existential

I don't know much about life after death but I may believe in life after life.
*****
what do you see when you look at yourself? do you know that person well? can you look them in the eyes? who looks back?
*****
I used to turn myself around and around, in front of a mirror, trying to understand.
My mother hinted that I may be vain....a mortal sin. What I could not explain to her, in my child's voice, was my curiosity as to who I was. This shell that I inhabit must be very different from the last. Who grows up thinking that they have been placed inside the wrong body? Who physically feels their eyes becoming windows....not made of glass but a set fashioned from thin sheets of Muscovite; ancient and milky?
*****
A friend and I have shared the same dreams. Not a hypothetical dream for the future or the ephemeral dream to someday be a writer (although we do dream that dream together)  but the dreams of the unconscious soul. Dreams of lilacs blossoms blowing on the breeze, dreams of dead friends, dreams of the divine. He once explained to me that he can no longer meditate because he is afraid of what he will find. He has found the way....the tunnel that leads to light. He found the way and the one on the other side shot out of the darkness and delivered a hard right hooked punch to his gut. He will not meditate now; the pain was too real.
Many of us have found this place and are afraid to enter. We are not taught to know what to do when we arrive and so we flee. But we are drawn here, over and over, to stand at the gate and to let the wind howl past. The buzzing and crackle and the alignment of neural energy....if you have been here you may know how startling this discovery can be.
*****
I do not believe in who I am...Meaning, I do not believe that this is all I am meant to be. I have been more and I have been less. I have purpose and with luck, my life will have meaning to others. After I pass, I may return as a swallow, another woman, a man, or your cat. I may be the ant who is tortured by children or the peasant who is tortured by circumstance.
I will not return as a demon....one of the unconscionable souls tending the alter of economy, persecution and power. Hell is very real but its dimension exists now. Demons exist but they wear the skins of sharks and prey upon the poor. Damnation is often a choice.
*****
Are we animal or are we human? Do you know the difference? Lost Souls, you are not lost. You have only forgotten the way. The path is laid out before you, now walk forth and exist.

summer skin

I stand naked before the mirror and admire the return of my summer skin;
pale pink above my breasts and bronze in over lapping layers of straps and sleeves. Muscles form and re-form in a progression down the length of my arms.
The silt washes off in a torrent of mud mixed with the sweet scent of soap;
my hair once again bright as the moon; casting off the dullness of the day in its many layers of sweat, grime and sunshine.
My toes will not be clean again until the leaves fall from the trees in their cascade of relief and exhaustion, as summer wanes and autumn embraces us with darkness.
Next to the sink, I study the black of my hat. Its surface a rainbow of textures;  an oil soaked and sleek band fades into bleached and brittle edges. A history and a reflection of my unconscious habit of removing it and reapplying it over and over as I struggle to shield my eyes from the light....my fingerprints are nearly visible on the brim. Like my toes, my fingers will bear the burden of the season; rough and frayed corners, calluses, and healed-over blisters.
From head to toe, I am amused by my appearance and I contemplate Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth. I remember my mother, grandmothers, great-grand mothers. I look into my own eyes and see eternity laid out before me.
I am the one that arrives with dirt in the cuffs, spots, stains and small tears.I am a woman of beauty; a creature of struggle, persistence and undying optimism. I am the light that is not seen and only felt. I am starlight and madness. I am the womb of creation. I am all of these things. I am dust.

Welcome to the Farmers Market 2015

Summer living, here we come. After a milder than usual winter and an early spring, it feels like we are jumping into summer a little ahead of schedule. Already, the apple blossoms have come and gone; the wildflowers have arrived in a profusion of color, while the drier hillsides have turned from dormant brown, to lush green and now to red as the wild grasses make their way through their annual life cycle. And finally, after a long break, the Farmers Market season has begun.  The weather has been favorable and many crops are weeks ahead of schedule.  Already, visitors to the Market have been able to find radishes, rhubarb, bok choy, salad mix, arugula, spinach, turnips, napa cabbage and asparagus. Over the coming weeks, expect to see the arrival of early carrots, baby beets, young garlic, spring onions plus much, much more.

Master Gardeners will be on hand at the Wenatchee Farmers Market, The Leavenworth Community Farmers Market and the Chelan Market and are happy to answer your garden related questions. This is a great chance to get some much needed advice on your home garden and to become familiar with the Chelan/Douglas Master Gardener Program and the classes and events they will be hosting throughout the summer.

Below, are the operating dates and times for four of our best local markets.  If you can’t make it to a market, Sage Mountain in Leavenworth and Rhubarb Market in Wenatchee make local, seasonal produce available year round to their customers and often honor special requests.

·         The Kittitas County Farmers Market in Ellensburg opened on May 2^nd and will be operating every Saturday from 9 AM -1 PM, May-October.

·         The Wenatchee Farmers Market opened for the season on Saturday May 9^th and runs from 8 AM-1 PM.

·         The Chelan Farmers Market will begin its market season on Thursday May 21^st from 4-7 PM.

·         The Leavenworth Community Farmers Market is slated to open on Thursday June 4^th from  4-8 PM. This season, they have added a kids-only vending booth beginning on Thursday, June 25^th and running through the rest of the market season.

And, if you have ever considered becoming a vendor at one of your local markets, don’t wait. Now is the time to contact them directly about special vendor days or hosting a regular booth. Whether you grow flowers, fruits or veggies, participating in your local market is a great way to meet your neighbors and join a community of like-minded gardeners. Happy Gardening!

Inside of Me

Only when you walk
Naked through your house
Are you Truly Free

It is when
You walk naked through your garden
That you are Truly Wild

Planting For Beneficials 2015

The natural reaction of most humans when confronted with an unknown wasp or stinging insect is to be suspicious and even a little nervous. The sight of a stinger brings a knee-jerk reaction in our mind; trained from the accidental encounters with yellow jackets, bald-faced hornets or the occasional honeybee (All the worse for the poor honeybee, whose demise is guaranteed through the expenditure of their only defense). But most stingers were not created to be used in deterrence of human intruders. Many were designed as biological weapons to be used against other insects. Stingers could be considered modified reproductive devices used to paralyze a host before inserting its eggs into the host’s body cavity (Hosts are often aphids or moth caterpillars). Beneficial wasps are known as parasitoids because of this reproductive strategy. For this, we should begin to consider wasps and a variety of other insects as our allies in the war against garden pests.

If you have ever over-wintered leeks and allowed them to flower the following year, you have seen how attractive allium flowers can be to beneficial wasps. There have been days at our farm where more than 20 different wild species have shown themselves on these bulbous, beautiful blossoms. Although some of the wasps we noticed looked downright intimidating, their primary interest for visiting was to feed on nectar. Providing nectar sources is the easiest way to keep and retain a large diversity of beneficials in the garden.

 Alliums aren’t the only flowers that can be used to attract beneficials to the garden. A very common bedding plant; alyssum, is another attractive nectar source for beneficial insects; primarily hover flies (also known as syrphid flies). Hover flies are hunters, used to control both aphids and mites. Phacelia is another great source of nectar for wasps, hoverflies and pollinators such as bees (both wild and domesticated).

The key to keeping a healthy population of helpful insects in your garden is to provide a nectar source throughout the entire growing season. As one source wanes, another should take its place. The more sources you offer, the more babies these benificials will have and the fewer problems you will have with pests in your garden. The following link will provide more information on identifying insects that are helpful in the yard and home garden:  http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/EM067E/EM067E.pdf . Of particular note; the best way to keep a healthy population is to avoid the application of broad spectrum, synthetic pesticides.

Happy Gardening!

el lago

As I sit here staring at these peaks, this lake, this life
My children with toes buried up to their ankles
The gentle slap of water on sand
And try to imagine a life without
this place....
without this warm sun....
without the evergreen, cedar skeletons, pebbles, solitude.....
On this perfect May day
 in this place that I call home
but is not the home of my birth
And will I ever feel fully at home
as at home as a birth-right allows?
Is this the gift we give our children
without them knowing it
This security of belonging
to a mountain vista
never questioning
only living
only alive