I started a draft newsletter on my first night in Ireland, groggy but energized by the surprisingly decent 5am airport scone in Dublin (flavor and texture buoyed by sheer desperation to stay awake till the 11am train to Wicklow); the sprawling cliff sides and charming pastures out the car window; my lovely, be-pierced (bee-peer-sed) farm hosts; the bubbly conversations we had over lunch; and the delicious three hour nap I took after.
But upon a final read through, it felt far too ambitious. Did I need to jump right in to the bureaucratic barriers facing the organic farming industry? The impacts of English colonization and western capitalism on Irish perception of agriculture, simple living, and spirituality? Re-wilding and growing food as a form of resistance, an antidote to scarcity mindset? Did the people need to know just how much milky tea (seven cups 😎) I consumed within my first twelve hours in the Emerald Isle?
I lit’rally just got here, and there will be plenty of time for all that. In the meantime, I’ll fill you in on what I’m doing, what’s ahead, and what I hope for this newsletter.
Background: I got laid off from my job in the solar industry in January. We all saw it coming after the election, an at-least-four-year death knell for a renewable energy industry that offers actual freedom to people seeking alternatives to single-use, indefinitely destructive fossil fuel monopolies. But I digress. This was a forcing function to take a leap I had long been considering: to leave my isolating remote job, radically change up things, move somewhere new, and spend my days outside, with people.
Opportunity: With that, I’m going WWOOFing. This (frankly) berserk acronym stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (and I come from a proud family of acronym enthusiasts!). It is the program through which I am traveling to Ireland, where I’ll receive lodging and meals in exchange for (holy god, really difficult) farm labor.
Game plan: Learn as much as I can about regenerative and organic farming and how climate change is impacting (and being impacted by) modern agricultural practices. Through physical labor, conversation, research, probably a lot of Guinness, and hopefully writing.
Thesis: Each of us comes from a culture or lineage rooted in reverence for the earth, proven through our collective ancestors’ lifestyles, ceremonies, and world views. For many, that divine connection to the land was severed—by force, by choice, by both. Confronting and mitigating the climate crisis will depend on a great remembering of that connection, and a reestablishment of traditions, practices, and spiritualities we can employ to honor it. All the ingredients are here.
Coming up: I’m aiming for weekly writings, which could be reports from the farm, musings about Irish and Irish-American culture, reflections on climate anxiety, highly-detailed accounts of meals I’ve eaten…
Note: I initially called this newsletter “divine ignorance,” based on a conversation I had with a very forthright Buddhist, but “dark peace” comes from one of my favorite teachings, from one of my favorite teachers. So there, I changed it!
reflection
in which I share a quote, prayer, or meditation. mine or someone else’s.
“…a landscape is a mnemonic, an arrangement of natural and physical elements that help us remember things that are often greater than the landscape itself. This is not to say that the geographical features are not vital, but as well as being profound and potent in and of themselves, they are vessels for the history, beliefs and cultures of our people, going back thousands of years.” — Manchán Magan
for fun
now listening: Jack White everything. Raconteurs, The Dead Weather, The White Stripes. Only on runs, though—I’ve a self-made rule of no music while farming!
now reading: my Dad’s book (fantastic!) and “Listen to the Land Speak” by Manchán Magan.
now eating: Keogh’s potato chips, which in a wired, weary fit of post-flight exhaustion, I picked from the Wicklow supermarket as my treat for the week.
now missing: my family! my friends! general warmth. my yoga studio. NYC spring. the sweet, elderly, home-bound man I shared a “good morning, neighbor!” with each day, through his first floor window.
not missing: spending money, that one trash truck beep, beep, beep that makes its rounds at 2am each weeknight behind my Brooklyn apartment.
If you’re reading this, thank you! I love you! More soon.
Sheila :)
Off to such a beautiful start! Can’t wait to read more :)
So much green! I am glad you made it there safely. Thanks for sharing that Mary Oliver, I had never read that one and it actually resonated with some of my own self-reflections this week.