farming and dancing
and things that make it easier to love
hey anti-reader, guess what ! i accomplished my first full proper workday on a farm yesterday. i did things like pull weeds, build apparatuses for cucumbers to climb, watch a dog catch a mourning dove and not know what to do with it, harvest eggplants and potatoes all for 9 very full hours while temperatures rose to a hot and humid 95 degrees (35 C). i remember the days of venturing home from the agency i worked at pre-c0vid, politely declining happy hour invitations to fight my way onto 2 separate, overcrowded trains just to arrive at my apartment after dark with little desire to do anything else but “unwind” in my room. unwind from the tight stress ball i was wound up in as i commuted to a shallow job in an overcrowded city to sit in the midst of toxic protocols and work relationships taking place around me. i’m not suited to corporate environments because i am unable to pretend to care about the things that i do not care about. seems reasonable enough?! there are so many things, time sensitive things, that actually NEED to be cared for in this world if we hope to see any kind of life sustained in the future. if i spend all of my energy on things like stressing out about fashion week or looking popular at cool places or pretending to do enough fake work to appease my boss i no longer have any left to send letters to my grandma, tend to my herb garden, gather food to share with friends, cook, make art, dream of a balanced world— essentially to create and flourish life. it doesn’t seem like a good trade off so i’m still here figuring out another way. i have an open sacral center. my energy is precious and limited. like a gas tank it ain’t gonna run on empty, not for long anyway. sure, it isn’t easy to give up a livable paycheck for the throes of financial insecurity in a market economy, especially as someone who already struggles with scarcity mindset, but at the end of those days i was trading my values and my vitality (my life) solely for a livable paycheck. how “livable” is that?
i’m navigating it. farm work is definitely the most laborious work i’ve ever done and it hardly pays in dollars, but there is satisfaction in being exhausted by something you actually care about, want to learn more about— to grow and grow from. yes yes, i seem prefer the company of insects, organic vegetables, and the folks watchfully tending to them while covered in dirt and drenched in sweat. a fashion show is about as far away from that as i ever remember being.
when you follow things that call you you begin to encounter people that also speak your language. makes sense. working and volunteering on different farms has taught me that better than anything else i’ve participated in so far. whether it’s with a father/son duo in central spain or women of various ages and backgrounds in the southeastern united states there seems to be this invisible thread running through and connecting us all. this thread understands the importance of hard work, humor, diversity, reciprocity, and community to name a few. and that’s just it, isn’t it? we are connected, ALL of us, not just farmers. capitalism has created an illusion of separateness. it commodifies e v e r y t h i n g while teaching you to be in competition with the world around you. it trivializes the exact things that are needed to shift this game into something more sustainable and enjoyable for all. to be clear, when i say capitalism i’m not talking about whatever it was adam smith probably had in mind or even the horrors of the late-stage capitalism we are living through now but am more-so speaking to the ways in which this economic system coupled with the ruling classes ideologies have shaped how we move through the world all the way up to now. if we are participants in it, well, that means that we have the capacity to shift it. everything begins as an idea, like ole adam smith’s. an idea is the freshly sowed seed that has the capacity to grow into a forest. smith’s idea clearly isn’t working out great so what are we gonna do about it? what little things are we gonna shift in our little lives to shape our little world? i’m not talking about shit like shaming plastic straws or participating in eco-consumerism (capitalism) or going vegan. i’m talking about embodying the things you want to change and believing in that SO HARD that you refuse the carrot, no matter how shiny, coercing you back to the “masters” corporations. like kimmerer says, “all flourishing is mutual.” so is extinction. we have a choice to make and we make that choice every time we use our attention and spend our energy— it’s our most valuable currency, remember? i personally wouldn’t bank on the dollar 4ever…
lately my body has been needing to DANCE. like, i’ll be sitting here minding my business writing this newsletter to you and begin making exaggerated movements with my body, wiggling and waving my torso all around. i’ll be lying in Shavasana (corpse pose) after yoga or in a halfhearted attempt to meditate and the sudden urge to move my hips will hit me then my back, then shoulders.. head… you get it. sometimes when this happens and my eyes are closed i get glimpses of ancestors dressed colorfully and dancing in a ceremony of thanks. it has the ability to bring a few tears to my eyes which, i believe, is a combination of the beauty and resonance i feel as well as the grief of not being a part of it. grief is stored in the hips and so the urge to dance computes. it is not uncommon for someone to become emotional while stretching their hips. this is cool, it means you’re releasing some stored grief. it doesn’t happen to me, perhaps because i stretch my hips often(?), but you know what i don’t do often? dance. it actually hit me as i stood up just now to do a lil dance (i’m tellin u.. the urges are real) that i have said multiple times throughout this pandemic the only thing i miss is dancing. i have spent these last few years back in the states doing some major de-conditioning and with that can come quite a bit of grief. you’re basically saying.. yeah, this whole world i’ve been living ‘wound up’ in most of my life is actually not right for me (or earth!) and i now have to figure out how to get beyond all these limiting beliefs, systems, even people and into myself and what i believe. how will i sustain myself without participating in the limiting spaces laid out for me by a destructive society? it can be dark and lonely. sometimes we may not even recognize ourselves as grieving and that is when, without an exit, it gets stored in the body. the process of de-conditioning requires you to let go of a lot. i thought i was already the king of letting go, but i was only getting started. i am learning true detachment and with that true transformation. i am dancing out the grief, making space for its opposite— love.
i had this very simple thought the other day- share what you want to grow. i think that pretty much ties this up. i think that is the point i’m trying to get across. there are plenty of variations of it- “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” “be the change you wish to see in the world” blahblah but these are cliché for a reason. my thought wasn’t profound or even original, but it is actionable and that is what i like about it. it would be silly to expect to see certain things around you if you are incapable of bringing any of them to the table yourself.
paying subs can leave comments on posts, but anyone can hit reply to the emails if u wanna reach me. i love this little community and i read them all :)
talk soon
xx
lex