New book on my shelf to read, good companion to Freedom Farmers by Monica White
I’d like to share today just a few of the farmers, writers and organizations I follow and learn from, especially women. Now is the time to elevate, share and promote these voices. As I read and follow these folks I learn, I grow, and I pay for to their intellectual work whenever possible.
My youngest child is one year old today, and I want to tell this story about birth, and the darkness that comes before.
At my 20 week prenatal clinic visit, the woman who checks blood pressure handed me a clipboard. It had a laminated sheet with The Mental Health Questions and I was to mark with the dry erase “X” if I’m “depressed” or “having difficulty doing things I normally do”, or if I cry? I used the half-dried out marker and X “yes” to most. As I do, I thought about the overgrown weed patch and the garden I haven’t even looked at for weeks. She glanced at the clipboard, erased the marks for the next pregnant woman and no one ever followed up.
At around the 32 week mark, things started to become more difficult; physically and emotionally. My hips and ligaments screamed in pain at every movement. And it was like a light switch- as if my ability to feel joy had been turned off. A test has revealed that I might have gestational diabetes (I didn’t) but the feelings of inadequacy and failure became stronger every day. At my job, a progressive feminist organization, things became very difficult. I had to prop my feet up under the desk to try and reduce swelling, but it didn’t work so if I sat too long my shoes wouldn’t fit anymore and I had to walk out in the hall barefoot. It all felt so humiliating, my enormous cumbersome body trying to get through the day with a head that was filled with fog. The tension between what I hoped for and my reality was growing as quickly as the baby within me. Even my office jade plant that needs hardly any care was looking pathetic.
I was increasingly sad and apprehensive about the birth- but it was coupled with other, more dreamlike nuances that were just out of reach to define. A growing sense of doom was around me- I couldn’t stop watching the news and my work in anti-violence had become especially heavy. There was an overwhelming urge to run away, prepare for something- but I had no energy to do anything at all. I wanted to burn everything down, daily. I waddled with my tree-trunk size legs over to the legislature to give testimony, attended meetings and stood for hours in front of trainees- and it all felt pointless. Who am I? What was I doing? Fear was creeping into my once fighting and fearless heart- it was getting darker. My children and husband tiptoed around me. The wave would come out of some unknown place and I would just yell and rage- and feel horrible after because there was almost no controlling it. I overreacted to a broken dish or a dog mess. My inner voices were screaming at me that things are not right. I was not alright. External me just kept plodding along: I went to work, came home, walked past the overgrown plant mess that used to be my joy.
My due date came and went. I was so scared of having a c-section because my mom almost bled out from one thirty years ago. I had read all the books and birthed two other children quite confidently with little intervention. But this baby was transverse, then breach, then transverse again. I was watching these videos on turning babies and doing partial headstands and flipping in the pool and getting taped-up at chiropractic visits. All these, I was assured, would work to turn my baby.
It did work. She did turn, and 8 days after my due date my water breaks at 5:30pm while I was lifting a basket of laundry in our carport. The water was green and it smelled bad. I was immediately terrified and I also had no contractions. This birth was not going to go well, all my senses had been telling me all was not well, and then it was there.
After 17 hours of labor, she still wasn’t coming out on her own. Weak contractions, low heart rate, I was exhausted. I felt like I had lied or misrepresented myself as a capable woman who could give birth. They hauled me into the operating room and removed our baby from me. It was all I had feared, and a bit more. Husband holding my hand, reassuring me, but I was floating all alone. She was quiet for 10 minutes post birth and I was helpless, strapped to a table crucifix style, vomiting from the medications and whispering prayers to a Universe I am not sure was listening.
She was strong and healthy and breastfeeds like a champ, but somehow I knew she would be; it’s me that is not ok. The second night I sat alone awake, stripped of all my strength and camouflage. Baby asleep on my chest, husband gone home to care for older kids. And the sobbing started coming in waves. At first deep sadness, then a wave of anger. This little girl, our Evelyn, was born to teach me, I knew this, but first I needed to rage. And the rage came.
I was angry at myself for my perceived failures, but also I was/am angry at our system- how my concerns about depression had been dismissed, how nothing is supportive of mothers; how we are being lied to at every turn about what motherhood will actually be like. I am dismayed at how feminist organizations talk a good talk until you need to breastfeed a baby on demand. I am most angry at how awful our world looks- climate change and violence is creating refugees, horrors taking place daily, and I had just brought another BABY into this dumpster fire. And I started this essay before a global pandemic, so, yeah.
Then she wiggles her tiny body around a bit, latches on, and there’s this little peace that falls around us.
We waded through the ugliness together, she and I.
After she was breathing on her own, my first glimpse of her
I am not the same woman that I was a year ago, I have met the darkness in me. Our daughter was born 12 months ago, but I’m still birthing. A new version of me has emerged- one that is more in tune. She’s more radical, more clear, and more focused than ever on what actually matters, because she needs to be. My internal voices, once quiet because they were being drowned out by a cloud of rage and sadness are now singing a chorus of guidance to me once again. They are telling me to build what I love and to stop fighting what I hate; profoundly difficult guidance for a born fighter.
As I stumbled through the inevitable postpartum depression, I have returned to the simple basics of self care we are taught as anti-violence advocates: eat well, take breaks, try to sleep, drink water, turn off media. I left my unsupportive job because to stay would have been a fight, not building what I love. Instead, I strapped a baby to my chest and dug out another 90 square feet of garden space. I’ve gone back to permaculture ideals, signed up for a course and wrote “Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share” on my journal pages. My intuitive dreams have returned and I’ve found joy in growing food again and sweet loving moments with my children, my loving partner, and our rascal dogs. I’m writing; turning literal rage into something else entirely.
Most importantly, I will never again ignore or try to silence the knowing inside me when all is not well. The Universe was, in fact, listening, and now I am too.
Fueled completely by rage that day about the absurdity of all our systems. But look- new garden!
This month I’m participating in a Women’s Permaculture Writing Challenge. Follow along for plant musings, or visit www.heatherjoflores.com to sign up.
Find a pattern in nature and study it. What does it remind you of? How might you apply this pattern either literally or as a metaphor to your life?
Resilience in the Vein Pattern
I went looking for a pattern that was relevant to my life and was at first coming up short. Spirals are common in nature, like in shells and the way a cucumber tendril grabs on to the trellis for support. Star patterns, also quite common, one of my favorite being the 5-point star pattern of the purple crownflower. I also considered feather patterns, like those found in ferns and elongated leaves or scales on fish or lizards- but none of those seemed very relevant to me. Stars are too tidy, feathers are too symmetrical- the layered nature of scales was interesting to consider but also not quite right.
Human or plant?
Then I saw the plant vein patterns- their forking, spreading, nonsense way of being perfectly what the plant needs; the small little segments between the thicker pathways, the thin lines coming out of the thicker ones. I thought, “That looks just like a placenta.” My body has created three placentas, all unique and functional, but messy and perfect for the small humans they supported. The pattern is like roots, veins in the human body and veins in a plant- all the same. Supplying water, nutrients and blood to every last cell. In a plant, if the veins are cut or leaf severed, the rest of the plant will usually recover, the complicated forking system creates a resiliency to damage.
The placenta, inside the mothers body is resilient also- it’s also the only organ that is grown, lives and then leaves the body. My second child’s placenta was encapsulated for me. The midwife who did this took photos and told me the story of my placenta, as she could “read” the patterns and lines from years of experience. She read my early months of pregnancy as stressful and having a poor diet- but that sometime in the second trimester I cleaned up my act, reduced stress and the placenta told her all of this. It was all true of course, that was exactly how it was! But resilience is built into the design- and our child was born very healthy and without intervention.
So today I give homage to the veins- of plants and placentas. They have both nourished me, held me, protected me, and grown new life that I love.
This month I’m participating in a Women’s Permaculture Writing Challenge. Follow along for plant musings.
Aloha, my name is Calotropis Gigantea, but you can call me Hawaiian Crownflower for short, even though I’m not Hawaiian at all actually. I come from Asia mostly, places like Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and India, but also tropical parts of Africa. Humans who have studied me say I can get to be 13 feet tall, but when I’m happy, I can get much bigger than that. I came to be settled quite comfortably in Hawaii hundreds of years ago. A very famous person, a Queen Liliuokalani as I recall, had a particular fondness for my purple flowers shaped like crowns. When Queens like things that makes other people like them too and so I was allowed to stay and proliferate despite my not being “native” to these parts.
Monarch butterflies that do not migrate out of Hawaii came to me to lay their teeny tiny eggs and their caterpillar children munch on my leaves day and night, but I don’t really mind. I’m glad to be of good use, since some humans have used the sap from my branches to poison darts when warring against one another. I didn’t like that. I value peace among all things. Still others have harvested bark or leaves to make teas, tinctures and other remedies. But the most promising thing yet is that I might actually kill cancer cells- only I know that secret and humans are still working out whether it’s really true or not, because I’m not telling just yet.
My life here on this little corner, where sidewalk meets driveway and where one road meets another has been a wild and interesting one for the past 7 years. I came to live here after being picked out from all the rest at a cozy plant nursery. At that time I was just a small one. My roots only filled a small 1 gallon bucket. But the clay soil and the constant attention and kindness has made me grow so large! Sometimes, I do admit, I get a bit overwhelming and out of control. If I had it my way, I would simply take over the entire yard and house. My friend the citrus tree, right next to me, poor thing, sometimes has to reach and reach for sun. Until the humans come and lovingly give me a massive haircut. They have shared many of my branches with others who have come along and they are always so careful to save any caterpillars that are hiding on my leaves. They really do love me. That is why even after a storm blew me completely over, roots out of the ground and everything, I rallied all my strength, reached back into the ground and stood tall again. It was a bit traumatic, but they looked after me everyday and for that I’m grateful.
I’ve seen some things though. Humans are strange creatures to share the planet with. So complicated and confusing sometimes. I’ve seen children cry when they fall out of my branches and I’ve seen the female human become sad when too much of me was removed. She didn’t need to! I grew back extra fast so she wouldn’t cry anymore. It worked! She was happy with my size again in just a weeks time. The small girl at this house especially likes me, and I love her too. She brings her small stuffie animals, hides them in my branches and plays in my shade for many hours. It is a peaceful and loving time.
I enjoy my life here and don’t need much. The soil holds me tight, humans talk to me daily and the butterflies keep coming. After the pandemic I wonder if that nice lady from up the road will come and take all my purple flowers again to make lei? She was nice too and I was sure to sprout more very quickly. In the meantime, I will enjoy these gorgeous breezes, the dozens of mama butterflies and all the stuffed animals that can fit on my branches.
Fellow local gardener Kristi and I did a Zoom session this morning on food growing. It was fun and only had small tech problems! Look for it under the video tab- it will be posted soon. We discussed growing several vegetables that we’ve both had success with including: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, eggplant, melon, carrots, beans and kale.
Seed varieties that work in Hawaii!
We also talked about composting- there’s so much we could address on just these topics! Our little composting system is super simple. We just bury our food scraps (minus meat/bones) in a corner of the garden. We also add “browns” or carbon such as paper towels, toilet rolls and dried leaves. The 6 year old is in charge of emptying the counter top compost pot everyday.
Ceramic pot with a lid, dump, bury
What are your favorite seed varieties? Do you have a composting system?
I’m a neglectful blogger and perhaps an even more neglectful gardener. This is my biggest selling point for planting permaculture style plants: no fuss required. I go out every few weeks and harvest food. That’s my gardening method. Because I’ve planted (or allowed to grow on their own) things like papaya, chard, chaya, banana, citrus, mamaki, kale, popolo berry, mint, oregano, mountain apple, asparagus and a few other things that can withstand some munching from bugs and still make food. Even more “annual” style plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and beans, when mixed in with this bunch of other wildness needs very little care. Plant a seed or plant. Wait. Harvest food. That’s it.
I just wanted to share some photos of the food in the yard this morning. Not everything is “food” yet; the mountain apple tree has been eaten pretty badly, but there’s new growth, so it will bloom again. And our orange tree has tiny little green fruits for the first time. It’s like welcoming new friends 😀
Our first bananas! Originally from a keiki I got from a friend in our permaculture course
Some of our many papayas!
Chaya on overload. Gonna have to eat some soon!
One of our basils- got used in Thai curry last week
The biggest daikon ever. 🙂
Baby strawberries! I have let these get a bit overgrown with “weeds” and now they are happy because slugs aren’t eating them anymore
From one tiny huli, this kalo is big now
Hiding among the “weeds”
Mamaki tea anyone?
Nasturtiums that keep blooming
TONS of mint
Aloe for all the kids injuries
New growth on the mountain apple tree after a season of getting eaten by something
New friends! Our citrus tree is finally fruiting
Papaya! Eating this daily now, frozen in smoothies
The Gulf Fritillary Butterfly has found us. Passion vine, or Lilikoi, is the host plant, and we don’t have one in our yard, but perhaps we are being told to get one. 🙂
The first time this species appeared was in our dining room at dinner time. She hung out on the light while we ate.
There’s a whole lot of internet chatter on parenting. Most of it I don’t read. Sometimes an article will pop up in my inbox or newsfeed that has added some more fuel to so-called mommy wars. I don’t participate. I do like to take part in writing and activities that encourage, support, spread love and generally help humanity. Because my husband and I want to raise kids that care. And kids are watching how we grown ups are interacting with each other. Beyond all other traits, this one matters most to me.
How do you raise kids that give a shit? (About the world, and not just themselves?)
I don’t know if I have the formula or not, but our little people care about stuff. They have interests beyond what can be found on a screen. When my little guy wanted to save all the little worms we found in our cucumbers last year, I knew we were doing something right. Now he is an experienced butterfly farmer! He participates in all aspects of our little hatchery. He helps get the caterpillars and saves the butterflies with wet wings so the geckos won’t eat them. After he is finished examining the dried up chrysalis, he smashes them, because he is 5 after all.
He grows things. Six weeks ago we mixed a bunch of flower seeds together in a cup and he sprinkled them in a spot of his choice in the garden.
This is how it looks today!
Six weeks ago this was a bare patch. My son threw some old seeds from the fridge out here 😀
Today we spent more than 3 hours just piddling around outside with bugs. We discovered a praying mantis in one garden and a new species of butterfly that is now frequenting our yard (Chinese Swallowtail.) It was really fun.
Now we have a very mobile 1 year old that is crawling circles around her mama! I let go of the worry of injury and mud and let her go in the garden today. She crawled, scooped, touched and covered herself in mud. And was so content, so happy and after 2 hours was so TIRED that she actually napped! 🙂
So get outside, friends. Even if it’s cold, windy or rainy wherever in this beautiful world you happen to be. Spending time outside with the kiddos fosters a sense of love and wonder for them and a whole heap of love and appreciation for me. We all win this one. ❤
That’s me. Out in the yard or the carport every morning talking to my little critters. 😀
There’s been so much caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly activity in the lately! We rescued 20+ caterpillars from the crown flower and they are now all either in chrysalis form or have already hatched. Many of them leave the little mesh hamper I put them, as the one below, braving the terrain across the yard to go hang by another one, who has already made a chrysalis on the aloe plant.
A friend and permaculture teacher discusses the possibilities of urban agriculture for Honolulu. A 40 minute interview but worth it if you are at all interested in real solutions and cool stuff happening 🙂
Now we have a very mobile 1 year old that is crawling circles around her mama! I let go of the worry of injury and mud and let her go in the garden today. She crawled, scooped, touched and covered herself in mud. And was so content, so happy and after 2 hours was so TIRED that she actually napped! 🙂
GROW O'ahu 