Stewarding Stories: Stacking Wood Samadhi

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Stewarding Stories: Stacking Wood Samadhi

A part of me feels foolish using the word samadhi to describe the immersive experience that I experienced stacking wood. Samadhi/Bliss is the considered by some to be the goal of all yoga - the blissful state reached once you have gone through all of the other seven states. Some consider there to be a hierarchy (a path) through from Yamas/Virtues, Niyamas/Internal observations, Asanas/Poses, Pranayama/Breath Control, Pratyahara/Withdrawal of senses, Dharana/Concentration, Dhyana/Meditation, all the way to reach Samadhi.

I feel this teleological view of Pantanjali’s discourses on consciousness is not true - rather than a road, it is a circle.

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Stewarding Stories: Almond Fruit Arrives

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Stewarding Stories: Almond Fruit Arrives

About nine years ago we planted two almond trees Prunus Dulcis, they are close to the apples Malus and the peaches Prunus persica. The leaves of the almond trees and the peach trees are very similar.

It turns out, after years of waiting, the fruit of an almond tree is also very similar. Almonds look like an unripe small greenish peach. The skin of the fruit is fuzzy and soft.

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Stewardship Stories: What's in a name?

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Stewardship Stories: What's in a name?

This is the third title I have chosen to delineate posts involving land tending. In 2013 (wowza) I called the posts Farm Beginnings, because, that was the idea right? I was going to be a farmer - growing food and selling it to my community (or at least growing enough to feed ourselves for a full year as an experiment).

Then Bean was born, medical blah blah, Dragon was born, and more medical blah blah. In 2021, Farm Beginnings morphed into Homesteading Middles. To homestead felt less grandiose than to farm. The gingham term felt cozy and manageable. Homesteading felt good.

No longer. Now the word gives me the hives. Why, you may ask?

I was blind to the racist hypocrisy of our government denying formerly enslaved Americans their 40 acres while at the same time allocating 160 acres as part of the 1862 Homestead Act.

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