Roots. An emergent theme of the summer...

I experienced the fullness of the word as I dug again and again into the soil on the 'Freedom Farm', my cousins' budding NGO outside of NYC. There my life folded into theirs like a bird in hand as I poured all of my available time and energy into planting herbs, flowers, and veggies waiting to be transplanted from the greenhouse.

I've come to understand myself as one persistently questing for wholeness and striving for integrity, and with me this first and foremost begins at the body level. In shoveling, wheelbarrowing, hauling, attaching, digging, watering as the sun warmed and browned my skin, I cannot think of a lifestyle that surpassed that as offering a sense of being fully alive. It is ironic to think, as my aunt jested, of the fact that my grandparents worked so hard precisely so that their children and children's children wouldn't have to slog through farm work... perhaps the treasure lies in the choice of it now. What I know personally is how it grounds me amidst a world that I've been encouraged to think, think, and think more about. On the farm, it is me directly in bodily communication with the sustenance of life and all its mystery and miracle. Feels deep down good.

As it does for The Food Project youth that I visited this morning here in Lincoln, MA (yet another cousin's NGO)... A split of young workers from inner Boston and others from suburbia, they're being pushed in many ways-- to learn about the origins of their food as well as the origins of their stereotypes toward one another. Something about working collaboratively with these new roots that opens up possibilities never before foreseen.

And so I wrap my arms around the roots of family. Conversations with my older cousins, my enduring mentors, have been informative and transformative. In the ways they so openly and honestly share the ebs and flows of life-- I welcome their wisdom which showers in, fortifying my bones and alighting my soul.

Mind is never far from the larger politics at play, concerned with the turn of Zimbabwe, the still fragile transition in Nepal, and myriad issues otherwise untouched by media. As we maintain awareness of these, we contribute to forces for freedom by putting our positive energies forth in whatever land calls for our roots. In stillness, faith and patience we endlessly discover where our bodies strive to go...