The creation of Good Commons has increased my connection with the Universe or you may call it God in ways I never knew possible. Never before had I stretched towards a dream and a vision, risking all that was most valuable to me. Never before had I wished for an idea to be made flesh knowing I needed the strides of a giant while possessing the legs of an average fifth grade child. I was jumping forward so fast that I often found myself mid flight, off the cliff. My eyes were focused ahead, not below. They—you know They!—say that’s good. They forget to mention it is terrifying.
When I was halfway done with renovating Good Commons, I was approached by Tom Ellis who held the private note on the property. He gently reminded me that his loan would be expiring soon and asked if I had researched and inquired at banks about the next mortgage. Oh shit. I was completely caught with my pants down wearing raggedy underwear in front of this man who has been the greatest mentor to me to date. “No, I hadn’t thought of the next process……”. Shit two times, I may not get this money to continue and have to afford what I have without income, plus not have capital to complete the renovation. It took me four painstaking construction loan attempts to get my first loan to buy and renovate Good Commons. The banks wouldn’t give me the loan. It was held by the angel standing in front of me. Now I am headed into the fifth version of financing with construction half way complete with ONLY a banker to turn to and I am no banker’s ideal! Breathe. “I have one should talk to.” Tom said.
Exhale. Ok, gulp. After the banker spent about 45 minutes with her head spinning at my self-employed, ‘used to be artist’ income sheet from multiple employers, she turned to my friend Sarah who agreed to take the loan with me. She had law school debt but most importantly, she had a good, steady, nice paying job. I think I actually saw the banker sigh in relief seeing my friend’s simple debt to income ratio. Sarah was my saving grace with the loan. Without her taking the risk with me, Good Commons would not be here today. Yes, maybe another angel would have been made manifest, but I am glad it was Sarah. I am glad it was a friend.
And so these types of occurrences have continued. Time after time I have discovered in retrospect that someone was looking out for the creation and maintaining of Good Commons. I look up at the sky pretty regularly and exclaim, “How did you do that? How did you know how to help me with this? God bless you! Oh right, you are God.” My tarot book says, “Do not worry. Do not be afraid……as always, God protects Fools and small children……have a safe and pleasant journey.” Safe, how could I not feel safe when again and again, my little tushy is being saved? Yet, I am a silly mortal who has to deal with a thing called fear while leaping forward like a fool. Why do I often feel I will not be protected? And do not worry! I often fear that if I don’t worry, I won’t remember to do all things I am supposed to do.
2010 for me is a year of living faith and trust. I do my best to approach the day and all it has to offer with my best damn shot. There is little else for me to do except let go—oh how easy that sounds. My dear friend Margaret reminded me that there is a meditation practice where you work on manifesting in the morning meditation and receiving in the evening meditation. I have been working so diligently for three years in an almost constant state of manifesting meditation to get Good Commons to where it is that the thought of receiving in meditation is a bit foreign. Besides, every time I sit to receive, the little fear bug pops up and says something crazy like, “If you don’t manifest a brand new $73,000 bus tomorrow, everything will fail.” A master would stay seated and laugh but I still fight jumping to attention while sitting restlessly.
Too often I have comforted myself by thinking, “All this risk will end up ok. What is the worst that can happen?” Clearly, a terrible question! What is the best that can happen? This is the path that is available to us every day regardless of the New Year. So, being the Aries that I am, I vow to take the Ram by the horns and ride it bareback through 2010.
But looking forward, I must look to my past. I must let the old patterns and fears that are no longer useful freeze with the snow and fade away into the earth with the coming of spring. Let them be the fertilizer for the new shoot, which will see the glory of a fresh mountain morning for the first time, with new and colorful eyes. Let go for growth to come in.
May an outmoded path be vanished for you! May the faces of friends and loved ones bearing encouraging smiles be lathered upon you! May something mysterious always shine upon you and help to bring you peace!
Have a safe and pleasant journey! Share it in 2010.
CLICK HERE to learn more about Good Commons........or read on!
The Learning Tree 2009
2009 was a year climbing the learning tree. Matthew Wexler and I ventured in the mountains and through the woods to find veggies grown locally. Searching the internet is not exactly helpful in finding the locals. They are more interested in the soil than a search engine. So, in the Subaru Matthew and I went and were off on our adventure. Through joining the Okemo Valley Regional Chamber of Commerce I knew to go to a local only coop called We Are All What We Eat run by the spit fire activist and dairy farmer Lisa Kaiman. I had met her at a Camber Mixer. Her coop was packed with local meats, cheese, dairy, eggs, and a variety of home canned goods. Local meat is sometimes as much as $17 - $19 per pound! Gulp. We bought short ribs for one of the courses at our Memorial Day Food and Wine Retreat. The meat alone, not the preparation or any other part of that one course, cost $125. I turned to Matthew, what are we going to do? We don’t have the budget for a Prias, we are driving a Subaru! We will go broke from our mission. We must do some research and carry on. We loaded up our coolers and boxes we brought for food transport. The coop was a good find but we needed considerably more veggies to get us through the weekend. We continue driving.
Stop, turn around. There was a cardboard sign on the side of the road saying veggies. We pulled onto a winding dirt road slowly so that we could see where these prized items were located. Close to the end we finally saw a very small house with a tent. There was a 70 – 75 year old man selling his goodies. He is from the south and exclaims that he does not really know how to grow yet up here in the mountains, but he is trying. We told him what we needed and he said to come on back. We head into his garden and he says, pick what you want. He does at least show us where to walk and not to walk and how to tell when things are ready to be picked. We are beaming and excited and leave with a huge bag.
We continue down the road to the grocery store and we pass a large bed of a trailer truck packed 5 feet tall with corn. How much for the corn? “$2 a dozen……and make sure you take a bakers dozen just in case you get a bad one.” I love it! I buy four dozenJ
And then we arrive at the grocery store and are depressed that we fill up two carts of food even after our local travels and efforts. I begin looking around for other farms where we might be able to get larger amounts of produce. I went to the Ludlow Farmer’s Market on the first Friday that I wasn’t working at Good Commons. I had to sell raffle tickets for the Ludlow Rotary Club for our Duck Race. It is so adorable. We raise money for charity by putting rubber ducks in the stream and then seeing which one winsJ
There was a farmer I had recently heard of over in Mt. Holly, which is where I hope to have a little farm someday. Sure enough, he was at the market and his veggies look fantastic! I ask if I can visit the farm midweek to look around and I told him the nature of what we do at Good Commons. Matthew and I show up and it is a beautiful farm. It is quite a substantial plot of land with southern exposure. He walks us through and we pull out our list. Matthew picks blueberries while Michael and I harvest red, white & purple potatoes, onions, purple and orange carrots, squashes, peppers…….we are in heaven. Matthew was feeling really anxious on this particular shopping day and when we got into the car, he sighed. “Getting my hands dirty was exactly what I needed.” Dirt is grounding, that is for sure.
Farmer Michael in Mt. Holly at Huckleberry Hill Farms became our veggie farmer for the summer. His produce, particularly his greens, are outstanding. Did you know that you can get a full on wasabi type high from eating a mustard green? It is brilliant.
He also has chickens, pigs and a few cows! This is where we can buy whole animals to reduce the carbon foot print even for local purchasing, the price and to teach us more about our food system and processing. The issue, of course, with buying a whole animal is that you don’t get that ‘convenience’ of buying 20 chicken breasts for your guests and not having to deal with the legs, thighs and wings (and other parts) of those 10 birds. And now the learning tree got higher and we are still climbing.
We have one whole Scottish Highlander and a pig in our two deep freezers. We are excited to open each package of locally smoked bacon and stink up Good the entire Commons!
CLICK HERE to learn more about Good Commons.