- Update from the encampment at Standing Rock
- Press: The Nashville Ledger
- Life in Community: Seasonal Celebrations
- The Spiritual Path - Finding Peace through Nature
- Farm School Holiday Bazaar December 3 & 4
- 2017 Farm Experience Calendar
Dear Friends,
As we deal with our collective shock over the election, I take heart in remembering that The Farm Community was born in the period that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, followed by the assassination of Robert Kennedy running for President on an anti-war platform, ultimately resulting in the land slide election of Richard Nixon.
When we hang our hopes on politics as solution, we will always find disappointment. I see this as a time once again to seek alternative paths to create the change we want by building partnerships and implementing things real and tangible with those who share our vision.
We must all continue to represent a call for sanity and common sense. The earth and all its inhabitants are our responsibility, but it begins, as always, by working on ourselves. Going full circle, the best way to work on ourselves is to work in service and care for others.Peace,
Douglas
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Standing Rock Update
In October The Farm and Plenty International sent a batch of 55 gallon drums converted into wood stoves to help the camp at Standing Rock prepare for winter. They were distributed to locations of the greatest need, a clinic, a school, community kitchens, a meeting space.
The The assembly crew
Over the last week police from 7 states, National Guard, and private security firms have confronted the water protectors with increasing violence. Journalists have been struck with rubber bullets while reporting the story. People on the front lines are being struck with Tasers targeting the face - non-lethal weaponry. Ear popping sonic cannons can damage hearing and cause headaches for days after being hit with a blast. Yet with every confrontation, the resolve of the water protectors, Native American grandmothers, elders and the youth, grows stronger.
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Pepper spray blasted from water cannons disperses it over a wide area.
Pepper spray blasted from water cannons disperses it over a wide area.
More supply runs are in the works. Stay tuned for more updates.
Remember, you can be part of this effort by making a contribution to http://plenty.org/donate/, specifying you are contributing to the work at Standing Rock. Money will be used for transportation and the purchase of supplies requested from the encampment.
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The Farm Experience Weekend Dates for 2017 – Register Now!
March 24-26 and October 20-22
The Conference on Community and Sustainability May 26-28
The Conference on Community and Sustainability May 26-28
As it stands right now, I am cutting way back on my retreats for 2017 in order to focus on some other projects. I have chosen one March 24-26 to celebrate the beauty of spring and October 20-22 to close out the year.
I will also host the conference on Community and Sustainability May 26-28. This is always one of my largest gatherings and one that is inspiring in its ability to change people's lives.
I hope to see you here!
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Life in Community: Seasonal Celbrations
Celebrations bring people together and Halloween is one of our favorites! The weekend started out with a costume party and live music from one of our second generation bands, THB (The Homegrown Band).
On the big night, because The Farm is so spread out, everyone meets at the dome by the store for an hour or so to distribute candy to all the kids and see all the costumes. Next the kids trick or treat down two of our more densely populated roads so they get that experience as well.
Halloween on The Farm
Later in the evening kids and adults gathered around a spooky "graveyard" and boiling caldron. Meanwhile in our real cemetary, others gather around a bonfire to celebrate the Day of the Dead, when the veil is thinnest between worlds.
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Farm School Holiday Bazaar December 3 & 4
This is the perfect time to visit The Farm. You'll get a look at the community as a beehive of activity while perusing unique and hard to find gifts for your family, friends, and even yourself! It is also a way to support local artisans and friends and avoid the frustrating bustle of the malls. Food and drinks will be on hand as well as a variety of live music. Eat, drink and be merry!
This is the perfect time to visit The Farm. You'll get a look at the community as a beehive of activity while perusing unique and hard to find gifts for your family, friends, and even yourself! It is also a way to support local artisans and friends and avoid the frustrating bustle of the malls. Food and drinks will be on hand as well as a variety of live music. Eat, drink and be merry!
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The Nashville Ledger, October 2016
The three part article about The Farm was pretty thorough, covering the history but with a lot of focus on the current community, including a profile of couple that lived here back in the day, but moved back recently after living in Nashville for the last several decades.
An Excerpt: Douglas who is 62, works with the outside world through Village Media, his growing website design and hosting and video-production business, writing books and speaking engagements. The basic dream of Gaskin was what led Douglas and wife Deborah to desert their middle-class roots in Louisville, Kentucky.
And they’ve never given up on that dream, although they did for a time leave to establish a Farm satellite in Kentucky and to participate in regular Farm mission trips to Guatemala.
“The caravan actually moved onto the land in August 1971,” Douglas says. My wife and I arrive in August, 1973. It had been going a couple of years by the time we got here.” By that point they were beginning to move out of the school buses – which had served as the community’s “subdivision”– and into Army tents. “Those were kinda the boot-camp days,” Douglas explains. While his family originally lived in a tent with no running water, no electricity and a wood stove for warmth, he began working on a more substantial shelter. “I made a 10-by-16 cabin with a loft” attached to a box truck, he said.
“Our first child was born in the back of a Railway Express box truck. It had been a standalone little unit, then we built the cabin onto it, so the cabin became the kitchen, etc., and the box truck became the bedroom, with a little, tiny stove in it,” he adds.
Though he and his mates now firmly live in the material world by necessity and for survival, his voice smiles with fondness when he talks about that first solid “home” he built for his family. “The bed was up in the front by the driver’s seat (of the box truck). So we had windows on three sides. Pretty nice really, we didn’t mind it a bit.”
Deborah is one of the instructors at the recently christened College of Traditional Midwifery on The Farm, which has been acclaimed for its midwives and natural birth methods. It’s a practice that has always been important to The Farm.
“The midwife thing actually started on the buses in the caravan,” says Douglas Stevenson, an author and speaker and the official spokesman for The Farm. “Women were giving birth and everyone was helping.”
“I was expecting our first baby and I wanted help at The Farm,” Deborah says, talking of their pilgrimage. “I didn’t want to be drugged in a hospital. We sought out The Farm first to have a baby. We liked it and we stayed.” That pregnancy was unsuccessful, but they had found their home.
She says others began seeking out the midwives (Gaskin’s wife, Ina May, was among them) and The Farm as a place to go to give birth. Some stay. Some are here as customers, as the midwifery expertise is known worldwide.
“Now most of the deliveries we do are people who come from around Tennessee and around the U.S. and sometimes other countries,” she points out. “Last year I took care of two women who came from Turkey, another that came from Senegal. We’ve had people come from Brazil, Haiti, South Africa, Germany, Canada …. We have houses on The Farm that we use just for birth and they stay there…. They have their own places while they are here.” People from Nashville or nearer can come here for the labor and delivery. From farther away, they generally stay two weeks or longer, leading up to the labor and then getting used to being a new family. If there are complications, though, the mother is rushed to the hospital via a 911-summoned county ambulance.
“Both of my children were born on The Farm with the midwives,” says Deborah. “And now I have delivered all four of my grandchildren on The Farm. I felt very honored that my daughter and my daughter-in-law both wanted me as their midwife. And it was very great.”
Her husband admits that old farmers are, in essence, hippies, as they live for and off the land.
“We show how you live in cooperation with nature rather than bulldozing it,” says Douglas, noting that “The Farm is a megaphone” from which those ideals are broadcast to the world.
“We can send messages out into the greater culture, offer hope, let people know there are alternatives,” he says. “You can live your dreams and you don’t need to be afraid to step outside the box.”
He pauses, then adds one other requirement: “You have to be bold.”
The were were three different articles in the paper. Read the rest of the articles here:
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The Spiritual Path - Finding Peace Though Nature
Perhaps the most direct thing you can do to bring peace into your life and sooth your spirit is to connect with nature. I see nature as a pure manifestation, without ego. A few minutes under an open sky can immediately connect you to something larger and outside yourself.
This is a wonderful time of year to use nature's potential to quiet the mental chatter and lead you into a few moments of meditation and you can do it almost anywhere.
Find a tree and simply sit underneath it. Watch for a falling leaf and follow it, focusing your attention. When the leaf finally falls to the ground or flies out of sight, look for another. Begin again.
Pay attention to the wind as it dances with the leaf. Just like us, there may be many ups and downs before all comes to rest. Feel the wind on your cheek...in your hair. Listen to its whispers. Breath deep.
On November 14th, the moon will be the closest it has been to earth in nearly 70 years (since 1948), producing what is known as a "Super Moon." There was actually another Super Moon on October 16th, and there will be one more this year on December 14th. Be sure to catch the moon just as it comes up over the horizon, when it will appear to be 14% larger and 30% brighter than a typical full moon. It is actually 30,000 miles closer than the moon is at the most distant point of its orbit. There won't be another like it until 2035!
Now howl! Drum circle anyone?
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