These past seven years of living in the woods has been a journey, an adventure, and for myself a dream come true. Living this way can sound romantic, simple, enlightening or even downright crazy. This is not a new story, as there are many who have retreated to the wilds for a variety of reasons, and yet these stories stir something deep within us. We are creatures of the wild despite the domestication of our Indigenous Souls. There is something alluring about the wilds of nature and yet feels somewhat dangerous. Our evolution with nature is not something to be disregarded but rather rediscovered as we move into our next evolution as a species on this planet.
I could have never imagined myself having this privileged opportunity, to be able to sit amongst the trees every day and allow their voices to wash over me. Most days I am rather reluctant to listen, as the mechanical beat of modern life thunders along in the distance. It is a dance between two worlds, and we must understand that human life is dependent on both of these realities.
And there is also my ongoing apprenticeship with farming in this woodsy adventure, a delicate and tenuous relationship between life and death, a relationship with seeds, and digging into the soil of my ancestors. My heritage and lineage, like that of twisted roots, where all the songs and ceremonies reside and long to be re-membered once more from my mixed and twisted breed.
The evolution of Twisted Roots Farm has been a journey of joy, awakening, healing, and difficult hardship. It has and continues to challenge in just the right ways, sometimes leaving the bitter taste of medicine in one's mouth. There are days we are pushed beyond what we think is even possible, the raw nature of homesteading, living off grid and the emotional reverberations that are felt. These experiences connect us to our food, to the wild and to the inner workings of our psyche. It also shows us the degree to which our culture is significantly wounded, and there is a sense that transformation and transition is coming. We are in the time of fire, a time of renewal where the old story is feeding the flames preparing the ground for a new story to emerge.
My morning practice is filled with the beauty of this place, despite all my inner workings, my wounded parts that scream to be heard or hijack me for the day when the challenges of this homesteading life feels overwhelming and too much. She holds it all reflecting what needs to be shown, if I am willing to look. This place has guided me in mysterious ways, shining light into those shadowy parts of the self that have remained hidden so that I may, with grace, welcome them home once again.
My therapist has been the trees, the brook, the rocks and all life that has listened to my songs, my prayers and my daily struggles. She takes it all in and prescribes the medicine that I need.
For many years I have written poetry. It has been a healing process of word flow creating a container for free flow thought and interactions with the more than human world. Words appear from morning practices, dreams, walks in the woods and the grief I feel for the destruction of wild spaces and the overpowering direction of our technological culture. Most come from my morning meditations with the brook that sings through this land, offering a sing-song flow, a back and forth dialog, a language of sorts.
The other expression that moves through me is my artwork in the form of simplistic lines forming abstract shapes with bold colours, a style that has also been with me for sometime now. It all started when I was working as a family support worker during long case conference sessions where we would share the stories we were navigating as a clinical team. The stories we held were that of the human condition, the trauma, the addiction, violence and ancestral woundings. Cultures' marginalized people playing it out for us, a barometer of the sickness our society is experiencing, a situation that has only become worse over the years.
For both Terry and I, the farm has been a foundational building process, the farm holds those teachings of life and death, and offers lessons in hardship, failure, and enormous beauty. Living off grid with minimal amenities, homesteading, and the constant fight for financial survival has been our journey here at the farm. For me, it has felt like an initiation process, forcing me to dig deeper, to acknowledge parts of myself that can be hard to look at, and also showing gifts to be shared with the larger community. This way of life is humbling and the challenges faced can seem impossible at times, however it is what is being asked of me as I walk this path.
What is working through me these days is the poetry and the artwork. Fire Dog Medicine is how I describe this creative expression. Fire Dog is an image that has been sitting in my psyche for sometime now. There is a story that I am continuing to unpack from time spent with my old canine friend who is buried on this land. We spent endless days together hiking through ancient forests, skipping along mountain tops and dancing on the rocks of wild rivers. He was my best friend. His death back in 2020 was a challenging grief filled process, this on the winds of Covid which started to pick up strength back in that spring of unknown change. As with many to whom I have said goodbye to in this life, my relationship with those now gone show up in mysterious ways. His unconditional love and loyalty continues to be with me, in my meditations, dreams, forest walks and those sacred times sitting around fires of contemplation and deep reflective thought. It is to him that I find spiritual inspiration to walk this path and share these artistic offerings. Medicine from the land.
Our love of long form writing and sharing is the genesis of this blogging project. Our time in the woods, on the farm, and diving into a way of life that is unknown to most these days. Not everyone can live like this and there are those of us who live at the edge of a village, those who act as a bridge between the wild and human communities. Each is dependent on the other, a reciprocal relationship, an interdependence that must be acknowledged if we are to succeed as a species on this planet. In our tecno driven culture we need different perspectives, different ways of looking at things and that is what we hope to offer from that which feeds us from the beauty and the heartbreaking hardship that exists here.
The last 7 years have been a time of deep reflection as I settle into these aging bones where the land is shaping me like a river stone. I still have many sharp edges that need work, and I still don't know where all this is taking me. My passion for the wild and the ongoing desire to connect others to this beauty has been my north star. The farm has been my greatest challenge in navigating this path, and yet these lessons are a necessary ingredient in my quest to be in relationship with place. Our collective writing and sharing is about giving back what little we know through this experience in the hopes that we can offer a rekindled respect for nature and a revitalized connection with food.
My contribution is in the form of images and words, like those in this post. I am also pragmatic and like to share knowledge and skills, so a little mix of how we have evolved this off grid homestead is a huge part of our writing. I do find this to be an odd pairing for writings coming from a farm, or maybe that is an edge that I am finding difficult to navigate these days.
With that I will leave with words that deeply resonate with how I have found myself sharing these artistic offerings, the words and images that flow with how this place speaks to me.
Fire Dog Medicine
Dying dogs they visit me
Where I feel, the grief, the loss
Where I ignite that fire in me
Where I dance with the sweet honey bee
I am perplexed at the dog in this field of autumn light
Golden hue illuminates fur of silver gray
Curled up the the light of golden rays
I wonder when he will sing his last breath
But then life has another quest
And he runs like a little pup with energy and life, unlike what I had been in trust
Trust of death as he came to the door
Where this dog would have no more
I feel the joy of life between him and me
His running a slight of hand in this dreamtime reality
And what do I think of Fire Dog River Dancer
Where my grief sits in around the grass
Down into the earthly creations where I ponder all of life's little celebrations
How do I, We, You, Me
Listen to these earthly pleas
Does she simply ignore our twisted desires
Where 5 billion years of wisdom do conspire
What do I make of her indifference, my childish wants not welcomed here
Or
Is there a dream that she conspires in me
Where I want to see into the meadows of dying dogs
Where life abounds with earthly desire between you, me and the sweet honey bee
Water Colour of Howard by Terry Cryer - 2006 to 2020
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