I’m sending up a flare from Dancing Rabbit ecovillage in rural Missouri. Although the world has changed drastically in the last three weeks, my daily routine still only changes in response to the weather, and even then, not very much. The landscape inside my head, however, is reeling. Liz here, sharing the latest.
I don’t think anyone here would disagree with me that this winter has been relatively mild. The ups and downs of the temperature have been in week-long or fewer increments, not two weeks at a time of polar vortex driven cold and ice. I fully understand that if you live north of here, it is laughable for me to mention any winter hardship, in any Missouri winter. I get it. Suffice to say, I have been grateful for almost no weather interruptions going into town to the gym, unlike last year, when we were snowed in for several weeks in January.
Colder weather, a community round of COVID, and more people being gone in the winter has influenced me to replace my beloved coffee group with more leisurely mornings at home by a warm fire, reading the news and cooking a big late breakfast. I’m also taking a break from building the straw bale building called the Hub.
My winter routine can feel more restrictive externally (although I still go into town to the gym three times a week), but it can feel more expansive internally, with time to snuggle in bed in the morning, eat when I feel like it, and catch up on reading. Given the new administration in the White House, I have expanded my news sources, and that takes more time to read and digest. With my self-imposed break from social scenes, I so appreciate people here touching base with me, like Dee sending me an email to check in and exchange some warm thoughts about not having seen me around.
It is often the case that I develop some level of seasonal depression in the fall and winter. I have lots of tools that I use to manage it, including using a full spectrum light, eating healthy, exercising, taking vitamin D3 and limiting my sugar intake. One of the most effective tools I have is meditation and the skill it gives me in tuning into the present. When my thoughts drift back to “the good old days” or I look to the future with dread and anxiety, I notice, and gently direct myself back to the present. If that doesn’t work (and believe me, there are days lately where almost nothing calms me down), I have a Chinese herbal formula that has a mild sedative effect, which shuts it down temporarily.
Last fall I joined a newly formed food preservation co-op. I received a certain number of jars of pickled green beans, corn relish, salsa and tomato sauce based on how many hours I worked doing the food processing and canning. I have plenty of tomato sauce left, but I’m sad to say that I’m down to my last jars of salsa and green beans. Yum! Motivation to put even more hours into the food co-op next year.
Speaking of food production, the agroforestry co-op at DR has officially named itself the Heartwood Agroforestry Collective, and its mission statement is: to implement, promote and support broad scale, perennial agriculture in the Northeast Missouri food shed, across communities, for the purpose of improving local ecology, economy, food sovereignty and carbon sequestration.
Ciaran is a relatively new resident here. He is an experienced forager of wild food and over the last year, he has been familiarizing himself with wild food that can be found on DR’s 280 acres. Each season brings new types of wild foods to the table, such as mushrooms, cattail stems and milkweed pods. He is generous with what he finds, and has recently started a new enterprise called Feral Foods, as a way of making his wild food available to Rabbits in the village. Using a cooperative business model, Rabbits will be able to subscribe, like a CSA, and also trade helping with foraging in exchange for wild food. As a cook myself, it is a novelty and a delight to have wild foods on the menu, and I’m looking forward to becoming better acquainted with food that is readily available right outside my door.
By the time you read this, I will have applied for Social Security, and I only mention this hoping that if I mention it to you, dear reader, that I will follow through and actually do it. This will require me to process some of my denial around aging, so it’s going to take some extra time.
Although I’m taking a break from construction at the Hub, I have continued working with Rebecca (the Hub’s social media co-collaborator), publishing a blog and three shorter updates each week. I’m excited about something new we are creating in honor of women’s history month in March, highlighting women’s voices on various issues each week. We’re starting on February 28 with Prairie Johnson, a spoken word poet and former Rabbit, who spent three years working on the Hub natural building project. She has been exploring the big wide world and her place in it, for the last year and a half, and is currently living in Colorado. To sign up to receive Hub blogs and to get Prairie’s guest blog hot off the press, go to thehubcollective.substack.com and subscribe. This is also where you can see videos and photos of our beautiful building project and more updates about life in our dear ecovillage. And for those of you who have a lively curiosity about natural building, there are tutorial videos and lots of detailed info on materials and methods we used on all aspects of the building project.
And so I leave you with words from poet June Jordan, which have been incorporated into a song by Sweet Honey in the Rock: “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” I am hoping to take these words to heart and do what I can with what I have, to help as many as I can.
Liz Hackney is editor and rotating writer for this newsletter. She is currently helping with a bathroom remodel in DR’s Common House with Mae and Apple. Oh the joy of picking out tile!