Darkness to Light

When the farm is covered with snow, and the darkest day of the year is here, I always remember a story I used to read to my children, The Seal Oil Lamp, about a blind Inuit boy. Though it is their custom to kill children born with a handicap because they will become a burden for the community, the parents beg the chief to allow them to keep this child, their firstborn. They name him, Alugua, and he grows from an infant to an adorable little boy with a remarkable capacity for kindness. One winter he finds a baby mouse, and cares for it faithfully through the long winter, until it can be released in spring.

Then, one day, the chief comes to talk to the parents and tells them that the time has come. Their son’s blindness will be a liability for the tribe. For they have long distances to travel to move to their winter homes. The boy, now seven, is too big to be carried and he is too slow to walk along with the tribe. The parents must now follow the custom of leaving him in their snow home with a little food, knowing that when they return in the spring, he will be dead. It’s the old way, it is for the survival of the community. The young boy is left with a seal oil lamp burning, a little food, and the door is closed. It’s a haunting moment and difficult to read, especially to one’s children. 

Photo: Alexis Pappas

But turning the page, we learn that mysteriously, the oil lamp does not go out. And once the food is gone, a Mouse Mother comes and brings him food. Every day the mouse visits. The mouse dances with him and even teaches him an old hunting song. The boy survives his abandonment. He lives through this time of loneliness with the companionship and care of Mouse Mother. 

The tribe returns, and the boy’s parents must pry open the door. With hearts breaking and tears rolling down their cheeks, they carefully remove blocks of frozen ice. Inside, miraculously, they find their son alive and well.

The community all marvel that the boy survived. They reason that Alugua must have special power and they promise to honor and care for him. As the boy grows, he asks to be taken on hunting trips. At first the men are reluctant, but the boy perseveres, and he is finally allowed to accompany them. The hunting is not good and the hunters return day after day without food. The boy decides to go out alone. He sings the haunting hunting song taught by Mouse Mother. The song brings fish who offer themselves for the well-being of his people. Alugua becomes known as a great hunter and provider. He always returns some of the flesh to the sea, an offering of appreciation and gratitude.  

The story is not only a teaching about our dependence on other creatures, but a teaching on the profundity of darkness. In his deep and lonely darkness, during a time when he never knew if he would ever see his loved ones again, he found the gift that he alone could offer his community. The blind boy learned the song that would save his people. 

Solstice Fire at Old Frog Pond Farm, 2010 Photo: Alexis Pappas

Today, on the Solstice, the shortest day of the year, the day of the longest darkness, the Covid pandemic has taken the lives of close to 1.7 million people in the world, and changed the lives of so many more. Is there something we can learn from this dark time? Is there a song we will learn or a poem we will share? What is our unique offering to feed our community. Can we make a commitment, born of these difficult times, to work together to bring us out of the darkness, and move us into the light?  We need each other to keep the flame alive. I know I need you.

Photo: Alexis Pappas

One Heart

The oaks reveal their stark and pointed branches now that their leaves have fallen to the ground. They reach for the clouds; they scallop the sky. They shimmer in ripples in the pond. But near the bank where the soft and leafy ground meets the water, there is only darkness. Shade cast by the white pines extends out from the land. I travel through this darkness as if on a turtle’s back, out almost to the middle of the pond.

Turtle Refuge, bronze, LH 2020

We ride beyond the quivering muddiness, beyond the discomforts, beyond the thick pines that obscure any light or shape to where the branches point direction.

We ride in a small boat—fellow refugees, activists, seekers, artists, and poets. What can we do during these strange times?  What has meaning when so much is taken away? Where can we find something that holds? A place to land.

Boat Refuge, wax, 2020, LH

I search for a place where pond and sky meet inside my body—where I can form love with warm wax pressed between my fingertips. I made this small sketch, an idea for a new sculpture.

After finishing it, (it’s at the foundry and I don’t have a photo of the final version in wax) I started work on One Heart, three times as large.

One Heart, wax, 2020 LH in the studio. (15”H x 14”W x 6”D)

I sent a photo to a friend and moments later she sent back this poem by Li-Young Lee.

  One Heart

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open

at either end of the day.
The work of wings

was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing. 

I quickly wrote back, “How could you find such a perfect poem? A thousand falling hearts in the open sky to you!!”

She answered, “I love it so much it's taped to the inside lid of my incense box at the office. I read it every day.”

Next will be a larger heart. Maybe there will be room for birds and flowers, a few fish and trees on this one. After all, we are in relationship with everything else. We are interdependent and interconnected. We are one heart.

Juggling Flowers, Fruit, and Vegetables

The Garden: photo Robert Hesse

Raspberries, butternut squash, and tomatoes have taken over my Saturday mornings when I would normally write the blog for Sunday. I know how to juggle three balls from my days as a professional mime, but throw in a little art, add some poetry, and the juggling gets even more thrilling.

Our Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit, Around the Pond and through the Woods on the theme of REFUGE continues Thursdays through Sundays, 11 - 4 pm.

Refuge Within, Liz Fletcher: Photo Robert Hesse

Walt Whitman visits the farm on Saturday, September 19th at 2 pm.
We will be hosting a visit from the towering Walt Whitman. If you’ve never seen Stephen Collins’ portrayal of the young, questioning Whitman, as well as the aging brilliant raconteur of love and longing, this is a rare opportunity to enjoy it en plein air. Stephen will be performing in front of the pond near my studio. Flinging Whitman’s words to the open sky makes Whitman’s poetry soar. I imagine even the kingfishers will pause to listen. Seating is limited so RSVP to reserve your seat. Tickets: $15.

Live Plein Air Poetry on Sunday afternoon, September 20th at 3 pm.
Join 26 poets sharing the poems they have written for Refuge, our online chapbook of site-specific poetry, inspired by the fields, pond, garden, trees, and creatures who live at the farm. The Zoom event will feature photographs by Brent Mathison who traced the paths of the poets and captured the glow of their words. Lynn Horsky designed the elegant chapbook. Poetry Editor Susan Edwards Richmond will be our host. You can join the livestream of this event beginning at 3 pm Sunday, at  facebook.com/OldFrogPondFarm and download the chapbook at at: penandanvil.com/hw/chapbooks.  There will be an opportunity to order a digital print copy as well.

On Saturday, September 26th we celebrate Bolton Harvard Open Studios from 10—4 pm.

When the farm season ends, I look forward to returning to more intimate blog post writing. Meanwhile, I hope you are keeping all your balls in the air!

Linda Hoffman, A Mudhead Mime, 1975

Refuge

Last night a friend said, “When I visit the farm it feels like a prayer.” Early this morning I walked through the raspberry patch and picked a pint of nature’s jewels. Each one a gift in the midst of so much uncertainty and suffering.

The farm season is changing. We are preparing to open for visitors. After laboring in the long hot days of summer, the fruits and vegetables, as well as the farmers, are breathing with more ease. The ripening is here, the bounty of nature. Vines are growing upwards heavy with heirloom tomatoes, others are sprawling across the open field landing here and there with juicy melons, while still others, the underground tubers of banana fingerling potatoes, wiggle in the soil.

The earth is alive and producing.

We will open for pick-you-own raspberries in week or so. All details will be posted on our website along with instructions for visiting to insure the safety of visitors and our farmers. Please check before you come. We will use our website opening page to let you know of daily changes.

The Ripening Begins!

Artists also offer sustenance. Old Frog Pond Farm artists have created new sculptures on the theme of Refuge and our annual outdoor exhibit, Around the Pond and Through the Woods, will be open Thursdays through Sundays, 11-4 pm, beginning on September 3.

Monk, Madeleine Lord, welded steel

We’ve also created a few shady groves along the trails where you can take refuge.

Twenty-six poets have written eloquent poems inspired by the farm on the theme of Refuge. We will not host a ‘live’ plein air poetry event this year: the event draws too many people. Instead, we are publishing an online journal and will host a zoom reading with the poets on Sunday, September 20 at 3 pm. Photographer, Brent Mathison is taking photos of the sites that inspired the poets and these will be pinned at the zoom event. More details will follow, but save the date!

Photo for Cattail Blues, Brent Mathison

Cattail Blues
—Didi Chadran

A cool, astringent wind interrupts
A late Spring heatwave, wafting the cattails,
Which sway, shimmer, sway again, resilient.

Graceful, they bend like blue notes picked, plaintive
On a hollow-bodied guitar. They tremolo and
Sustain in an ostinato whisper.

The call-and-response of Schlieren heat and
Tonic gusts croons of heartbreak and new love,
Release and reinvention, poetry

And commerce. The plants’ lot is to shelter,
Protect, and nourish the reeds’ seedlings and
Model resolve against wind, drought, and flood.

Wafting like fingers apoise on the strings
To bend to the future. It brings what it brings.

Our self-serve farm stand will continue to be open seven days a week through October. Kohlrabi, kale, broccoli, and other fall plants are going in the ground. Long-awaited, albeit brief rains, are finally falling and the earth is a little less parched. The weather beings hear our prayers!

Be well and come visit us!

Can you find the one small worm among all these organically grown tomatoes?