Healing is the practice
We’ve been thinking a lot about healing on the farm lately. I don’t know if it’s the Chiron entering Taurus energy of the season or the duck we’ve been tending back to health after a fox attack. I don’t know if it’s the new section of pasture we’ve been clearing with the horses that I keep finding buried scrap metal and trash in. I don’t know if it’s the daily focus on nutritional content of the soil for the vegetable harvests that we know determine the cellular health of those that consume them. It might be because of all the conversations we’re having with experts in our state regarding our pasture grass constituents, soil samples, and conifer acres’ tree health plan. It might be because of the round of antibiotics and recent tetanus shot that Tony had to get due to a formidable infection in his finger after an accident building the new horse shelter (this is a man who has not taken Tylenol in about ten years).
Regardless, healing is on our minds.
Healing is kind of annoying in the context of an extractive economy. We’ve been very trained in taking what we need and at all costs having the productivity in place to get whatever we want regardless of the impact on the health of the system. Healing slows everything down. It requires finding new ways of doing what we take for granted as simple tasks, connecting to our sources of energy and rest, and prioritizing a vision for ourselves (the land, the animals) that is way beyond the hour’s immediate productivity demands.
On the way back from the hospital with Tony he was talking about how frustrated he felt that the healing his finger requires might slow down the tasks he needs to get done this week. But I pointed out that it doesn’t matter if the tasks get done this week if he loses a finger and can’t cook as well for the cafe when it opens. The priority of health must shift for us from this day, this week, what we want out of ourselves and the land this year, to lifetimes of longevity and resilience. To generations of an ability for 40 acres to feed people.
I think this is why this new model we’re shaping here at Field Store House is so challenging to develop along the way. At face value, it seems so simple: a farm, an inn, a cafe, but like, on the land with lots of insta moments, yeah? But no. The hospitality and agricultural industries (Big ‘I’ Industry - i’m not discounting the very rare and small efforts out there by individuals) are deeply extractive in nature. By that I mean, they extract whatever resources they require of the land, its workers, its animals to deliver a product without any intentional work to ensure their future health and survival. There is no thought to the health of the system, its ability to rebound from illness and setback, and its multi-generational resource building. None of those are questions we ask then evaluating the success or performance indicators of a restaurant.
I think a restaurant and farm that can keep healing at its center would be a revolutionary thing. One that has the capacity to support healing - not just for those who visit, but for the internal system of animals, people, and soil - would be something we’ve never heard of on a mainstream scale. We cannot talk about creating something new without addressing the fact that our soils and our water and our own health need healing. The planet’s and our own personal body resources are no longer starting at baseline, they are in deficit. So building into any new system healing as a goal is essential for its success.
I’m back out to the field for the day - more scrap metal extraction to heal a field, more bed tending to ensure soil nutrients, more animal pasture rotation and duck wound care, and I think i’ll even take tonight off of farm work after dinner to spend some time stretching and assimilating all my body’s done throughout the day. Sending fierce healing practice to you all today.
