Greenstorm's Journal

What's calming? Writing about the principles of landrace gardening.

The principle is, it's more likely that a plant will be able to determine if it can survive there its own self than that I can predict what will grow well based on generalized descriptions from unlike soils/climates/water regimes/altitudes/biotic communities/growing styles/etc. Give something three years of trying to grow and by the end of it you will know whether it will grow well there.

More excitingly let genes mix. They won't be shackled to the rest of the genetics in that one variety. Over time the genes that aren't suitable will drop out of the mix and ones that are will combine in new ways. Each plant will have a larger and larger percentage of genes that work well on your site, for you, in your situation.

There needs to be some survival and some mortality for this to work. Genes need to be propagated at different frequencies. If you carefully save every seed from every plant, and keep every plant alive, there will be no change in frequency of surviving genes and thus no selection. Obviously if no seeds survive to make the next generation there will also be no propagation of genes.

For a gardener this means that things will often look bad or die. A garden grown this way is a garden that, on walkthrough, displays visible failures. Maybe some of the food tastes bad before it's removed from the gene pool. Maybe locusts or aphids descend and eat 80% of the crop.

Up to a point more failure of individual plants means more success for the project. When only 10% of the plants are dying out you're not getting tremendously strong selection; that's when you can step in and remove something that sprawls over the pathway or is too upright or doesn't look pretty or is bitter without erasing the whole project.

I think this is a different paradigm? We like nourishing the little plants, taking great care of them, feeling pride and love when they thrive. It can feel like a loss if they die, because of course it is. Those genes might well be propagated elsewhere but the individuals are what we get attached to. It is a different feeling to pivot from caretaking the individual to a fierce curiosity as to what the next generation will be, and to caretaking this balance between genes and hyperlocal spot of land.

In any case it's a much humbler and more intimate interaction with natural processes. Instead of doing all the intellectual and physical work to keep nature out and thereby create a perfect specimen myself, I am partnering with a cloud of resources and processes that function all around me whether I'm there or not and will grow something whether I am there or not. My goal becomes half guide, steering the process of selection to include my own needs layered on to those of the specific spot of land; but also half student, leaping along from development to development and trying to decipher what just happened and why. The process is in some ways more violent - there's more death, after all - but also less hubristic and narcissistic. We cease warring with nature when we cease warring with death. I suppose that makes sense.

So basically my garden will now always have things dying and failing. That's how new things are born and how new life comes forward. My garden will also likely always have things held static, preserved out of sentimentality or utility or just lack of energy to change them. Balance, right?

This doesn't feel complicated or hard to me, even though it kind of is complicated. Lots of sources and varieties and uncertainty as to particular outcomes is part of this process. I am created to love this kind of thing and to resist one-to-three-cultivars-that-get-planted-every-year-forever.

Is it hard for you to think about? Would it feel wrong?

Thursdays are pagan happy hour (happy hour is what you call a casual meeting of Dinonysos cultists I guess?). I drop into many of these - I really like the group, they are able to work with nature as it is and not only as a metaphor - and they are usually free-form. Tonight's was specifically about working with ancestors.

I don't consider myself to do any spiritual work around ancestors since my cosmology doesn't really... care ...about individual humans much. People are just not my focus. But when I hold seeds in my hand, or when I see my geese in the barnyard or a new batch of piglets born, I understand myself to be touching something shaped by the decisions and necessities of so many generations of people stretching back and back and back into the mist. I understand that strand to go both back into prehistory and hopefully forward into the people who will need this biodiversity, these genetic resources, these gifts.

And the discussion tonight got me thinking: I don't bargain with ancestors or make deals with them. But I do feel I owe my human ancestors reciprocity: they gave so much to put these in my hands and in turn I owe them the work of ensuring they continue.

I'm in the north. We have cool, short seasons shared with much of Russia. Varieties collected by Vavilov, who was killed for his work, survived the seige of Leningrad guarded by botanists who died of starvation rather than eat the seed grain and the seed potatoes. Those varieties went on to be bred into the plants I grow, or in some cases they are the plants I grow.

When it comes down to it, in every way, growing things is my spiritual work.

So I'm death aspected. What this means isn't that I want everything to immediately die, or that I hate living things, or that I wander around wearing black and making nihilistic statements.

What this means is that I know every molecule in my body has been through more organisms than I can ever imagine, all of which have died.

What this means is that death is a balance, the weight on the other side of the scales without which they fall apart. It's the feeling of one hand held in another with life.

Death is the place from which all nourishment comes, and it's the limiter of all pain and disaster. It's the boundary that protects life inside it, even though setting boundaries can feel hard and come with loss and grief.

What this means is that I'm aware of death in a way that most of our society, viewing it as an outrage to be erased and forgotten, doesn't want to be. What this means is I'm aware death needs to be honoured with ritual and with thought and integration into our philosophies.

What this means is that I believe in grief. Death exists, loss exists. They are real, not some temporarily inconvenient aspect of the world that science or God and the right behaviour can erase. And because they are such real forces in our lives we will always be exposed to grief. It's a fertile place full of strong and sometimes unpredictable energy.

I have so many mourning rituals, and so many grief rituals. The normal pagan ones tend not to stand for me. Instead I write, I pour the energy into the land, I cry, I cherish what is lost, I sing loudly and cry in cars and in public.

People die every day. They die in cars, they choose death, their bodies decide to take them back to the earth. We adjust to that.

This particular end times seems like we may get a big dying, a big loss of the society we knew, and a big grief.

This grief is-- more than 50% of the pine trees died in the last mountain pine beetle epidemic. White-nose disease took bat populations down unimaginably. Few American chestnuts are left. Once there were so few Canada geese we thought they'd go extinct.

The fact that thriving populations get lowered by natural factors doesn't reduce the grief of it. Even if it's inevitable, even if it needs to happen, the grief is real. Our planet has had a lot of these kinds of grief lately.

And now here we are. Humans, looking something not so extreme in the face. And it's still a big grief.

I'm death aspected. The coming grief feels like weight, like gravity, but not like an outrage. It feels like it will need a container, made by humans, to live with the grief and give it meaning and solace.

I do hope we are up to the task.

So I've always been death-aspected. Naming this about myself is one of the more powerful things that's happened to me. For me this means I have a bone-deep intrinsic understanding of the fitness and importance of death. I know that it is inevitable. I think the cycle of death/birth is beautiful and compelling, and not just the birth part. Death is one part of the meaning of everything. It's a time to view, honour, and create an organism's meaning.

This does not mean I don't feel grief when things die, nor does it mean I want to hurry my own death along. It may even mean I'm more able to experience my grief because I'm not trying to erase the presence of the death.

Our society tends to view death as meaningless or as a punishment. It wants to hide death as much as possible. That becomes increasingly evident when I wander around existing. Some folks view the existence of death as an affront, and some feel like death voids all the meaning of everything. I'm glad I'm not those folks. I value my understanding of the cycle.

Aaaaaaaand... there's a huge shortage of abbatoirs in the interior of BC. Lots of folks can't get appropriate poultry slaughtered (especially waterfowl) because there are not enough licensed facilities for them, and because what facilities exist are so widely spaced. One of the biggest things anyone could do to promote waterfowl breeds would be to open an abbatoir that serviced them somewhere around Prince George/Williams Lake.

In my mind this is one of the things I'll retire to: likely not enough work to be a full-time or well-paying business, but providing a service.

It seems like a good fit.

It seems like a little bit of nothing poetry, but it fills me with light. I guess we all need a reminder.

God Says Yes To Me

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her is it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I’m telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Kaylin Haught

I finish these weeks pretty worn out. At the end of every Friday class I have this touch of panic, and an emotional drop-- I don't want to go back to the real world for the weekend, and there it waits for me. I've been in a world without physical touch, without a second's spare time, since Monday night and then everything gets dumped on its head. I'll have a couple of hours of homework, maybe a little more; I'll have likely a date with Michael that involves snuggling, some Burn Notice time planned with Andrew, and a bunch of homey type stuff with Angus. I'm not great at bridging that gap, and the transitions are a little rough. Luckily it seems to be more or less my term pattern. When changes like that are embedded in routine it becomes easier for me to deal with them: the thing has happened before a million times and no one died, so why should I worry now? Last night it only bothered me for a couple of hours.

Oh, look at this. Pretty snazzy, mm? That's me.

Soon the school portion will end Saturday early evening and begun Monday morning. There won't be much of a transition at all because there won't be much to transition to. Those will be very full six-day weeks, plus homework and likely work on the Sunday too. Honestly I can't wait for longer days that will allow me to work later; one ten or twelve hour day per weekend would make a big difference both to how much I need to cram into a week and also to my paycheque.

Work still loves me. I still have this weird sense of inadequacy there, like at some point they'll find me out and stop liking me. The last guy or three they had in my position were pretty awful, so since I've been working there the guys' stress levels have gone way down, apparently. I get all the work that needs to be done, always, no matter what-- sometimes I flex it, sometimes i take a longer lunch one day and skip lunch the next, sometimes things bleed over from one day to the next, some days I'm very thorough and some days I squeak through pretty quickly. Those things make me feel guilty, I guess, but there's both tacit and overt approval from my bosses, and I guess as long as everything gets done and they don't ever need to worry about it that's what I'm paid for. There's always more work to do to make things perfect than I have done, though. I would like everything to always be perfect.

I have my grow lights up in my house! I know I've said that before, but my mahoganies, which were languishing, are now thriving. I need to get decent pots for them, in fact. There's so much gardening I need/want to do. I guess the thing about grow lights in my house is, I've wanted them since I was 8 or so, and at 8 they were way beyond my allowance money. Since then I've been unstable, haven't had space-- but now here I am, with them over my computer. I could start tomatoes by my computer! I need to look up when Seedy Saturday is.

Angus has a fairly solid commitment for a barback-type job weekend evenings again, which means means wondrous things. For one, though he always had rent, I was carrying or worrying about a lot of our food budget and that can back off somewhat and let me resume tuition saving (I hope). For another, it means that even if I spend one night a week with Michael, I'll have an evening to myself in my home. This is... pretty exciting, to be honest. I'm also pretty damn impressed with the way Angus went about it: I'd been offering to help him with his resume, but was busy the day he started, so I gave him the communications book from school, which has a resume section, and told him to see how far he could go. He turned out a pretty snazzy product that fits the far thing well, and I didn't have to do anything. So, yay on that front.

Likewise paid and unpaid work is trickling in for Michael, things he loves doing, not quite enough to make a living on but closer; the total drought of money is clearing up some. I'm so glad. He's happier, and there's no way to complain about that.

For that matter, even Graydon is happier than he used to be; he moved, he was a zombie for, well, a long time, and now his shell's cracking open in my presence. Some people have moved further away from me in the last several weeks, but it seems people are also moving closer, and-- I can accept that. I'm not kicking against it.

Last night I watched Kingdom of Heaven and it's given me a serious yearning to rerererererereread the Elenium and Tamuli series by David Eddings. I might do that; I haven't been reading at all lately. There's also a book called Where the Wild Asparagus Grows or something like that which should be on my list. It would be nice to actually read again. It's escapist as all hell for me, almost to pathological levels, but it's calming.

The ring I have worn since Spring Mysteries last year, that reminded me to be at peace with change in all its facets, is starting to feel uncomfortable on my finger. It's not that my fingers are larger or smaller; it's just a presence that makes itself known where for so long I didn't think about it. Early Bird registration for the festival is up. It'll be interesting to see what happens this year.

Mmm. Nice to be conversational on here again. Talk to you soon.

Giant Saint Everything

There were days I wanted out.
But then You would go and do things
like dive into the Vancouver ocean,
big brilliant cliché poem that You are,
water rolling off Your back
as You swam toward a sunset
that hung like a sacred recipe painted
all the way around Your holy head.

And then there were the ways You caught me
moving back into my cave where the wheels turn,
same wheels that drove You off.
I should have told You
before talking in terms of Forever
that any given day wears me out and works me sour,
that there are nights when the sky is so clear
I stand obnoxious underneath it
begging for the stars to shoot at me
just so I can feel at Home.

What’s left of You now is a shrine
built from the pieces I kept of Your presence,
Your incredible stretch of presence.
It sits in Our room like a sandpiper
cross-legged and crying,
remembering the night we met
and the day You left, and the Light
shifting in between.
By the side of it stands a picture of the poem where I promised,
“You will never have another lonely holiday.”

The words “I Promise” and “Forever”
begged me not to use them
but sometimes I don’t listen to God,
so You can imagine how much it hurt
to let Your last birthday pass
with no word. August 3rd.
You weren’t the only one comin’ up lonesome.

Listen, if I had to make a list
of everything everywhere
- and I mean everything… everywhere -
the very last to-do on that infinite list of
every – single – thing – would be – to hurt You,
so I need You to know
that in an attempt to keep my promise
I did write a letter to You on Your birthday.

It was covered in stickers of flock-printed stars,
choir claps, and a bonfire of buttercups stuck in the air,
but when I finally drew enough courage
to send You all the Love in the World
my hand snapped off in the mailbox
from clenching.

It was returned to me with a gospelstitch, a hope stamp
and a note etched into the palm I had to pry open
with the pressure of pitching doves
reminding me
we agreed to let each other go.

There is a point when tears don’t work
to wash things away anymore.
Grabbing for breath has now broken my fingers.
I miss You so much some days
that I beg for the airplane to crash
with just enough time in the freefall
for scribbling “I Love You” across my chest.
That way – when they find my burning breast plate –
they will tell You how the very last thing I did with my life
was call out Your name.

Buddy Wakefield

 When your first response to a request for your time is, 'I don't have free days.  I make time from blood and stones' you know you need to slow down and take some time.  You also may have just been spending a lot of time with someone who's innately dramatic.  In my case both are definitely true.

I was going to write about my soul.  I was going to write, you know, that it exists.  I was going to write that a friend of mine, known henceforth as Walker because he's come up a dozen times and now needs a moniker, actually flinches internally when I use that word.

I was going to write that I could feel it strongly this morning.  I slept the night at CrazyChris', it's been a long long time and he's been mentally absent for maybe four years now anyhow.  Now he's back, and we cried and talked and ranted and talked and cried and backrubbed and held each other, and I felt safe.  I've realised (I've only now realised it, or only this morning when I was lying there watching the green light come up into the room with morning and he was sleeping beside me and the room was the same, his freckles were the same, as they were when we were lovers) that I am safe.  I've realised that whatever happens, with whoever, whatever breaks or darkens or snaps or halts, whether or not it returns to me as a nourishing connection, I will always have friends who love me.  Any one person may not be present, no one may be available in the second I need them, but they will always be there.

During the hook pull I had my obsidian spheres (dark, one with a green eye for thinking and one with an empty pool for feeling) on long lines from hooks in my chest and back.  I put out my hands and spun around (I was wearing my blue girl skirt) and spun and spun and the dizzier I knew I was going to be when I stopped the more I kept spinning because I didn't want to be in that place yet.  The spheres lifted and sailed along, tugging their own dance, and they were connected to my flesh and they were part of me.  When I stopped (because everything ends) I dropped quickly and put my hand on the ground so I didn't fall.  The weight of the spheres was taken by the ground, and the world was fuzz around me.  In that moment I was free-- I did not soar (one soars on wings, or wind) or float (one floats in something) or fly (one flies in relation to other things).  I was me, not only me (which requires a comparison to another thing) or Me (in which I overshadowed the things around me).  I was just there, and there was nothing else, and there was nothing else.

Those two experiences-- one last weekend, one this --have stretched that continuum of connectedness and distance on both ends now.  My world is always getting bigger.  My self-knowledge is always getting bigger.  My sense of self?  it becomes, not bigger, but more steady and certain and sure and dependable.  I no longer require someone else to be my rock at the centre of the universe; I no longer require it of myself. My soul (yes, there it is) has attained enough mass that it is my rock.

I showed CrazyChris the most beautiful spot in the city.  We were walking-- it was so lovely out-- down the Drive, and he was going to soccer, and I asked him if he'd been there. He said (of course) that the most beautiful spot in the city was a pretty tall order, and I reminded him that I always choose my words deliberately.  When we walked up he looked at me with a cocked eyebrow, all skepticism, but when we sat down he understood.

We watched a robin bathing together there.  That space, that one tiny space, is peace distilled.  It is powerful magic.  It is most beautiful.  It feeds the soul and leads one to freedom.

And I always choose my words deliberately.

I am more free now than I was yesterday morning.  I am also slowly becoming more bound, more enmeshed in the net that holds me up.  I can feel smoke curling up from fresh cauterization and I can feel the lightness of many strands bearing up against my inner gravity.

I wish I could speak more clearly.  I wish I could press the imprint of these times into your mind.  I can't.

I was going to write: This is me without fingernails, typing, intent, leaned over the laptop.  But-- the ring on my device goes off-- Angus has texted me to say he's back across the border and will be home soon.  The real world flies back in.  There was peace at that spot with CrazyChris, there was the incredible joy of realising I didn't have to be anywhere and I could walk back in sunshine so hot that had I been standing only in my black leather boots I would have been sweating -- it's the first time this year -- and there was the dive into language like flying through clean air and sunlight.  Now there's only a girl and clicking keys and a laptop with one song playing over and over again in the background.

It's been quite a weekend.

 Here's back to the real world.