• Tag Archives docent
  • My life, now

    Summer                                  Waning Summer Moon

    Vega the wonder dog has:  shredded the netaphim irrigation,  chewed up a length of high quality hose, swallowed my wedding ring, peed on the bench cushion Kate made and, most recently, peed on our oriental carpet.  As a result we have:  put up a split rail fence, done loads of laundry and taken the oriental in to the rug laundry.

    On the upside, she’s irrepressible, enthusiastic and downright funny.  Her sister Rigel, a sweet girl and a lover, seems bland in comparison, but they have the same parents.

    This weekend I’m off to Decorah, Iowa for a conference at the Seed Saver’s Exchange farm.  There will be lots of information on organic farming/gardening, wagon rides, two speeches on heirloom vegetables, a presentation on Heritage Poultry and a barn dance.  There will be workshops on saving seeds, garlic, potatoes, hand-pollination and bud grafting.

    This turn toward permaculture, horticulture, gardening was a gradual process.  It sort of snuck up on me as I dabbled in perennials on Edgcumbe in St. Paul, grew some vegetables, then did a bit more after we moved to Andover.  Later, I took a horticultural degree by mail from London University in Guelph, Ontario.  At some further point I began to read about permaculture, picked up Bill Mollison’s book and began to make contacts locally.

    The real spur to push further on all this was a conference Kate and I attended in Iowa City three years ago now.  Run by Physician’s for Social Responsibility it convinced me that I needed to turn my activist attention toward environmental matters.

    It took a while to get going but I got myself on the Sierra Club’s political committee last year in the summer, then followed up with work on the Club’s legislative committee this last session writing a blog.  Last September we hired ecological gardens to do a permaculture design for the whole property and made a push to get the orchard planted that fall so it would have the benefit of a full growing season this year.

    This gives me work outside, in the political arena and, as a Docent, in aesthetic and intellectual realms.  A really good deal for me.  As always, thanks, Kate.


  • I Can Get Satisfaction

    Imbolc   Waning Wild Moon

    I don’t yet feel a time crunch in my life, but I have sensed the increasing speed with which events zoom onto my radar.  I may have to alter my daily schedule, for example, I have worked out around 4 pm for several years now, but shifts in other events now make that difficult.  Workouts may have to move back to the mornings, where they were for many years.

    The Sierra Club political work satisfies a deep need I have for agency in the political process.  Long, long ago I integrated “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” into my Self.  I’ve tried to decide against it from time to time, but that has always proved futile.  Resistance is futile.

    The Docent work satisfies another deep need, this one for constant contact with art and opportunities to learn and think about it.  The two year training program allowed me to put down medium roots in global art history; now I spend time pushing those roots deeper into the soil of the world’s artistic heritage and spreading them out across continents and movements.

    So, change.  The only constant.  Again.