Quarter Year

Patterning

Some pictures from our 2009 trip to France.

Claude shivers in a surprise snowstorm. We had to rush to get all the nets up because if the olives freeze then their oil is ruinedish.

Philippe examines a rifle, one of the pillars of his spiritual life on Corsica. For a goatherd and cheese maker, he and his family live very comfortably.

The neighbor watches the belts that roll the immense stone that crushes olives in the ancient stone mill. The gears used to be turned by water from a diverted stream, but they are now run by motor.

I was editing photos last night in preparation for a project and noticed the similarities among these three.

Peace in the sun, strength in the roots

by Mike

I don’t pay enough attention to a place’s ‘placeness,’ even though we travel so much, and quieting my monologue was powerful in letting me be present on the olive farm in Coaraze.

Here’s what’s there: Water on long grass that wets your shoes; dozens of bird songs from hundreds of birds; dry folds in the hazy valley; clay; upset chickens that sound like monsters; the echoing olive mill with its slick concrete floor; a shovelful of purple olives; sharp kiwi branch cuttings that sliced my arm; the cold and narrow aluminum ladder; greenish shadows of plants against the greenhouse plastic; scurrying spiders; dirt caking rotten tomatoes; the cold that descends when the sun drops behind the mountain at 4:30; honks that work their way up the valley’s tight corners ahead of the bus; barks from dogs down below calling to dogs farther on; the compounding smells of thousands of meals cooked in Marguerite’s kitchen, what became an average smell of food from this valley over 100 years; Claude’s cold fire; the jars and never-finished dishes in Claude’s cold kitchen; the peace of an olive tree in the sun; the strength of a deep-rooted sticker bush…

To know a place takes a while, and it takes attention, presence.

(one more photo)

Still Purple, Even Without Words

by Mike

My job was to prune every grape vine on the farm in Coaraze. Having all this time doing a task I understood pretty well, I decided to try something I called a “working meditation,” an effort at intense awareness while still doing my job.

I discovered that words are the vessels that allow my mind to wander. I kept having to remind myself, “No words,” and I’d be brought back to the vineyard from wherever I’d been thinking about.

These are pictures of grapes that didn’t get harvested last October. They were scattered at the feet of some vines.

(more photos)

How I roll

by Mike

The first 10 days at the olive farm were my own private meditation retreat – Azure was still in the US and I had all the time to myself, except for when I was working and eating.

I would wake up before sunrise each day and put on some hot water for honey tea, which is my new favorite thing in the world. (Honey is the new sugar… er, the old sugar.) Then I’d write in my journal, meditate, make some breakfast, read, then work from about 8:30am to noon. Lunch was from noon to 1pm or so, then another meditation session, some more reading/writing and a nap. From 2-5 I worked again, then I had more time to read/write, more tea. At around 6 or so I would go into the main house and start a fire in the fireplace and Claude and I would talk and eat until around 8pm. At that point I would head back to my room, write a wrap up of the day, meditate and read until I fell asleep, usually before 9pm.

I learned SO MUCH in this time.

In the above photo (which was not staged for the blog, believe it or not) You can see all my body nourishment on the right, all my brain nourishment on the left, both culminating in the middle with my journal and my tea bowl (they drink tea out of bowls here). One book is “The Spiritual Emmerson,” which is so darn excellent that I can’t get through it because every paragraph is thick with insights. The other is the equally mind-blowing, “In Defense of Food,” (thank you Joanne!) which is my new bible. Needless to say, after reading that book, the nourishment on the right side of the table changed dramatically. Underneath that are “A Year in Provence,” which was almost unbearable, and “Against the Stream,” a Buddhist guide for people trying to live differently in the modern world (thank you Mathew!).

Next to my journal are two note books (one on top of the other). The smaller one is for random notes during the day – addresses and telephone numbers. The larger one was for new French words, but now I’m using it to take notes on sustainable living. In my journal I write about things I want to remember, things I’m trying to figure out, thoughts and feelings, etc. I write in red pen, always.

Also, there is a mini computer, which I didn’t really use, and a French-English dictionary that’s not very good.

On the right, for breakfast, is a baguette, some bread with grains, a tea cake, Camembert, marmalade and olive oil. There’s also water and tea. After reading “In Defense of Food” I switched to fruit, whole grained bread, olive oil and scrambled eggs with spinach (cooked in real butter), with honey tea (just honey with hot water) and water in the mornings.

That’s how I roll.

Cold Pictures From Coaraze

by Mike

I went for a frosty walk one frosty morning. Here are the frosty pictures. This is from the olive farm (the same one we worked on last year) above Nice.

These cold mornings tended to precede gorgeous days.

(more photos)

Misplaced Winter

by Mike

Claude looked younger in person than she did in my memory, though she assured me that she has, in fact, aged a lot in the last year. She cried on Christmas: her olives froze for the third time in the year, which meant that they’d be useless for jarring and therefore the harvest, and a large chunk of income, was lost. (What she learned while we were there, however, is that they might still be usable for some low-quality oil.)

This kind of winter has never happened before here: Margarite, 89 and living in the same room in which she was born, says the climate is changing. They were looking at the weather in Vancouver during the Olympics and saying, “We wish we’d had their winter.” This farm is on the French Riviera, need I remind you. There were a few toe-numbing mornings when I’d shuffle across my small room, peak out the window and see snowflakes tumbling through the olive leaves.

I told Margarite that maybe I should stop driving my car when I get back home. She looked confused. “I think driving is causing climate change.”
“Nahhh,” she said. Now I was the one that looked confused.
“Yeah, I think it is. It’s industry and chemicals in the air. The industrialized food chain as well.” I said.
“I don’t know…” she said.
“What do you think is making the weather so crazy?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about it. But it’s changing.”

Made it!!!

Me and the Escort

by Azure

I got a late start from the Chateau and didn’t leave until noon. It was beautiful and sunny for the drive and in the car, it was actually a little too warm (this was a first). Being in a car versus a scooter made me more relaxed. Being warm, I didn’t think about the elements very much and having four wheels made it much more stable and I didn’t have to focus on every bend in the road. I suppose there was a sense of invincibility that went along with knowing I had food, water, and (since I had packed it) bedding from the Chateau. (read more)