Maple Sugar, Climate Change, Dreams

Sugaring:
It’s been warm here. The plan for February’s work weekend was to clean up the sugaring equipment, and do some indoor carpentry work. But a look at the weather forecast changed all that. And a crowd of people came – first four, and then a group of three arrived just after they left.
Here’s what we did: (group A)

• Cleaned up the pails, tubes, and equipment.
  
• Tapped the nearest tree, which is a box elder, for practice.
• Tapped some sugar maples, back in the woods.
• Cleared a space and built a fireplace for cooking the sap into syrup.
• Ate lunch.

• Tapped some walnuts, by the creek. Went to look at the bluffs by the creek.
• Took a break, had snacks, and said good-bye.

Group B:

• Washed a few more buckets and tubes.

  

  

• Went back to the creek, found the tools where we had left them, drilled two more holes in the last tree.
• Battery ran out. Went back home before dark. Said good-bye.

Yesterday I checked the buckets. Three of the five maples, one walnut, and the box elder have some sap. I’ll check again on Saturday, when it’s supposed to be the perfect weather for the sap to run. (warm day, frozen night) When it starts really running, there will be a lot of work boiling.
What the mind does:
This is a month earlier than we ought to be tapping, amazing and wonderful but it’s climate change. Will the sap run the way it’s supposed to, or will something else interfere? What will happen next year? I’m planning to plant more sugar maples, but if we lose our cold winters they won’t grow, so should I still plant them? We’re in a frost pocket here, so maybe it’s okay and we should.
Everything else:
This year I won’t be hiring casual labor the way I did last year. I hope to find a manager and an office manager, for work that is just too much for me alone. Mostly this year will be about consolidating, protecting the orchard, propagating the berries, and taking care of a small part of the woods: taking a slower pace and listening more to the land.
40 days:
The spring 40-day convocation (“calling together”) holds so much of my dreams. Learning to listen to the land, to really hear its voices instead of applying theories, even good ones like permaculture, to find what to do to care for, protect and nurture the land. An old friend who works with subtle energies of plants, crystals, and earth will be helping me. I hope some people will join me in learning. And I’m reaching out first to the Zen community, hoping that a shared language of spirituality will help us create the community of listening and caring. Not exclusively. https://vairochanafarm.wordpress.com/2016-events/mountains-and-waters-spring-convergence/ If you feel called, consider whether you can come for part or all of this time.
Though I am still the primary creator, a few people are getting more connected on the deep level. One person comes now and then to sit in the meditation space, and volunteers some time. Another is coming for a personal retreat, and will offer some work. Perhaps there will be more such. Those who find a spiritual home here are the ones who will be able to create with me, which is what I long for most. Meanwhile some friends and others are planning to come for a week, two weeks, a month, or to support the convergence by offering teachings. This needs to happen. As people come, we can do the minor carpentry that makes spaces for more to come, as well as the outdoor work that grows food and nourishes the land.
Climate change –
Even though there’s increasing reason to think it’s too late for human survival, I refuse to say it absolutely. I am certain that industrial civilization cannot be saved, nor do I want to save it. Somewhere in the space between those extremes is my life and work. I plant trees and hope they will have a chance to grow before the climate changes too much; I plan greenhouses to protect plants from extremes; I learn to forage, to save seeds and put up food. But most of all, I seek to release my life. Daniel Quinn speaks of peoples “living in the hands of the gods.” I wish to live in that way, and notice constantly how much I do not. My need to control and to figure things out is called colonization; my ancestors have been colonized for over a thousand years so I am not to blame for it, but as a result I participate in colonization, genocide, and land destruction. There I am responsible. I seek decolonization internally, and listen closely to the voices for literal decolonization of the continent.
What kind of heart will we carry forward with us? That is what matters, whether we survive or not. There will be difficulties here, as there already are elsewhere. There are official climate refugees in the United States, not only elsewhere, and there are hungry people as well. I am happy to see my Zen sisters and brothers meeting the issue, facing it directly. May we all find our way, in this time, with compassion.
I treasure your support. If you can, please come. Sending money, volunteering time (here or elsewhere), and other possibilities continue. Here is how to reach me: https://vairochanafarm.wordpress.com/contact/

Earth-based Zen practice – an invitation

You are invited to come here this spring for earth-based Zen practice – see the poster below and then ask questions. You don’t have to already be a Zen person. People are starting to come, and there’s room for more.
Last year we did maple sugaring in mid-March; this year we start late February. I read the news on climate change, and watch the responses to refugees – and ache. I can only throw my lot in with the earth – Gaia herself,  plants and animals, waters, minerals and winds, and humans. There will be no fence around this land to keep out refugees, if it happens that we have food and warmth longer than others. And if we don’t manage to make the house passive solar, or build the water collection system and the greenhouse, still we have hand saws and water barrels and it will work. We’re just here.
With love,
Shodo


 
 
 

From my heart. Also news and upcoming events.

It’s been hard to write.
There’s an idea that I must put on my public persona in order to write these blog posts. Be cheerful, newsy, upbeat. I haven’t been able to do that.
Today my friend James McGinley made a comment – after a lifetime in the marketing industry (which I hadn’t known) trying to figure out how to say things so that people can listen, he’s quit, to just live an honest life. Today I will listen to that. Today I will take the chance that you want to go deeper, and that I might have something worthwhile to share.
Big things in the so-called outside world
One thing is that I’m watching more and more news about climate change, and other environmental problems, and feeling less and less optimistic about our chances of stopping the disaster. By that I don’t mean saving civilization, I mean preventing the end of the natural world as we know it, including human life.
The Mountains and Waters Alliance is based on a premise that civilization is mortally flawed in this way: we think we are separate from all the other beings (often from other humans too) and that the rest of the world is a resource for us to use. We approach as masters, not members. This is the flaw that leads to the situation we are in now, with dangerous environmental situations, politics of rage, extreme racism, and a desperate search for simple solutions.
My proposal is that we completely give up that point of view, unlearn everything we’ve been taught, and learn to listen to the trees, rocks, rivers, microbes, fungi, birds, predators, even mosquitoes. That we allow them to lead, and we follow with our whole being. That we listen more to indigenous peoples and less to civilized ones, because the indigenous have fewer layers to remove, but really to allow ourselves to not know what to do.
I imagine that there might yet be a way to change what’s happening, if we get out of the way. I also imagine that, if it’s actually the end, we might go there more human. But I’m still seeking salvation and am embarrassed about that. I’m particularly embarrassed because I’m trying to lead something. There are others with the same voice, all ahead of me: Charles Eisenstein writes eloquently, and I still love Daniel Quinn’s “living in the hands of the gods.” I want to learn this, living in the hands of the gods. Maybe that’s the thing that undermines all my efforts to be sensible and practical.
It’s time for me to go back to the zendo and back into the woods, at the same time as I continue to reach out to people. Opposite directions. Meanwhile I need to make money this summer. And it’s almost time for maple sugaring, followed by all the farm and land work – which I love.
So this is the plan, as well as I can say:

• Daily zazen, and continue retreats, continue calming down and listening within.
• Daily walking the land, listening to the living earth under my feet and to the river, the trees, sun, wind, stars, and all of them.
• Doing the needed steps for food, warmth (firewood), some communication and outreach, and try to learn bookkeeping without resenting it.
• Make some money, however I can.
• Friends and family.

About money:
There was a fundraiser for solar panels, and it ended with about $600 short. I decided to make one last appeal – but am just getting around to it now. Meanwhile a homeless, activist friend sent $50. I’m thinking that this amount could easily be raised by $10 and $20 donations. The link is here: Donate. And just so you know, if you don’t tell me whether you want to take the tax deduction, I’ll do it at $50 and up. With gratitude for any amount. (Break-even point is about 35 cents.)
News here:
For four months this winter, Roy Dopson lived here. He repaired the culvert under the driveway, which had looked like a big expense and possibly an emergency. He dug up a lot of buckthorn. He has left me with probably next year’s firewood as well as this year’s. He did some weatherization on the house, and practically ended the mouse situation.
Two days ago Roy left to be teacher in residence at Mountain Valley Retreat in Southern California. He was going to leave a month later, for his firefighting job, but he’s gone now.

So I build my own fires again, shovel my own snow – and rebuild my body. I think about finding people, and try to be patient. I put up notices in some appropriate places. Some guests are coming for parts of the spring, and there is support and encouragement. Most recently a carpenter offered to do work for an incredibly low price, because he likes what I’m doing, so the wood cook stove will be going in soon. Maybe I can afford to have him do some other work too, making more space for guests and eventual residents.
Little things:

• Yesterday I gave some black cherry wood to a local woodturner. It’s pretty old. If it works, he’ll trade me turning lessons (on that lathe I bought) for the wood. Otherwise we’ll cut down one of the leaning trees. I’d like to make bread boards from the walnut and cherry, and just might have found somebody whose equipment I can use.
• I can’t even tell you how beautiful it is here. The snows have been mild and (except for canceling travel the day of the blizzard) I’ve been able to get places in my little car.
• When I go walking in the snow, wildlife tracks are everywhere. I walk along the paths they make. Pictures did not work.
• The five planets are lined up in the southeast every morning. Every morning it has been cloudy. This will, eventually, change.
• Someone I would love as a neighbor looked at the farm across the road. I learned that there’s an offer already, contingent on them being able to build on the hillside on the west. Right next to my land, in the area I walk and consider sacred. Preliminary inquiries do not show me a way to stop it from happening, unless it just happens that they’re unable to meet septic or setback requirements. After hours of obsessing, I think I’d better go ask the earth spirits to help. Have not done it yet. Probably because I’m too civilized and struggle to believe they will help.
• The masonry heater is in and connected to the ductwork, and it doesn’t work as well as hoped. (Toasty downstairs though.) I think there are some improvements to make, but mostly think the wood cook stove will take care of the heat – very soon.

Next events:
Here is the link to the 2016 calendar.
Here is a link to the spring convocation, April 15-May 25. (I’m having trouble with words: convergence, coming together, or convocation, calling together? I think there’s a word I haven’t found yet.)
I’ll close with some of the words I wrote, trying to express this work for possible fundraisers; I don’t know if they’ll like it, but the words look good to me, as a prose version of the vow:

• To actually work together with trees, mountains, rivers, animals, soil, fungi, all beings (including humans) to change the energetic structure that gives rise to the earth. Those beings are powerful; they have co-created life on earth for millennia. Our best hope is to listen, learn, join with them, and follow their lead.
• I envision the farm as a pivot point for the turning of consciousness.

Blessings and peace to you all, whatever you are doing, wherever you are.
Shodo

The light returns

Past the longest night, moving into the full moon and toward the new year, I wonder how to greet you, what blessing to offer. I found this poem by Ganga White:
“What if our religion was each other,
if our practice was our life,
if prayer, our words.
what if the temple was the earth,
if forests were our church,
if holy water—the rivers, lakes, and oceans.
what if meditation was our relationships,
if the teacher was life,
if wisdom was self-knowledge,
if love was the center of our being.”
What if, indeed. There is no agenda in this poem, just a way of life beyond success or failure, right or wrong. I offer it to you as my new year’s blessing.
Last month I wrote about difficult things in the so-called world. There are also some good news items, fragments: A judge says young people do have the right to sue the government about destroying their future. Congress does not ban Muslims from entering the country (imagine that it was even conceivable!). I’ve noted and forgotten other court decisions in favor of people protecting the land. Then there is the climate summit, hopeful words and no firm commitments. Meanwhile I imagine (just imagine) that this is the last normal winter. I want to be encouraged by the small changes and by the words and by all the people I now see engaging in spirit-based activism.
At the farm: life is much easier now, with Roy here and no farming to do. We now heat with wood all the time (except for right now while we are both away). The culvert is repaired and more than an acre of buckthorn removal is done. We do have to check the root cellar regularly, keep the fire going, and remember to eat from the freezer and the pantry.
My next practical task is to tile a floor space in the kitchen, where the wood cookstove will go. Other tasks are getting a real website, finding people, doing the accounting, and keeping in touch with you.
In addition to donations, we’ve been offered private loans enough to go forward with the solar panel installation. This will turn our electric bill into a small income, and move away from fossil fuels. If you would like to make a donation before the end of the year (or after), look here. $2500 would enable us to repay or redirect the loans.
Personal: I’m getting a little more time with grandchildren and children, and am visiting my long-distance family for a while. It’s time to finish editing my teacher’s book, and I expect to complete that before returning home. I’m sleeping better, but my body misses the vigorous exercise of the farm work. (Snow shoveling should make up for that.)
I’ve gone into practice as a “mindfulness coach,” with office space in Northfield and a phone or Skype option. It’s pretty new, and I haven’t said much except making this listing. I liked counseling in the past and expect to like this, but apparently I’ll have to actually do some marketing. (Alas.)
After sitting zazen every morning at the farm, and a 3-5 day retreat every month, I chose to attend a week-long sesshin (retreat) at Clouds in Water Zen Center, with my old friends and Dharma sisters and brothers. I feel like I’ve rejoined my first Zen family. I’ll be joining a group of priests for regular Dharma study, a very welcome connection.
Mountains and Waters Alliance: A vow came to me spontaneously, and defines the Alliance. It doesn’t really say what the Alliance does or is; it just positions us within the universe of life. Sometimes I wonder how it might take form. I imagine a gathering next spring, a beginning, partially described here, in which we come together to quiet down, listen, and open to creation. (April-May 2016) Currently, I’m asking which plants and animals to add to the woodlands, and walking the land to listen. This is a large temple.
The vow is both about spiritual practice and about protecting the earth in a way beyond what industrial civilization allows us to think. We need to become very quiet and open and find out who we are.
A thousand blessings to you all in the new year.
Shodo
Mountains and Waters

Winter in my Heart

Cold weather has finally arrived here; our long perfect summer is over. But there’s another shift that I’m feeling more deeply.
Last weekend I was ready to post photos of the work from our volunteer day: wide open woods no longer clogged with buckthorn; a new bedroom in an open space downstairs; the first fires in the masonry heater.
I couldn’t do it.
I came out of that beautiful day to learn of the Paris bombing, then the Beirut bombing. Then I heard about the police killing of Jamar Clark, and went down with friends to join protests Sunday evening at the Minneapolis 4^th district police station.
That wasn’t the worst. Nor was even the bombing of Nigeria the worst. No, the hardest thing is watching my country turn into the scariest place I’ve ever been. Maybe it’s always been like that: polls from early 1900’s show majority of Americans didn’t want to accept German or Jewish refugees after the wars. State governors and some cities are refusing refugees; Donald Trump proposes name tags for Muslims and is still leading in polls.) I feel like I’ve been transported to some science fiction dystopia. Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 novel It Can’t Happen Here keeps coming up in my mind. Anger and hate are going in all directions, on two fronts: police/Black lives, and Muslim refugees. I understand that if a terrorist wants to enter this country, they would probably pretend to be a refugee. I just think that it’s more important to stop creating terrorists, stop making people hate us.
All week my friends have been going back and forth to the Minneapolis protest; some were there on Wednesday when police maced protesters. A Unitarian minister who took food on Wednesday says it was very peaceful with just a few people agitating – that was before the mace and rubber bullets. I’ll go for the NAACP march today. (Update: 800 people, very peaceful. Lots of food, a dozen campfires and several tents, very clean, and apparently a few agitators trying to make things look bad.)

A little information, by the way, for those who might be receiving reports of any kind. Yes, Jamar had a history of domestic violence, had even been in jail for it, was trying to turn his life around (says his father). One of the police officers involved had been sued for violence and false arrest. (I updated this based on most recent reports.) The rest of the information offered is not reliable, as far as I can tell. Probably he was in handcuffs as 12 witnesses say, but it’s conceivable he was grabbing the officer’s gun and the witnesses lied. When the video tapes are released, we may have more information. Regardless, it’s customary to give a person a trial, not shoot them on the street.
The situation of racism in this country is now officially in our faces. What is an appropriate response?
Any answer would be incomplete. My words here barely touch the surface of what I’m thinking; others have written well already. Maybe later I’ll have something to offer.
And, although my heart is aching, I’ll share some photos.

The Earth Spirit of This Place

The Earth Spirit of This Place:
Mornings here include 50 minutes of sitting meditation plus about 10 minutes of chanting in a standard Soto Zen service. Part of that service is a dedication of merit, based on a standard dedication with some particular tweaks. I’m copying part of that dedication here, for reasons which will hopefully become clear as we go along.

• “…to all dharma-protecting devas;
• to the dharma-protecting saints;
• to the protectors of the whole earth;*
• to the earth spirit of this place,
• and to the monastery-protecting spirits….
• [for peace, harmony, donors, tranquility and sustenance for the monastic community],
• [for deceased, sick, etc];
• for all who have entered the ways of separation and do great harm, may they return to wholeness;*
• to all teachers, leaders, and healers of every land and lineage; may they increase in wisdom, faith, and courage, trust in the support of all beings, and without hesitation offer the gifts of the dharma everywhere;*
• to all who protect, sustain, replenish, and renew every kind of life, may their work flourish;*
• to this temple and its members and benefactors;
• to mountains, hills, valleys, plains, meadows, deserts, glaciers, oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, the whole earth and all who live upon it;*
• to the myriad beings of the three worlds, and to all sentient beings,
• may they equally perfect awakening.”                                   [*my words]

I’m pointing out here that it’s traditional to acknowledge the earth spirit of a place, and other spirits as well. I felt the need to name places on the earth, which might be forgotten even by those of us who recognize sentient beings including animals and plants, and to add some extra groups of humans in the dedication.
Mountains and Waters Alliance is based on this awareness of earth spirits, water spirits, tree spirits, and all of them. The Buddha acknowledged devas, tree spirits, and others, and we acknowledge them as well. The Alliance is humans vowing to support and sustain all these other beings, to join with them in protecting the earth, protecting everyone – and asks them to welcome us and work together. This is a time of crisis on the earth – the Sixth Great Extinction, time of climate change, time of violence for some, fear for some, difficulty for many. It is time for all of us to come together.
Yesterday I walked around the land with some friends who see nature spirits and feel what they call subtle energies. Today I walked again, alone, visiting some of the same, and felt aliveness and consciousness everywhere. (One might say I imputed consciousness, but one might also say others impute lack of it.) I am reminded of the time when I walked the land, on the last day of sesshin, and found myself asking for help from the trees, the hills, the birds, the mosquitoes, the earth and rocks, the water and air, all living things – and feeling a reply from them. That walk was the origin of Mountains and Waters Alliance. I could name the vow but not name any action.
Now I envision a step toward forming alliance with mountains, waters, and all beings:
We dedicate some time, next spring, to listening and connecting with the spirits of this place. This would include walks in the woods and by the river and creeks, under the pines. We might create shrines. We might create camping spaces and sleep on the earth. We would surely work in the woods, tending to the movement of water and erosion, bringing in beneficial species and removing invaders, while ourselves learning intimacy with these places, place spirits, beings. And we would tend to the orchard and berries and gardens in the spirit of communion rather than profit. We might live very much as community. Surely we would do formal meditation, traditional ceremony, as well as creating our own as we listen to the spirits of this place. We would invite teachers, teachers of plants and wilderness, of Dharma, of chanting and ceremony, of gardening, of subtle energies – and their teaching would enrich the community.
We do this some time after the bitter cold is gone and before the mosquitoes arrive. Some of us are here for the whole time, some come for weekends, some come as they can. We hold council from time to time, both as needed for the human community, and as called for to find alliance.
That thought, alliance, was once translated into the Dakota language as “We will hold you forever in our hearts.” From this, appropriate response can arise.
And…
I should mention the fundraiser is still going on, $2534 from our goal, donations of any size welcome. Work days November 14 and December 12. With volunteers welcome almost any time. Future work days, classes and retreats to be scheduled.
Blessings. Love.
Shodo

Buckthorn, Maple, and Land Care

Today’s volunteer day was about removing buckthorn, in the sunny pleasant daylight following a heavy rain. A mass of shrubbery has now become a beautiful open space.  Looking at our feet, we find that there are a lot of sugar maples here – small, completely overwhelmed by the buckthorn, soon to grow in the open space.

Donna and I joined Roy, who has been working on this during the past two weeks (since the last volunteer day) when he isn’t working on the culvert repair (photos later).

We planted ferns (given by Jayne) to stabilize  the creek bank.

Of course there are piles of buckthorn, which becomes wildlife habitat, erosion protection, and possible source of wood for carving or fires.

This area is right near the bluffs at the big stream. We look forward to adding native plants and creating a pleasant sitting/walking outdoor area. It had literally been hidden under the buckthorn – a solid mass. There are still many similar areas to address, but probably it will be next spring when we have another buckthorn work day.

It feels good to be doing this land care, watching spaces open up, using our bodies in the last of the fall.  The strangeness of pulling up a species to let individual plants die – balanced with making space for others that were crowded out, restoring health and wholeness to the land, inviting myriads of species to live here instead of one. It does, sadly, remind one of human beings. Civilized humans are better in seeing the invasive behavior of others than seeing our own. Here, we aspire to stop being the one species that destroys all the rest, and to return to our place in the whole. Humans have lived this way in the past, for most of human history. Re-learning it is a key part of what Mountains and Waters means.

Blessings to you all. Visitors are welcome.

Shodo

Thanks and more

The fundraising appeal has brought us to a total of $2016 in donations toward the solar panels. People I don’t know gave money. People I never would have asked gave money. People who have little gave more than I would have thought. The outpouring of generosity, and encouraging words, was inspiring. Still haven’t reached the $6700. Thinking about who to ask. Here is the link to the fundraiser.

And now I still have to look for the people with lots of money, and ask them directly. Some of you can imagine how hard this is. I’ll start after I get a phone.
My phone died. I bought a cheap phone to get me through, but it seems that I actually am going to have to upgrade. The cheap phone doesn’t connect with the wi-fi that makes it possible to use a phone in the house – an excuse to continue with a smart phone. All my phone numbers are in the dead phone – something I once swore I’d never do – I’ll get them back. Meanwhile, my number is 507-339-0152. It’s pay-per-minute, and will be my backup phone in the future.
With minimal photos, then, I offer news from the past week.
On Friday we put the garden to bed. TR, Leo, and Justin, with a little help from me, dug up about a wheelbarrow full of potatoes, harvested tomatoes and some beets, dill and coriander seeds, catnip for tea, squash, broccoli, whatever. They tore down old plants and covered bare dirt. Ready to go.
Saturday volunteers – Roy, Paul, Greg, Fran, and I – pulled up buckthorn in the section north of the driveway. We spent hours at it, and Roy continued on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and there’s a lot more to go. We’ll do more October 24, and I’m imagining a marathon in the spring. I planted a few ferns in the bare spots, but we’ll need a lot more shrubs or the buckthorn will grow back.
On Sunday I went for a hike in the woods, along with TR’s school. We looked over the river from the bluff, and then walked down and actually put our feet in the river. I had not known that was possible. Coming back, we walked through a magnificent stand of sugar maples on the north side of the hill. I long to buy that piece of land – 25 acres bordering the river – but can’t even think of it. (Still trying to recruit friends to buy the 75 acres across the road as well.)
The siding has been going up over the insulation, and though not finished it’s looking pretty good. Tonight we expect that Chris and Justin will take the chimney through the roof. Or is that tomorrow? Anyway it’s happening, and we’ll start using that pile of wood. (Currently yes, we are running the heat.)
Outdoors is magnificent. I took a few photos and will rush back to spend a little time with the buckthorn. Let me mention – the photo doesn’t explain that, where we had thickets of buckthorn, crowding out and poisoning out the understory, now we have space under the large trees. We will bring back native plants next spring.
Love you always.
Shodo

Can You Help Us Now?

Dear Friends,
If you are willing and able to donate any money to Mountains and Waters, I ask you to do it now. Small amounts are fine. Large amounts, from those who can, help us get out of fundraising mode faster.
If the vow speaks to you, you are already part of it. How would it feel to make that more real – to put a little of your actual life energy into protecting the planet for your children/grandchildren/all beings? Does your personal spending include $5 a month (or a day) that you would like to switch to supporting this large vision? (You can skip reading and jump down to donating if you like – the next heading. Even $5 helps.)

Here’s what’s happening, why I’m asking right now. There’s an intention to get the farm completely off-grid – fossil fuels and electricity – as well as to grow food to share, supporting local food security against climate change effects.
We have completed half the house insulation, installed a very efficient masonry heater, its chimney almost finished, and have a wood cookstove ready to install. The orchard and berry patch are started, and the vegetable garden is producing like mad. We’re connected with others in the local food system. I’m leading a small Zen group in Northfield, occasional retreats at the farm, and other Zen activities. The second resident, Roy Guisinger, an Advaita teacher, has arrived. He will be both working on the farm and offering teaching.
The blog now has a list of volunteer opportunities including several that you can do from where you are. If you want to do a working visit to the farm, or to come to a retreat, let me know – here.
We applied for Minnesota’s help for installing photovoltaic panels, and won their lottery system. This means that we pay to install the panels, and then they pay us for every watt of electricity we produce in addition to buying back our surplus. We’re approved for a 9.840 kW system which will cost about $27,500 to install.
Plans are to do the installation next spring. To get approved for that delay, we have to purchase the panels now. So I need to decide whether to proceed or not – within the next two weeks. If I put down $6700, I can get a 4.25% loan for the rest; if not, the interest rate is higher. I’m taking that $6700 as the minimum for going forward with the solar panels.
HERE’S WHAT HELP CAN LOOK LIKE:
Donations to https://www.youcaring.com/mountains-and-waters-alliance-362647 are tax deductible. So far we’ve raised $1051 there from 12 people, mostly people who saw it online, including Facebook friends I’ve never met in person.
Loans at no interest would be very helpful. Call or email me.
Donations without the tax deduction save us 5%. You can mail a check here, saving another 2.9% on the WePay fees. (No complaint about the fees. Sending 5% to Alliance for Sustainability is a small amount in exchange for all they give us and do for the community.)
The iGive campaign is still going on, with the special deal ending October 9. Costs nothing – click and see.
Shouldn’t we be getting grants? I’ve been looking. There is a foundation that is likely to fund Mountains and Waters Alliance in a few years – after we’ve shown some stability. A volunteer will be helping with fundraising in a few months, if all goes as planned. The USDA grants for farms are mostly not working now (maybe later) but we have a small conservation grant, if we pull up a lot of buckthorn (invasive shrub).
Get a job? I’ve been in conversation about it and plan to be working about one day a week, which should take care of my personal expenses but won’t support the Farm or the Alliance. The Alliance, by definition, involves many people: Until those people are here, I work elsewhere.

IT MIGHT SEEM STRANGE for this organization with lofty purposes to be raising money for something so mundane. The reality is: We need to eat. We need to stay warm in the winter. And if we are to participate in this society, to organize, to communicate widely, we need electricity. The panels change electricity from an expense to an income source. Although I love when I can be away from Internet and phone and machines, loved living without a car, at this time those things are needed to do the work.
The last blog post raised the question of whether I should be here at the farm. That question isn’t coming up now.
Fall is here. There have been light frosts, and we’re going to take down the garden soon. It’s still outrageously beautiful outside, and colors are barely beginning. I gave a tour yesterday to Roy (showing progress since his last visit) and to Toby, an intern with Savannah Institute (which encourages and promotes the kind of mixed farming that we’re doing here). Both dug, Toby sharpened the scythe and cut some grass, and left this morning. The sun is shining and workers are coming today.

People tell me the orchard and berry patch look great. I’m pleased and surprised. Leo has mushrooms getting ready in a trash can, Chris is getting ready to plant hazelnuts here for his vision of protein for all, and Andrea brought rescued honeybees that we hope will survive the winter. Andrea also cleaned the chicken house, but the chickens are going to wait until spring. Saturday’s volunteers will pull up buckthorn and plant ostrich ferns that Jayne gave me yesterday at the Zen group. (Most of my plants have come from Jenny…not mentioned here I think. Also mention Allison has given food, produce and canned food, and cooked a lunch for us. I’m trying to keep track of the gifts, but it’s hard.)

Next year we’ll be selling strawberry plants, raspberry plants, strawberries. Later, mushrooms, Chris’s hazelnut seedlings, lots of nursery trees of various kinds. And we got $40 at the farmers’ market a couple weeks ago. Probably will get a little more, when we have time to go. It’s a way to take care of the produce we don’t have time to put up for winter. And I get to take a walk in the woods. Soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Mountains and Waters – blog updates especially volunteering

Well, first, we have a Facebook page.
Second, I added a volunteer page which includes both dates of workdays (Oct 10, Nov 14) but lots of other options. I was asked to do that.
To simplify, I consolidated the other pages into categories. They should work. Contact info, past event information, and upcoming events (the October 3 intro to Zen retreat day), plus Mission, Vision, Goals, Vow with all my words about what this is about.
Here’s a picture of the chimney construction as it is today. Tonight there should be a few more layers added – every day until they have to go through the roof. Fortunately the weather is being mild.
Soon the siding will go up, covering the insulation before cold weather arrives. The food dehydrator is almost done, and usable once the sun comes back.
I’m gradually bringing my life more into the realm of practicing and teaching Zen. Last Saturday I led an all-day retreat for a women’s group that’s been meeting for years – convened by Nita Wolf, a kind host and excellent facilitator. I was moved by the depth of questions and comments, honored to be invited there, looking forward to the introductory retreat in just over a week.
May your fall be wonderful and your heart be open.
With warmth and respect,
Shodo
 
 

Vairochana – Mountains and Waters – September

Fall is in the air. This year I’m in no rush: Summer has been magnificent and I could personally handle months more. But there’s an edge of yellow on some plants, and some days and nights are cold.
Farm: It’s harvest time for the biggest garden I’ve ever lived with. The photos show maybe half of what we gathered  one day. Still racing to get tree tubes on and other stuff before the first frost; TR and friends are in charge of that stuff. But I have to process it.

Finally making headway on going off-grid: the chimney for the masonry heater, thanks to Chris and Justin. Next will be the wood cook stove, and then I have to start learning. Meanwhile I found a way to get the solar dehydrator to happen: pay Ryan to build it. Should be done in a few days, and in go the tomatoes. Studying about root cellaring, with potatoes and beets and carrots and pickles to go there, and later squash. And I’m throwing beans, tomato sauce, carrots, corn, and even tomatoes into the freezer, because it’s all too much.

Personal: I’m learning to manage, learning to farm, but long for my real work, which is about Zen, about opening up consciousness, about the big picture. This week I wrote an essay for Sweeping Zen; it was harder than expected because I’m out of practice. I’ll share it after it’s published. For the moment, I’m letting go of money worries, but think I’ll be looking for work soon (after one false start a few months ago).
The Syrian refugees are now on the list for chanting, along with my sister-in-law and a few others. Looking at the world’s suffering, looking at what could be done and is not, I try to be kind to myself as I look and listen for what my own offering is.
Events: The fall schedule is in the previous post, but I’ll just mention October 3, a one-day introduction to Zen practice at the farm, and October 10, the next volunteer day. Hopefully that day will be in the woods, pulling buckthorn and planting beneficial replacements.
Volunteers, wishes, thanks: I most wish for these: a publicity person, a volunteer coordinator, an accountant (or just somebody to keep records), and a mechanically inclined person to fix the tractor. Meanwhile I love the people who show up to do the everyday things, including Allison who sent lunch for the last volunteer day. (So I could mention everybody. Donna and Andrea and Laurel come to mind. Jenny for donating plants and putting them in. ) But this is why I’m wishing for help here – there’s so much to remember!) And I thank everyone who has donated, or shared my information, or organized their schedule so they could come by or so I could have some social time.
Facebook page: Mountains and Waters Alliance.  Please sign up if you like.
I’m going to pick some more strawberries. And raspberries, and tomatoes, and squash.
Love to all.
Shodo

In the middle of the world's changes, Mountains and Waters

The world is changing, we’re on the edge of fall now, and after 6 weeks of silence it’s hard to know what to say. I’ll be brief, and come again soon.
The World
While Minnesota has had one of its best summers everywhere, it’s been disturbed just a little by smoke from the fires in Saskatchewan – and I know people who’ve spent the summer watching their woods burn. I don’t know the people who’ve had floods, typhoons, and the rest. Syrian refugees are flooding into Europe, and the responses are a frightening vision of possible futures – kindness and welcome mixed with hostility and rejection – and deaths, many deaths. Although there was political turmoil, there was also a 5 year drought, and when people have no food they move – thus the possible future. That future is one of the reasons I am here growing food, but there need to be millions such.
So every morning I offer up the merit of the chanting, and include every part of this world, all humans, particular humans and groups, and ask for help from the ancestors, the earth spirits, and more. Buddhists don’t quite pray, but this is very much like praying and it goes well with working. I do this work at the farm, and little more. In August I gave up the sesshin and spent that time with Love Water Not Oil, going upstream on the proposed pipeline route through Northern Minnesota’s lakes, rice fields, and indigenous-owned, treaty-protected land that is being given away by our state government for profit. This morning I did not attend the court hearing on the Alberta Clipper, because I am needed here.
I don’t know any solutions, I just keep going and invite people to share this life however they may.
 
Events:
Farm stuff first: Saturdays, September 12, October 10, November 14, 9-5 – Volunteer days.
Zen practice events – by donation. Advance registrations are really appreciated
Wednesdays 6:30-8:30 pm, September 16, Oct 7 & 21, Nov 4 & 18 – Zen group meets in Northfield
Sunday evening through Wednesday, Sept 20-23, and October 20-23 – silent sesshin (retreat) at the land
Saturday, October 3, 9-5 – “Introduction to Zen” retreat at the farm
Saturday, November 21, 9-5 – Closing retreat for the Zen fall intensive
Alliance – forming a local group connected with this online program supporting wisdom, courage, and compassion in dealing with climate disruption. Starting soon, dates to be arranged with the group.
 
Farm notes

The farm is all about abundance now. I probably spend 2 hours a day freezing, canning, and pickling, and don’t even have time to forage nettles or check out the ground nuts. The berries and orchard trees are growing well, mostly. (So are the weeds.) The summer from heaven has been good to all the plants as well as the humans.
I’ve signed up with a direct-to-restaurant sales program, but my quantities are perhaps too small for them. We’ll see. The squash has not yet begun.
People
People are here a lot, and supportive. Most of the labor is still paid, to people who are friends and who seriously earn their wages. But increasingly, people are coming around who are invested in the vision, who give their labor, pay their teenagers to work here, donate food and supplies, and generally do a lot. The newest of these, Andrea, has blitzed the chicken house (and will bring chickens), spent a solid weekend with me in the berry patch, and planted a rescued beehive near the garden.
There are some conversations about possibly moving in, or moving next door. Right now the only definite is Roy, who will arrive at the beginning of October and spend the winter.
Zen
After the summer off, the Zen group resumed meeting, with a sense of cohesion about combining Wednesday night meetings, retreats at the farm, and more into a “practice intensive” described here.
I continue to sit zazen in the morning, and have added a short chanting service as well. When people see the names on the altar, they often ask me to include someone – often recently deceased – and I’m happy to do it. It’s one of the things we do in community: pray for each other, remember each other.
Projects and needs
The plan to get off grid and to grow a lot of food is moving along slowly. Last winter we put in a masonry heater and started insulating the first floor. Right now the kitchen is torn up for installation of the chimney for that heater, and for installing a wood cook stove. Next spring we are supposed to put in photovoltaic panels. Before winter the insulation should be covered with siding – and estimates are running near $10,000, which I had completely not anticipated and am simply unable to face. I’ll deal with it after the chimney and stove are done. We can always just wrap plastic over it, postponing it to next year. Or borrow, take out a mortgage on the farm, which is not advised. Running the savings down to zero is also not recommended.
People are making donations, and the energy of it is encouraging and nourishing. The fundraiser for the solar panels has passed $1000 even with my inability to ask. I did send one letter to one foundation asking to submit a grant for seed money – website development and professional fundraising – and am waiting. My plans to work off the farm are stalled, and perhaps will be reinvented later this fall after the harvest is in. Meanwhile – the world is still beautiful and generous. I am learning, more and more, to let go as it makes its own way.
Warmly,
Shodo

Mid Summer

First the begging (an old monastic tradition), second the photos and farm stuff, and last some thoughts.
I sent out an update on the fundraiser, https://www.youcaring.com/mountains-and-waters-alliance-362647/update/344245. And it includes a recipe. Hint: some people send their tax-exempt donation without me bugging them. That’s really nice, it allows me to take care of the orchard and even have some time for teaching Zen. I do understand I have to get past my terror and call. Oh well. First let me tell you about the free way to support Mountains and Waters Alliance. If you click here you can get the information. Please do that if you like what I’m doing. Next week I’ll start hounding people.
And – to sign up for blog posts, you go to the page (you’re here) and go down the right side to “Entries RSS.” Click and there’s a place to sign up.
It’s finally summer, hot and buggy, and I’m grateful that the house is naturally cool. We work, groups of 2 or 3 of us, sometimes volunteers and sometimes “casual labor” which means friends who work for a lot less than they’re worth. So the orchard trees are staying alive, and we’ll have the rabbit fence up protecting berries, well before winter.
The garden is producing vigorously; Asian greens have gone to seed, lettuce is abundant, rhubarb might still have another harvest. The rabbits are eating the strawberries. There are wild raspberries, dandelions, daylilies, hostas, and just today sumac tea. I probably could still harvest a few nettles, but the season is pretty well past and I haven’t had time to go out. I wonder when the first tomatoes will turn red and when to dig potatoes – and what I will do with them all. I’m learning to grow food, preserve it, and give it away. Selling produce? Another thing to learn.
And we are mulching the trees, pulling weeds out of the tree tubes, taking care of the perimeter trees – and, occasionally, pulling out buckthorn.
Yesterday a volunteer made two high-quality bug hats, and left pattern and cut pieces for four more. If you are laughing, you clearly don’t understand what it’s like to walk into the Minnesota woods. Bug hats can change your outdoor life.
Today I learned that Rick knows tool sharpening, and he taught Dan, and then I taught both of them to scythe, and then we worked like mad in the hot sun.
A friend showed up from the past, a Zen priest who became a Theravadan monk. His life is completely reorganized. In particular, if nobody gives him food he doesn’t eat that day. If he wants to go somewhere, a lay person has to drive him. All his time is available for study, meditation, and service. I really like that, even though I’m not drawn to the lifestyle. In Zen, we study, sit zazen, and do service, but if there are no donations we go get a job or something.
I’ve been reading lately. The Lankavatara Sutra – a core text of Zen, known for being hard to understand. This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein. And remembering A Paradise Built in Hell, Rebecca Solnit.
The Lankavatara points to the basic fact, which most Buddhists can tell you about, that we are not separate from each other and everything we think is going on is an illusion created by the mind. (I’m still in the first chapter, this is definitely not a full summary.)
This Changes Everything connects the dots about what’s happening with the climate and how our whole economic system is set up so that ruining the earth is the only possible outcome – unless we change the economic system. For example, a state like Minnesota that sets up an energy program to encourage locally-built solar panels can be sued for setting up a trade barrier interfering with corporate profits. There have been many such lawsuits under the WTO (World Trade Organization) and they win. The TPP will be worse. Everything we do to protect the environment can be a target. (okay, not everything. Most things that local governments might do.)
The farm was accepted into Minnesota’s solar energy program this year. We want to actually use it: it might not be there later. And that’s why we’re having a fundraiser for the solar panels.
People are visiting. Sometimes they volunteer for a few hours, sometimes stay a night or two, sometimes leave a donation and always a gift of themselves. Sometimes we have a conversation about longer visits or even becoming residents. I am learning to be patient about this part, waiting for things to develop. I’ve learned that even people who haven’t been here feel connected. And that’s why I’ve posted the vow in the blog where you can print it and even sign it. I don’t quite know what this is yet. I’m listening for its movement, listening to it breathe. Sesshin starts again Sunday evening, settling down again on the ground of reality – as my teacher says.
With love,
Shodo

Living with the Earth, Living with the News

Strawberries started about a week ago, sweet and delicious. Rabbits found them a few days later. Yesterday we started to put up chicken wire, dug into the ground and along the bottom of the fence. Meanwhile the wild raspberries have started, and the peas.

In the past week, after 9 people were murdered by a young white man who pretended he was coming to pray with them, was it the 8^th or the 9^th southern Black church up into flames? Some of them were not found to be arson. How can this be? I ask. What world are we living in, where Black people are ready targets, where church burnings have resumed after a 50 year break, and – I will not list.

We’re still asking donations for the solar panels (which really means, for the whole endeavor), here: http://www.youcaring.com/mountains-and-waters-alliance-362647#goto-updates A tax-exempt option should arrive soon, and will be announced. I watch some of my friends organizing, traveling to the front lines wherever they are, and I think this venture is tame. But those friends are the ones who encourage me most. Mountains and Waters (the alliance, the farm, the Zen community) is a matter of building a space which is to be used – first for the opening of consciousness, aka the practice of Zen and all its relatives, second for learning and teaching a way to live in harmony with the planet, and finally for a refuge when refuge is needed. I have accepted responsibility for food and making shelter, hard as it is for me.

In the orchard, we had put up a roost for hawks and owls, inviting them to hunt the gophers – but so far only tiny birds have landed there. We have a couple years before the fruit trees are big enough to be interesting to the gophers. So mulching is the focus, protecting the baby trees from extremely vigorous weeds and grasses.

I’m reading Forever Free, a book on the Reconstruction era, during and after the U.S. Civil War. I’m struck by how lively and hopeful people were, by the sense of creativity and a new start, by Congress’s willingness to do things that would today be considered radical. That time it was President Andrew Johnson who stopped it. Last night, a film on Daniel Ellsberg, and I thought how today he would have been imprisoned – the illegal spying on him would be legal now, and he would be imprisoned or exiled like Manning or Snowden.

Nights are cold, days are warm and beautiful, and it rains often enough that the plants are vigorous. It’s a summer paradise.

Droughts are elsewhere, nearly the whole state of Alaska is burning as is much of Canada, California is running out of water while Texas floods, and island nations are preparing to relocate.

On last week’s volunteer day, two of us went into the woods and pulled out buckthorn (vastly satisfying to see the woods opening up) while one worked on mulching the orchard. But next time (July 25, and then August 15) we’ll need to focus on the tame areas – orchard, berries, garden – weeds, deer protection, rabbit fencing and ever more mulch. I handle it in two ways: T.R., working with me part time, has taken on more and more responsibility. And I just let go, again and again. The rain has been an incredible blessing.

This month’s retreat will be July 20-22. In place of the August retreat, I will spend some days on the Love Water Not Oil tour http://www.honorearth.org/love_water_not_oil in northern Minnesota. I’m hoping some people will come with me, making this act of solidarity and prayer the first official event of Mountains and Waters Alliance.

In order to support the farm until more people come to live here, I’ll be going back to work – private practice – in a way that hopefully will support the larger goal.

I’ve added a poster of the vow, the text of the brochure, for those who might like.

Aspiring to shorter posts….

with love

Shodo Spring

Vairochana Farm becomes Mountains and Waters

Dear Friends of Vairochana Farm:
Things are happening here. I’ve talked about the plantings and all – but inspiration has been moving. The name is changing to Mountains and Waters. It is clarified into the Alliance, described here, and the actual practice of farming. The words below are sufficient explanation.

Mountains and Waters Alliance begins with a vow:

We accept our place in the community of life;
we ally ourselves with mountains, waters, and everything that lives,
for the protection and restoration of the whole earth and all beings,
human or nonhuman, known or unknown, near or far, born or to be born.
We make this request
of animals, plants, waters, mountains, valleys, clouds, rocks,
individually and collectively: to accept our vow of support
and join with us in this protection, restoration, renewal and regeneration.

There is a fundraiser for solar panels. You can donate here  http://www.youcaring.com/fundraiser-widget.aspx?frid=362647

The donation page has plenty of explanation about why the solar panels and not something else. It would really help us a lot if you would make a donation (any size; literally we make money with anything over 32 cents) and share this with friends who might like to support the work we’re doing.

I’ll post again when there’s more news – the change in name and language (but not intention), and of course when we actually get a website with the new name. Right now most of my time and volunteer time is going to protecting the new trees and berries, planting food for this year, and a little bit of land care, the most urgent. We’ll have two summer residents soon. And the world is beautiful.

Warmly,

Shodo

The lilacs have bloomed!