By Jane Valencia
A reflection from 25 years ago, when our family lived on the Island’s west side.
We are deep into autumn – on All Hallow’s Eve, it so happens – a day whose crone eyes decree decay and change, and spark with new beginnings. The apples on the old tree in our front lawn are perfect – large and both sweet and gently tart, without wormholes or bird pecks. No unseemly blemishes to chop out. We can smilingly, confidently offer them to our friends.
Our planting field, our garden-to-be (or, when we’re daring, our farm-to-be) is like a carpet taking form, a weaving. The ground has been plowed, tilled, and tilled again, and enriched with soil amendments. Today Andy broadcast seeds onto the canvas – vetch, peas, rye, clover – our winter cover crop. Because the earth is damp with rain, we attempt to shovel the seed into the soil. It is calm in the golden light, and I feel as if I’m burying treasure. Gold-yellow-green poplar leaves pattern the brown of the garden. These I turn under with the seeds, layering gold dishes into the dark earth.
After a row and a half, Andy gives up and decides to call upon our walk-behind tractor. He’d thought the wet dirt would clog the tiller, but now figures it’s worth taking that chance. Shoveling has been absurdly difficult and slow, and we’d be at it for days. Soon I see that the tractor is going well. I lay my shovel on the grass and turn to the task of pulling stones from the field.
It’s amazing – so many stones recline on top of the ground, even rather large ones. Andy and I had pulled stones from the field after it was first plowed. And again after tilling. Whenever we walk by, we pull out stones. But the earth continues to produce more, to push them up, it seems, like stalks of corn or like eggs. At first we’d constructed piles of stones, careful cairns, but now I fling the rocks into the grass. Eventually I’ll have to gather these, because we’ll have to mow that area at some point.
I pull the stones, and enjoy the weight and chill hardness in my palms, and the damp earth against my skin. I’m glad I’m not wearing gloves. Realizing this, I press my hand against the earth, leaving prints like leaves behind.
I step in and out of the field, carefully, not wanting to compact the soil, but knowing it can’t be helped, and knowing that Andy will be tilling it all again anyway, where I’ve stepped. As I place the stones to the side and prepare to return to the field, I seek the places where I’ve stepped before. I look carefully for stones, so I have a purpose for being in that space. And I feel as if I’m entering sacred ground.
And aren’t I, truly? We are tending the soil, shifting it, feeding it, nurturing it, tucking it in for the night, so that God’s mystery of life may burst forth in the spring and bless us, bless the world. Here is a place of awakening on so many ways. Life rising to an organic thriving mass. A galaxy in the garden. It is sacred ground because things are happening within this space and we are aware of the happenings, somewhat. We will perform what rituals we can, do the dance, stand back to study the situation, and then do the next right thing. We will attempt to move with the rhythms of the unseen cycles and influence them in great and small ways.
Again and again, I press my hands into the soil. I notice the deep small marks that also knuckle into the field – hoof prints. The deer have added their own patterns to the blanket. One of our cats sits in the dirt and meows at me. She demands the benediction of my fingers on her fur, while complaining about the garden’s newest initiate: Molly the dog prances by to nose where our cats have beatifically defecated in our field and primly covered their offerings. Molly grins, unearths the cat scat, engages in her own comic dance and trots off.
I leave another hand print and remove another stone.
~
I shake frozen curly fries out of a plastic bag and spread them on a baking pan. I pull long shards of ice from the fries and toss them into the sink – the stones from the 13×19 inch field in my kitchen.
A number of large yellow-touched-with-red apples crowd expectantly on the counter, watching the process, and exuding a scent of sweet harvest, their approval and grace. It is autumn, All Hallow’s Eve, and the outside has nudged within. The cheerful gifts of summer shine gold onto our path as we descend into the long stone nights of the year.
