THE NECESSARY DARKNESS: WRITING THROUGH UNCERTAINTY

The darkening days of December are a struggle for me. I should be sleeping but the process of turning inward keeps me up all night by the fire, reading and dreaming and scheming. This is the time of year to plan the next farm season. For a novice, landless, itinerant farmer this means a great deal of uncertainty and unrest.

On a recent long night I remembered a trip down the winding Big Sur coast road at sunset. It was the last week of my apprenticeship at the UCSC Farm and Garden, and a few of us decided to volunteer on the farm at the Esalen Institute in exchange for meals and hot soaks. We had to camp somewhere nearby to arrive for a 7 o’clock start. The only reservations available were at Andrew Molera Park, where we had to walk a quarter mile to the campsite through a forest of riparian trees in full darkness. Giant hands of sycamore leaves silhouetted the bright sky glittering with stars. I had not seen the Milky Way in some time, as the coastal fog moves in most evenings. The dazzling brushstroke was invigorating and grounding, like setting eyes on an old friend.

We pitched camp under a towering oak; then, intrigued by the steady pounding of ocean surf sounding somewhere in the distance, we set off in search of it. We reached an estuary where the river joined the sea and gazed at a mirror of starlight reflected in the water. I brought out my ukulele and we sang songs about water and stars. A shooting star with a sparkling green tail exploded across the atmosphere then quickly dissolved. On our way back, my headlamp caught the iridescent pink eyes of a moth dipping its proboscis into the small white flowers of the brickellia bush, a native plant I recognized from the hedgerow on our farm that attracted many beneficial insects.

We woke before dawn, packed up camp and walked back out of the woods still under a veil of darkness. We lamented not being there to see it in the daylight, but then I recalled everything I had witnessed despite the darkness, and all that I had reserved for my imagination.

The Big Sur coastline from Esalen Institute

When we arrived at Esalen, the sun was inching from beneath the ocean. This place is a retreat for seekers and thinkers, perched on the expansive Big Sur coastline and far away your life, which feels insignificant in comparison to the surroundings. Narrow paths wind through tended gardens, bridge steep waterfalls and lead into the towering redwood forests of the Ventana Wilderness. With our bellies full of coffee and nourishing farm-to-cafeteria food, we gathered in a circle under a shade canopy with the other volunteers. We took turns introducing ourselves with a quick psychic check in, which is an Esalen tradition, and also a common exercise on the UCSC farm. When you are participating in repetitive, physical labor for hours on end with a group of people, it is best to understand what you are bringing into the mix.

Transition emerged as a universal theme for the farm volunteer crew, as it was also with Mother Earth. The plants were slowing down and fields were being seeded with cover crops. I too was harnessed to the season, summoning my energy to trim weed up North before winter so I could return home with some money in my pocket, but that is another story.

We harvested and processed kale, salad mix and herbs for the kitchen, for the most part in silence, at moments I paused to take in the epic surroundings, both big and small–a bee pollinating Queen Anne’s lace flowers and the ocean views just beyond. After work I sat on an expanse of lawn in the afternoon sun, looking out at the sea trying to capture this experience in my journal. I had grown fond of this horizon of salty water churning with the planetary pull. Its largeness was reassuring.

The Esalen Garden is a haven of joy

I recalled filling pages from this very spot five years earlier with my best friend Karla on a Sun Magazine writing retreat. We were each granted fifteen minutes alone with Sy Syfranski, editor, publisher and father of the Sun. “Ask or tell me anything,” he dared, “I will listen.” I found Sy sitting on a pile of pillows in one of the meditation rooms and suddenly wondered what the heck am I doing here? I have nothing to say! But his unassuming, Buddha-like manner immediately put me at ease. His round glasses and sparse, wispy, gray curls gave him the look of a wise, self-effacing owl. “I don’t know where to begin,” I said. He asked me why I came to the workshop. Through our short conversation, I took a break from doubting and gained some clarity. I realized that I came to hear my own words and listen to others speak theirs (the best and worst part of writing workshops—sharing). I came to remember why I write, why it feels necessary. I came to remember that the process usually leads me to a deeper understanding and with it I wanted to somehow change the world.

Witnessing small wonders in the garden

I wanted to know how Sy faces the blank page every month for his column. Was there a secret code he could share, writer to writer? How does he quiet the naysayers in his mind or overcome procrastination? My column deadline looms constantly, and every five weeks I think I’ll do better, I’ll start earlier. Then suddenly it is the week, the day then the night before and I haven’t. With each deadline my own small life flickers back from the computer screen and I doubt that I can say anything new, original, funny, intelligent or important. This is the necessary darkness of writing and I enter it willingly, driving down this dark road only seeing what is right in front of me, page by page. Owl eyes blinking, Sy expressed that it is always hard, but finding a rhythm to your writing practice will make it easier. The rhythm of my life changed vastly since that time. I no longer the same person I was five years ago. This current chapter I am writing wasn’t even a twinkle in my eye. What has not changed is my obligation to writing, my curiosity for the darkness and all that I find there.

Published in Flaglive on December 22, 2016

SEX IN THE ORCHARD: ANOTHER VOTE FOR SCIENCE

Spring is the most intoxicating season, even more so in the company of fruit trees. I descend the switchbacks of Oak Creek Canyon in the morning quiet before the tourist cars crowd the road. They are still waking up at their campgrounds, the smoke from their fires signaling a vacation day ahead with coffee and bacon. I stop at Sterling Spring and fill my bottles with the cold, rushing power of water that has just emerged from the Earth. Rarely do I find myself there alone, more often I meet others filling jugs and we exchange pleasantries while we share the awe and gratitude of this gift. I study the riparian trees bearing tiny, bright green fists of spring buds, their uncurling fingers forming a lacy canopy that grows more leafy and exuberant the deeper I descend and with each passing day.

When I get to Garland’s (now re-named Orchard Canyon Lodge) there are fruit trees to observe and tend as they greet the spring and start the seasonal process of growing a crop of fruit. The blossoms unfurl three weeks earlier than normal in response to the unseasonably warm days and then have to hang tough through the sporadic cold nights. The breeze carries their delicate fragrance, and the blushing pink and white flowers stir the honeybees from their slumber. The bees must perform the critical work to transfer the pollen as they buzz between flowers. Most apple varieties are self-unfruitful, which means they need the pollen from a different variety that blooms at the same time. The ovary in an apple flower has five chambers, each of which has two ovules, and most need to successfully be fertilized. If not, the fruit is misshapen or small. Many of the apricots, plums and peaches are self-fertile, meaning they don’t require pollen from another variety and are starting to show that pollination was indeed successful. Thumb-sized fuzzy fruits swell below where the petals have fallen and only shriveled stamens remain.

Bees visiting peach blossoms

While I admire the apple blossoms and the steady humming of the bees, I start working on pest control. The coddling moth, our main insect predator, has recently been detected in the orchard on the lookout for a mate. Unfortunately for the moths, I am trying to stop them from having sex. The female lays her eggs on the leaves and tiny fruits and when they hatch, the larvae crawl inside the developing apples and feed on the growing fruit. My job is to install mating disruption dispensers every ten feet throughout the three-acre orchard. The red rings exude the female sex pheromone, which confuses male moths, hopefully preventing them from impregnating the females. I feel like such a prude intervening in this way; and the plastic tags that affix the red pheromone-loaded rings to a tree branch bear an ironic heart-shape. However, the alternatives are worse—wormy apples or the more detrimental spraying of a broad-spectrum insecticide that kills everything, the target pest and the beneficial insects that help balance the entire ecosystem.

Pheromone dispenser hanging below developing apple fruits will hopefully distract male moths from finding females and give us wormless apples!

Mating disruption technology is relatively new for orchard pest control; it was developed only 25 years ago. Scientists studied pheromones for several decades before a product like this could be released on the market. I am grateful for this and so many other scientific advances that have deepened my understanding of ecology and can help me become a better farmer. This past weekend I marched for science down Aspen Avenue with close to 1,000 Flagstaff residents, to lend my voice to this global movement of citizens calling for evidence based decision making by our politicians. My sign quoted Simone Weil, the French philosopher, labor union activist and mystic: “Science is the study of beauty in the world.” I also want people to remember that we need to celebrate science with art, poetry, dance, song and the written word.

Every day we live on this planet we reap the benefits of scientific knowledge. It is because of science that I can drink clean spring water flowing from the ground in Oak Creek, that we have choices for organic pest control, and therefore less exposure to harmful pesticides in our food. There are so many factors influencing something we consider so commonplace, such as how an apple makes it into our hands. We need healthy and abundant pollinator communities and scientists who have the support and freedom to do research that advances our understanding of the world, especially as the climate changes, and a society that creates policies informed by science.

Ode to Apple Pollination, a collage I created in celebration of this miraculous act

Meanwhile the seedlings in the greenhouse are emerging each day from their little soil cells. Each time a seed I planted emerges from the darkness and starts curling towards the light, wanting to become something, I am filled with joy and a deep sense of fulfillment. It doesn’t matter how many times I witness this simple miracle, I am still filled with wonder. I feel like a proud mother, like I did something right, like there is still magic and hope in the world despite all the terrible news. I feel fortunate to be connected to the rhythms of the Earth and the beauty and complexity of nature every single day.