A road less traveled

Big couple of days in the garden! New curved corner bed, bird nets over two beds that have sprouted. New drip system in the corn and peas. Oh, and picked up some fabulous blue-green granite rock from a rockery in the city to try out for the bed borders.

Worms make fine twisting holes. Roots like them. I've always been into how root systems look river estuary patterns look like nerve ganglia look like blood vessels look like mandelbrot sets in math look like wind scarred sand look like northern lights look like lightning bolts look like brain neurons.

Look like energy in movement...or rather the tracks of energy in movement. I think that's what it really means in the good book when it says we are made in the image of God. Not that someone dug a hand in and pulled out a rib, but that the physical world is a grosser manifestation of subtle, beautiful, cosmic, patterned, alive, moving conscious, infinite seas of energy. The Lakota Souix have a wonderful word for God. Wakan Tanka. It means literally "spirit in movement". That's how they think of it, directly experience it.

Speaking of brainways, my daughter worked at a top destination spa resort outside Tucson, AZ called Canyon Ranch. Very cool, expensive exclusive place. After being there one year her family members could come for $125 a day all included (fabulous food!) instead of $1000 so I went down to visit her and the spa.

We wanted to experience one of the evening class lectures so chose one given by a resident psychiatrist/researcher whose work focused on chronic habit and addiction. She is a principal in the educational facility at Canyon Ranch that helped people understand and overcome weight issues, addictions, cravings, etc. She spoke of the most modern brain science which is now understanding that while true we don't grow new brain cells after a certain age,  we can (and often do) grow extensive neural connector systems which is just as good.

As we get older, we tend not to so much. But activities like exercising and always learning and trying something new encourage this growth. What grows are called dendrites. It's one thing to have a lot of brain cells, but a more important issue actually is how robust the “highway” system of interconnections between the cells is. A brain cell without lots of communication paths is basically worthless. Like a computer chip with no wires connected. In late 2005 a study came out proving that the “structural remodeling of neurons does in fact occur in mature brains”. The scientists who did the study actually believe that someday we may be able to grow new neuron cells to replace ones damaged by disease or spinal cord injury.

I was trying to explain to Lisa's son N. how soil "grows" just like plants just like us. How different long time mulched, natural soil in the forest is as compared to the clay hardpack we encounter most the time. I used the word “honeycomb”. It's got areas of air, microorganisms, water, sand, clay, a low density almost crytaline structure like the desert “crusts” that take 10s or 100s of years to create that are full of alge, lichens, mosses, fungi—some of the oldest life forms on the planet. One boot print and bye-bye, its gone.

Back to brains. The scientist showed us amazing MRI pictures of the development of dentrites (yes, perfect, it's from the greek word for “tree”) in babies. You can actually see the branching expanding day by day. Day one the brain nerve picture looks multiple yet somewhat solitary little “sprouts”. Day 30 it looks like the root system of a 1000 year old redwood!

The teacher explained that when we do the same sort of activity (good or bad) over and over again we develop super big dentrite roadways for that type of thing...kinda like freeways as compared to two lane highways or suburban roads. That's why its SO, so hard to change...to diet, overcome habitual moodiness, exercise regularly, or overcome addictive behavior. Much easier to jump on our old dendrite freeway than battle traffic and stop lights all thru town.

She said it takes around 30 consecutive days of daily, focused, constant activity to lay the foundations for a substantial new dentrite roadway. Now that's the good news and the bad news. Good news, it can be done! Bad news, once you do it, now you have two equal branching roads, the old habit road and the new one. And it's just as easy to go down the one as the other. It will take months, even years more until that old highway crumbles completely.

So it's after 30 days that the real challenge arises. It becomes a daily issue of choice. I choose today the new, healthy road to growth. And I'll have to choose again tomorrow. And then again the next day. And again. And again.

I am about 30 days into this garden. I chose it not just to get some great healthy food to eat. Not to impress my neighbors or you. Not to loose weight. And not just to have something creative to do creative with my hands.

I chose it because I deeply want to change something in me.

I'm going to have to choose it again tomorrow morning.

Think Robert Frost was way ahead of the neural scientists when he wrote his timeless "roads" poem.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both...

I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

michael, for a barefoot garden

Dirty hands

Face your fears head on, we have all heard this one before. I have many fears that I have kept wrapped up so tightly packaged away for no one to see and surely for me to ignore. One is writing and another one is gardening. So here I am doing both "facing my fears". I would never of thought that one year ago I would meet someone so special that I would drop my guard and open myself up so freely. Thanks Michael.

To create change powerfully, one must powerfully change. This change only occurs when you braid together the four human dimensions of your physical self, emotional self, mental self and spiritual self. This is the tapestry of life.

Are you wondering yet why I am mentioning the four human dimensions of life yet in a blog about gardening?

Getting my hands dirty (as my mother would say) takes all four human dimensions of self and life.

Physical self - double digging (need I say more)
Emotional self - waiting and watching for your new babies to peak through the ground
Mental self - Oh my! will anything grow, do I have the right PH, will the worms like their new home and this one can go on and on
Spiritual self - putting your hands in the dirt, walking in the paths with the sun sitting and just yesterday seeing the new babies sprout up.

I believe the journey into the self requires that we learn to work with our fears and believe in ourselves, we can grow just as our seedlings are growing.

lisa, for a barefoot garden

Bird on a wire

The hummingbirds are here. We put up three feeders, although are a little embarrassed about the red food coloring in the supposed "nectar". Anyone know of good hummingbird juice that has a natural red?

Watched them when resting between digs. Three things I haven't really noticed as much before. They stop and rest a lot. They sing (or talk). And they dart up and hover directly over the center of the garden and then look north, east, south, west as if surveying the area before heading up to the top branches of a larger border tree.

Today was a phenomenal day. Started out early morning with one planted bed, one prepared, and one in the middle of digging. By day end three planted. AND THEN...we discovered our corn, beets and peas had all sprouted. Strong (inch tall), healthy, happy sprouts. Will wax philosophical about this soon. Too tired.

Perhaps a pictorial post.

ps...Lisa says she is going to post soon.

michael, from a barefoot garden

Bed and breakfast

The worms have landed! One small squirm for worms, one giant leap for a barefoot garden.

Such great guests. They stay in bed all day under the covers. You don't actually even have to feed them. They eat all sorts of random shit on their own. They clean up their own room (bed). They don't play loud music. Don't complain. Don't poop in the toilet. And don't make a lot of noise when having sex. Don't drink (alcohol, that is). And don't use credit cards.

Could be worse!

Arrived in our mailbox yesterday. I thought it would be a good sized box for 250 live worms. No. Smallest USPS mailing box, and in a cute little Uncle Jim's worm bag. They are shipped in bone dry peat to absorb all the moisture during mailing. Keeps them from freezing in winter and getting too hot in summer. They loose 70% of their body weight in the few days of transit, but bounce back to full size in a couple of days.

The guy at Common Ground in Palo Alto was convinced they would all be dead on arrival. "Why are you getting Red Wrigglers from Pennsylvania?" Well, I kinda dig East Coast people. A bit caustic and opinionated from time to time, but solid folks. Here's a rule: Don't take too seriously anything "religious" organic folks say. If the worms were going to die in transit, how does Uncle Jim's Worm Farm stay in business?

For that matter, don't take ANYONE "religious" too seriously, in my book. Too dogmatic, not so fun, never have a REAL open discussion, and rarely speak from direct experience (just from book learning).

So, 250 worms. I thought I was going to have to poke holes, put some water in and place them all in one by one. Nope. Just dump a bunch on the top of a moist bed and within seconds these guys are coursing there way across the bed top looking for a place to dive in. Definitely not dead worms. By morning, all gone. Down deep in bed below. Do it at night so the birds don't grab em (or if during the day, put a burlap bag or piece of plywood over the bed for a time).

Think I got to get a bunch more, I put like 80 per bed. Hey, worms regulate how many kids they have depending on the local population. Voluntary, cooperative birth control. Both democratic AND republican worms. No birth control or abortion needed. They may be more evolved than we are!

Also, ran out this morning and got a bale of straw to mulch our newly planted seeds to keep them wet, warm and protected--corn, snap peas, red beets and orange beets so far (next bed--onions and leeks. Broccoli coming real soon now). I'm thinking of "broadcasting" the next bed (no impossibly small holes, just spread em out on top and then cover, thin later).

Barefoot is ALIVE!

michael, for a barefoot garden.

I'm for Peas!

A new bed. And a second bed planted.

When you make your own first big raised double-dug composted bed you get why it is called a bed. After a final flat top raking and sprinkling water to moisten and darken the rich compost laden soil, you turn off the water, stand and stare, and you totally want to roll right up over on top of it. It looks so soft and rich and inviting. Yep, just curl right up and become a little seed and lay down in the middle.

We are jamming a bit. Got this garden thing started late summer, mid-august, and want to get plants in for fall and there is still a WHOLE BUNCH of double digging to do. Ahhhh! Not to speak of fencing, gopher guards, snail thingys, watering systems, bordered paths (there is a reason we are calling barefoot, will tell you later).

It's more than getting some sort of harvest this early winter. It's wanting the plant roots in there working, aerating the soil, creating little magical honeycombs that hold water and air and enzymes and micro-organisms and worms and nutrients.

Even if nothing ripens this year, fine. We will be ready for spring.

And we are all bozos on this bus! None of us had ever done larger raised bed semi-organic gardening. We don't know a whole lot and the information we can get often contradicts. Last night we were sparring with sundown to plant beets (yellow and red). One book says 1” inch apart for the seeds at 1” deep initially, seed pack says ¼” deep (give me a break, have you ever tried to bury anything ¼” deep real composted soil? It's like trying to stack sugar out of the package on the counter). One site says to bury your soaker hose, another says to lay it on the surface.

And I'm clueless how much to water these seeds, is it OK if it dries out during the day when I'm away, and whether to mulch now (checking underneath the mulch to see when they start to sprout, to make room) vs. wait to mulch til they are up a few inches.

So we are punching little holes, dropping insanely little beet seeds (seeds? they look like clumps of toe jam) and we all stand up and get into these discussions about one inch or two, water first or after (the seeds float!) and I'm going, “Hey, hey, we are loosing light, who cares, just get em in!”

I think it will be fine, it's an essential part of the fun, not knowing exactly how to do it but enjoying it all in faith that nature is probably a whole ton smarter than we are and fairly resilient.

And the digging, it's good. Very good for me. I parse it out. It is a conscious practice for me. I do it as long as I can stay in the moment. I do it in a meditative rhythm, methodical, that lets me go beyond the physical tedium. I've got a history with this. I did construction, largely natural building (rammed earth, hay bale, solar, etc.) for ten years. You get used to long periods of intense manual labor. I usually dig for an hour in the morning before driving to work (that takes an hour itself in traffic) then an hour after getting home. Then on the weekend I'll put a 6+ hour stretch in.

This is the deeper power of gardening. Enjoying the slow rhythm of the work. The deep breaths sucking in oxygen expelling toxins. The mind finally slowing from a day spend over-saturated with media, long brain dead commutes, pointless heartless work, stupid self-involved ineffective over-busy co-workers and clients. So the sore muscles, the feet hard to walk on from stomping on the shovel, the tweaked wrists, the thorns, the lower back, oh the lower back...all actually very ok with me. Because it goes with a mind finally, truly rested and quiet for the first time that day and a heart that softenes right along with the soil.

As soon as I start getting too goal oriented I stop. Ernest Hemingway said an interesting thing about writing (in his book "A Moveable Feast"). He always stops for the day before totally finishing a chapter or story. Then he doesn't think about it anymore. He says then his subconscious can keep working on it. The blog helps me a lot.

But the physical is all good. I want it. You see, I have healed before from a life stage crises and know that the best way is to go through it is to get active, focus first on the physical (basically get in shape), and THEN go on to emotional/psychological work, and finally bring in the spiritual. It's a continuum. From the grosser to the more subtle. A fascinatingly parallel process to starting and growing a garden. First you double dig. Then later you weed and thin. Only then can you harvest.

You see, this is a healing garden. That is what it is for.

We do hope to eat wonderful things grown there (and share them with lots of people), but that is not it's real purpose.

Lettuce Unite!

Yesterday Lisa's son N. came home from high school. In two minutes he was back out the door, down the path asking “Can I help?” This is a brilliant and very contemporary young man. This means he spends the largest percentage of his day in short attention span media facilitated environments. Like his peers, even when with other people there, there is also the simultaneous cell phone calls, text messages, TV in background, video games.

Even when we do things together they tend to be activity based and goal oriented. Golfing, ping-pong, pool, computer, googling, i-Tunes, etc. We don't spend a lot of time in quiet, rhythmic, introspective, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual—being. "Being" while together. But we can and do do this naturally working in the garden. And there is something about the reality that we are dealing with living things and need to pay attention or they might die that hovers in the background of our minds and hearts.

Quiet mind. Open heart. Pay attention. That's it.

My Uncle Arlo had a 6000 acre ranch in Montana when I was N's age. Ya, 6,000. Think about it. He had long cattle drives each year on his own land, land which went as far as you could see and more and included a whole small mountain range with antelope and big-horn sheep.

I would visit but unfortunately couldn't stay all summer like my older brother Mark did, irrigating all day long every day, because of my allergies. I so remember the mornings. 5:30 the big bell would ring, long dining table and about 20 strapping men and women (my cousins and hired hands) being fed this huge breakfast, eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, gravy, orange juice, goes on and on. The women and girls had to get up at 4:30 to get it on. After that, EVERYBODY out the door for chores for two hours, including my junior high and high-school age cousins. Serious chores like feeding cattle, pigs, sheep, milking cows, pitching hay and shoveling shit.

Very important chores. Critical. My cousins knew if they blew it, it could mean an animal dying or in severe pain. And they have seen an animal in pain. Worse, they could threaten the life income of their entire extended family.

Then fast clean up, change clothes, and hop on the bus and the 20 plus mile ride to high school. Get home like 4:30 or so in the afternoon, 2 plus more hours work. Big family dinner. Homework. Collapse in bed at 10:00 pm or so. TV? Video games? You're kidding! Who has time?

But these cousins, and my brother. They had, and still have, this quiet contented power. And an inner radiance. And you always knew, push come to shove, they would be there for you. Solid. They are the ones you want in the lifeboat with you, regardless of your personal differences.

Stay with the Beet

When a young person sees an older couple (well, guess I am now one of them! Lisa and I go for a walk most evenings.) walking along a rural road at night quietly talking and watching the orange glow recede behind silhouette tree shapes against the backdrop of purple-gray mountains--they might think “Not so exciting, not the life for me".

But they aren't (and few of us older folks are either) able to see the real energy behind that common facade. There is a spiritual law (and in many ways a scientific law) that the greater the energy and power, the subtler the manifestation outwardly. If you take water and add energy it boils. At this first level it appears wild and full of power and life, roiling and boiling. But add more energy it turns into vapor, a vaporous mist floating in the air. But careful, that mist can burn and kill and pull freight trains, it is so filled with vitality. Add even more energy and pressure, sooner or later the vapor turns into a plasma, all but invisible but now manifesting the molecular power of the universe.

So with people. Often the quiet and soft looking ones are overflowing with a calm yet magnetic power, and an almost ecstatic beauty and humming inner life experience that more than rivals the wildest and craziest outward expressions of youth. You can't just look to know. You have to feel, and be capable of deep feeling and intuition to empathetically know what's really going on. As it says in scriptures from India "He (she) who knows, knows. None else knows."

Peas be with You!

michael, from a barefoot garden.

The seed will need the darkness

We have planted!

Sunday was a very big, tiring, and fabulous day. I'll write more later on (I was too tired and happy last night).

Our first beds are planted with corn and peas. It is the moon shaped bed that is just on the outside of the vesica. Here is pic of Lisa's son making careful seed holes.

I'm reminded of the lyrics from my favorite Rickie Byars, the album "In the Land of I Am", the song, "All fades into God":

early in the song:

"In my pain, there inside my weakness, is the seed of something greater in me..."

then later

"the seed will need the darkness to change into new light."

michael, from a barefoot garden

Center of the pumpkin

A short post today. We had a planned trip to Pleasanton, CA to the fairgrounds to visit family and friends at Alameda County Fairgrounds for the big hot-rod show--which really means a bit of looking at the cool cars and a bunch relaxing and visiting with good people.

But I was so excited to get the center bed complete today (and more tomorrow) I got up at 6:00 am and worked thru til about 10 before we had to get ready to go. Just got home a few minutes ago. We do this garden but we both work very full time. And right now my commute to work takes two hours a day. So you have to rigorously work in garden time early or late some days.

Some years ago I was part of a group of people who were invited to 300+ acres on Coleman Valley Road outside of Occidental, CA (on the ridge over Bodega Bay) to start an intentional community. In the late sixties and seventies this area was magical, a garden of another variety. The first radical back-to-the-land "free" community started there, called "Morningstar". Another followed called "Wheeler's Ranch". The fun and crazy alternate to Greyhound bus, called "The Green Tortise, originated just around the corner, and down the road was the Farallons Rural Intsitute.

We called our new community "Oceansong". It was a beyond idyllic setting, gorgeous rolling Sonoma County hills, beautiful redwood groves, black oak, deep fog misted canyons, dark rich soil. We started a garden (I wasn't one of the gardeners), a school, a construction company, and a meditation teaching center. There is still an educational foundation there called "Oceansong Farm and Wilderness Center". I lived in a large canvas Mongolian style yurt and worked in the Gurdjieff center owned bakery and coffee shop in the nearby town of Occidental.

The owners had a small community on the land before that they called "Center of the Pumpkin". I always enjoyed that name. There is a story about the naming, something about a group of friends having a wonderful evening full of music and spirit and sharing around a large stone fireplace. Someone had set a pumpkin quite close to the fire. Late in the evening people snuggled into blankets on couches and rugs, and fell asleep.

In the morning they woke to find the pumpkin perfectly cooked, and ate it for breakfast. So they decided that day to name their community (based on organic farming and rural life skills) after the event.

Its funny to think about the center of pumpkin. It either seems to have no center, or it seems it is all one big center. An great Indian sage, Paramhansa Yogananda, said that God is "center everywhere, circumference nowhere." Like a pumpkin.

So I have been yearning to bring the center of a barefoot garden to life. Lisa and I talked about plants that we both feel have exceptional power and radiance. We both agreed on sage, lavendar and basil. And thought the colors of lavendar and regal grays and deep greens all resonated together well. So you can see in the picture here our first organic seedlings, our first babies, ready for planting. There are several sage varities, including the healing and aromic "Clary Sage". A lavendar (can't remember the specific type) and an Italian basil. Perhaps we will plant our first plants tomorrow!

We'll see. Has to feel right. No real hurry. There is no end game, just the enjoyment of the journey.

michael, from a barefoot garden