I began expressing my big Cancer emotions through writing at a very young age. For me, the unique act of writing is what allows me to process and evolve fully
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Today, my weekly missives follow themes that weave between the literal fields of my work in the Gemmo Forest, our family homestead garden, and the energy field we all experience.
My life now follows the rhythm of the land. From spring through fall, I can be found outdoors, hands in the dirt, working alongside her husband, Joachim, to tend our 7,500-square-foot family garden or with local volunteers caring for Gemmo Forest.
When the cold sets in and the fields rest, I return indoors, where I rekindle my love of writing by the wood stove, always with my faithful calico, Ruby, curled close by.
My experience has shown me the wisdom of remaining open to the possibility of growth in any and all circumstances, without ever knowing what shape that growth may take
~Rachel Naomi Remen
Dear Reader
I don’t remember exactly when I began a writing practice. I certainly didn’t yet consider it a practice, but rather an essential tool that helped me make sense of life’s uncertainties. It was part of my being before marriages and children, and certainly before I came to understand that what I was coherence.
This week, a number of new folks are glancing at these Field Notes for the first time, and I welcome you to this space. This set of notes is my attempt to pull the many threads of an intentionally seasonal life together on paper. Each week I can only hope that a story forms that brings me closer to understanding the journey we call life and illuminates something for you as well, reminding us both that we are all connected.
Rowan and Oma's 3rd Annual Onion Harvest
As I write today, I am pondering natural cycles that our amazing star and planetary movements create. There is the 24-hour cycle we call a day, the four-week lunar cycle, and the larger seasonal cycles, all guided by a greater force. I don't need to do anything to make the dark of night arrive or to encourage the arrival of chilly fall nights; they simply occur. I think the same can be said about personal cycles of growth and interest, although you may at times believe you are the driver; maturing has taught me otherwise. I have found that opportunities and portals into new realms arise of their own accord; my role is simply to choose how I wish to respond.
One such example arrived as a NOFA-NH email a few weeks back, inviting organic farmers to participate in a Food as Medicine conversation at Dartmouth Health. Although there was a long list of reasons for me not to go, including preferring a day in the garden over hours in a conference room, something in the message tugged a cord. A familiar resonance made me lean in and commit.
So it wasn’t a complete surprise that while listening to the California-based keynote speaker, I discovered what I sensed as familiar. Only a few minutes into her talk, I was catapulted back to the fall of 2010 and a series of faint yet profoundly moving memories. I had just recovered from several surgeries related to a second occurrence of melanoma cancer and was passionately in search of meaning. I believed with all my heart that my experiences were not personal, but meant to be transmuted into something of service to others. I just could not yet see what that might be. I immersed myself in spiritual studies, explored alternative therapies, and voraciously read everything I could find about food as medicine.
Rachel Katz and her newly published Cancer Fighting Kitchen came across my radar, and I devoured her writing and all the recipes within. And then somehow, and I am still not sure how, I was contacted by a dynamic Austin couple who asked if I would meet them at a local coffee shop. David and Joani had recently moved to Austin with their sights on establishing a cancer patient and caregiver retreat center. They thought I'd like to help. Their inspiration was the California center, Commonweal. Both having lost a former spouse to cancer, they had separate but equally moving experiences as participants in Commonweal’s Cancer Help program.
As eventual donors, they came to know the Commonweal team personally. That's why, in Spring of 2011, over the course of a long weekend, I found myself in the company of founder Michael Lerner and later in the center’s kitchen with chef, author, and educator Rachel Katz. It was a wild 9-month ride, and I was all in. But that July it all came to an abrupt halt. Just as the vision began to take form and land was about to be acquired, Joanie fell suddenly ill. At first it seemed like a virus, but that diagnosis changed within days. Scans showed a massive tumor, and she was rapidly admitted to MD Anderson in Houston for a first pre-surgery chemo treatment. That same evening, she suffered a massive stroke and lost consciousness. Within the course of 10 short days from the first recognized symptoms, she was gone.
The shock, the grief, and injustice of it all were too much for her dear husband, and in reality all of us. How does one vibrant human simply cease to exist in the course of a few short days? Although as a group we made several attempts to keep the energy we had built alive, coming together after Joanie passed proved too painful. By the end of summer, we all went on separate journeys.
It was a particularly painful chapter for me because it defied all I had come to believe about health and well-being. Cancer doesn’t sneak up on people, but did it? I struggled with my own mental well-being as I plunged myself further into homeopathic study and eventually Gemmotherapy, eventually opening my natural health care coaching practice a few short years later. But the Food as Medicine story and my personal desire to be of service to those facing cancers was still unfinished, at least until this week.
There I was, an hour and a half from home, in a conference room at Dartmouth Health around a table engaged in active conversation with other passionate beings. This time I wasn’t a recovering cancer patient or a practitioner, but an organic farmer whose every cell knows food is medicine. My journey and what we learned is why we grow the way we do, why we believe in soil health, and why we are passionate about sharing what we have discovered with others. The day-long program was promising, but it was the old embers that it stirred that have caught my interest.
I hadn’t thought of Commonweal, David and Joani, or that magical stretch of time for nearly 15 years. At first I felt too vulnerable to explore what it all meant, and later I was uninspired to poke around what had become a dull ache. Today I think of a question I heard Astrologer Kathy Rose once share: Aren’t you tired of remembering it that way? Yes. I am tired of that ache. I am also deeply grateful for the arc of this personal cycle that has come around into my vision. As with all cycles, I can now revisit this theme with all I have learned and who I am today.
The conversations with NOFA-NH and the Food is Medicine team at Dartmouth have only just begun, but I would say they are off to a very good start. How and what I do today connects is still to be determined, but even if nothing transpires, I’ve already been given a very unexpected gift.
Energies I will be noting in the week ahead:
Saturday 22 August: It's Virgo season and not a moment too soon for me. It's time to use that gorgeous Virgo energy and get things done, in an organized fashion, of course. I'll be kicking off the season with a pantry clean.
Sunday, 23 August, the Sun begins its transit through Gate 59, and I will be wishing one of my two Virgo daughters a Happy Birthday. Aside from that, the Oracle of the I Ching Hexagram 59 suggests setting aside personal interest and pursuing public interest. Dispel what has been oppressive and honor our ancestors to receive further insight.
Friday, 28 August: In the earliest hours of the day, it's the Eclipse season finale, the Full Blood Moon in Pisces. Eclipse energy can be unsettling, so I will be keeping my bare feet on the ground and my schedule as clear as possible. Nurture yourself the days before, during, and after.
Until next week,
Upcoming Keene Workshop: Growing Goodness
Saturday, 12 September, 11 am - 1 pm
A morning exploration of 6 super support plants that deliver a bounty of goodness to the soil, wildlife and your health. Come meet: Calendula, Chamomile, Comfrey, Mullein, Nettles, and Yarrow. Class size limited; register here now.
All proceeds support the Growing Growers Apprentice Fund
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Field Notes from Lauren
Lauren Hubele
I began expressing my big Cancer emotions through writing at a very young age. For me, the unique act of writing is what allows me to process and evolve fully
.
Today, my weekly missives follow themes that weave between the literal fields of my work in the Gemmo Forest, our family homestead garden, and the energy field we all experience.
My life now follows the rhythm of the land. From spring through fall, I can be found outdoors, hands in the dirt, working alongside her husband, Joachim, to tend our 7,500-square-foot family garden or with local volunteers caring for Gemmo Forest.
When the cold sets in and the fields rest, I return indoors, where I rekindle my love of writing by the wood stove, always with my faithful calico, Ruby, curled close by.
Want to read this email on the web? Click here. Sunflower is what you plant when you’re done fighting nature and ready to partner with it. ~Jay Drysdale Dear Reader On Wednesday, the land and gardens hummed not only from our bee friends but from the mindful tending of many hands. A joyful team got an early start as late summer projects were ticked off the list in preparation for two open days for the Gemmo Forest and our family gardens. There were mowers mowing, loppers lopping, and snippers...
Want to read this email on the web? Click here. The revolving cycle finds us each year at a different moment in the story of our own lives; the unfolding events of history change us, but the seasons do not change. ~Eleanor Parker Dear Reader This week had me out in the new Gemmo Forest herb beds with intern Lucie and later pulling onions in the front garden; both areas where Mullein is plentiful. From my first encounters, I fell hard for this Dr. Seuss character of a plant. With its plush...
Want to read this email on the web? Click here. Within you there is a stillness and sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself. ~Hermann Hesse There is a settling of the land and the gardens with the arrival of August. What will be is already in progress; what won’t just isn’t meant for this season. From April onwards its been a steady monthly build-up and August delivers a series of peaks and plateaus. Harvest time is in full swing, and yet it is punctuated with pauses....