ROGER WRITES | Havest Time

When I moved to Portland last spring, I quickly became part of a community garden just down the street from where I live.  It's just one large empty lot between two beautiful houses, but it's home to dozens of small plots maintained by local folks who don't have a yard to have their own garden.  It's a stunning menagerie of plants, flowers, vegetables and fruits.  In my plot, I planted tomatoes, kale, fennel, peppers, lavender and about a dozen different herbs-- even stevia! All summer long I watered and pruned and weeded and watched the little plants grow, sprout leaves, blossom and ripen.  Over the past month I've been harvesting all the ripe veggies and herbs, and I've been cooking with them.  It got me to thinking about a lecture I recently listened to by David Whyte where he says: "There’s a harvest which comes cyclically in your life," and if you don't harvest yourself you will simply rot on the vine.  Everything has a season, everything ripens, and we must take time to harvest.Like most people, you are probably closer to your goals than you imagine, and also like most people you probably have a gremlin voice that tells you otherwise.   There are things in your life right now that are ripe and ready to be harvested.  Take time to enjoy the fruits of all your hard work, dedication and commitment.  There are also things that still need watering.  The voices of negativity and discouragement are poison to your life's garden.  Water your seeds with love, with kindness, with discipline and with forgiveness,  and then, when it's time to harvest, you will be in abundance.

EATING/insects

Marcel Dicke makes an appetizing case for adding insects to everyone's diet. His message to squeamish chefs and foodies: delicacies like locusts and caterpillars compete with meat in flavor, nutrition and eco-friendliness.

BLISS/builder

“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.” ~Joseph Campbell

Here is a man who is totally following his bliss.  I've watched this several times. Each time it makes me cry. I recognize myself and the hunger I have to be intimately close with the land.


What bliss however small or large you put aside out of fear? Do something today to unleash yourself and move towards that place that gives you joy!