40 Days of Peace Day Twenty Five
Family, Farmin’ and Thanksgiving
Give thanks for plants…
Creator of all that is and will be we give thanks for the gifts of the earth. For the plant life that nourishes our minds, body and spirit. For the gardens that grow wild, as gifts. For the gardens that grow with care. For the care takers of the earth, who choose to use their gifts in relationship with the plants. What noble work to care for the soil and plants from seed to harvest. It is one of the most noble gifts we can give to the world, to grow food with love, nothing more, nothing less. May every farmer feel our love and gratitude every time we enjoy the gifts of their toil. May they receive abundance, live long and well, and know peace in their hearts.
May we never take for granted the gifts of plant medicine or their caretakers.
We give thanks for our relatives and the gift of sharing a meal together. May our time together be so joy-filled that Time itself takes a break to be with us, and every minute becomes an hour to enjoy as the day stretches on until our banks our spilling over with love. - Sarah
It’s in my blood, this deep love for food… from the soil to seed to harvest to the table. I love it ALL!! And it’s clearly in my family’s blood too.
When my brother told me he was buying a farm and setting a goal to trade in his briefcase for barn life, I probably danced a jig in my kitchen. I’m passionate to say the least about growing food organically and preventing and healing illness with food as medicine. I imagine it all started in a garden on Hughes Branch road, where my Papaw Poe spent a whole lotta time plantin’ and caring for plants. As a child, I was pretty blessed to live in the woods with my mom, dad and two brothers. Nature was our best friend and our playground, and just through the woods was my grandparents house. Talk about bein’ blessed!
My Papaw loved his garden, my Mamaw, his family and his community! He was full of joy and laughter and his passion for farming and food set the stage for who I am today. I have the most beautiful memories of my childhood, planting seeds with he and my dad. When I close my eyes I can see him in his overalls and a hat with a basket of beans just smilin’ ear to ear at me. “Who’s my buddy?” he’d say, every single time he saw me. “I am papaw. I am" (and always will be).
Farming is in our bloodline. We were farmers back as far as I know. We loved the earth and she loved us back. She provided for us and we cared for her in return. And we shared her gifts with our community.
I had the rare blessing of growing up with my great grandparents around… I got to spend time with 5 of my great grandparents as a child, which is a gift all of its own. They lived long lives, long healthy lives. They lived in good relationship to the land and plants and animals. They cared for them, and they we’re cared for.
I can still smell the beans in the canners, all the women snappin’ beans in Granny Grace’s kitchen, as the cousins ran around playing games. Those beans sustained us all, not just in summer but all through the winter, as did the jams, the cellar of potatoes, the jars of tomatoes, and the freezer full of meat and corn. For all of this, the nourishing of young Sarah in mind, body and spirit, I am abundantly grateful! I am who I am because of my elders and their relationship to the earth and our Creator.
“The land loves us back. She loves us with beans and tomatoes, with roasting ears and blackberries and birdsongs. By a shower of gits and a heavy rain of lessons. She provides for us and teaches us to provide for ourselves. That’s what good mothers do.” -Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass)
Preachin’ must be in my blood too, I will admit I’m someone who tends to speak my mind when I’m passionate about something. I come from a family of farmers and preachers. My Papaw was both.
He and Mamaw Poe spent their lives serving the community with their big hearts and smiles. Mamaw and I would spend an afternoon cooking up casseroles and cakes, Papaw would pack the car up with bushels of beans and we’d head out to share with the community. Maybe someone was sick, maybe someone was grieving, maybe there was a new baby, maybe someone didn’t have enough… whatever the reason, my grandparents were always sharing their gifts abundantly. This goes for my moms parents too. My Papaw and Mamaw Neal always had food to share with our community. They were generous and kind and loved to feed people. We were blessed.
Though neither set of grandparents ever had much in the way of a big bank account, they shared what they had and they always had enough. This is the law of reciprocity, this is the honorable harvest. The amount of joy it gave my grandparents to cook a good meal to share or to fill up the car with the harvest to share with our relatives… that joy has been passed on from their blood to mine, to my brothers, to my daughter and his daughters. They led by example. Their love of the land, the people and their generous spirit lives on in us.
My Papaw also LOVED Thanksgiving. It was his favorite holiday. He lived a spirit of gratitude that carried him through his whole journey, and so it makes sense that he loved this day so much. He was also wildly in love with Thanksgiving Bingo, a family tradition that my grandparents started. Every Thanksgiving my Mamaw would shop the dollar store or thrift market for little trinket gifts, one for each member of the family, PLUS a grand prize (which was always a WVU sweatshirt or many a watch a couple years.. he LOVED to give watches). After our huge family meal Papaw would get out the Bingo box and the game would begin! After each round the winner would get to pick one of the wrapped presents. We would play until all of us would win a prize, then came the final round for the big win. He looked forward to our Bingo game every year and I’m so grateful for the memories. They still make me smile today.
The more I grow, the more I see that there are lots of synchronicities in our journeys. On Thanksgiving morning 14 years ago, being the sweeties that he was, my Papaw got up early to put the turkey in the oven so my Mamaw could rest. And on this morning, he suffered a massive stroke. My family spent the day in the hospital, no bingo, no family feast. It’s one of those days in the memory log. We all have them. The ones you define with before and after.
He lived for over a year with my Mamaw doing all the caregiving for him. She spent her days gracefully and lovingly taking care of him. Her gift to him, to us and the world. That example of love is not only seen but felt in the heart. It becomes contagious and inspiring and takes a life of its own when someone cares for another in this way.
That spring, for the first time, the garden didn’t receive her seeds. I wonder if she new without us telling her. When he didn’t return, did she know it was her last harvest? I know it broke his heart to be separated from her. The loss was felt by us all. The garden turned into a field of tall grass, a safe space for the deer to eat and hide in the evenings. It’s hard for me to look at her when I visit. Though I understand, life has changed, I also know, one day my Papaws garden will feel hands return to her, to plant and care and love her. There will be a healing and a harvest. My Papaw will be there to oversee it all. He’ll watch over each seed, every tomato, every bean. He’ll smile and say, “Who’s my buddy?”
My Mamaw is a woman of great faith and great determination. She and my Papaw were married at 17. They shared a long time of love together, their story is tender and inspiring, and she misses him deeply to this very day. Years after he crossed over, my Mamaw decided she was going to write a book. Yep! at 82 years old, she wrote her first book. A Journey of Faith. In it, she tells their story of pastoring 16 different churches in West Virginia, raising four children.. and how faith kept them going all those years. No matter what they faced, they stayed faithful and knew that their needs would always be met. I am eternally grateful for their lessons of love and faith. And I am grateful for the love of the soil and seeds that they planted in me … and my family.
If you would have told me a decade ago that I would be living with both my brothers… in Georgia… I would have giggled and said “impossible”. But here I am, living with my both my brothers, my amazing sister-in-love, my 3 magical nieces and the most wonderful daughter in the world ( and a couple dogs, goats and chickens.. ) I am where I am meant to be in this time in my life, and so happy to be supporting my brothers in their dream to grow food, share their gifts with their community and restore the relationship with Her… Mama nature… Mama garden.
We’re returning to our roots and its just in time! We know that our food is our medicine and our medicine is our food. We have seen food heal illness and disease. We’ve experienced it for ourselves. We know the value of this sacred connection to the soil and seeds, every plant, every berry, every tree. She is calling us and we are listening. For our children and their children, we will have our healing and harvest. We will honor this land as caretakers, not as owners, but as relatives.
We will build a longer table where all are welcome. We will share our gifts gratefully, we’ll play music and dance under the stars. And Papaw is here, overseeing it all. And Mamaw calls to encourage us and pray for us. She’s even made the journey to visit a few times. She is a gift we are so grateful for, on this Thanksgiving and every day.
“We are linked in a co-evolutionary circle. The sweeter the peach, the more frequently we disperse its seeds, nurture its young, and protect them from harm. Food plants and people act as selective forces on each other’s evolution -the thriving of one in the best interest of the other. This, to me, sounds a bit like love.
What do you think would happen if people believed this crazy notion that the earth loved them back?… I imagine… You wouldn’t harm what gives you love.
Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.
Something essential happens in a vegetable garden. It’s a place where, if you can’t say “I love you” out loud, you can say it in seeds. And the land will reciprocate, in beans.”
