Busy, Busy, Busy

Easter day at Anini Beach (north shore) for Azure's birthday party

Mom and dad, sorry for the lack of posts. I love you and think of you often. If things turn out well for us (meaning we are making money) we are planning on coming to visit you and Dan's family over Christmas. I hesitate to tell you incase it doesn't work out but I did so you know we are thinking of you and missing everyone!

Dan and I are very busy creating new lives! So many things going on, so many possibilities, so much fun. We are meeting with Jillian tomorrow about designing her website, after hers is done we will do her husband Gary's. He owns a solar company. My neighbor Simone and her friend Roxanna are trying to get me a catering job with Roxanna's company. They are having an employee appreciation party in June for 45 people, so I put a bid in for that last Friday. There is a banana grove that needs thinning on Bill Kreutzmann's girlfriends 22 acre farm, that's about 3 weeks of work for Dan. Friday, Jillian had a pot luck and movie night at the farm and Dan had to provide the cable and computer so they could project the DVD on a screen. He went to town to get the cable and got work instead. The store is almost desperate for someone to teach classes, maintain a realtor website, partition off drives for computer time rentals,  and provide consultations as well as make house calls. AJ (the private chef) said he is leaving to San Francisco for his birthday but is trying to figure out a way to get me into his regular family that he cooks for. He wants to live here and SF so I may end up picking up some of his clients. I would love to work with him, I could learn a lot! I have been approached to write for a Hawaii travel website. Through Jillian, Dan may get a part time job with Papaya's (Kauai's Vitamin Cottage) as a produce manager. The lady who owns the store has been asking Jillian if she knows any one who could do it. Papaya's wants to bring in local produce. The person would have to be organized and detailed oriented and would go around to local farmers and bring in their produce. Jillian said she would have recommended me for the job but she wants me for herself. She and I have big ideas for the co-op and if we can generate more income for the farm I would take over the CSA and maybe be the farm manager. Right now she is doing it all herself with the part time help of Eileen, the field manager. I don't want to get into the details but, the kitchen is going to become a commercial kitchen and she asked me to design it, whatever I want!!! Plus, we are creating farm tours and dinners and are going to try to include local celebrities and the mayor. Would you come to a farm dinner if Laird Hamilton, Bill Kreutzmann, Ben Stiller, the mayor of Kauai, Pierce Brosnan, or Alice Waters were there? Between Jillian and I we have big dreams, she has a fantastic farm but needs help marketing it, I have the passion to market it, so it could be win win.

On the home front, Dan talked to our landlord, the roof leaks into our bathroom, so Dan is going to patch it and Jimmy (the landlord) will pay for his labor and supplies. We never got a call back from the house we are checking out, so that's out. We are driving to the north shore 4 to 5 times a week so we decided to stay put, save money (once it starts coming in) and move when the time is right. In the meantime, we are going to plant a garden, put up a 20'x20' canopy for the jeep, moped and a garage work shop. I want a pavilion/enclosed tent thing for me to do yoga and us to hang out in. Read, draw, play games, just be outside. I want to put a futon in so if anyone comes to visit (Susan) they can stay there. I have to get to my homework done (a diagram of a flower labeling it's parts - for seed saving purposes - and a conceptual dream 4000 SF garden) so this post isn't as detailed and polished as usual. Here are some pictures to show you what else we've been up to!

Spring Equinox in Kapa'a

Lots of local goodies

A new friend (moved to Kauai with his wife 20 years ago) sells beautiful jewelry

Gold!! My favorite! I must wait for it!

Majorica pearls in Kauai!

He let me try them on, the bracelet and ring are his, the necklace is what Dan bought me when we were here in June for our anniversary.

There was music and food (of course)

Kauai Fungi mushrooms. This farm is on the same property as Jillian's and we got some mushrooms with our CSA order.

Kauai Fungi mushrooms about to be eaten! And Jillian's baby beet greens (that I harvested) tossed in a vinaigrette

Our laptops are paying for themselves creating websites, flyers and business cards

Na Keiki O Ka Aina (The Children of the Land) celebration. Phil passes tradition on to the children. Jillian and I set up the free salad station and box to get more CSA clients.

Close up of Jillian's box

Phil sets up a drum circle for the kids

beautiful music

More beautiful music

Back at home, a just hatched Gecko hangs out

Dan took out the ti plants, double dug a trench, added compost (from Jillian) and planted a rosemary I got at the farmers market and lemon grass we got at the farm

He replanted the baby ti's here

at the end of this row (behind the papayas) that needs to be cleaned up

One of the many spiders that, it seems, only Dan and I freak out on

Faith, Jillian's daughter helping out in the greenhouse

We thinned out some carrots (did you know if you eat the carrot tops they taste just like carrots) and found this one, Dan and I in carrot form!

Then Baxter, my compositor, ate it!

This is just wrong on so many levels!

Azure tuns 3 on Easter and the family celebrates with friends at the beach. Turtle's Teepee is on the right.  They set up after Na Keiki O Ka Aina and he spent the night in his teepee.

fun for the kids

ocean view

Local boys (from the south side) come up to play

Shene Wo, a former black panther and friend of the farm, plays drums

Dan looks for cool shells

Sage fills his squirt gun with Perrier water so it stings when he squirts people in the eyes! He got Dan and then conveniently disappeared when Dan was looking for paybacks, a head dunk in the ocean!

Jillian made Azure's cake. Carrot cake with ginger cream cheese frosting. Delicious!

Everyone sings happy birthday

all the candles get blown out

and everyone claps

the cake was served on banana leaves

the band had castanets 

and someone brought popcorn (plus pork slow cooked in the ground and all manner of side dishes)

Beans were harvested for this weeks CSA boxes. Afterwards the beans were pulled. Steve, a former student (in the hat) dug a ditch. I helped put the bean plants into the ditch and Steve covered them up. This green compost provides all the nutrients the plants need, next week will plant on top of them.

The radishes we direct sown (from seeds not seedlings), the seeds we put right into the ground 2 weeks ago. My job this harvest week, thinning out the baby radishes. This is the before shot

After. I harvested 3 1/2 pounds of them. After harvesting we cultivate (loosen up the soil) and feed the plants. Radish are short term/light feeders meaning they go from seed to harvest in 45 days or less and get crumbles for food (as opposed to compost which breaks down and feeds plants at a slower rate). Crumbles break down and become food pretty fast.

Back at home they get washed

and put into a chipotle hummus and carrot wrap

The day before we harvested onions. We started with 6 harvest bins and after cleaning we had 1 harvest bin or 63 pounds!

We set them out in the greenhouse to dry for next week's CSA boxes

An Emu. A pit in the ground for slow cooking whole pig. This is what Phil used to roast his pig for Na Keiki O Ka Aina, but never returned to clean it!

The week we learned about seed saving. This is what it looks like when broccoli goes to seed and the flowers taste like broccoli

This broccoli has gone to seed. The narrow pods hold approximately 10 tiny seeds

Ok, time for homework!

Broke Through the Dome of Fear

After walking the dogs this morning we went to the beach to read

It's funny because it was so awesome, I had a lot more fun than I look like

This book makes me so happy!

As you know from my previous post, I have been kind of freaking out. Don't get me wrong, I am amazed and in awe of the beauty all around me. There have been moments of wonder as I drive by the beautiful beaches or gaze at the magnificent mountains in the distance and I think "I live here...I...live...    here!!! When we first got here I was so happy, happy that we did it, happy that we all made it safely and happy that we were finally here. The business of moving in, repurchasing everything and thinking about an income slowly built up walls of fear. Fear that a shark might eat me, fear that I wouldn't make money, fear that we would get hurt, that we wouldn't make any friends. Isolation and loneliness slowly seeped into my bones until I was manic about getting Kauaian Fresh off the ground and exhausted from lack of sleep. Dan and I flip flopped. He became more at ease while I became more anxious. In his ever present love for me he listened, consoled and loved me through it. Gently pointing out where I was over thinking or teasing me about my high voltage energy levels. I forgot that this is our path, that everything is going to be ok. My meditation class sparked that memory. After a short meditation this morning, we walked the dogs. The meditation calmed me, soothed my soul and made me feel like playing. The words soul play came into my mind and I set the intention to let my soul play today. While we were walking the dogs, I felt free and happy. Watching Baxter and Lucy joyfully and passionately explore familiar terrain,  I literally felt like I was breaking out of the dome of fear that was slowly encasing me in misery. 

I promised myself and Dan that I would slow down, digest. I craved reading one of my yoga books yearning for the 5000 year old philosophy of self discovery. Sitting on the couch, birdsong drifting in through the open windows and the cool breeze refreshing my warm skin, I read. I suddenly got the urgent impulse to read at the beach. I got up and got dressed telling Dan I was going to the beach to read and he decided to join me. 

The constant gale of the trade winds was almost cold on my skin, just shy of giving me goose bumps. But I didn't care. The pounding surf and salty mist captivated me and I stayed put, riveted to my chair. The book was speaking to me, it was my life before coming here right there on the page. Affirming that we are indeed on the right course and that I need to take time and let life unfold as it should. Surrender.

An excerpt from Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope

...Slowly, Paula began to reveal another side of herself. Under the surface of her successful corporate career, she felt a sense of desperation. Her job had always been a pressure cooker, she said, but now she seemed less able to tolerate it. For the past year, she'd regularly had panic attacks on Sunday nights as she contemplated going back to work after the weekend. Work nights, she would often go to bed early, hoping for a refreshing nights sleep, only to sit bolt upright at 2AM with her mind racing: deadlines, pressure to perform, competition with a rising star who was, as Paula put it, "younger and hungrier than I am." "You know, I truly don't remember why I am doing this work," she lamented "I don't really care about it anymore. If I am going to pour out my energy the way I do in that job, I want to be doing something that matters." 

My head was spinning and my heart was throbbing. The words echoing round and round in  my head. I don't even know how many times I thought that let alone said it! I eagerly read on.

...Midway through life, Paula and I were facing a serious crisis of meaning---mine triggered by a devastating disappointment in love, hers by a bewildering disappointment in a career in which she was outwardly quite successful. Our crises were, of course, not at all unusual. But they were serious. We were both suffering painful symptoms---anxiety, depression and a difficult sense of internal disorganization and fragmentation. But as we would come to understand much later, our crisis each contained the seed of a magnificent gift. We were both forced, by pain, to look under the surface of things. To investigate deeper into the nature of our human-beingness---its impermanence, its lack of continuity, its disappointment, its suffering...

...As I looked more carefully at the dilemmas of my friends like Paula...and at my own dilemmas of my own midlife, I discovered that for many of us, the developmental tasks of the second half of life are primarily spiritual. Carl Jung had come to the same conclusion 50 years before:

Among my patients in the second half of life---that is to say, over 35---there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a spiritual outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost what the living religions of every age have given to their followers, and none of them has been really healed who did not regain his spiritual outlook. 

Jung believed that at midlife, most of us have refined out external selves, what he called the persona, the mask we wear to assure some stable, ongoing sense of identity. In his view, the persona represents only one limited aspect of the personality, and by mid life most of us are outgrowing it. At some point during the middle years, Jung said, "the glowing coals of consciousness buried deep within the personality begin to break into flames." When this occurs, the hitherto repressed and hidden aspects of the self may seem to overwhelm the conscious self, initiating a difficult period of disorganization of the personality.

The developmental demands of this newly awakening self are enormous, but they are mostly overlooked in our culture. While the awakenings of early adulthood, which are mostly about identity, are culturally supported with rituals and celebrations---weddings, graduations, ordinations, baptisms---the more subtle spiritual awakenings of the middle years are culturally invisible. Jung was outraged by this.

Are there not colleges for forty-year-olds which prepare them for their coming life and its demands as the ordinary colleges introduce our young people to a knowledge of the world? No, thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still, we take this step with the false assumption that our truths and ideals will serve us hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening become a lie. 

Somewhere in the middle years of life, ...Paula and I were ready for a deep new pilgrimage to the center to find what Jung called "the whole self". And for each of us in our own way, the return to the center of the self was inextricably linked with the return to God. Jung believed that the symbols for the self are indistinguishable from the symbols for God, and that the journey to the center of the self and the journey to God are one and the same. But in order to find this center it was necessary for each of us, in our own way, to deliberately enter the darkness of the unconscious, to begin what Jung called the "night sea journey." This entry into the unknown began, for each of us, a period of disorganization and metamorphosis that would eventually allow us to accomplish the goals of the second half of life---the integration of opposites, bringing into awareness all the banished aspects of the self. 

This comforts me in a strange ways. One, I am not alone in this quest. Two, I am on the right path.