Sacred Sueños Finca 23/2008

While writing on the bus, I frequently stop to look at the mist that the surrounding forests have rising from them. It makes it easy to understand the reason for being referred to as ¨cloudforests.¨ I left the farm this morning, after the most vivid sunset I had yet experience on Sacred Sueños, I felt it was a good omen for me to continue with my travels. Being away from society´s frivolous luxuries for a month was a inspirational and educational experience. Albeit, I can not quite say I really know the nuts and bolts of organic agriculture, or permaculture for that matter, I do think I have planted the seed of basic understanding, if you´ll pardon my metaphor, hyuck hyuck. What benefitted me most were the things I began to learn about myself while I was there. The concept of leaving main stream society, and attempting to live off the land on your own had seemed an appealing, romantic notion before my visit. While an ideal situation for some, I learned while walking on one of numerous trails all over the mountain, hunting for the precious piles of donkey shit (something I learned quite a lot about as well, shit, that is, in general) , that it isn´t really where my interests lie. And I feel this is a pretty big milestone for me, knowing now that my desire is to really focus on broader community based transitions to sustainable living. I am, after all, a pretty social person, and enjoy the larger group based work of Hand´s On Disaster Response, and larger communities and cities in general. This epiphany taking place in the first week of my 4, allowed me to focus some of my reading from the extensive library that was at my disposal. This provided so much inspiration for my future plans in Hurricane Katrina-devestated Southern Mississippi and then for rural Kenyan communities after that. I also was able to write down numerous titles to get once back in the states that will further these goals. I can easily say the farm will benefit me for years to come.

I also learned a lot about my tolerances. As mentioned earlier, shit was an aspect one interacted with on a daily basis at least. From the animal´s to our own coming from the composting toilet. (Humanure is amazingly beneficial to growing plants, only after proper decomposition renders it soil-like, and yes, I touched it in this farm, without gloves! shrrriiieeek. J/K. Little known fact, Chinese agriculture used humanure extensively and would pay the European colonies in their borders for their wastes, and give preimiums to the Germans, their dung being like eggs of gold, due to their high protein diets (mmmm, sausages, be strong Mike)) weird, parentheses within parentheses, is that allowed? Its amazing high cyclicalnature is when you are able to observe it as an active participant, all the food and plants the animals and ourselves would eat would eventually go back to the land after being processed by our digestion and the numerous bacteria and organisms who aide in that, then the fungus, bacteria, and bugs who then break it down to a state that returns it to the plant. One of the most wasteful practices we currently do is flush all that copius amounts of fertility into our oceans and rivers. But I dont´see us all composting our waste anytime soon due to our feces squemishness. (Something Yve said would greatly benefit any community farm or garden I attempt to create in Biloxi, but come on, public composting toilets, that´ll be the day...)

The squemishness is something I myself had to deal with after emptying that bucket for the first time. Its really shocking, however, how quickly the daily chore of finding the animal´s shit becomes easily mundane, into even one of my favorite tasks. It was like a treasure hunt through misty forest trails, finding the animal´s fresh tracks, following them until EUREKA! Then you could brag at lunch how you hit the motherload and brought up 4 buckets that day.

Another one I got to test my limits on was spiders. Now, I wouldn´t go so far as to say I got over my fear. Merely confronted it, kicked the tires, know its there, and accepted it, and that´s as about as good as I can be asked to get. My friend Amy marveled at how skilled I was at finding them in every place, joking I must of had years of spider-tracking experience, due to my fear. I found one in my bunk one night, large and hairy (by large I mean about the size of a half dollar), and I regret to confess, promptly killed. Sorry, it is a sacred space for me, where I sleep. The most interesting encounter being one night, I saw a neon green glowing coming from the bushes. I was informed it was a glowbug, which I had never gazed upon, and it sounded sort of cool, so yeah, I´ll shine my flashlight over to chec... HOLY JESUS CHRIST!!!!! The unfortunate insect was trapped in the fangs of one nasty hairy spider (okay, it was the size an apricot, but shit, that´s still huge.) I did not flee in fear though, I was able to stay and document the rawness of the glowbug´s glow slowly growing fainter until it was finally extinguished as the spider slurped up its insides. During my stay, I feel like I became able to tolerate the arachnid presence, but its still with effort.

My other raised tolerance is personal cleanliness. Now, I know, I can hear those few objectors saying how much lower can it go? Quite a bit actually, you see, the farm has a solar shower overlooking the valley, outdoors. While showering there is an enthralling experience, it was wet season, and apparently my tolerance for cold showers is a lot lower than the tolerance I have for the stink I get from 5 or 6 days of farm labor in a row. (Hey it was raining all the time anyway, right?)