On Friday I returned home from a three day flower growing conference in Portland, ME, only to start a two day basket weaving workshop, pleasantly sustained by soup from a friend’s pop-up. A week, a weekend, visiting with, learning from, in admiration of other craftsmen. I am home now, deeply sofa bound. I am curious about what I would like to write to you in my new Sunday (now Monday)commitment/ritual/connection. Let’s see if I can pull this together.
For years I thought school was “real time”. Having now lived as a human with (ah! nearly!) as much time out of school as in, I can see that the many many many rooms of life that we exist within all operate in different time. There is no real time. In India I loved that if you asked the person attending a ticket kiosk, “What time is the next bus arriving?” They would reply “2,” while simultaneously nodding their head right to left (or was it left to right?) which meant, or could mean, “at 2, or before 2, or after 2, or when it arrives, or when it never arrives because I don’t subscribe to your perception of time”. More and more people I know have thrown the Gregorian calendar out the window. I know the earth and soul to operate in geologic time. We must remember the long arc of progress. Farming operates on seasonal time while existing (always) in future time.
“Farming” in the winter is a funny thing looking in from the outside (particularly when the snow is so high you can’t open the greenhouses and there are no melting events in sight). “What do you do in the Winter?” is a common refrain. So, so, so much, is the answer. For a time, winter smoothes and slows for much needed bodily rest, reset. That has been (for me, this year) internally glorious, though I know (and I have also been) other farmers who mentally, struggle deeply in this time. February 1st rolls around - calendar time says it still looks like winter, but mentally it feels like April, anxiety starts to wake me in the night.
Winter is about synthesising the learnings, reflections, inspirations of an entire growing season (or many) to make new improvements, goals, systems, plans. Attending a conference for growers adds to this download, for now I have many others learned experiences in mind as well. Now, or last month, or now and last month and now again, my wintertime task is to distill and implement from one year to the next, to tie the two, and endlessness, together.
I am a creature of craft. Which means (to me) that I am in the lifetime pursuit of greater craft(wo)menship. Greater practice, season after season, year after year. I stay skeptical of self-proclaimed experts - how boring! Let us always be learning! I long to know my companions more deeply, soil, seeds, stems, blooms, and you. I feel and crave stretching into my body's movements, my muscle’s memories, wondering what more is possible. Each new moment in time, an opportunity to literally and metaphorically, flower.
From this humble and curious state - I’d like to learn with you. What would you like to practice? I’d like to host more learning at Foxtrot this season, for me, for you. What do you want to learn in this time of life? What craftspeople are you inspired by? What can we provide space to know?
xx - Kate