Soil Redemption Song

Michael Phillips, author of The Apple Grower and The Holistic Orchard, now has a new book, Mycorrhizal Planet, just published by Chelsea Green Publishing. There was some disagreement between Phillips and the publisher about the title for the book, so he conducted a poll asking friends for input. A cattle rancher, a regional publisher, a permaculture guru, a biodynamic herbalist, an academic, and an orchardist/artist, among others, all weighed in on which of three titles they preferred. I voted without hesitation for Mycorrhizal Alchemy, but Chelsea Green decided to go with Mycorrhizal Planet (Mycorrhizal Pathways was the other choice). Alchemy suggests transformation, mystery, and ancient practices, all of which I am drawn towards. It’s a little like taking old found objects and making them into art.

Linda Hoffman (left) and Madeleine Lord working on Belle the Bird in Hoffman's Studio, 2009

In the painting, The Alchemist by Cornelis Bega, a hunched figure sits in a cave-like room, intent on what is happening inside a glass jar. Books, notebooks, and earthenware pots surround him, suggesting a lifetime of mixing substances and studying their reactions. The alchemist is grounded and humble in Bega’s depiction. It’s a lonely art, much maligned as a materialistic quest to turn ore into gold; when, in fact, alchemists made considerable contributions to early science. 

The Alchemist, Cornelis Bega

I think of Michael Phillips like this alchemist, studying the threads of life in the soil, appreciating them, and sharing their magic. Mycorrhizal fungi form a fibrous network stretching throughout the soil, attaching to roots, and connecting plant roots to each other. These fungi process minerals and feed them up to the plants, sending up just what is required. They will even provide storage for a plant’s bounty until leaner times, or pass on needed nutrients to other plants. It's a hidden world that scientists are only beginning to explore.

Photo courtesy of Larry Petersen, University of Guelph

“Each and every Mycorrhizal pulsating with nutrient flow, [is] making our lives possible,” Phillips writes. I consider Phillip’s passion to understand soil devotional.

Interestingly, Buddhism conceives of our world as one in which everything is interrelated and interdependent; nothing is separate in all of existence (or non-existence). Buddhism uses the analogy of the jeweled Net of Indra to describe this global interconnectedness. Imagine a vast net spreading out infinitely in all directions. At every crossing point in the net is a reflective jewel, and each jewel contains the reflection of every other jewel. If I were to put a mark on one gemstone, it would appear on every other one. How we treat one person ripples across the entire world.  

The world under our feet is no different. Trees even share nutrients through Mycorrhizal fungi attached to their roots with trees of different species. It’s a little mind blowing — this network of fungi in the soil supporting the cosmic connection between all beings throughout space and time.

Phillips told me that he actually wanted the title to be Soil Redemption Song, inspired by Bob Marley’s haunting Redemption Song.

[…]
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look? Ooh
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the Book

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs

Michael told me that as he pondered the lyrics of this song, he wrote, “Healthy plant metabolism begins with a molecule of water, a breath of carbon, and light energy from our nearest star. The tangible science behind all this unlocks the righteous way to farm and garden, give honor to trees, and plain do right by this earth. Nothing has ever excited me more.”

Mycorrhizal Planet provides practical information for the farmer, gardener, orchardist, and forester, as well as inspiration for all of us who have temporarily lost heart from following the daily news. If you’d like to order the book please go to Phillips’ website. He’ll sign a copy and send it to you.

Listen closely when you next walk among the trees. You might just hear the great alchemist Bob Marley singing — transforming our pain with his courage. Listen!

The Hi-Line

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul.”

                        —Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves

It is Saturday morning as I write this blog in Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. I am here with my partner, Blase, to visit my son, Nick who lives here. It feels like everyone else I know is either readying for walking in one of the Women’s Marches or despairing about the inauguration. Since arriving in Kona two days ago, the ocean swells have been several times normal. Driving along the rocky coast Nick can’t keep his eyes on the road as he is drawn to watch the surf breaking in high waves along beaches and inlets that are usually quiet. We stop often to watch and photograph.

As I write on a terrace where I can see the breaking waves and hear the chorus of forceful, soulful, singing; I hear the energy of Martin Luther King breaking into our collective longing with I Had a Dream. I think about what I can  do in the upcoming days, and weeks, and months with this new world order. I think about what we can each do to shine our light, to fan the embers and make them glow.

On our first day we drove to the southernmost tip of the Big Island, the southernmost point of the United States. The trees grow horizontal, their branches pulled as if by some invisible force, an unceasing tug of war between the fierce thrust of the constant wind and the need for the tree to remain rooted. it felt like an apt metaphor for the position so many of us feel we are in today.

Yesterday we drove the opposite direction, to Popolu in the north, a rough, ragged beach with boulders and rough seas, that sits at the end of a valley between two great ridges.

Nick led us down the steep trail, knowing at the bottom some of his friends were already there. They had strung a hi-line between trees in the woods behind the beach.  A hi-line is a slack rope, and theirs was set so that you had to walk over a ravine. We watched as one man, strapped with harness and clipped onto the line so he couldn't fall to the ground, began. Body erect, arms shifting side to side, torso adjusting with each minute waver of instability, countering, moving from instability to stability to instability, never a moment of settling into inactivity. He knew how to walk the distance, he’s been walking the hi-line for a while, but had always feared the line when there was a deep crevice to cross. It takes immense concentration to simply step up and balance on a slack rope. You never look down, you must breathe and relax, and fiercely keep your point of focus. I watched his intense physical and emotional single-minded attentiveness with awe.  He had to quiet the uproar of fear or he would fall.

A young woman was up next.  He reminded her, “We are here to challenge ourselves, to go where we most fear.”

What do I fear most? That is the question I will carry with me.  At each moment what am I fearing? Because if I am fearing, then I am not loving. And there are only these two possibilities. There are infinite ways to carry the light. It is up to each of us to be uniquely ourselves and bare our souls. There are no shoulds, no instruction set for how to step forward; we are each on our own unique hi-line. But some of the same guidelines apply — concentrate, relax, give in, forget the self, and go for it. And perhaps most importantly, never forget to focus on what matters most to your own soul, because that will be the truth and that will kindle the flame for others. 

Judith Taisei Schutzman at the Boston March

Who are the Crones?

We are the crones, the old and wrinkled, wise ones. We have many names— Hecate, Spider Grandmother, Demeter; Siren, Gaea, and Oracle. We wait at the crossroads. We praise and encourage the living, we honor and care for the dying. In times of darkness, we know spring will return.

Woman Launching Boat, bronze sculpture, cherry wood, LH

At the time of the winter solstice ancient people believed that we must help the Light to be reborn. In many cultures, the crones facilitated this return. Women carried the mystery of life and death; women labored to guide back the sun. 

 Then things changed and men took control of women, especially in matters of religion.

Buddhism has traditionally followed the established social norms of the patriarchy into which the Buddha was born. When the Buddha established the rules for his followers, he differentiated between nuns and monks. Any nun, no matter how old or enlightened, had to bow down to a monk, even a novice. In Zen monasteries, the lineage of the transmission from one male teacher to the next has always been chanted as part of the service. Recently, things are changing. At Zen Mountain Monastery we now chant the names of the enlightened women of the way in addition to the male lineage. There were many great and compassionate teachers who taught students both male and female. Today, we have an altar in the front of the meditation hall for Mahapajapati, the first Buddhist nun and teacher.

I began to think about other groups of women left unsung. In the American frontier world, Johnny Appleseed is a celebrated hero. He stands out as a bold revolutionary, spreading seeds and saplings, helping the settlers establish ownership to land by planting an orchard, and sharing his beliefs based on the Swedenborg religion. But who are the frontier women who helped create this country?  I found a few famous names—Belle Star, Poker Alice, Pearl deVere, Annie Oakley, Etta Place, and Calamity Jane. Belle was known for riding in a black velvet dress, six guns on her hips, and holding up stagecoaches. Poker Alice—you guessed it—was a devilishly good poker player, and bordello owner. Pearl deVere operated The Old Homestead, a lavishly upscale brothel in Cripple Creek, Colorado. You get the picture. Nice women don’t make history, but the names we choose to remember determine the history we remember.

The myths of ancient people are filled with stories of goddesses whose powers equaled that of their male counterparts. The history of women in the West is much more than brothels, bars, and Wild West shows. It is the story of hardworking American women, Native American women, Spanish-Mexican women, and the Chinese immigrant women who were sold and shipped to California by their impoverished families to work in laundries, bars, and mining camps. We need to remember all of these women and what a dark place the world has been for so many of them.  

Solstice Fire, Old Frog Pond Farm, photo: Alexis Pappis

December 21st is the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year. At the farm we have a solstice fire where we reenact the return of the sun. In our ritual, it is the crones who go on a journey to find the sun and rebirth the Light. The crones remind us that there are many kinds of darkness. The darkness of racism and sexism, of hatred and war, of injustice, of sorrow and loss. The crones also remind us that there is darkness inside each of us, as well as a light. It is from this light, this often forgotten or darkened light, that the Goddesses labor, and birth the sun. Like Demeter knowing that she will be rejoined with her daughter, Persephone, we need to trust that the light will return, grief will be healed, and plants will bear fruit again.

Carl Jung said, "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." In remembering the names of those women who are forgotten, we shine light into the darkness of their cultural obscurity. As we light the solstice fire, we bring light to this world stamped with anger, aggression, and force. In gathering and opening our hearts to one another we grow the light. Happy Solstice!

Southern Apples, an Elephant, Monkey, Rabbit, and Bird, Two Mango Trees and a Birthday

I celebrated my 60th birthday this week. My partner, Blase, gave me a first edition of the book Old Southern Apples, written by Lee Calhoun. Southern apples might sound like an oxymoron, since not many people think of the South as an Eden of apples. But over 1300 varieties originated south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and these apples are an important part of the area’s agrarian history. Old Southerners not only talk about Bloody Butcher corn and Red Ripper peas, but the now extinct apples like Fall Ambrosia (sounds so delicious), and the still available Limbertwigs.

Old Southern Apples describes the unique features of over 1600 apple varieties (though 300 of them originated elsewhere but were grown in the South). The book divides these apples between 300 still growing or available at nurseries and 1300 now extinct Southern apples, the names and descriptions mostly taken from old nursery catalogues (a coincidence that both numbers are 300). The book also contains forty-eight plates of hand-painted apple pictures selected from the seven thousand in the collection of the National Agricultural Library. That was from the days when the United States Department of Agriculture hired artists!

Old Southern Apples, Plates 15 - 18; Photos: Jerry Markatos 

As you may know, apples grown from seed are the unique progeny of two parents, because the blossoms are cross pollinated. Most of these seeded trees crop with hard, sour, or small fruit, better for the hogs than for eating off the tree. Some apples are good for making hard cider and apple cider vinegar, but a few trees out of a thousand planted might produce unexpected, remarkable apples that would be given names and propagated. Of the 1600 apple varieties mentioned in this book, all of them grew from seed to be extraordinary apples. In the South, whether the settlers were large landowners or tenant farmers, they all planted out their orchards with seeds, they didn’t set out grafted rootstocks. It was the way it was done.

Today, it would be the rare individual who would scatter seeds to plant an orchard. After all, who would want a collection of wild apples? Large orchardists order sapling trees from wholesale nurseries in the thousands or even ten thousand. Blocks of the same variety, interspersed with another variety for pollinating, are planted. It is the researchers who cross apples and come up with new varieties for orchards to trial. A few apples become the darlings of the marketplace. This approach to apple growing is very different from the grand creativity that nature realizes with such ease. As Lao Tzu said, Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Inside my card, Blase tucked a print-out of a Buddhist tale. When King Mahajanaka, an earlier incarnation of the Buddha, was traveling through a park, he saw a monkey sitting on a branch of a mango tree. The King longed to stop and pick a few mangoes, but traveling with his large retinue, he had to continue without stopping. He decided he would sneak back alone that night to pick a few mangoes. That night, when he got to the grove, he lifted his torchlight and saw that someone had gotten there before him. The mango tree was stripped bare of fruit; its limbs were broken and its leaves lay scattered everywhere. He was saddened to think that this beautiful tree would likely not survive this ravagement. Then he saw another mango tree, one that had not been harmed. He realized that this tree avoided the carousing thieves because it had no fruit. The King returned and pondered his experience with the two mango trees. He decided he would renounce his title and give away everything he owned. He would become a tree without fruit. I love the story of the King Mahajanaka and the mango tree, but it could be taken as a teaching in renunciation. As many of you know, the orchard at Old Frog Pond Farm had no apples this year, and it was not because I renounced my title of orchardist.

The Birthday card Blase gave me was hand painted in Bhutan; he had saved it from our trip seven years ago. It is of a bird on a rabbit on a monkey’s shoulder, on an elephant (the bird and rabbit are hard to see). They are walking under a mango tree laden with fruit. It is an illustration of the “Four Harmonious Friends,” a much loved Bhutanese tale. These animals worked together; the bird planted the seed, the rabbit watered the sapling, the monkey fertilized it, and the elephant protected it until it grew into a beautiful tree with fruit for all of them.

"Four Harmonious Friends" handpainted in Bhutan

I loved my gift of so many fruit related stories. Our orchard is so much more than its acres of grafted trees. It’s a language we speak and share; a wild grove of poetry, paintings, sunsets, clouds, blossoms, and, hopefully next year, delicious fruit.