Personal Reflections

by Amanda Garcia

12/17/99:

At the farm on Sunday I watched a blue heron in the nearby field. He was on the other side of the fence. How herons walk—touching one foot to the ground lightly, as if they were unsure whether the ground were really still there. And so he touched and tapped, his long neck bobbing in opposition to his feet. He was close enough that I could see the spindly tuft of feathers on his chest. Suddenly his neck shot down; his beak disappeared into a burrow. When his beak reemerged, a ground squirrel hung limply between the jaws. The heron swung the creature around, breaking its neck and positioning it more comfortably. Then he flew away from the field, his blue wings blending into the afternoon sky, the ground squirrel corpse caught firmly in his beak. Another heron, who I hadn't noticed before, followed him.

The heron having had his feast, I went on to mine—the farm potluck. Carrie determined to paint a heron on the shed door.

1/17/00:

"One must speak for life and growth, amid all this mass of destruction and disintegration." –D.H. Lawrence

It is gray outside today, definitely not delightful. I am thinking about gardening, about pulling weeds yesterday. Ann and I were clearing weeds around the citrus trees, and I left a flowering wild radish along the border. The wild radish has purple flowers—it is beautiful and it will attract beneficial insects. I tried to explain my action to Ann—how one creates a system in relation with the natural world when one gardens. Gardening, its seems to me, is a practice that both reflects and shapes one's relationship with the living world—respect and balance and knowing when to let go.

3/3/00:

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the Eyes of others only a Green thing that stands in the way. As a man is so he sees." –William Blake

4/25/00: It has taken me two years to fully understand the beauty of the weeds in the farm community. I used to think they were in the way. It has taken me two years to understand the role they play—as a food source, as protectors of the soil, and even, at times' as protectors of the crops we grow. (Who knows how many ground squirrels have chosen to munch on wild radish instead af the radishes growing in our plots?) I like the way the farm looks and feels now—half-wild, half-cultivated. We share with those who were there before us. We are mostly peacefully coexisting. This spring there are so many flowers, wild and otherwise, and I have noticed more spider and insect species than ever before. And the human community is a sharing one as well: so many new volunteers and people who want to learn this spring, so many dedicated non-students who often pick up the slack for the student community. This place is beginning to make sense to me.