this book. I rarely read these days and when I do I am painfully picky about my books, but this one I literally devoured. I broke this years no reading fast on my recent vacation by reading a whole novel and while wandering through the airport on the way home I picked this up. I didn’t even read the back cover, the title The Language of Flowers and cover photo—little girl in a tutu & muck boots holding flowers—sold me on the spot and I paid the full airport price without hesitation. I started it on the plane & finished in 5 days, I even read the Interview, Review, and Discussion Questions in the back and made a photo copy of the Dictionary of Flowers in the glossary. I am not the only one though, it is a NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER and it seems like sales are doing very well. As the title states, it beautifully weaves the meanings of flowers given as secret messages throughout the book, bringing alive these inanimate objects in a way that truly deepens your reverence for their spirits. This is something that especially rings in me, as this is what I try to do with the Language of Stones through my jewelry and you better believe that when I have a flower farm I will do the same with flowers.

Iris=Message

It was of course a beautiful book, but not just because it is about the secret subtle language of flowers, but because it is about the painful beauty of the human heart. As Paula McLain says in her review, ” Victoria Jones (the main character) is going to break your heart three ways from Sunday.” It is not an easy story, full of struggle in fact, but also forgiveness, growth and learning to love oneself told through the experience of a young woman coming out of the foster care system of California. Because she was a foster parent herself, the author Vanessa Diffenbaugh truly seeks to support this intensely challenging bridge of entering into the world after a life of foster care. She even created a Non-Profit called the Camellia Network to aid young people making this transition.

So there you have it; reverence and respect for nature, the capacity of the human heart and action for social change, what is not to love.

Just leave a comment here between now and Sunday, (by clicking on the little number on the top right hand side of the post) and I will randomly pick a winner from the commenters, wrap up my loved copy and send it their way to be devoured once more.