Before I get into it— three offerings for these complex times. Do come find us if being with others in the virtual realm and being in practice sounds supportive. I’ll share more deeply about both of these after the orchard catch up!
Thursday September 11th is “Clearing the Channel: an eclipse season astrology + breathwork workshop” I’m offering with astrologer (and my love and co-orchard tender Rose Blakelock). Virtual, sliding scale, a recording for everyone who signs up so even if you can’t join live but want to work with eclipse season energy— you can!
For 5 Wednesday’s starting October 15th— I’m offering “EARTHBODYBREATHSTORY: creative writing + breathwork for meeting the polycrisis”. Virtual, sliding scale, and while you are really invited to show up live each week— recordings will be sent out in case you have to miss a week.
And if 1:1 support is more your speed— I have virtual, sliding scale breathwork or herb consultations available.
I’ve been having such a hard time finding my words. Or— maybe not finding my words but finding the desire to share them beyond my own body. After navigating extremely hard circumstances last year, I found myself desiring even more silence, even more space and stillness but here we are at the end of a summer, in a different year, in a whole new landscape— the green bounty of an ancient orchard overloaded with apples and pears and a bounty that has and will continue to require much from us. Friends we haven’t seen much ask us how our summer has been. Well? It’s been a summer (and spring and late winter) of work, that’s for sure. Both pur full-time jobs and what wants to be a full-time job— the orchard.
Now the caretakers of about 50ish fruit trees— planted in 1956 and 1957— and a larger garden (mini-farm) that I’ve ever cared for, each season is making its demands. Late winter was for pruning the trees that hadn’t been truly pruned in more than a decade (we’ve been told). Then came preparing the soil for the medicinal herb garden and filling the raised beds with native soil and delicious, nutrient dense compost. I went big and have lived to regret it. LOL. But what I mean by that is I did not fully take into account all the weeding, watering, and attention that would be required especially as I navigated intense heat waves and abundant mosquitos which, alongside some other triggers, exacerbated the ongoing echoes of long covid in my limbs this last month.
We are lucky to have in ground irrigation for flooding the orchard, the rose garden, and the main garden bed but the sheer size of it all means we walk out nearly every morning to flood a different area. Hours and hours of fresh, chilled water sinking into the dry earth. The trees and rose bushes are drinking it up— grateful for never-ending water straight from the Rio Grande by way of the ancient acequia waterway. I am grateful too— this kind of access to water is not common in so-called New Mexico. We are lucky to be in an agricultural valley rich with heritage and tradition and the kindness and generosity of neighbors.
We also had to rider mow the orchard every 3 or so weeks as this was clearly a mosquito breeding ground. (Also rare in New Mexico but in a much less cool way.) And now we are entering harvest time— boughs literally breaking under the sheer number of red and golden fruit. There’s the collecting for use and eating but there’s also picking up the fallen apples so that we don’t make it easier for the the relentless codling moths. And then this too will end leading into more pruning of dead and diseased limbs, taking down some of the height and water shoots, and planning out next year’s gardens (I’m moving back to raised beds for a year or so in order to really get the larger mini-farm soil ready for more abundant growing.)
This kind of scale and pace keeps one humble— Rose and I are well aware that we are brand new, have much to learn, and that the work required is continuous. It will not all be done this year. Or the next. Or even the next. Instead a kind of faith in the flow, in the learning, a kind of patience and allowance of never actually finishing anything is required. I am not yet very good at this faith! I am trying!
And while I know we have done a lot— truly a ton— in the 8 months we have been here— I’ve still been catching myself feeling like I’ve not done enough and that the garden didn’t “produce” as much as I had hoped. But the garden did indeed provide— a wild amount of fresh milky oats that went straight into organic alcohol and raw apple cider vinegar and organic glycerine for three varieties of nervous system goodness, enough lemon balm, tulsi, white sweet clover, rosemary, red clover, lobelia, garden sage, and blue cornflowers for herbal remedy making in the coming year (and more supplemented by trusted organic farmers). Endless wildflowers on the kitchen table. In the raised beds— tomatoes and collards and lacinato kale and multiple kinds of chilis from our neighbor-farmer- friend Danny and dill and basil and beyond. I also stuffed myself silly with Danny’s known far and wide orchard frown peaches and cherries.
It’s been a summer (or a year, really) of “chop wood and carry water”, to trust that every little bit of time we are spending putting our noses to the grindstones, returning the orchard to its glory will continue to be revealed. That 5 and 10 years from now we will say “it was worth it”. And I am learning a lot about listening, about staying with more than human life, the trees and plants and animals that rely on this land for their very lives. (You definitely want to check out my “Notes” here to see the baby skunks we unexpectedly got very obsessed with.)
There is also a lot of planning for the future— we would love to be able to get in place all the necessary systems to be able to share organically grown fruit at local farmer’s markets, to donate to school and community food programs, to share widely.
In these times of continued crisis— I am remembering about both being but a cog in the wheel and a ghost in the machine— not taking up too much space, not getting ahead of myself, and planning for the more difficult days ahead through taking care of land and growing food and medicine for all of us who will need it.
+++
Ok— if you made it this far— a bit more info about the upcoming workshop and additional series!
“This month brings the latest chapter in a series across the axis of Pisces and Virgo. We are suspended between these portals in a time outside of time. Eclipse seasons mark periods of acceleration and strangeness and often prompt grand entrances and exits. How can we clear the way? How can we listen closely and try to learn when and how to hold on, and what to loosen our grip around? How can we work to tend and clear the channel, and find some path towards resolution and satisfaction?
Working with breath is a practice of working with our own energy. Where does it get stuck? Where does it move freely? Where does judgment show up? Where is there more capacity for patience and acceptance of our complexity? Each inhale enlivens our whole body. Each exhale gives us a chance to release and let go, trusting another inhale will follow. Our connection to our breath allows us to bring into sharp focus what feels life giving and what feels life taking. In this practice, we have the opportunity to notice when we fall into habit and where there might be an opportunity to exercise some agency or choice.
In this 120 minute workshop we will explore the eclipse cycle through writing prompts, astrological insight and themes, and a dynamic Diaphragmatic and Three Part Breath breathwork practice to help clear the old and make room for the new, to find choice and agency, and to help focus our energy and direct it towards more aliveness.” Join us!
“In this 5 week workshop series, we will dive into the body— our earthbody— through story and conscious breath, uncovering what is still alive and pulsing in the midst of collective violence, illness, and great loss. These are times of great disconnection— from ourselves, from each other, from this earth. But they don’t have to be! Many of our bodies are experiencing illness, collapse, change, and crisis in real time (mine included)— mirroring the collapse, violence, and crisis of human-induced late/ end stage capitalism, rising fascism, hyper-militarization, genocide, war, and ecological collapse.
What happens when we acknowledge the mirroring, connect the dots between outside and inside? What is still breathing in the collapse? What parts of your body stories serve you, and which parts are asking for a re-write? What can we learn from land, plants, and animals as we continue through these change times? Can we root into the complexity of the present moment with purpose, presence, and creativity? Can we commit to bringing more presence to our days as a practice of reconnection?
Guided by our wise bodies, resilient, adaptive landscapes, and the more-than-human world of animals and plants, we will listen for, bring presence to, and translate the stories of the human-bodies and land-bodies while remaining open to how that story shifts and transforms, births and breaks, blooms and goes to seed. In this way, we come into relationship with land— and the violence and regenerative capacity in the very soil— as grief work and joy work, tending the losses and the aliveness carried in soil, water, bloom, and body alike. Alone and together, we will explore how connection to breath, body, earth, and story can expand our capacity to be with chaos, hopelessness, and impossible times while also opening to hope, possibility, and renewal.
We will read together, write together, practice restorative and enlivening breath practices, and then write a bit more together, with space for sharing if you wish— though sharing is never required. This series is a space for both grief and celebration, pain and joy, pausing and action, words and wordlessness.
Bring your tired bodies, your wounded bodies, your pain bodies, and your grief bodies to be held and listened to through intentional creative and somatic practice. Through presence and practice, we will nurture resiliency and adaptation, awaken aliveness, and deepen trust and communication as pathways into revitalization and collective transformation.” Join us! This series will be capped so do join when and if you are sure.