Kin

Philly's Magic Gardens

Goddard residency concluded last week.  As students drifted back to their four corners of the globe to begin their studies & create a few passed through Casa Cooper (what Kevin & I dubbed our home).  Gailanne flew from New Hampshire into Philly last Saturday.  We happily scooped her up, ate yummy food at Sabrina's, wandered the Italian Market, & then headed north to the Magic Gardens.

Gailanne is a beautiful person but she's also an extraordinary musician.  She & her brothers formed the band, Jubal's Kin, which has received a ton of acclaim, including being short-listed for a Grammy.  Over dinner Kevin pulled out his guitar & Gailanne hers.  They flipped through dog-eared song books refinding lyrics, tunes, half-written, & whole.  One of my favorites was a song reworked from Romans 7:

"For we know the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh sold to slavery under sin.  For I do what I do not want & what I want don't do.  Flesh of man I do not understand.  So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what's right & stand that Lucifer is waiting in sin to drag me in.  Evil lies close at hand.  So my mind is bound in chains under Him with my flesh still under sin.  What a wretched man I am."

The tension of knowing there lies within a highest Self, but we're constantly turned towards sin or bound within it.  This is part of what I love of Old Time music.  It's completely rooted in Americana culture.  It's of this soil, this earth, traditions that have shaped it for the last few hundred years.  It's equally wrought with the complexity of this place over that course of time.  I love the history & study of it all-- Gailanne is becoming a song catcher in the tradition of Alan Lomax.  She traces songs, where they've appeared, how they've changed, who has performed & shared them.

We three sat around the table, catching songs & snippets, eating cookies.  Flesh of man I do not understand.

For the love of soil

Today's yield: spaghetti squash, zucchini (that planted itself), cucumbers, ancho peppers, jalapeno peppers, one lone tomato (the rest are taking awhile to turn red), a handful of mint.

It's enough.  Tonight I'm preparing vegan chile rellenos with a recipe I'd clipped from Organic Gardening awhile back.  Mint iced tea.  I might even bake the spaghetti squash & serve that on the side.  Potentially incongruous, but if it's from the same garden, also potentially compatible.

I feel a part of a surge of growth.  The garden is abundant.  I feel my own creative energy stirring in a way it hasn't for some time.  My body feels pliant when I lengthen into yoga asana, my mind nimble & ready to generate ideas, the soil dark & rich.

At Goddard I had a conversation with some awesome farmer-scholars (I love them).  A New Hampshire farmer joked that he was growing rocks & grey hairs.  Kevin suggested he pull out the rocks by the taproot next time so they stop regrowing so quickly.  We started talking about our collective love for soil, which is so diverse given our various homes.  I remember my grandfather taking me for a walk in his Atlanta neighborhood.  He had a HUGE (at least an acre) backyard garden in Atlanta.  He & my grandmother canned & stored tons of food.

We walked down a hill & he began describing rich, red Georgia clay.  He told me about what it grows well: peanuts, string beans, green tomatoes (that my grandmother fried), peach trees, and so much more.  He stooped down & collected a handful of the clay; putting it in a jar for me.  That jar stayed by my bed for at least a year.  Each night I watched it; it's ruddy color, the obvious life to it as it shifted, settled, dried.  I thought of it's potential, it's journey to mud and dust.

Our South Jersey soil is sandy and loose.  We put blueberry bushes directly in the ground but most of the rest of our plants are in raised beds of composted soil.  We're still learning how best to respect what it has to offer and grow that.  We'd love to support & buy from other area farms what we grow less successfully here.

Hands in dirt.  Rich, heathen scent.  Fed & full.

Soul Fire Farm, Yurt, Grafton Peace Pagoda

After Kevin graduated Goddard (see last post) we headed southwest to Grafton, NY, where our friends had erected a yurt on The Soul Fire Farm.  We were so captivated by the land, growing food, wild sheep dog named Ro, chickens, beautiful people, & the yurt, that we took no photos!  We shared a delicious meal with our friends, their friends, interns who became friends... all grown on the land.  Afterwards Kevin & I followed Taina, Gaetano, & their kids to the yurt.  We fell asleep talking & playing music.  Taina, Gaetano, & Kevin collaborated on songs.  I drifted to sleep dreaming of pirate love.

We woke in the morning & wandered back to Soul Fire Farm to share breakfast, witness Leah & Jonah dance, & Leah demonstrate her mad aerial silk skills.  Unfortunately, we had to be back in South Jersey so we moved on.  We drove a little ways, maybe less than a mile, & arrived here:

 The Grafton Peace Pagoda.  This beautiful, sacred structure emerges suddenly from the forest.  Moments before we'd been watching wild turkeys & now this.  We moved through the grounds watching what Jun-sun, the care-taker, had built through faith & patience.

 Our buddy, Yabisi!  Wise soul.  When Taina was pregnant with him I used to drive her to the birth center for appointments with her midwife.  We later realized her midwife was Eva, the professor who just graduated Kevin!  (See last post)

 Taina & Gaetano's miracle daughter, Caona.

 Taina helped me understand the scope & depth of Jun-san's life.  Jun-san has always been a spiritual activist.  She's fought for political prisoners her whole life.  Her journey is walking & fasting to draw attention towards social justice.  She gave me two cranes & a note from her last walk around Lake Ontario to stop nuclear activity in Fukushima, Japan.  It twirls on my rear-view mirror & reminds me of her, her work, & legacy.

 Unfortunately Gaetano was at work, so we didn't get to include him in the photos.

The Great Green Mountain Adventure aka Kevin Graduates Goddard

 From Albany, NY (see last post) Kevin & I ventured north-east to Montpelier, VT.  It should have taken 2 1/2 hours.  It took 6.  We missed a turn & were then subject to New England directions;  "go down the valley, and turn at the lake."  "Does this road have a name?" I ask.  "Ah... there will be a hardware store there."  "Ok," I follow, "What direction do we turn?"  Repeatedly.

But!  We saw beautiful farms.  & beautiful country.  Kevin's parents had an equally trying journey north from Virginia.  This weekend also marked their 40th Wedding Anniversary!  Saturday night we ate at The New England Culinary Institute's Restaurant.  Delicious!

Earlier that day, Kevin presented his senior thesis at Goddard College

 On Sunday, the graduates assembled for Commencement.

Kevin, Lily, & Erin 

One incarnation of the Goddard No Name Band, playing one of Kevin's original songs.  Shown from left to right: Dan, Kevin, Ollie, & Gailanne

 Eva, Kevin's primary advisor, introduced his work to the community.  It was really beautiful to understand what each graduate had achieved.

Otto

It's legit, he got a diploma

 Kevin, & each graduate, had a chance to share what this graduation culminated for them.  He didn't cry!  I was thanked for "vicious editing."

Eva, Kevin, Karen, & Frances.  These were some of the faculty present who most informed Kevin's studies

Shaiya in Kevin's chin

Kevin & Ro

Kevin & Olli

Olli, Autumn, Kevin, & Shameeka

Kevin, Hannah, Dan, & Shameeka