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.
We are accountable to the next generation. We have to give the next generation a world that does not frighten them.
~Avijeet Das
Dear Reader,
This week I planted narcissus bulbs. Quite a few, I might add, and in the planting process, there was just enough spaciousness to observe my struggle with an inner storm of emotions. Because there were decades of my life that didn’t allow for self-reflection, I don’t take these opportunities for granted. So here I am crouched close to the earth, bundled against the cold, watching with more than a bit of awe as the buildup of emotional pressure, when allowed to just be, set free a string of long-sealed memories. While my hands were busy placing bulbs, I was led back to 1972.
But before we time-travel, I want to acknowledge that our collective and painful power struggle over food access affects us all in different ways. As a culture, we mostly prefer not to discuss it, but what we don’t discuss can’t heal. If you’ve never experienced food insecurity, I am sure it is difficult to imagine just how demoralizing it can be. If you have, getting curious about its wounding feels important as does getting in touch with why it rubs you. This week I learned a bit more about the root of my feelings.
Small town life in rural central California meant long bus rides home from September to June. Most after-school days blended together during my 8th-grade year, but for one. A glimpse of the tailgate of my Uncle’s green Ford pick-up alerted me that something was amiss. Not only was its presence unusual, but it was parked where the family station wagon should have been. Uncle Elm, who stood up from where he had been seated at the kitchen table, was known to have a range of two emotional tones, gruff and gruffer. On this day, he used his most guarded gruffness to break the news that our adoptive father had taken a bad fall. We three stood stock still in the mud room, wide-eyed in disbelief. We would be going home with him tonight, he informed us. Go on and get your things, "he said." I’ve got cows to milk, and you can help. There would be no questions or further discussion with him; that was clear.
An ironworker in the San Francisco Bay Area, Les Johnson, supported his growing family during the boom of skyscraper construction in the city. He had scaled the heights of the Bank America Center, One Embarcadero Center, and the Transamerica Pyramid with ease. But on one fateful day, he took a misstep on a new build on Market Street and free-fell a dozen stories onto freshly poured concrete footings spiked with rebar reinforcements. The fact that he survived is one thing, but the limit to his physical injuries was nothing short of a miracle, and he would say that for the rest of his days. Unaccounted for, however, those initial weeks was the damage the fall did to his nervous system. That injury could and would not be so easily stitched back together. Once recovered, he was left without the only livelihood he knew.
While only 12, I was wise enough to see that my bedridden father had damaged more than his legs on that fall. And the fact that the grocery money dried up in a matter of weeks didn’t help. In a household that lived marginally well from paycheck to paycheck, the sudden loss of his income and guiding force was devastating. Through thin walls each night, I overheard strained conversations on how to stretch the meager workman’s compensation checks to cover the mortgage, doctor bills, and put our food on the table. I worried, like all young children do, about how I could make things right.
For my grade school brothers and me, the strained finances soon meant free school lunches. As a new middle schooler, navigating tenuous friendships, there was no way I could stand in that free lunch line; each day, my young pride chose an empty stomach over humiliation. After school, I faced an entirely different challenge. As the designated family shopper, I underwent a crash course on food stamps, attempting to wrap my young brain around legislation that regulated what these stamps could buy and, more importantly, what they could not. Naturally, there was a thick cloak of shame attached to using food stamps in such a small town. There’s simply no way to hide a transaction with colored slips of paper in place of dollar bills. I can still recall the pounding of my racing heart as my clammy hands shuffled through coupons at the checkout, dying a thousand times over if my secret crush of the moment happened to be bagging our groceries.
As I sift through these long-forgotten memories, what stands out most is how profoundly these experiences have shaped my adult feelings about food, hunger, and the men who control its access. It brings home the extent of today’s misuse of power. Yes, today’s crisis will make life even harder for struggling parents, but its impact on the children is what tears at my heart. I ask myself what these hundreds and thousands of children are hearing right now through thin walls or about them in the school yard? How will it shape them as adults and our culture in the decades to come?
This story has one more chapter, and it provides a tie to my commitment to farming and gardening that I pursue today. It begins with those long winter afternoons when my father recuperated. I would rush home to sit by his bedside and read to him from my literature book, sharing the day's discussion and debating the author's intention. The moments were bittersweet but ones I have always cherished. Soon the seasons shifted as they do, and so did his physical strength. We took our reading sessions outdoors, where I would sit under a tree and he would pace off what would become our very first family garden. A garden in which we could grow food that didn’t require an oversight committee, and a place I could wander and let what was mature dictate the meals I would prepare. In the planning process, I witnessed a man return to the land of the living, regain hope in an uncertain future, and reconnect with skills he had learned from his South Dakota farming family.
This feels like a good place to leave you and express my gratitude for the weather that allowed me to carry on with my bulb planting, the emotions that set this precious memory free, and to you for allowing me to share my story.
Copyright @2025 Gemmos with Lauren Hubele You are receiving this email because you have shown interest in Gemmos with Lauren Hubele? Lauren's work? Lauren's writing? Our mailing address is: Gemmotherapy with Lauren Hubele 180 Hurricane Road Keene, New Hampshire 03431
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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. It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications. ~Nora Ephron Dear Reader, The window for remaining garden tasks is quickly closing. Throughout the week, I've only managed to snatch a bit of time here and there when the sun broke through the overcast skies and temperatures hovered above freezing. In those short stretches, I found a way to slip in a few more bulbs, plant a peony root, or...
Want to read this email on the web? Click here. But what now? What am I supposed to do with all these feelings? ~Jenny Han Dear Reader, The fifth time I began this letter and deleted my writing, I recognized that uncertainty is the story. In the face of this collective experience, I am continually revising my most appropriate next action and reconsidering the words to say and write. The constant state of processing what I have no context for prevents me from reaching a place of cognition and...
Want to read this email on the web? Click here. Our lives aren't meant to be fast and functional…Our lives were created to be vibrant--enriched with the foods that make us feel like we’re truly living, to the very fullest. ~Sarah Copeland Dear Reader, What is the thing that makes you feel safe, connected with yourself, and at home when you travel? My recent two travel weeks and four destinations provided me with a rich opportunity to ponder this question. While what I discovered wasn’t...
