Sunflower
Valinor
Jan 7 2013, 9:40am
Views: 583
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When I have the time...I'd love to. Seems like everywhere you turn, the world is going to the dogs. But I can't tell you how many times last year (it feels weird, saying "last year":)...I'd walk in the early morning down the farm path to my community garden (I deliberately take a bus instead of drive there and walk 15 minutes down the path, it's a lovely old path called "the Yellow Brick Road" b/c that's what it was 100 yrs ago, a yellow-cobblesoned carriage path; the farm is over 200 yrs old (google Normanskill Farm, Albany, NY for pics)..there's a lovely spot on the path where I stop to look over the landscape, I call it "The Shire" b/c that's exactly what it looks like...you can see a pic of this view on the site... on the farm grounds, which are open to the public all yr long, there are also hiking trails, dog walks, and old buildings where kids come on field trips. A special treat for them is to see the resident blacksmith at work. And sometimes you see the cows or and sheep grazing right next to the path. And across a bridge, on a high hill, there are stables for the police horses.
I walk down there, getting lost on the farm path, you feel like you're in another world....even though the farm is in the midst of a suburb. It sits in a valley, a vast bowl through which runs a creek (the "Norman's Kill" ( "Kill" being corrupted Dutch for "creek", apparently the origional farming family was French) ..the whole sorry world melts away. As long as this land lives, whether or not human hands lovingly tend it, as long as this little patch of God's Creation survives, one can never lose hope. And then I'd be on my land (well, not mine; I rent it from the City, but it's my 4th year now, so I've come to think of the plot as mine) and the work is never work; every hour of labor is a therapeutic joy. And yes, we had swallows come and nest too. And other birds of every description. And the little critters scampering about....as long as they didn't eat my plants --(though the marigolds didn't work where my collards were concerend; collards must be like chocolate for bugs.) And sometimes I'd see an eagle or hawk flying far overhead, and wonder b/c not so long ago we never saw them; they've come back to us. And after, staggering up the path after hours in the garden, and every exhausted muscle and every drop of sweat a bendiction, a balm to my soul. A profound, almost holy Mystery, a spiritual purification.
Waxing poetic, I know, but one can never do too much of that on topics like this. I can go on from there!
The article was indeed moving...I blinked back tears. i can just imagine what they are going through, what you are. the healing must begin..sometime, somewhere.
(This post was edited by Sunflower on Jan 7 2013, 9:48am)
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(I'm sure you can come up with something better! 
How 'bout bi-weekly so people
