A lot can change in a single moment, and life has seemed to be just chock-full of moments lately.
Kenny here, with a newcomer’s ruminations and anxious contemplation on moments.
I arrived at Dancing Rabbit during the June visitor’s program, just over a month ago. That process was full of moments. There was the moment I met Mae in person, who had been coordinating with Julian and I for the months before our arrival back in the Midwest. She taxi’d my partner, three kids, and me to DR. Travel up to that point had been extremely tiring, and in the shadow of COVID, full of disquiet. My family rode in the van, masked, but enjoying the AC on the hour-long trip from our hotel to the farm.
Then again there was a moment, coming up on the sign, “Welcome to Dancing Rabbit.” The kids all shrieked through their masks, “we’re here!” and flooded out of the van to gaggle by our ankles with nervous excitement as Rabbits greeted us with warm smiles. Here was the place I had read, talked, and planned about for years, and there were already so many smiles. Raw emotion washed over me (along with the humidity) as we gathered our gaggle of children and luggage and trundled over to the Mercantile for COVID testing and check-ins.
Bam! Another moment, meeting Cob, who was friendly and warm, just like in the videos we watched a thousand times before visiting. With a genuine smile, he offered me a COVID test.
Bam! Another moment. “Oh, this is positive.” And my partner too. Sweat and tears (and humidity again) overcame me. What’ll happen to our reservations? To our visit? To the kids? To the village? To those at greater risk? Should we go? Where? How? We were gently led back outside to wait for direction.
Bam! Another moment. Our gaggle of infectious goslings were led to the building called Allium, where we’d quarantine in accordance with village policy. Entering my first earthen building, the oldest one on farm. My first taste of DR policy as a subject. I’d seen pictures of this building, and watched videos of this place, and read books on these processes, but I was scarcely able to register these thoughts before the door was closed, and we were alone, and my youngest asked for a snack, and my oldest informed me that they really needed to pee.
Moments continued to abound. Knocks on the door continued into dusk, from all manner of concerned Rabbits, offering everything from cots and sleeping bags, to water, medicine, honey, and of course, our very own humey bucket (with complementary sawdust).
The next 10 days were completely stuffed to the brim with moments. Our family took COVID very seriously, and so all the regulations and codes of the village we were informed of, we dutifully met. We were able to partake in the visitors program in a limited capacity, and were served fresh, visitor-co-op-made breakfast in our quarantine hovel. The village and all its people were holding us in such a dear, genuine way, that it took many, many moments to really fully conceive of how at home I felt.
Coming out of isolation, I was faced with a new obstacle: how does one integrate with a people who have only ever isolated you, left you on the fringes by necessity? With honesty, was all I could figure, which has been easier to answer than to achieve.
Before coming to DR, I talked to other people about myself in professional spaces, or in consumer spaces. Co-workers and clients, or receptionists and clerks. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: “Hi, how are you?” “Fine, how are you?” “Fine, fill out these forms.” “I will, thank you.” “Thank you, next.” How would it feel to actually answer that question?
Dancing Rabbit introduced me to the practice of group check-ins: everyone gets a few minutes to check in with themselves and the group. A judgement free space to talk about your feelings. A “hi, how are you” with a room full of people hoping for your honest answer. Of all the methods I’ve been taught, I find the PIES approach the easiest to consistently remember, pondering on one’s Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Spiritual states of being in that moment, so that the group can meet you where you are, instead of needing to assume. Tears are shed at morning check-ins, people discussing loss, joy, fear, anxieties, accomplishments, and news of the weather to come; all their own moments, and how they are all affecting them.
All their moments, those expressed during check-ins, and the uncountable number that happen all around us without recognition, blend together and create this thing that is Dancing Rabbit. The wexers and visitors that come and go, the Rabbits that have been here for years, the plants, bugs, animals, and dirt all have their moments that coalesce into the here and now. I am writing by the light of a gifted lamp in a rusted chair that was dug out of dense foliage around the earthen building in which I now reside. My kids are playing with their new friends, my partner is whoojing cob and plastering with manure, and I am in another moment, this one of love and adoration for this radically new, and historically old environment in which I am both finding and constructing myself. I will surely transition to another moment soon, just as I am transitioning from visitor to resident, from squatter to renter, and from unseen by others, to held by a village.
Kenny Dane has happily joined DR as a resident and can be found mornings at coffee group and days at the playground with their kids.
Kenny is our newest writer of the mem dem. Welcome, Kenny!