Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Welcome to our life...

The pressure canner is sputtering in the background, Pandora radio has selected Patty Griffin’s “1000 Kisses” for me to hear through these scratchy computer speakers, and the sun is streaming in the skylights of this, our office/craft/canning room. Welcome to our life.

Not all of our days are like this. But many of them contain some element of contact with those materials, organisms, and ecosystems which sustain us…which is just the way we want it. Admitting to some odd feelings when the five-year-old among us expresses enthusiasm for eating a “big fat deer”, we nonetheless can vouch for—and recommend to all readers—the sense of integration that being involved with our own physical sustenance has allowed us to experience. We hope that, by sharing on these pages some honest and plain-spoken windows into our lives, we may gain you as our companions on this quest for authentic modes of living, here and now.

It doesn’t take much thinking (or knowing us very well) to recognize that, if integration is the object, the topics covered here will extend well beyond our favored methods for the cultivation, harvest, preservation, or preparation of a particular food, or even handy tips for reducing our ecological footprint. Indeed, it only makes sense to us to allow the range of topics to be broad, as this seems to best reflect the way we experience our lives; i.e., as an interconnected whole. That having been said, we will not take up cyberspace with each mesmerizing detail of the latest family reunion. No, instead we will take as our guide the principle that what’s written here should be of potential interest to a general audience interested in well-founded, integrated living (not that we are under the illusion that our readership will extend beyond our ken). Such intricate details as may be helpful in conveying our experience or which spice the stories nicely shall be included from time to time, as the general principles of any discipline are best communicated by demonstration in specific scenarios.

An example of what I mean, in the form of a poem:

Purse Strings

Wandering the
aisles of the hardware store,

something caught her eye. She knelt before it
there on vinyl tile, fondled the packages, then spoke:

“I think I’d like to have a
sponge…of my own.”

I, who would give her the world, began the brief
negotiation: eliciting justification, offering opinions.

And it was settled: my daughter would be
going home with a three-pack of yellow sponges;

I would be going home with a momentarily fanatical
associate in the washing of our floors.

Can you feel the heat of my shame at her utter
dependence on me, my discomfort with this power?

Can you feel the warmth of my delight, the
transcendent joy her tender trust delivers?

Jason Myers-Benner
June 12, 2009


You see, we take our parenting seriously, and we enjoy it very much. The parent-child relationships in our family are a major portion of what sustains us. We invite conversation with all of you as we pursue non-coercive, unconditional, mutually respectful relationships between all of us. There will surely be more to come on this topic as time passes.

I cannot mention parenting without acknowledging the shadow side of the parent-child relationship as we’ve experienced it: the grief we’ve experienced at the loss of our second child, Nora Lynne. A somewhat detailed account of the experience of knowing and loving Nora for the seven months we had with her, and the first year of life without her can be found at Cascades of Light www.myersbenner.blogspot.com. The light she brought to our lives, and the memories we cherish of her are part of what sustains us on the face of this spinning planet.

And so are you. We invite your commentary on the content of this blog and the ideas and principles behind it. Well, I’d better sign off for now…the women-folk have just arrived home with a mess of green beans from our pastor’s garden (she’s on vacation), and I’ve got a chicken coop to build!

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