i awoke today with a new thought in my head (new to me, old to the world): farmers are an enlightened bunch. neither mystic nor philosophic; rather, phenomenologic. farmers are irrepressibly attached to the land. to experience. to the tangible objects of the natural world. and it is this land that both molds and is molded by them. so they wake before the sun, set on comforting their charges as the sun unveils another productive day. and they work with the day, sunrise to sunset. but within this bracket are brakes for food, for loving, for repair. and as the sun sets these Farmers close another day with broad and minute accomplishments--personal, familial, local, global.
of course, as thoughts go in the wee hours of dawn, on screen this all sounds rather naive, idealistic, perhaps a lot like caramel-coated optimism. but when i put this so called phenomenology of the farmer into practice, living today with clear purpose, moving from task to task (while braking to eat, walk the dogs, love my husband), i was struck by how slowly and enjoyably the day moved. the television could no longer steal hours at the press of a button. the neighbors could no longer frustrate the view from my front window. so i decided to start this blog as a reminder and a catalog of how my family and i will attempt to recalibrate our lives.
we left the icy wilds of alaska just over one year ago. and while we miss the solitude and quiet adventure of home, we have discovered that city life--particularly life in the reemerging locale of new orleans--eagerly serves to remind us of how living depends on individuals. and individuals depend on the land. and the land depends irrevocably on the thoughtfulness of its 'farmers.' we strive to be such farmers. this will be our story. the cycle of coming back to ourselves.
we hope our individuality will inspire yours... and that your comments will add depth and candor to what we think of as the phenomenal logic of our 'farm' experiment.
As usual your writings cause me to think. I wondered about the farmer and how many are still touching the earth. I had to look up the word "phenomenologic" and it lead me through Edmund Husserl to agnosticism versus faith. Reading your writings is always a learning experience. That is your gift. I thought about the variety of your homesteads, and the lure of the far off place and the travel of Kerouac and Steinbeck - Is it the lure of something new or an escape from the burden of home? Farming is a nice metaphor of life in that we plant the seeds of our foundations, cultivate our lives and harvest the rewards. It is the choices of what we plant that defines us; our goodness, our connectivity to others, how we understand and relate to the phenomena around us. Please keep writing for all of us.
ReplyDeleteI hope that the people who live in New Orleans become acquainted with your blog since they are truly dependent on their land for safety and as well as providing and maintaining a unique cultural environment. The "farmers" could be those who are in charge of keeping New Orleans safe and inviting to all.
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