I can't wait to listen to this song. What gentle strength in your thoughts and writing, always a joy.
We are grazing Angora rabbits at a community garden attached to an adventure playground in Brixton, South London. I sat with Alice this morning and brushed the doe. When there was enough, she started to card and then spin the fibre, it floated on the gentle breeze.
The undeniable magic of animals grazing on the land has the kids spellbound, they are learning the plants that the rabbits love. Each one will gift enough fibre in a year to make a jumper.
Adam. Many thanks for another Monday morning invitation to intertwine with your insights. Once again your words layer together thoughts, emotions, and experiences in a way that ring true both on the universal and personal level. It is remarkable to me how often you weave pieces of the world that appear to be pulled from my own observed or lived circumstances but have transformed them into concise, compelling, quilted fabrics to take refuge in and explore places of uncertainty within a safe space.
If I could post photos, I'd share an image from a friend's farm I visited this weekend. I drove out of the city of Chicago only two hours. Shared a Friday supper with good friends and two young visitors on route from Colorado to New York. I was camping on their land to participate in a Saturday volunteer farm work day. I woke at sunrise and after walking in the morning light the flock of neighbors sheep came over the very modest hill of Illinois landscape. Hundreds of sheep of a variety of age. They made a lovely site in the early light of the day.
I thought of your flock, your land, and was moved. I also was grateful that my day at that moment held elements of your posts. I was in community, about to start a work effort to contribute to an ecosystem I've had some relationship, and I was connecting my morning to living systems.
I was alone in that moment. Not on a screen except to capture the moment in image and sound. Yet I carry the threads of your thoughts and sharing into the world.
Beautiful, Adam. Waking before dawn seems to help just about everything. Birdsong just now at first light before walking down the road to catch up on this correspondence.
“Imagine a world in which neighbors gather regularly to grieve and give thanks for the ordinary blessing of receiving Life from the world. That might be the way humans have avoided the trap of affluence: by allowing the diverted flow to pass through us in the form of tears.”
I love the tracking of the words affluence and blessing, the flow of give and take, the original “blessure” (French for wound) that we must pay, blood for blood, and how disconnection removes is both from the gratitude AND the grief.
There's a connection I've been reaching toward for some time here, that gratitude without grief is the same fantasy as blessing without the blood or winning without the losing. All require distance from the relationships that our ancestors knew so well.
I do not totally understand why, but it seems there are no or hardly no songs in this german speaking corner of the world, that carry old relationships with depth and beauty.... no pesant songs I know of .
Structurally isolated for sure - extremely so - I still feel blessed and supported, less alone, because of you sending out these mails.
Adam, this is beautiful that blessings can come out of the suffering land and its inhabitants. You have a great depth of soul and it comes out in your writing and your work.
It’s been a week and I still can’t coalesce my thoughts into anything worth sharing. I am reminded of a sacred circle dance I once danced to, the song was a song of grieving, with foreign words and a haunting melody. The steps to the dance are tiny, stepping to the right, then left, swaying in between. Step out and sway, then step in again until arms are around shoulders, and you sway.
I did sacred circle dance over 30 years ago. I miss it. Back then I often thought it would be good for people to gather a few times a year to collectively mourn what had been lost on the earth.
But then I tend to dwell on the sad stuff. The weaving song shared here is lovely, thank you. A beautiful way to bear witness to the weaving that is life.
I can't wait to listen to this song. What gentle strength in your thoughts and writing, always a joy.
We are grazing Angora rabbits at a community garden attached to an adventure playground in Brixton, South London. I sat with Alice this morning and brushed the doe. When there was enough, she started to card and then spin the fibre, it floated on the gentle breeze.
The undeniable magic of animals grazing on the land has the kids spellbound, they are learning the plants that the rabbits love. Each one will gift enough fibre in a year to make a jumper.
Jumpers from grass-fed, long-eared jumpers. Thank you, Joel.
Adam. Many thanks for another Monday morning invitation to intertwine with your insights. Once again your words layer together thoughts, emotions, and experiences in a way that ring true both on the universal and personal level. It is remarkable to me how often you weave pieces of the world that appear to be pulled from my own observed or lived circumstances but have transformed them into concise, compelling, quilted fabrics to take refuge in and explore places of uncertainty within a safe space.
If I could post photos, I'd share an image from a friend's farm I visited this weekend. I drove out of the city of Chicago only two hours. Shared a Friday supper with good friends and two young visitors on route from Colorado to New York. I was camping on their land to participate in a Saturday volunteer farm work day. I woke at sunrise and after walking in the morning light the flock of neighbors sheep came over the very modest hill of Illinois landscape. Hundreds of sheep of a variety of age. They made a lovely site in the early light of the day.
I thought of your flock, your land, and was moved. I also was grateful that my day at that moment held elements of your posts. I was in community, about to start a work effort to contribute to an ecosystem I've had some relationship, and I was connecting my morning to living systems.
I was alone in that moment. Not on a screen except to capture the moment in image and sound. Yet I carry the threads of your thoughts and sharing into the world.
Beautiful, Adam. Waking before dawn seems to help just about everything. Birdsong just now at first light before walking down the road to catch up on this correspondence.
Thank you!
“Imagine a world in which neighbors gather regularly to grieve and give thanks for the ordinary blessing of receiving Life from the world. That might be the way humans have avoided the trap of affluence: by allowing the diverted flow to pass through us in the form of tears.”
I love the tracking of the words affluence and blessing, the flow of give and take, the original “blessure” (French for wound) that we must pay, blood for blood, and how disconnection removes is both from the gratitude AND the grief.
There's a connection I've been reaching toward for some time here, that gratitude without grief is the same fantasy as blessing without the blood or winning without the losing. All require distance from the relationships that our ancestors knew so well.
Hhmm yes.
Thank you Adam.
Thank you for singing. It does something to me.
I do not totally understand why, but it seems there are no or hardly no songs in this german speaking corner of the world, that carry old relationships with depth and beauty.... no pesant songs I know of .
Structurally isolated for sure - extremely so - I still feel blessed and supported, less alone, because of you sending out these mails.
Thank you
Likewise, Marko. I'd venture to guess that those songs are hiding just below the surface.
Adam, this is beautiful that blessings can come out of the suffering land and its inhabitants. You have a great depth of soul and it comes out in your writing and your work.
This is very kind, David. Thank you.
So much beauty here. Thank you as always. Sending love to you and your flock, hoping that the situation has settled somewhat xxx
Thank you, Laura.
It’s been a week and I still can’t coalesce my thoughts into anything worth sharing. I am reminded of a sacred circle dance I once danced to, the song was a song of grieving, with foreign words and a haunting melody. The steps to the dance are tiny, stepping to the right, then left, swaying in between. Step out and sway, then step in again until arms are around shoulders, and you sway.
I did sacred circle dance over 30 years ago. I miss it. Back then I often thought it would be good for people to gather a few times a year to collectively mourn what had been lost on the earth.
But then I tend to dwell on the sad stuff. The weaving song shared here is lovely, thank you. A beautiful way to bear witness to the weaving that is life.
We are all connected. When you hurt, I hurt with you. May you hold the joy that I hold in my heart. 🕊️🧡🤲
With Love sent first from Generative Mother Weaver Grower Musician Teacher Sister: Lausanne Allen. Lisa
Singing with you in the now-present, and will in our future presence.
Thank you for the song Lisa and Lausanne, which can be heard on the breeze at the Farm now.