Our Hands

Our hands have become unemployed. technology has slowly made life easy, so that are hands have little more to do then operate machines, which in turn do the work. I have always loved the idea of hands, that our hands reflect our lives.  Grandmothers hands wrinkled, worn, strong, scarred. Hands that could completely take care of all of ones needs.
"Many hands make light work": but we don't need many hands anymore, we hardly need our own...

I love when my hands have will no longer come clean, " I'll just have to wait for the skin to come off"- dumpster diving, filtering vegetable oil for my car, dirt under my nails from gardening. callouses from work that would make panty hose run.

I like using my hands and knowing that they can take care of me.

Finally, there is purpose.

I started this blog over four years ago, and I had no idea really what I wanted to provide here. It was a feeling, without content. Since then Life has taken me and a vivid, wild and intimate adventure. Now, I have arrived clear about my vocation, passion, self-expression and intention.
 I have Become a Farmer, an Ecologist, An Educator and A Healer.

As this reality presented its self , I was called out for hiding out "Pickin' Weeds"  to which I fire built in my belly, that I had not felt since I was in the depth of studies of global issues. 
Then My Heart Roared:

 I go to bed late. I wake up early.

I drive from Long Beach to San Juan Capistrano. I sweat like a beast, I'm burnt up by night. I forgo a decent paycheck and benefits. I insist.

Why? Because I believe.

I believe that there are enough people talking about it and not enough doing something about it.

I know I don't need to tell you about peak oil, pollinator eradication, soil depletion, waste cumulation, obesity, cancer, diminishing communities, or nature deficit disorder.

...

You know.

And I choose to grow. I choose to farm. I choose to educate. I choose to stand for a future that hasn't panned out yet.
Because I believe,

This is one of the answers. That will make the biggest impacts.

That when the shift occurs I can say, I did my best.

 

 

This is one of the most beautiful videos I have ever seen that I feel echoed by take a moment to enjoy and be inspired:

 

 



concrete

in my room there are no bookselves. in fact there are no bookshelves in my entire house. it is not my house. but I live in it. and so there is a stack. a large stack of books that have accumulated on the small floor in my room.

There are books on gardening, and urban farming, books on nutrition and natural healing, a book on grant writing and a book on building ones own cabin. there is a book on fertility and midwifery, there is a book on sewing, two cookbooks and two large books on indigenous people. for good measure one large bible.

All of these have been acquired since november. ( excluding the bible)


Had you seen my bookshelves a year ago there would have been books on psychology, sociology, theology, some poetry books, lots of christian living books, a spattering of world religion, there would also have been some travel books, languages, philosophy and some of what I consider to be really good literature.

It is not that these things are unimportant to me now. and It would be wrong to say that
"a transformation has occured"
I have become consumed with the present, the close, the concrete. The immediate, the seen and sensed. Products of my hands rather then intellect.

And it is not believe that they are divided, and perhaps that is why the switch in focus is was so easy. I did not forsake one thing for another. I have accepted them as one. The work of my hands can be as glorifying to God as if I spent time in a worship service. I have just begun to see "God" in the soils, in our biology, in created things. I see His prints all over. I do not look to the heavens anymore when I pray, I look into the eyes of those I am praying for, I stare at the city, the trees and everything growing and changing near me. I see him in my own humanness I feel closest to him when I am most fully human, most connected to my surroundings, most present.

Everything we do is art

" There is an old Sanskrit word, lila, which means play. Richer then our word it means divine play, the play of creation, destruction and recreation, the folding and unfolding of the cosmos. lila,free and deep, is both the delight and enjoyment of this moment, and the play of God. It also means love.

Lila may be the simplest thing there is- spontaneous childish disarming. But as we grow and experience the complexities of life, it may also be the most difficult and had-won achievements imaginable, and it is coming to fruition s a kind of homecoming to our true selves"

I have been infatuated with the movement, the global movement, the largest uprising human history has seen. I specifically am watching, following and am drawn to all that happening within the realm of agriculture.

some people have gotten very serious about their causes, as it is easy to do so, they are addressing serious injustices- against people and the earth. I read blogs and meet leaders that have become critical, and have separated themselves from the rest of functioning society, even friends and loved ones.

which is seemingly natural, the movement is insisting on a completely new way of life, new culture, new power systems, new economics. I am drawn to those moving towards what they believe Jesus new world is like. But from what I've learned, regardless of religious affiliation, humanities collective genius is moving in a way that looks like the lion laying down with the lamb. (blessed unrest).

I watched a film yesterday, "Row hard, no excuses"- a documentary of rowing across the atlantic in teams of two. Watching couples from around the world go on a 3000 miles endevour, there were some distinctly different approaches. Two fellows from spain let the whole trip be play, even while they sat still in the dulldrums they played, laughed hard, shouted and swam with the sea creatures. as they came in 19th place more then two weeks after the leader they hooped and hollard hugged their "competition" who were only companions to them

lila, the divine play of creation, destruction and recreation, is the only way we will successfully carry out this movement, lila with be the force by which we bring down the old structures..."it also means love"