The Words Before All Else

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I run my thumbnail down the length of Jewelweed’s translucent, straw-like stem.  Split and curled open, the inner surface wets and soothes the fiery blisters spreading on my wrists and forearms.  Like Poison Ivy, Jewelweed settles disturbed areas.  Remarkable.  I found Jewelweed this afternoon growing in the recently-cleared back pasture at the Creamery down the road.  Nearby I spot Nettle, grown to head high and beginning to form their flowers.  I fold the long stems of Jewelweed and tuck the medicine plant into my back pocket to free my hands for Nettle, which I will wilt for soup and pesto.  Nettle also soothes hay fever and sore muscles—check and check.  Soon the swelling bundle of leaves spills from my hands and so I wrap them in my shirt.  Like the others, Nettle grows in disturbed areas.  Not forest and not field.  Margins.  Making food and medicine.  Remarkable. 

I recently attended the unveiling of a sculpture to honor Mohawk culture and surviving presence on the Western shore of the Big Lake.  The place is called Plattsburgh today, the largest urban center in the region.  A Mohawk Elder has been asked to open with the Words Before All Else, known to some as the Thanksgiving Address.  They call him Tom Porter, or Sakokwenionkwas.  Bear Clan: known for protecting the people and keeping medicine knowledge.  Given that the audience is mostly European-American, Tom says with a smile that he will give the “Cliff Notes” version of the Mohawk blessing that often takes well over an hour.  As Tom begins to speak the Words Before All Else, I think to myself that our version of this might be an author’s acknowledgement at the beginning of a book, which reads, “None of this would have been possible without,” followed by a list of names.  Human names.  But Tom’s list of names is exclusively non-human.  The Humans in the story—and it is very much a story, telling of our good fortune to be alive and gathered here by the Lake on this very day—the Humans in the story are positioned firmly on the receiving end of the World’s goodwill.  “World” is short-hand for a list which includes Bear, Cottonwood, North Wind, Jewelweed, Nettle and, yes, even Poison Ivy.  After describing, in detail, the remarkable gifts offered by a specific subset of these many diverse underwriters—for example, the animals who move about on the land—Tom says, “Let us gather together all of our many ‘Thank Yous’ and our Blessings and form them into a great pile.”  As he says this, he uses his hand to trace the shape and size of the pile we are making with our words.  And then, each time, he distributes the pile with the words, “And with that our minds are joined together as one.”  As Tom gets rolling, it is clearly difficult for him to leave anyone out, and so he continues in this way for some time.  Forming great piles of Thank Yous and Blessings and then giving them away.  Again and again.

Since I was young, my family has offered a round of Thank Yous before holiday meals.  As an adult, I now open every meal or meeting with such a round of spoken gratitude.  Engaging this practice for years now, I have noticed a few things that seem worth mentioning.  For one, this time is set aside for easing off the shoulder straps of our heavy load of grievances.  The pack hits the ground with a resounding thud, and I can always sense the relief this brings.  But what will we talk about instead?  I have noticed, in myself and others, that our un-practiced-ness rears up right away.  We are supposed to be grateful for something that happened to us today that made us feel happy or comfortable, right?  Something nice that someone did for us or something beautiful we encountered along the road—a sunset or the perfectly ripe peach.  But what are we supposed to do with all of the other experiences that don’t fit into those narrow, feel-good categories?  Perhaps this begins to explain the crushing weight of the pack that rests on the ground next to us, the one that we will sling back over our shoulder at the end of the meal.  The one in which we store everything that didn’t work out the way we would have wished it to.  There is something else that I have noticed.  The assumed audience for our spoken gratitude appears to be the other Humans within earshot.  They are the ones for whom we are supposed to recount the things that worked out for us today. 

In a time of cascading ecological and social troubles such as ours, a laundry list of the things that have worked out for us today sounds a bit flimsy, does it not?  Or disingenuous?  Or even, and quite ironically, it sounds downright ungenerous. 

I sit on the ground cross-legged listening to Tom work through the Words Before All Else.  North Wind ruffles the leaves of lakeside Cottonwood, sending late-Spring snowflakes drifting sideways.  They land gently, without melting, on the mowed Grass of the city park where we gather.  What does he mean when he says again and again, “And now our minds are joined as one”?  And then I notice a single tear running down my cheek.  And then another.  Again and again, Tom gathers the many Thank Yous and Blessings into a pile and then releases them.  The long moment passes.

How does a modern person go about breathing life back into an atrophied capacity for gratitude?

Perhaps we need a question with a bit more heft than “What am I grateful for?”  One that asks a bit more of us.  In the presence of Jewelweed and Nettle, I offer this one: 

Growing in a disturbed area, how will I make medicine or food for those who will come upon this place after I’m gone? 

Back at the Farm, I seem to trip over this question everywhere I step, where it rises unbidden from the ground.  I am setting the table for a special guest.  Katie has decided to spend two days at Goose Landing with me and the menagerie, responding to the invitation in the Newsletter announcing the completed guest cabin.  Katie and I first connected when she participated in the online Hospicing Modernity Study Group that I hosted.  We meet now in person for the first time, with all of the entailed formalities.  I wanted to welcome her with a special meal, so I baked a small batch of Rye bread in the home oven for the first time in months—Rye grown by my friend Todd at Thornhill Farm in Vermont.  Pureed Nettle soup with Lamb stock, Lovage, Oregano and Chives, finished with fresh milk from the Creamery down the road.  Rhubarb planted decades ago behind the old farmhouse here, served with maple syrup from the neighbors and yogurt from the Creamery.  Once the table is set, I invite Katie to join me in the gratitude practice before eating.  There is plenty on the table alone to be thankful for, including the opportunity to meet one another—and we say as much.  As we speak, I hear lone Cricket call from the ground just outside the window where we sit, and then Song Sparrow from the brush pile.  I know there is more to say. 

Who is listening and how might our words be heard by those whose lives and homes are actively destroyed so that things can “work out” for us?

Here’s what I come up with:  I would like to try to say something about what it means for us to spend a couple of days working together here at Goose Landing.  First of all, let me acknowledge that there are many who have come before, including those who make home here ongoingly, and their lives and labors allow us to gather in this way, and to be fed so generously.  As we proceed through our time together, let us try to speak as if they are listening, or, in the case of those who have been forced to leave this place, let us speak in ways we would be proud for them to overhear, with words that carry an appropriate sorrow for the way things have gone for them and for the shadow those stories cast upon our days.  Arriving here at the Farm, you have undoubtedly brought with you a great hunger.  I know this because I have come carrying this grasping hunger as well—for connection, for honest nourishment, for respite from the grinding loneliness of our time.  The ways we engage this place will carry the mark of that poverty, that neediness.  Let us begin with this acknowledgement—that we will invariably be on the take from this place.  By this I mean that we will take much more than we know how to give.  But let us also imagine how to speak in ways that hold back none of the joy we encounter as we find ourselves on the receiving end of vast generosities.  In just a few months, I have seen this place give and forgive, again and again.  And in our speaking and in our songs, let us imagine how we might be grateful for all of it: the honest sorrows alongside the sparkling joy.  And some time after we are gone from this place, there may be humans here who have learned to live in ways more generous than we have been willing to know.  And perhaps they will even remember us, gratefully, as they pause to give thanks before a late Spring meal. 

I wasn’t expecting I had all of that to say.  The Nettle soup, steaming in the pot, must have had its way with my tongue and with my heart.  Full.  Broken.  Overflowing.  I fill the two handmade bowls with a ladle of the soup and a splash of the rich milk.  Growing in a disturbed, and disturbing, time, how will I make medicine or food for those who will come after I’m gone?  The next day Katie and I work in the garden for many hours, planting. 

Many thanks to you for reading, and don’t hesitate to be in touch. It would be good to hear from you.

With great care,

Adam