Keeping Time

Dear Friends,

The farming season is officially over! Whew! I haven’t written a blog for months. Not because I didn’t have time, but because the swirling activity was all geared towards outside, external, farm business, and necessary haste. I’ve written newsletters for Old Frog Pond Farm, but they promote the farm and encourage visitors. For blog writing, I like to travel on back roads, interior paths, to keep my finger on the pause button, to listen for thoughts that arrive in quiet moments and wend my way. A little like how I sometimes begin a sculpture. This morning I stayed in bed with my eyes closed and let the dreaming continue until seven! Instead of the darkness I was greeted with this view.

Sunrise Colors in the Pond

 I share this poem by the great 13th century Chinese Zen Master Wumen, the compiler of The Gateless Gate koan collection.

Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

The great Zen master, Dogen Zenji, a 14th century philosopher, linguist, and poet, wrote in the fascicle, Uji, “The Time-Being.”

Since there is nothing but just this moment, the time-being is all the time there is. . . . Each moment is all being, is the entire world. Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment.

 Translated by Dan Welch and Kazuaki Tanahashi from The Moon in a Dewdrop, writings of Zen Master Dogen

Dogen’s Uji text is only a few pages long, but he completely twists and turns and challenges our view of time. As a teacher he wants us to realize the wonder and completeness of each moment and not be caught by the conventional view of time as a continuum. These and other writings about time are inspiring a new sculpture, The Keepers of Time, though the title is always provisional until it is complete.

It begins with a wheel, one of two old cart wheels leaning against the chicken coop. This wheel has eighteen spokes, six more than hours on a clock. The Timekeepers are women who will inhabit the wheel. I envision them placing the numerals for the clock in position around the perimeter of the wheel.

I'm not sure if the Timekeepers recognize that time is not an abstraction, but something they are creating. Do they know there is no time apart from their creating time? How will they each play with their hours, days, and weeks ahead?

How do I have more time to read and write? This thought arrived in my mind this morning? I held it as if it was lightly filled with helium. It had form. But as I stayed with my attention on this thought, it squirmed away. For a moment I couldn’t find it. Then as if it could slither like a ghost under a door, it appeared again. It wasn’t a shape any longer. It was detaching, losing meaning.

In mid-November I gave a Dharma talk, Time Present, at Zen Mountain Monastery. Writing this talk is what started me on this investigation of Time. If you’d like to listen click here.                                             

Another new project is Two Chairs—Conversations with my friend, Lyedie Geer. Posted on the farm’s youtube channel are the first two videos of this new collaboration. In the winter of 2022, inspired by a purple velvet chair I inherited from my mother, and Lyedie’s blue chair, we decided to get together for conversation. We didn’t know where or what we were doing, but it was a treat to be together in person and talk as the pandemic was losing its grip First, I went to Putney, Vermont, with my mother’s chair in tow, then Lyedie traveled down to the farm and we sat in two chairs outside my studio near the pond.

In the first Two Chairs—Conversations, we explore Pruning—daring to make those difficult cuts—in the orchard and in one’s own life. In the second, Splash, we dig into the creative process as we talk about one of my new sculptures. We’re grateful to be working with David Shapiro, who also made our farm’s video.

Finally, I want to let you know Lyedie is an amazing coach of creative women. Until December 21st, she is accepting applications for the Bluebird award! I suggest if you have any desire to be encouraged and inspired in your creative life, click here to learn about the three-month pro-bono coaching program she is offering.

That’s it for now!

With love, Linda

Spring Training at a Zen Monastery

Before spring slides into summer, I wanted to share about the last three months which will also explain why there have been so few blog posts. I’ve been on an intense retreat—some of it quarantined in my studio, some of it at Zen Mountain Monastery in the New York Catskills, and some of it, following the spring Old Frog Pond Farm schedule.

I was asked by my Zen teacher to serve as Shuso, or Chief Disciple for the three-month training period, we call Ango. The training period, Ango, dates back to the time of the Buddha. In his time, the year was broken down into three-month periods much like our four seasons. There were two seasons of intensified practice when the community of monks, the Sangha, gathered and practiced together. These periods coincided with the monsoon rains, when it would have been dangerous and difficult for the monks to be wandering the countryside. Instead, they gathered in groves and set up temporary living huts, practicing together and living near their teacher. These intensified three-month periods, called Ango, alternated with the seasons when the Sangha would disperse, going off in the own directions, to beg for food, find shelter, and spend the time in solitary practice.

At Zen Mountain Monastery we practice Ango in the spring and the fall. The Shuso, or chief disciple is chosen by their teacher, and they can be either a lay person or a monk. Their role is to inspire the Sangha with their devotion and commitment to practice. The training period ends with a ceremony where the chief disciple gives their first talk on koan and is then challenged by the Sangha with live questions.

At the end of May, my time as Shuso ended with a talk on the koan, “Dongshan’s Essential Way.” Dongshan was a 9th century Chinese Zen master. The koan is a brief teaching dialogue between a student and their teacher. This koan begins with the student saying, “I cannot see the essential path; I still can’t become free of discriminating consciousness.”

What is this essential path? The student can’t see her way. Is it hidden? Who is hiding it? What is hiding it? And why is this student asking the question right now. Today?

I gave my talk on the last Sunday in May. It was followed by questions from other students, and then congratulatory poems. The ceremony marked the completion of my transition to become a senior student in the order, and the opportunity to now take on a more important role within the Sangha.

Many of you know how much I love Zen practice and specifically, training at Zen Mountain Monastery. A full matrix of activities shape our training: zazen (meditation), liturgy, body practice, art practice, work practice, study of the teachings, and face-to-face encounters with our teacher. Most importantly, it is following the rigorous monastic schedule, putting aside one’s own desires, and joining the community. It is said that being in community is like being in a rock tumbler. We need each other to bump up against, to be polished. However, to put it most simply, Zen training is the study of reality as it really is when we are not confused, when our mind is not obscured by attachments and clinging to that which is not real. We aspire through our practice to move among grasses of this world with equanimity and compassion, to be fully present, to do good and not cause harm.

I haven’t felt that I could write about this rite of passage until it was over. There were moments when I knew for certain my teacher had made a grave mistake. I could not do this. But I also knew there was no way out. Of course I was going to do what I was asked to do. I was going to give it everything I could. And the Sangha was there with their love and their support.

Now that I’ve a little time back home, and have hung up my new white robe and am wearing jeans, t-shirt and work boots, I wanted to share with those of you are curious a little about this rite of passage in the Zen training world. And here is a podcast posted where you can listen to the ceremony or find it on the Zen Mountain Monastery website. If any of you want to talk to me about my experience or about Zen Mountain Monastery, I love talking about it. And if you’d like to join us for morning meditation at the farm, drop me an email and I’ll let you know the details.

I look forward to reconnecting with many of you in person. We’re preparing the grounds for our 15th Annual Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit opening on August 1 with twenty-five sculptors bringing new work on the theme of “Emergence.” We’ve scheduled storytelling events with Fugitive Productions, and Plein Air Poetry returns also on the theme of “Emergence.” The fruit is ripening. It looks like mother nature is providing a bountiful and beautiful crop, and our farmers are working hard to encourage its health and growth.

The verse that accompanied the koan is on the verse board below:

Wet with morning dew
The tips of the ten thousand grasses
All contain the light of day.

Enjoy these last days of spring!

Group Photo after the Ceremony

Our Trees are in Bloom

As an apple orchardist I pay attention to the buds. Will they be strong? Are they healthy? How will I take care of them, because I know—left alone, an orchard in New England will become a massive tangle of brambles, invasive vines, and diseased fruit.

We’ve already sprayed the apple trees with fish fertilizer, seaweed, a little copper, and two different biological fungicides to make sure our buds are protected from the spring diseases. Microscopic fungal spores will rise from the soil beneath the tree in a light rain and land on the leaves. There they find purchase and grow. Once the fruit develops, the fungus jumps to the fruit, ultimately making scab-like forms covering over the developing fruit. Once infection begins, it’s hard to reverse. Spores are released over the four-to-six-week period until we reach 100% release.

Every year I have to be prepared for scab, the nickname orchardists use for the fungus, Venturia inaequalis, one of the early apple diseases and one of the worst problems for organic orchardists in New England. I remember when I first learned to spray. Suited up in protective gear, spray tank filled with 300 gallons of water and the spray materials, the tractor settings in low speed, 3rd gear, at 1700 rpms, I was told that the spray for scab needed to renewed before every wetting period. It seemed an overwhelming proposition. If it rained one day, and then four days later, I needed to spray again because the material would have washed off the trees.

First Spray

Since that time, I’ve learned to time our sprays to most effective for the maximum spore release. I’ve planted many new scab-resistant varieties in our orchard, and removed some of the scab magnet trees like Macintosh. And since 2006 when Old Frog Pond Farm received organic certification, new bio-fungicides are available for organic orchards.

Orchardists have their own language to describe the stages from bud to blossom. Dormant describes the trees in winter, when the buds are gray-brown and tightly closed. They wait for the right combination of temperature and length of daylight to awaken. The outer sheath on the bud is a winter quilt protecting the folded blossom inside. When the apple bud breaks dormancy, the covering of the fruit bud opens slightly to reveal light gray tissue, silver tip.

Then comes green tip. The buds plump in response to warmth and light. The bud opens further to reveal a green plant tissue. The next stage, half-inch green or mouse ears, is an apt description as two tiny oblong-shaped leaves appear. Tight cluster follows with a rosette of green leaves around a tightly packed flower bud. Pink stage is next, as this singular flower bud separates into five or six individual pink-sheathed blossom buds.

This is the most exciting moment in the orchard, for each of these flower buds, if pollinated, will become an apple. In the center the king blossom opens first. It’s the strongest and largest bud. The others follow; reserves for the tree in case something happens to the King. Full bloom is when all blossoms are open. Pollinators arrive from far and wide to drink sweet apple nectar and unknowingly pollinate the trees.

Our trees are in full bloom, and I won’t spray again until the petals fall. Bloom is the time when I walk through the orchard rows and feel overwhelming gratitude to be part of such fragile beauty.

May 4, 2021 Old Frog Pond Farm

Bags of Fertilizer

I wonder how many bags of fertilizer are spread on a single field to grow corn. In the United States alone we grow corn on 90 million acres. How many 50-pound bags of synthetic fertilizers are emptied out and fed to the soil?

I’m obsessed with this thinking, it’s formed a loop in my mind, like a morning dream that repeats over and over. And while one detail changes, nothing significant enough shifts to allow an escape. The parking ticket can’t be found, the man is still in the bar drinking, how to get out of the parking lot and to safety.

After World War II ended, the companies who made nerve gas and poisons reprogrammed their products, calling them fertilizers. Then, they persuasively changed the way of farming all over the world, poisoning the earth instead of the enemy, while in the long term, harming both humans, insects, and soil. How did we arrive at this idea that we need to manufacture synthetic materials to help the earth grow plants? The microorganisms in the soil are all part of a complex soil web:  the bacteria, the fungal populations, the earthworms, the nematodes, the mycelia are the real farmers.

Sketchbook page, Julia Tricca

In Beirut this week, thousands of tons of fertilizer exploded and took the lives of 150 people, injured thousands, destroying the homes of hundreds of thousands of others. A country that was already suffering from oppression, injustice, war and corruption is in chaos. Bags of fertilizer, or shall I say explosives, from Batumi, Georgia destined for Mozambique, one of the ten poorest countries on the planet, has shaken this country to its core.

Fertilizer bags are usually cheap paper just thick enough to hold the weight. But if they lay around and attract moisture, the paper decays, the bags leak, and moving them becomes a huge mess. Hazardous waste. Human trash needing to be gotten rid of.  We’re good at manufacturing materials that harm the planet, that have a long shelf life, that don’t disappear even after hundreds of years.

We are caught in a loop of our own creation. How are we going to get out of our destructive cycle?  Surely the farmers in Mozambique know how to grow food naturally. Buying expensive synthetic fertilizers is not going to solve their country’s many problems. It’s not solving the problems in our country. For example, in Kansas, where 90 percent of the state is agricultural land, one in five people go hungry. Kansas isn’t growing food, it grows feed for cattle, ethanol for fuel, and high fructose corn syrup, while a large percent of its population starves.

We have to envision a new model. We have to collectively re-envision the world we want to pass on to the unborn. We live on the planet, we need to eat food grown in its soil, and drink water from its underground rivers. Here is where we need to begin.

We need to believe that nature works and there is a natural way to live in accord with nature. The system is designed to work. We need to trust. And we need to make changes. Almost 70% of agricultural land on the earth is used to grow feed for animals we eat. And this meat provides a much smaller percent of calories to the world’s population than plant-based crops. If we are to provide food for the growing number of people on the planet, farming needs to be a journey in which we relate to the land and all its creatures. 

Sketchbook page, Julia Tricca

The good news is that a United Nations report in 2014 stated that 80% of the world’s food is still produced by family farms. The future is not in industrial agriculture, but in intelligent small-scale farming. I heard a surprising statistic while listening to a podcast between John Kempf and Zach Bush, two modern agronomists—70% of our food comes from farms that are five acres or less. This statistic gives me hope. But for the people suffering in Lebanon, an outpouring of aid is what is needed. A few of the organizations you can donate to are:

The United Nation’s World Food Program
Unicef
Impact Lebanon
Project Hope

And remember to support your local farms!

Sketchbook page, Julia Tricca

Note: Artist Julia Tricca was a farmer at Old Frog Pond Farm during her high school and two college summers. She graduated this spring and shared her final art project with me. Julia will be installing a new sculpture at the farm this fall. We’re all proud of you, Julia!