The rewards of small-scale terraforming

A couple of sweet views and reflections from our garden party

I’ve got the day off work from my normal Thursday farm job thanks to the stormy weather.

So I wanted to share a couple photos and reflections from the workshop we hosted in our farm garden yesterday.

Nettle tea is amazingly nutritive and surprisingly yummy. And Tatiana’s Herbal Sunshine blend is delicious and uplifting.

You probably already knew this, but plant lovers are the best. We had 14 people show up for a two-hour class and they were the sweetest people with the kindest vibes. Several people drove more than an hour each way to hang out with us in the garden on a (surprisingly hot, after all the recent cool weather) May Day afternoon. Many of the participants are herbalists and master gardeners in their own right, so it felt really gratifying to welcome these folks into the garden and have them tell us they learned something useful to apply in their own realms.

It was a quiet afternoon on the farm because the farm family were off selling their wares at the Chattanooga Farmer’s Market. So no tractors or pumps or chainsaws were going. The sun was out and the sky was blue with big fluffy clouds (a few chemtrails, but not nearly as bad as has become usual thus far this year). The birds were singing, the bees were buzzing in the comfrey…

It felt rewarding to be able to share our abundance with our community. When it’s just the two of you working to transform the space, it’s easy to see what still needs to be done and what has been done but needs to be redone, better — and what feels like there’s no freaking way you’ll ever even get to it.

This workshop gave me the chance to see just how far we’ve come in a year and a half through the eyes of the participants. Seeing people’s happiness at being in the garden, interacting with the plants, and how peaceful and abundant everything felt — it felt redemptive to me.

Joy (shared) = multiplied?

These two photos show the same space right after we moved here and during the class yesterday. The camera angle is slightly different, but it’s the same part of the garden, same high tunnel in the background.

September 2023:

And yesterday:

We’ve worked so hard on this project in the last 18 months and we both have other work to do in the world, so I guess I’ve sometimes wondered if the biggest reward I will get for all that hard work is knowing that we’ve taken this plot of land that had fallen into disuse and disorder and turned it into a beautiful garden. I mean, the medicine we’re making here is incredible and we are enjoying it. And it is benefiting people in our local community and a few handfuls of friends and clients who know about it.

But we haven’t really had the energy to do a lot of marketing to a wider audience yet and it has sometimes felt as if we might never find that energy or focus. Not being able to see the meadow for the weeds, maybe?

So, getting to share the beauty and the good vibes felt abundant for us. It reminded me that community is where it’s at. I hope that’s something we can all reclaim going forward because I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one whose hermit tendencies were exacerbated by the twisted social engineering of the Covid psyop.

We need the company of our fellow men and women — people who share our love of beauty and respect for truth and who are capable of kindness and worthy of trust. And we need to connect in the flesh, not just on Zoom, social media or instant messenger.

I think what I’m trying to verbalize for myself (apparently I am what’s known as "an external processor”) is that I was already proud of the work I’ve done here. I was already grateful for the opportunity to farm this beautiful land. I was already proud of my wife for working so hard to bring her vision into being in the physical world. And I have already enjoyed many pleasurable moments in the garden: relaxing in the grass, vibing with the plants, playing with the dog — just being.

But I don’t think I was able to fully experience how rewarding this project has been and how deeply satisfied I feel about the perseverance and dedication I’ve brought to our work here — until I got the opportunity yesterday to experience other people’s joy in being here.

I would like more of this going forward, thank you very much. On an even finer vibration of beauty and a higher level of abundance.

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