The Sermon of the Blue Heron

I walked out of the house early yesterday morning and saw a blue heron preaching from the roof peak of the little hut at the waterfall next to the dam. I feigned disinterest and sauntered quietly down the hill towards a new garden bed, hoping the heron wouldn’t fly away. It turned its head 180 degrees, but didn’t fly off.

This garden was planted last week, watered well, but not since—and we’ve had no rain. We’ve had no rain all summer, not a full day of soaking down wetness, not since too much rain in early May when we lost half our apple crop from poor pollination. We water the crop plants and the fruit trees and a few gardens pumping water from the pond, but much else is dry, parched, and crunches underfoot. 

We’re lost without water, like we’re lost without a road map. Plants genetically receive all kinds of direction. Grow towards the sun, make your leaves larger because you are in the shade and need more photosynthesis, switch to ‘dry’ mode and pull in so that you can survive this drought. I think about where my inner direction comes from, how can I be sure I am hearing it. Sometimes my deepest yearnings feel like quicksand, holding me in inactivity without a guiding star. I was relieved to see the garden was alive, the transplants had survived the hot week.

I walked back up the hill and over to my studio. A few minutes later, I was upstairs at my desk with my morning tea when the heron flew by and landed near the pond. I thought it might be preaching to turtles, water snakes, maybe even the water lilies opening from their tightly closed night to better hear the heron’s wisdom. Herons know water; for they are fishermen and spend long hours watching water. 

The heron, however, surely didn’t know it was standing halfway between the summer solstice and the fall equinox, on the pagan holiday, Lughnasad. This holiday is celebrated on the first of August and marks the beginning of the wheat harvest and the sun’s slow descent towards winter. For us at the farm, early August is when we harvest the first tree fruits, peaches, plums, and early season apples. It’s also the last time to get seeds into the ground for late fall crops. In the midst of a global pandemic, while areas of the world suffer extreme drought and other places experience massive and destructive floods, the heron stands at the boundary of earth and water with equipoise, catching its food, a guardian of the old ways.

As we shift to this new season, maybe it’s a time for us to reassess our ways. Make some choices of what we are carrying into the next phase. Spring flowers are a distant memory, while yarrow is in bloom, Queen Anne’s lace is at its peak, and goldenrod is opening to yellow. The night insects have begun their incantations. What to take with us and what to let go?

What do you want to put energy into? Energy flows where intention goes. What’s driving you? What brings you joy? We can’t do it all, not in one season. But we can be part of it all.

At the farm we now have fewer bluebirds, the orioles have migrated, and only one pair of barn swallows are still sitting on eggs. But the heron remains—majestic, otherworldly, its squawks coming from deep in the earth, a wisdom that calls out, “Take heed. What are you doing with this one precious life?”

Catalpa: The Hugging Tree

In full white flowering, a trillion frilly night moths perch on stems, sending out sweet scents of rose and bergamot. These clutches of flowers, each the size of a newborn child, balance at the end of every leaf cluster. The leaves, heart-shaped and lime green, lay open to the sky, each one positioned for the best photosynthesis. Catalpas reach peak bloom near the summer solstice, late for most trees in our climate. Summer is too hot for delicate blossoms.

Everything about this tree is large, embracing, and opulent. The wood, uprising from the ground, a trio of trunks, holds so much weight its steep ascent is inconceivable. It must be in the third octave of its life. Such a magnum opus. The tree dwarfs the building behind, my studio.

From the studio loft window I have watched a pair of swallows sit together, then fly off, soaring, and mating. Their brood began life in the bird box a few paces away. Red-winged blackbirds often sit on a branch and squawk, while nuthatches pace up and down the trunk. These tiny birds peck at bugs in the bark, quietly though, not like the red-hatted pileated woodpecker’s incessant jackhammering.

A few years back we had a tree company put two cables into the tree, worried about losing one of the trunks in a storm. This trinity of trunks now supports each other. One large branch broke two years ago. The branch dove to the ground and shattered, the wound along it—an accordion of frayed wood. But I wanted to leave it, not remove it, to see if it would heal. Now, buttressed by earth, new branches grow, flower, and bear fruit.

The tree grows twenty yards from the pond. I imagine it drinks heartily with every meal. Big tankards of H2O. Its size is quite out of scale for our small farm, but the Catalpa’s nature is to keep growing—water the source of its ecstasy.

The Catalpa makes its own shade, its own ecosystem, its own refuge. But now the bloom is over. The flowers are faded and brown, the scent has turned musky. It’s been such a presence in my life for the last ten days, I took my meditation cushion outside to sit near its trunk. That’s when I started using the pronoun “she” and “her” when I referred to the Catalpa. Her branches, her blossoms. She became more than tree to me. She became protector and guide.

While writing about her, I remembered that in my dream last night. I met an Indian woman, dressed in a drab brown and gray sari, with drab-colored brown and gray hair in a bun, and I knew it was Amaa, the hugging saint. I’ve never met her, but I’ve heard friends tell of their experiences, the process of waiting in a long line sometimes for hours, for the few seconds or minute it takes to receive her hug-blessing. In my meeting with Amaa, she cupped my shoulders with her hands, and then bowed my head so we lost eye contact but our foreheads joined. We were sisters, or mother and daughter, or some connected ancestor. She said, “Baruch Shalom” three times. Baruch is the beginning word of many Jewish prayers and means blessed. Shalom means peace.

The Catalpa tree became Amaa, became the carrier of this message of peace, strength, and resiliency. She communicated that we have untapped powers within us we are not aware of. The passing away of the blossoms became the rising of another voice, a steadfast and calming voice, reaching out to meet us. Inviting us into her embrace, always with open arms, the hugging tree, offering refuge.

Catalpa Tree, July 4, 2020

The Birth of Fruit

May we spread the seeds of true justice across our nation.
May we water them with our grief, and tend them with great love.

Spring’s robe swishes as she walks through the rows of apple trees, the small fruit now covered with white clay to protect it from the egg-laying stings of the plum curculio beetle.

On the high-bush blueberries, the white bell-like corollas dry, then fall, exposing small green fruit.

The mulberries pop out from smooth branches like furry caterpillars,

 and the husks of the peaches fall to the ground revealing first fuzz. 

Fruits are ovaries, designed to protect the all important seeds. Peppers, tomatoes, as well as squash are technically fruits, but we think of them as vegetables. Asparagus aren’t fruits, but because they are a perennial crop, we give them two long rows in the berry patch. The stalks shoot up overnight.

Rhubarb is technically a vegetable, but it’s most often cooked in pies or with sugar to sweeten its tart taste, and therefore, is often thought to be a fruit. Our favorite recipe for rhubarb is stewed with strawberries and a bit of honey or maple syrup.

Not far away, the blackberry buds entice as if there weren’t hiding sharp thorns.

Blackberries ripen well before the red raspberries whose canes are mowed to the ground in early spring. Fall raspberries grow four to five feet high, bud, flower, and bear fruit all in one season.

Seedless table grapes are a new crop for the farm, the vines are only beginning their long climb to maturity.

Finally, spring embraces summer, and the strawberry ripening begins.

Photos: Linda Hoffman and Ariel Matisse

Stinging Nettles: Gifts from the Great Mother

Squatting in a patch of stinging nettles with my foraging basket, and rubber gloves, I was snipping young stalks to sauté for dinner. Some people react with alarm when I mention eating stinging nettles, but the truth is nettles are beloved by wild foragers and herbalists. Mother Earth offers this gift packed with vitamins, minerals, and protein. Richio Cech in his book, Making Plant Medicine, summarizes the uses of nettles: “Practical Uses: Legion.” The Greeks and Romans cultivated fields of nettles more than any other crop.

Nettles sting because they have hairs on the stems and undersides of leaves that break off when touched, exposing the tiniest sharp needles that pierce the skin and inject a toxin that causes a burning rash. Fierce protection! For nettles are so nutritious, animals would devour them before they grew large enough to flower and bear seeds, the driving force in a plant’s life.

 An old adage says, “When in doubt, use nettles!” Their beneficial uses include: a natural detoxifier, an anti-inflammatory, a treatment for gout, anemia, joint pain, diabetes, hay fever, urinary tract issues, and prostate issues. Flogging with stinging nettles for arthritis, joint pain, and to increase blood circulation is the one recommendation I am nervous about trying. But when I am without energy and need a dose of friendliness, I reach for the jar of dry nettles and make a cup of tea. It’s magical how this plant restores my balance.

Arrangement with Nettles, watercolor, LH 2020

 And, of course, what’s good for me is good for the orchard. Part of being a good orchardist is learning how to take care of the trees with kindness. In late spring, when I want to boost the trees’ immune systems and help provide an extra boost of minerals, I turn towards nettles. When the plants are about eighteen inches tall, I cut a wheelbarrow-full, enough to fill a 50-gallon barrel. Then I add water and let the nettles sit for a few days. Sometimes, I add comfrey leaves for added minerals, horsetail for its silica, and garlicscapes, if I feel the trees need insect protection. After a few hot days, I drain out the liquid and fill my 300-gallon sprayer. The gooey remains of the nettle plants go onto the compost pile, and I set out for my tractor tour of the orchard pulling the airblast sprayer with its peacock’s tail of spray fanning out to touch every leaf.

Nettles reduce heavy metals in soils, in fact I remember hearing that if you plant a rusty agricultural tool, it will attract nettles to grow there. Mostly I find nettles pop up where they choose. At the farm, they don’t seem to care whether it’s a dry berm in full sun, against the peeling paint of the old chicken coop, or in the dappled light of the streambed. When Nettles have finished what they came to do, they pack up and move on. Wild plants are like that.

Now is the season to gather and cook young nettles (they will regrow for fall harvesting.) Try steaming them and adding a little lemon juice and olive oil, and some parmesan or other favorite cheese. Or sauté them with onions or shallots, add some garlic powder, and a bit of cream. For nettle pesto, most people suggest you boil the nettles and dry them with a towel. Then fill your food processor with the nettles, walnuts, pecans or other nut, lemon juice, salt, a couple of peeled garlic cloves, and some hard cheese like asiago or parmesan. Once it becomes the consistency of a paste dribble in olive oil till it is smooth and the consistency you’d like. If you make a lot, freeze some for the middle of next winter to serve over fresh linguine and bring spring back into your life. Don’t be alarmed: nettle pesto is iridescent green.

 In midsummer, I cut some of the tall nettles, tie them bundles, and hang them in my studio. Once they are dry, I take a cardboard box or large paper bag, and with gloves on, run my hands along the stem to remove the leaves. The dry leaves can be stored whole, but I put them all through the food processor and store them in a couple of gallon jars. We sell small packs of dried nettles at the farm stand along with bags of freshly picked.

Out of the soil of friendliness grows the beautiful bloom of compassion,

Watered by the tears of joy,

Sheltered beneath the cool shade of the tree of equanimity.

                                    —Longchenpa, 14th century Tibetan Buddhist teacher

 Nettles are a curious teacher. They sting! But when we appreciate them, we receive nothing but gifts.

                         Happy Mother’s Day!

Nettle Bouquet, watercolor and pencil, LH 2020