March Sabbath for Peace

The month of March is filled with a riot of color and activity. It’s a fresh, youthful, quick-flowing month - the start of something new. In the winter I dreamed dreams and made plans. Now, as spring approaches, it is time to get into action - to begin the work of creating my vision here on the earth. In March I do the work; I tend and nurture my family, my garden, and my projects. March is a month for being a physical creature; for feeling all sensations, and being really present in my body - playful and young-in-spirit.

Consider two things this month:

• What do I feel, in body, mind, heart and spirit?
• What do I need in order to improve my strength (body, mind, spirit) and resilience?

Agenda:

1. Keeping the Sabbath

2. Read Becoming rooted

3. Make bread

4. Meeting for healing and peace

5. Plastic fast

6. Our huge garden project update

1. Keeping the Sabbath:

Keeping a sabbath day is a personal thing. For me, it's a day with a slow pace, and everything I do has a flavor of peace. I schedule some work, but it's work I find fulfilling, or uplifting. Simple is a great word to describe my ideal activities for the Sabbath: Simple tasks, simple foods, and an undemanding schedule.

My Sabbath might be on Saturday or on Sunday, or part of both days. My perfect sabbath is a celebration, a holiday. I keep it holy with my attitude: I do not rush, complain, or worry.

2. Read "Becoming Rooted": 

Today I read #13: Corn, about how the plants and foods of our heritage speak to us and give us an identity. "Growing corn and remembering its importance  - and calling it by its proper Cherokee name, selu - connects me to my ancestors.  ... Through her sacrifice, Selu has given us much to enjoy! When I gently hold the corn seed in my hands, it helps me to remember who I am."

3. Make bread: 

My heritage is Anglo-Saxon, and my ancestors grew oats and rye, and wheat for bread. (The bread grains of the masses were oats and rye; wheat was harder to grow, and therefore only available to the rich). 

For my ancestors, bread was a symbol of wealth, hunger, war and peace. ("If they don’t have bread, let them eat cake..."). Even though bread is still a staple food, it is so easy to buy a loaf (in a plastic bag) that its value is taken for granted.

Today I'm going to re-start my old habit of baking loaves of multi-grain bread at least once a month on the sabbath. I use my kitchen aid mixer to save my shoulders, and a 7-grain cereal.

I think I'm also going to plant some oats or maybe rye this summer, and harvest a little bit of the grain, and use some home-grown straw to make my harvest doll. The ceremony of growing, harvesting, and eating the grain will help me reconnect to my roots, and to the land.

4. Meeting for healing and peace: 

Today I will again join my Quaker meeting's ongoing zoom Meeting for Healing and World Peace. I will remember my roots in Europe: Britain, France, Germany, and Holland, and offer prayers of peace to the world.

5. Plastic fast: 

I use a lot of plastic bags: Big and small garbage bags, zip-lock freezer and sandwich bags, those vegetable bags that come off the roll in the store, and then all the things I buy that come packaged in bags: Bread, tortillas, and the New York Times. 

I reuse most of these - I wash out my food storage bags and reuse them repeatedly. I know that re-use is one good solution, but it's not going to solve the problem, especially since for many bags, my second use is for collecting dog poop, which then goes directly into the landfill.

 

To start then, I'm going to focus on the single use bags (kitchen and bathroom garbage can bags), and also those vegetable bags that come off the roll in the store.

This week I researched compostable garbage bags. I found out I should avoid the bags that are "biodegradable" because they probably won't. But compostable trash bags will turn into compost over time, even in a home compost bin. I'm going to buy some different bags to experiment with.

And my solution for shopping is to bring a section of my own re-usable plastic, paper, and cloth bags to collect produce and bulk foods in. I'm going to pack a "grab and go" shopping kit!

6. Our huge garden project update:
Since our beloved old apple tree came down we've been working on our backyard, and the vegetable garden of our dreams. 

The first step was to sculpt out the beds and paths from the piles of soil. And we put in new fencing around the new duck yard and moved the coop to its new location.

It was very wet most of this week, but I did get a few things done. Besides the regular compost, weeding, and duck chores:

--I divided and moved 2 fern clumps to the duck yard. (Our ducks love to lay eggs behind the ferns.) 

--And I mulched the Peace Bed with duck poop and leaf mold, and planted spinach seeds!

Today I hope to finish sculpting the paths, order a wood chip delivery, and maybe transplant some daylillies (an indestructible flower) to the duck yard, for some summer color.