Earthbox Gardening

Gardening is in my blood. I had a grandfather who amassed acres of land turning it into farmland in South Plainfield, NJ and I grew up running through fields of vegetables, and fruit orchards from the time I was four years old. We ate fresh gagoots (zucchini) that grew like baseball bats and corn shooting up to tower above fences. The Italian immigrants harvested huge barrels of tomatoes that my grandmother cooked down in the garage to make sauce she canned for the rest of the year. Think of the fragrances that were carried by the summer winds. Peppers, eggplants, watermelons. I'm sure there was more, but my child like mind was fascinated by climbing trees for the luscious apples. In winter, the pumpkins and the skating with our slippery galoshes across an icy pond. Nothing but pasture land enveloped our small village of ranch homes and farmland.

Those were the days when you could catch fireflies on a summer night in a jar and let them free after watching them glow. Those were the days picking concord grapes from the vine,squeezing the tough purple skins and slurping them into my mouth. I relished watching my grandfather pick snails up from the ground he would cook in his stew. The word babaluche stuck in my head although the correct terminology is Lumache. Perhaps it was his Sicilian dialect. I had no idea how he prepared them in some kind of tomato sauce, but I acknowledge the affinity for snails followed me all my adult life. Mostly smothered in garlic buttery sauce. The Greeks and the French make sure their seal is broken, and they are boiled in salted water for 20 minutes, then that water is changed several times until the green slime is lost. Finally cooked, it is covered with wine in a bowl until used in stews.

When our seven family members made the exodus from the east coast to California, in the cramped Ford station wagon with the wood panels, many of us old enough to realize, felt a profound sadness. As if we lost some part of our spirit once living among nature never to be revitalized. It was held in memory but never forgotten. Consequently, my father planted a patch of garden vegetables and most certaintly, Italian herbs.

Now, as an older adult, I weep for the lack of interest in gardening in our young generation. Putting hands into the soil is like being touched by Mother Creation. How can you not be changed in some profound way?

We found property eight years ago in the canyons. A developer had cleared part of a mountain that could have, may have, contained elements not found in most areas. I thought at the time, well, Gold was discovered just miles from here before Sutters Mill. Could there be gold in them thar hills? After the building of the house and the clearing away of debris, I answered myself. No. Just rotten clay soil that killed four of my trees that I planted and numerous vegetables. Frustration took hold and I almost gave up with the added problem of critters coming down into the canyon. I felt violated even though I wanted so badly to be part of the environment.

My husband and son gave me a gift. They spent a day under a summer sun on the other side of the iron fencing digging a tightly woven chicken wire fence that would most certaintly prevent anything, including possums and rabbits, from entering our yard, save the birds. The thirty foot extreme drop on the other side of the fence was too annoying to coyotes. For the first time, our bushes were not munched on and our flowers thrived.

Soil still being unusable, we invested in Earthboxes. We secured eight, followed the directions and planted away. We have six massive tomato plants, two eggplant plants, six various cucumber plants, six various pepper plants, four zucchini plants and we are enjoying at long last, a clean, easy to manage garden. My mind is already twirling with ideas for the winter garden. I hope to have several boxes devoted to lettuce. I am looking forward to kale, chard, broccoli, peas, cauliflower, spinach and more. This is the most ideal pest free manner of gardening and it brings forth abundance, continually. Just when I am thinking well, looks like the zucchini is done, bata bing, another two or three shoots become a surprise to my eyes. Do I recommend this type of gardening to everyone? oh yeah.

A Most Extraordinary Gentleman

My Italian Father is 90.5 years old. He lives decades past many of the seniors in his retired community or in our convoluted ancestral family. His parents, Guiseppe and Isabelle emerged from the seacoast of Bari, the second largest city in Southern Italy. In olden times, Bari was controlled by the Greeks and then the Romans. Guiseppe left this plane long before I was born and Isabelle who could only master some broken English, continued to live in her humble brownstone apartment in Utica, New York for some decades longer. To describe her as a sweet and tender woman would not be justified enough.

My Dad, Frank, was one of three sons and grew up on the fighting streets of New York selling newspapers to earn a small income "to help the family out". They were a poor family with immigrant roots and learned how to survive in the worst of times. It was commonplace to hear stories of the long walks in the snow and the inability to have some of the simple comforts but Dad endured all of it. It was no wonder that he joined the Army and came home with a Purple Heart. He served in North Africa, Sicily, Anzio, France and Germany. Before all that, he was stationed in Pearl Harbor for three years and here is a story for the record. Before the attack, as life would have it, his Father became ill and he went home to be with him for a while. If he had been in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese bombs hit, his famous line to me was, YOU, my daughter, would not have been born. So, it appears, the grandfather I never met, saved the day and allowed my Father to choose another window of survival.

My Dad met Mom in French class in New York, after he returned from the War and irritated the hell out of her because his version of French was street French. The light of heaven descended on their love, as no one will question, they are soul mates. They married in a glorious wedding and had six kids, batta bing.

However, the purpose of this tribute to Dad is multifaceted. He is probably the most mellow, loving, generous, forgiving, compassionate man I know. He worked all his life seriously long hours to provide parochial schooling for his six children, to tithe to his Church, to make sure enough food was on our groaning table, to take care of his Mom and brothers back home, to sustain us all in a small ranch home, to build a large swimming pool and then care for my grandmother in many ways, who lived on our property for 30 years. Dad always found a way to buy each of us kids a used car and then to take care of all the repairs. His devotion to sports be it coaching, critiquing or opinionating with his two boys was unsurpassed. Not a week or weekend would fly by that he didn't sit on some bleacher and if not, the game was on the television. "Frank!" My Mother would yell, "Shut the TV, food is on the table!" He had mastered watching a game without sound between slurps of pasta, his other major love.

His fascination with history, reading, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum movies, golf, growing his vegetable garden and his friends who shared the bleacher bench, was the highlight of his life. His religious devotion and love of God is extraordinary. You would find him picking up a book on any spiritual subject often to soothe his soul.

Dad traveled to Europe many times with Mom, I think we counted 13 trips to Europe, many to Italy alone and he would often say to me, I could die a happy man just sitting at the edge of Lake Como with a glass a wine in my hand and a plate of vongole.

His wisdom stays with us and his humor, witty and dry and most hilarious and joyous. No this is not a confused man about his priorities or a man without memories and appreciation for life and his family. His life is more fragile these days, tearful over the most emotional events, soaking up the essence of what is most important, what is most gratifying. Above all,he is my hero and my inspiration for living a life of stewardship and dedication to purpose. Ah! Salute' Daddy!

A Son for All Seasons

When he was seven years old, our son told us his real name was Ancontowasa. He drew some ancient symbol that could have spearheaded his destiny; likened to an imprimatur on a warrior's shield. He was not especially surrounded by the Native Tribe realm nor did he migrate to one particular religious thought. He did draw many other pictures including his affection for the name and it provided deep comfort.

The manner of expression and feeling about his name followed him all his life. There were times he would label his music demo with it, other times some genius abstract or otherworldly piece of art. Later in life he alluded that it codified some part of his essence, his multi-dimensional self. There was never any doubt or fear; rather an embracing.

The strength of his mind allowed him to heal himself of the usual childhood afflictions, one horrific accident where he was hit by a car at the delicate age of 13, and later, his penchant for using an imagined blue light towards any part of his body, i.e. knee surgery, and once, a deep gash in his foot falling off a trampoline at the Burning Man Festival. In all cases, sutures were required and in all cases, pain medication was replaced by his healing technique.

He is a Son for all Seasons by which I mean, however the wind blows he welcomes it. We are all usually fragile human beings. How often do we encounter ones that are not? My son is stalwart. When he was not quite into his twenties he asked the Universe, God, his guardians, his higher self, to not ever fall into the clutches of fear. Abject fear. The kind that paralyzes you and takes you down the forbidden paths of desperation. He saw in his early twenties a vision of his life in a sequential pattern. So far, fourteen years later, it has been pretty true to form. His instincts match mine. We are telepathic and symbiotic in nature. The umbilical cord was never cut it seems. Intuitively he masters his life. If it creates a lesson, he learns profoundly and laughs at himself. People that know him, want to be him. At the risk of sounding smotherly or egoic, he is the gentle giant that will lead people out of their funks ( darkness ).

The colorful art he creates is whimsical and cavernous, tunnels beneath our secret selves thus showing us the true mirrors of what we feel and must know. He excelled in college past the earmark of whatever he attempted. Pottery instructors would warn him of his risky attempts at creation, yea, he manifested the impossible. Musicians would stand in awe at his rapid fire music and guitar playing, a renaissance man without formal training. A bit of a prodigy, they would muse. When he directed or wrote a play or took on insurmountable feats by celebrity artists it seemed to not phase him at the ripe old age of 21. When he scripts screenplays and designs a masterful production plan, it comes from a place he knows not of. To him, he is led. He listens to his inner voice and has been known to get out of bed in the middle of the night, drive to Hollywood, sit on the curb and talk to a homeless man and then walk into a coffee house to meet a man who would later become a brother-friend in music. You have to ask yourself, who is this man?

He is my son who has a destiny very real to his conscious self. He prefers to not call attention to its grandness but rather envelope it into his positivity. He sees the world as it should be. He carries the inner knowing of yes, what can happen and then what must happen to set it right again. Occasionally he will watch the news events and most often, he walks away from it. He reads only uplifting works. He admires those that have come before him. Children know his energy and migrate to his softness. Women want to have him all for their own. Family members find him amusing and entertaining. Friends know he is the safe place they can fall without judgment or advisement unless he senses they are in a danger zone. Co-workers do not know his secret angle of distributing his charisma. He is the honest one. The fall down hilarious one with impersonations complete with dialect. He is the one that can take something damn serious and make it light and funny so you will always see the light cast on it in a different way.

I am the mother imperfecto. He is the classic generator of joy, be it cooking gourmet with me in our kitchen or slicing and dicing a new movie we saw together, or sharing each others inhuman day. We have it, its gold and beyond blessed, beyond what is true, he is the Son of all Seasons.

Bleep Hitting the Fan

Perhaps these economically oppressed times create more unity than divisiveness. The school of hard knocks has hit everyone I know including moi. But I believe in an outreached hand that serves others, thus serving self. The tribal societies knew how to handle drought and famine. The Amish clans gathered round, villages across the world rely on their seasoned strategies to pick themselves up as a family unit. This is not known well enough in the civilized world; in the United States of America.

I read the Wall Street Journal recently. Detroit Michigan is suffering. 900,000 people and they now have only 4 Starbucks. Dear God, they are forced to make their own coffee! No national grocery chain exists in the city and Borders bookstore is 40 miles away. I won't go into the outrage of crashing employment at 22.8% via the auto industry in Detroit. Thirty percent is on food stamps. These statistics, I've read, are the highest in our United States. Will these people move like caravans out of their home state? Or will they learn to farm and create co-ops? What kind of creativity are they aspiring to in order to offset their calamity? Will they sit and feel hopeless, helpless? What is the plan for these folks? Because all of America looks upon them with great compassion and wonder. How will a new life be created?

I have known many friends who have left their home post and planted themselves near country living in states where rivers and forests still reside. To have the sacred land your backyard playground seems unimaginable to city dwellers, if even to learn how to build, plant, nurture gardens for our birds and bees, for human nutrition. To me, that is returning the trust to Mother Earth, where it should be always given exclusively; not to the corporate collective greed of tearing down nature for more and more housing, roads, strip malls, mega malls.

At least we have control on these issues. There are things threatening the planet we have no control over, like the diminished solar activity which many solar physicists have theorized could be due to the breach in the magnetosphere. Some astronomical societies say their helioseismological equipment registers a jet stream deep inside the sun making it migrate slower. This puzzles them because it has been happening over 2 years. Magnetosphere breach disrupting the coronal holes of the sun? I know, its so hard to look outside of our everyday problems.

Have we entered a new phase of thinking about WHAT we should really think about?

Everything is a circle. Are we returning to our roots? I was raised on a massive farm in New Jersey. I have a deep yen to return to that peace. I was in touch with all of nature. That grounded me. Cell phones, loud pharmaceutical commercials, raging mufflers on the road, long lines to anywhere entertaining, extreme markup on food and necessities, computer addiction and such do not ground me. Was that another life to be reincarnated as the end of the circle? Baby boomers are restless. They basically do not know why until they go to an isolated campsite or a trip on a floating houseboat or a slide down a remote mountain. I used to feel like a bird when I skied at the top of June Mountain. All I could hear was the wind and the shoosh of snow. I remember telling myself, you are one with the mountain as I skied past squirrels in trees.

Am I going to take the dive when the bleep hits my fan? Well, I do know one thing. I will take the @#%& lemons and make lemonade.

Meaningful Lyrics

The Native Americans used to say, "Sound holds this world together". They were referring to the elements of sound, its tone and frequency. I am not a musician, though I would like to be and perhaps will fulfill that before I kiss this planet goodbye, but I do fall into the percentage of the listening public that knows when a certain sound resonates within. I go further. I believe in the lyrical component. What do the words really say and where is the emphasis?

Parents are outraged by certain rap verses and right they are because what changes the internal mindset or construct of a person, child, is the language that accompanies the beat of the drum. Now that we are blessed with internet, lyrics are easily obtained for any song. Youtube watchers can pick out a video that has lyrics flashing across the screen as well. Very cool for us baby boomers who strain to hear "huh? what was that word?" Now its in print because often, lyrics are not in the CD jacket anymore. And why not?

Just for fun I will list some of my favorite lyrics, and sorry you will have to just hum the tune of the song. Stop and Stare by One Republic: "Stop and stare, I think I'm moving but I go nowhere, yeah I know that everyone gets scared, but I've become what I can't be, Stop and Stare, you start to wonder why you're here not there and you'd give anything to get whats fair, but fair ain't what you really need, oh you don't need." Our kids trying to grow older may be pushed to think this way. Its a window into the soul of that kind of kid.

Praying for Time by George Michael: I must admit I also enjoyed the Carrie Underwood rendition on American Idol. "These are the days of the open hand, they will not be the last, Look around now, These are the days of the beggars and the choosers, This is the year of the hungry man, whose place is in the past, hand in hand with ignorance and legitimate excuses, the rich declare themselves poor and most of us are not sure, if we have too much but we'll take our chances cause God stopped keeping score . . ." Wow, well that packed it in didn't it? It finished with " Its hard to love, there's so much hate, hanging onto hope, when there is no hope to speak of and wounded skies above say its much too late." And to think this song was composed long before we experienced the downshaft of economy in our nation/world.

Remember Into the West by Annie Lennox (credit roll Lord of the Rings )? "What can you see, on the horizon, why do the white gulls call? Across the sea, a pale moon rises, the ships have come to carry you home. Dawn will turn to silver glass, a light on the water, all souls pass, into the west." Okay, this is a 3 hankie song. Sometimes I feel it was written to memorialize a soul making its transition to the next world.

There is a new one now that stirs the soul. A Note To God by Charise. She didn't compose it but her mighty voice is startling. " Give us the strength to make it through, help us find love cause love is overdue, and it looks like we haven't got a clue. Need some help from you, grant us the faith to carry on, give us hope when it seems all hope is gone, cause it seems like so much is going wrong, on this road we're on." Whew! I guarantee whoever hears this will be stopped. The momentum it creates rocks the inside of your chest wall. I sit back and think about lyrics that are the cause and eruption of what resonates as truth within my heart. I think it is a way for us to re-think our living and believing. I bow before any musical composer or singer who can translate this language of the soul to the people of this world. I think the most unfair experience is to be deaf. The deaf community is exempt from the beauty of song. How is their world held together?

Change Your Mind, Change The World

One of the important risks we take in life is expressing ourselves in print; a greeting card, a discussion forum, a script or a book, a school essay, the Q and A of the local newspaper's editorial column, a letter to someone we love ( or hate ), a poster or sign, a journal or diary we keep in our drawer, or an internet blog. There is where I will begin.

Why blog? Why not? We all have something to say or spit saliva about. But for those who think not, it may not necessarily be the end of the journey. Musicians express through chords. Singers express through song. Painters through art. Sculptors through sculpting. I just may be the person who has always thought that writing evokes emotion that feels more lasting and complete. A way to sum up our thoughts in a more concrete way that is ours, not shared or copied or capitalized on.

Beginning with the idea of changing your mind captures the essence of progression and growth and its exactly the surprise we can give ourselves that ignites our flame. Whatever that flame is.

Here is the interesting thing most people may not know about mind. It is not part of the brain which resides in the confines of the skull in the human frame that receives and sends messages. Mind is quantum and exists where only quantum can exist; outside the human body, in the electrical field. Wow. Now that puts a whole new slant on things. Could it be that mind can access the knowledge of the cosmos? Could it be that mind could possess the particles of all healing as it resides in the grid of light? Wow again.

I learned something about the DNA. We were all taught that DNA is in the nucleus of the cell. It is the protein making ( synthesizing ) machine of our bodies. Here is where it becomes fascinating. By drawing transcendentally on the Quantum Potential residing in the electrical field ( black hole, white hole) through the idea of perception/belief, we can change how the cell membrane changes shape and how the DNA will respond. Read the book THE BIOLOGY OF BELIEF by Dr. Bruce Lipton and further, VIRUS OF THE MIND by Richard Brodie.Bottom line, what you believe changes your mind and changes how you perceive something. All translates to health and how the cells respond.

Do I believe by changing an energy frequency changes the world? I do. Each particle washes over many particles that are privy to our touch, our vision, our exhanges. One thread of many interweaving in the giant grid.