Waking to Chickens

I wake up in the morning and feed the chickens. 

It's so unexpected, how much I love this task. To be caretaker for a whole bevy of little conscious animals… I thrum  to this responsibility, just like years before when I watched horses for a neighbor friend, unexpectedly loving the stewardship in a way tapped a power in me deeply content and wonderful.

Yesterday, I spent time in the vineyard...

My vintner friend is 58. We toke, and then go down to dig holes. In the course of the day, I am wounded, bleed, see You, Blacksnake, look out across the mountains many times, speculate on life, and to dig many, many holes, each satisfying fall of the axe blade or mattick reminding me of the strength and power of my being. And we plant seven plants in the steep, well worked hill where he has chosen to make his Way.

"This is for you," he says of his seven trellised rows of Appalachian wine grape plantings. "It's the best I can do." 

What he means is that he expects the grapes to live longer than he will, and the Vineyard to continue beyond his own lifetime. We sip grappa during the times we break to sup. It is illegal to manufacture, apparently, in the network of legality and enforcement we currently find ourselves in. In Italy with my parents years ago, I remember sharing grappa with farmers who ran restaurants out of their kitchens. 

But none had a bouquet like this.

He and I speculate on what would be truly valuable should the economy shift suddenly, or fall apart into disintegration. I look at his water systems, off grid power, independence, and resolve, and wonder if the powers that be truly tremble at this sort of autonomy. All things, I believe, have the instinct for survival; and threats perceived, or fears imagined or real, cause responses at times violent, wild, and unexpected. So it is with nations, corporations, people, families, – and perhaps even planet herself. We shall see.

If I were to raise a flag, I would raise the earth flag. Below that, perhaps, would be our nation's banner.

And above Earth flag, perhaps, would be the banner of my personal religion…Kosmos, the Zen "O", the yin yang of swirling duality, the spiral, smile, the heart. The consciousness that I choose to perceive as infusing all things. 

And truly, I am glad we humans are connected now through the inter-web – the mind and voice with which we can all speak so quickly with one another.

May we be called not lost, but home, here on this planet, amongst ourselves and our kin, moving toward mystery, with a power infused from God-universe from the beginnings of time.