Read it, share it, touch it, taste it, whatever you do, don’t throw this away.
Volume 1, Issue 2, 2011 A Creative Commons Publication
There is no away! cycle of life and death. I look at The Backyard and think of Jonathan Deschamps our garden in very much the same way. Nothing is ever It’s that time of year once forced. Things just grow, again when yet another circle decompose, and create completes itself. I’ve recently nutrition for the next begun looking at the world in regeneration. Just as things terms of cycles. Everything always have and will in some except perhaps the form or another. impermanence of time is circular (but that’s another I make a conscious effort to article all together). try to eat and live seasonally and locally, in this time and Spring is that point in the this space. “In the moment,” year when life stops as some say. I fear that hibernating and begins living breaking this cycle will only once again. It is not simply a cause internal and external span upon a calendar. From chaos as I’ve experienced it to death always comes new life. be true. A small death is completed and without pause a small Our society makes it easier birth is just beginning. than ever to live out of balance with these ancient cycles. If I Every year within myself a wanted to, I could spend my similar process plays itself out. entire year sipping on Summer is that time to rejoice coconuts and wearing in the bounty of life. When Hawaiian shirts. I could go autumn comes around my months transferring myself optimism and pleasure from one artificial seeking turns into survivalism environment and into as I anticipate the cold and another. This is a mental dark months to come. Winter luxury afforded by cheap is always the hardest. My “lust energy and insulating for life” come into direct technologies, and what we conflict with harshness and excuse as “practicality.” reality. Some dreams die and others survive the cold However, I prefer to feel cold months. It acts as a sieve for in the winter, to move a little healthy personal growth. slower, and to eat my root vegetables as I feel it keeps me By the time spring comes in balance with the natural back around I can once again cycles of all things. Yet, then give birth to new hopes and of course there is the practical new aspirations which are reality of “the moment”—the now enriched by last years exception to the rule.
revolutions
A Spring Thing Jessica Gring To me, spring has always seemed the shortest of the seasons. Perhaps due to the daily changes, more visible then usual, in the: sun/bulbs/trees/vegetables/clouds/ moods/and more of every living thing in sight.
THIS! ISSUE SPRING TIME!!!
Circles of GROWTH, Gardening, Heart Ache, & How to LEARN & survive ANOTHER year in the Modern World!
Still, I do believe it brings health both inside and outside and I value health above most else. To push the practical towards the realities of timelessness and perpetuation. Health is what allows me to endure another year of the cycle without skipping a beat or playing a wrong note. Playing in tune with the great opus of life is very much the same as playing in tune with an ensemble of talented musicians. Only experience
can truly describe its magic. Don’t take my words for it but see for yourself. We’re anciently adapted to these ancient cycles. It is truer than advertising and more timeless than technological solutions. It just is and always has been.
Each time I look outside, there are more things a bloom, a few more people taking a walk, and a little more sun. If the entire year could be considered a play of 4 acts, Spring is the climax. The most activity and change is felt, especially since act 2 (Winter) and act 4 (Summer), personally represent a lot of lounging, eating, and slow, drunken evenings. But Spring--- Spring is the fast part of the song, where if only for a moment I am motivated to leap out of bed in the mornings, put on some boots and begin toiling away, planting seeds, violently smashing slugs, pulling weeds, carrying heavy loads of compost. This behavior usually lasts well into Summer, when act 4 reaches a climax of it’s own right and I realize resignation. The plants can grow themselves without my mothering, and the slugs and I are left to end our days in a beer trap. This is not a sentiment of general malaise, simply an acceptance that we are all a part of this play. There is no happiness without sadness; no true relaxation without first hard labor.
Seasonal FoodS! Look for these local Northwest foods in your market this Spring.
April: Asparagus, Fava Beans, Fennel, Fiddlehead, Rhubarb May: Arugula, Chard, Collard/Mustard Greens, Herbs, Kale, Lettuce, Morel Mushrooms, Pea Greens, Radicchio, Radishes, Spinach, Watercress
Backyard Tip #1
June: Peas, Raspberries, Strawberries, Turnips, Zucchini