Homesteading Middles: Animal Husbandry

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Homesteading Middles: Animal Husbandry

I have noticed myself more and more putting my own thoughts, ideas, sensations, desires, onto the animals that feed us with their bodies - to anthropomorphize the animals. To assign human traits to animals has historically been deemed unscientific - but I would contend that not assigning emotions, agency, or recognizable sensations to animals is a way to separate humans from animals, to make us better, and in turn to provide excuses for the mistreatment of such. Just ask Jane Goodall.

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Homeschool learnings: Settling in

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Homeschool learnings: Settling in

Officially it is our third year homeschooling and for some reason the whole endeavor this year feels more solid and secure.

It feels like we are plants - the first year settling in after planting, the next year building strong roots, and the third year SURGING forth with abundance - a verdant explosion. It feels like we are surging forth from a very grounded place.

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Gnostic encomium for the Mary Magdalene Revealed Retreat

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Gnostic encomium for the Mary Magdalene Revealed Retreat

Here is my rooftop shout for the world to hear my encomium* for the Mary Magdalene Revealed Retreat held by the glorious Meggan Watterson. Hear me full body shouting like I did the night I merged with God.

As I have mentioned before, it makes me super happy when all of the fingers I am exploring are pointing to the same moon. Though, as I write this, I realize it is true for everyone. We all seek out that which agrees with our beliefs and create self-reinforcing loops to make ourselves feel validated. My huge ballast on this finger pointing to The Good as inside of us, as opposed to external to us, is from my own experience (see the merging above). So I am going to speak from that place, as a Gnostic.**

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Homeschool learnings: First Landing vs Plymouth Rock

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Homeschool learnings: First Landing vs Plymouth Rock

Recently we visited the number one state park in Virginia: First Landing State Park. So named in honor of the “English colonists” who first landed in 1607. The beach was warm, the cabins were delightful, the bicycling under the fir trees was peaceful and magical, and my brain exploded with the history.

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Homesteading Middles: The Art of Hugelkultur

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Homesteading Middles: The Art of Hugelkultur

One of my favorite nuggets from when I did the Permaculture Design Course was learning about hill mounds, or hugelkultur. Hugelkultur is a glorious construction of organic matter with soil atop. Organic matter like logs, branches, straw, upside-down turf, leaves, cardboard, shredded newspaper - if it can decay on it goes. Once the decaying matter of the hugel has enough nitrogen to start decomposing the hugelkultur works as a sink for moisture, nutrients, and carbon.

We built our raised beds over the large stumps from when we cleared the land for the house. I envision the vegetables fed by grandfather trees - and in turn, feeding our bellies.

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Letter to my children: Labels - the antiracism conversation begins

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Letter to my children: Labels - the antiracism conversation begins

Dearest Beloveds,

I was reading a book about Susan B. Anthony to the Bean for school. The book outlined her work against slavery, for women’s rights, and for the temperance movement.

I took a breath to read the next paragraph when Bean interrupted, “Momma, what is a black person?”

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Antiracist Triad: The process begins

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Antiracist Triad: The process begins

In early December of 2020, I made an ask of my tribe for two people to create a triad of white-bodied individuals to do antiracist work based on the description Resmaa Menakem wrote about in his article entitled, “When White Bodies Say, “Tell Me What to Do”. The Voice of Love, my gut, my heart, had been tugging me in that direction ever since I read his piece in May of 2021. His article provoked on so many levels and its main gist is this.

Get out of your white privilege bubble, seek confrontation to expose your bodily experience of racial trauma, examine your life, and “commit to growing up.” Do this with a lifelong triad (here is an excerpt from his article).

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Homeschool Learnings: Why I love homeschooling

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Homeschool Learnings: Why I love homeschooling

It may be someone evident by now I am a bit of an academic, a bibliophile, an intellectual, a lover of thoughts, ideas, history, and curious to learn more always of humanity and our shared history. All of these traits are continually being fed as a homeschooling momma. I was taught to always go back to the original documents so that is what we have been doing for the 3rd grader in the house. Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream, Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I a woman? speech,* rereading The Declaration of Independence for the 4th of July.

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Letter to my children: Me Too, Aquarian Age, Self-Swaddling

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Letter to my children: Me Too, Aquarian Age, Self-Swaddling

My dearest Beloveds,

Recently, a teacher shared with me an amazing way of looking at the world right now - to paraphrase, “Our country has exposed our sexual traumas without a commensurate healing - it is affecting all of us. The trauma lives in our bodies and everyone is triggered.” When she said this, I immediately thought of Tarana Burke, founder of Me Too, and her concerns about unearthing such sexual violence without therapy, without safe spaces, without support.

It feels as though our country is a baby having a meltdown yet no adult is swaddling us close and singing to us - helping us process the pain. Everyone is upset about something. I can’t help but think if it is related to this unprocessed sexual national wounding - especially as so much of the news is being dominated recently by our former president who bragged of being able to “grope women with abandon,” in Brit speak.

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Letter to my children: Love languages

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Letter to my children: Love languages

Dearest Beloveds,

There are many ways to communicate. Words are very useful but also constrain. You will realize when you become familiar with more languages that languages are both a container and a funneling of experiences/wordview. The most glaring example that comes to mind is the ability to own land vs belonging to the land vis-a-vis the Europeans and the Native Americans (respectively).

The wonderful thing about strong relationships is that communication can happen without words - and often does.

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