Moon cycles

Observing the houseplants this last three months we see that the first full moon on January brought a lot of growth and life to the dormant winter plants, but on February, coming up to the full moon this did not happen so much, there was only a bit of refreshing tender green color on the leaves, not so much growth. Now in March, approaching the full moon also has brought more growth to the houseplants, but in no comparison to the first big growth of the year, back in January. We see a mirroring image in the weather outdoors, when back in January things started to feel as if spring would come early this year, but alas, in February we saw these thoughts changing, as colder weather set in and broke the warmer spell. Now in March, the warmer temperatures are peeking through again, but modestly.

Interestingly enough, the writing inspirations seem to follow also the moon calendar! I will look more into this pattern during the next months.

We are intending on setting a rhythm in our farm, that help us with the work this year, we might have the same exchange student coming again and we would like to set a form to make things go easily and cheerfully. I find when things are set up in a rhythm is much nice to work than when there is no plan…Yet it has to be rhythm that is alive, so I am hoping to work with it enough before company comes. This is our lay-out:

5:30 wake up and dress

6-7 chore time ( milking cow, fresh hay and water in the barn, feed chickens and horse..)

7 breakfast with story and singing

8 housework

9-12 field work ( with a snack at 10)

12 dinner

12:30 rest

13 housework

14-17 field work ( with a snack at 3)

17 chore time

18:30 supper with story and singing

19:30 free time

20:30 sleep for the children

Some of the field work time I will be indoors setting the meals with one or two children, and some afternoons will be set apart for errands.

Our regular weekday routine includes:

Monday: washing clothes

Tuesday: ironing

Wednesday: baking bread

Thursday: helping neighbors

Friday: washing clothes

Saturday: baking bread

Sunday: singing

We will have to include butter making, but maybe it can be done daily for now.

 List of things to plant in our garden: tomatoes for fresh eating and canning homemade ketchup, cucumbers for fresh and pickles, Swiss chard for fresh and frozen, lettuces, cabbages for fresh and sauerkraut, carrots we will try to winter them too, peppers, potatoes and green beans for fresh and canning, leeks, that will stay out in the winter, and garlic. Red beets and maize corn for our animals in the winter, we are trying to figure out how many rows of them. And then the medicinal herbs and  teas, I want to buy some terracotta pots for some of them to have in the house through the winter, and have large patches of other ones that I will dry and hang from the ceiling during the winter months: Rosemary, Greek oregano, basil, parsley, sage, dill, German chamomile, ginger, peppermint, lemon balm, lavender, fennel, calendula, yarrow, equisetum. We have plenty of nettles around here, dandelions and rabbit’s ears, but we would need to find eucalyptus and arnica at the store. Finally, about flowers, I will concentrate on roses in the north (with the lavender)  and sunflowers on the southern side. I do not know if we will have opportunity to start the light root this year.

Things are still frozen in the ground, so we will have to wait a little and do the planting calendar of the year once things start to soften up.

Real Beauty

When you are forgotten or neglected or purposely set at naught, and you not sting and hurt at the oversight, but your heart is happy, being counted worthy to suffer for Christ, that is dying to self.

When your good is evil spoken of, when your wishes are crossed, your advice disregarded, your opinions ridiculed, and you refuse to let anger rise in your heart, or even defend yourself, but take it all in patient loving silence, that is dying to self.

When you lovingly and patiently bear any disorder, any irregularity, any impunctuality, or any annoyance, when you can stand face to face with waste, folly, extravagance, spiritual insensibility and endured it as Jesus endured it, that is dying to self.

When you are content with any food, any offering, any raiment, any climate, any society, any solitude, any interruption by the will of God, that is dying to self.

When you never care to refer to yourself in conversation, or to record your own good works, or itch after commendation, when you truly love to be unknown, that is dying to self.

When you can receive correction and reproof from one of less stature than yourself and can humbly submit inwardly as well as outwardly, finding no rebellion or resentment rising up within your heart, that is dying to self.

 Author unknown.

Without self-denial there is no community, but individuality.

It is true that one of the attractions of the Amish is the sense of community, yet this community could not arise without the individual self- denial of its members, and it is actually that quality of self-denial which we feel attracted to, the real beauty.

Jesus in his great commandment did say to love our neighbor as ourselves, yet this comes about only if we have been able to die to self. Where marriages break, the church will break and the government too. It is just a matter of time. So community starts at self-denial.

This self-denial is always joyful, when one sees mortifications without joy,  that is not self-denial but a hiding form of pride, self-pity or victimization. The joy of self-denial is something that God gives and makes people around you to want the same as you have, it is the real beauty, what people  see in you and long for. Because once you practice self-denial Christ can enter and shine through you.

There are many ways of practicing self-denial, but you can tell when is rightly so. You have the longing of training your flesh, training your will, training your heart and mind, and at each step God guides you particularly on what to do, the choice is always ours, to procrastinate or make haste. And by the end of it you can also tell if joy was in your heart or you should keep trying again, by praying and supplication, so God changes your heart. Obedience is not easy, but once you taste the sweetness of it, it will help to keep obeying in more things. The more we obey the more is given to us as a task and the more joy we will receive from the Father, it actually resembles much of child-training, yet as adults, we use our will to enter into training. God gives commands and suggestions, he even changes our hearts, yet we still have the free will to obey or not, he will not use force, manipulation, or other means aimed at limiting our freedom, but once we are his children he will reward and chastise us too, like children, and we can always remove ourselves from his family if we would want to, that is why Love is with freedom, we cannot be forced to Love God the Father, but I hope we would always want to.

The Lord is good to me

When the sun is almost dawning

He brings yet a darkest night

To Him now must fiercely clinging

Leave all my life and my might.

So the inner layers are scattered

Like pieces of flaky flesh

That were still in my heart bounded

Invisible like a mesh.

I find amazing how always

It all starts anew once more

When nothing else is kept away

I think, submitting my core.

Yet he brings another night still

This a longer sharper dark

And in my insides gets revealed

Choking bits of self unmarked.

Will this path of Christian life take

Bring me close enough to God

There is one more thing to forsake

Yet, at every step I trod.

The Lord is good to me indeed

He keeps me in a good pace

Lord cleanse me ever more, I need

To be made yours every day.

The Problem of Art

I have been thinking about art and the different expressions of it in various times and groups of people. It seems to me that in the first centuries art was predominantly centered about God and spiritual realities, whereas somewhere after the millennium a change occurred that was plainly seen in the artistic expression, paintings started to portray daily scenes of life, the songs and  lyrics started to talk about the mundane and also poetry and writings were devoted much more to  the human environments than to God and its spheres. The focus changed from the Creat-or to the creat-ed. I know I am overstating and making a gloss over all, since the Greeks were also much centered in the human form, etc…but I want just to look to this later change for now, the change that occurred after the millennium. 

It seems to me that this happened because a change of human consciousness, that let man be more disconnected from the spiritual realities, and more a free thinker, allowing then the display of all the technology that came after. But moreover than that, man was left hanging amidst a system of devotions that was not being effective anymore, the regular churches and their ministering were not helping humankind to be selfless, and to guide them to God for the renewing of their natures, on the other hand, they made them be hypocrites the same as in the time of the Pharisees. At that time also many of the Protestant, Anabaptist  and other movements started to give birth, in order to bring a different relation to the Creator that would make the renewal of their natures. Why there is so much art in the Catholic faith for example and not in the Plain people? I think the answer lies in the change that happened in consciousness: when people were still connected to the spiritual world in a matter of fact way, the art happened almost involuntarily, it was a natural reaction of the human being. After that an effort needed to be made to connect to the spiritual realities again and bring forth art. Who hasn’t heard the expression of  a writer for example saying: “oh, I have done nothing at all, it all came to me” Inspiration is the word that we use for that. But really, who knows about the spiritual realities behind every piece of art? As I sit here writing I am wondering, who put these thoughts in my mind really, and who is inspiring me to write them? Who amongst us can discern between spiritual realities nowadays?

I admit, not I. This spring, we tapped our maple trees, we did not know which ones were maples…so somebody who knew came to help choose which ones to tap. Now when the sap comes we can taste it and test that it is indeed maple syrup. It is the same with the spirits, we may be blind as to whom is whom, but we can see their fruits,  we can test them and see if our lives are filling with joy or love or patience, etc…, or if on the contrary, our lives are getting more tempted and more sinful.

I think the approach that the Plain people make of art is a cautious one, they do plenty of poetry, writing, singing, quilting, card-making, white and black drawing , cooking…, yet they reserve the priority of artistic expression to the result that it brings, they ask: Does it bring me closer to God? Does it make me follow Christ’s  steps more closely?

In my particular life I had to ask this question, and unfortunately it was not a positive answer. I say unfortunately because I used to paint and write poetry and also surround myself to all kinds of beauty. Yet the more I looked at it the more it hindered my spiritual life. For example amid beautiful pieces of religious art, instead of being in a state of devotion to God it made me be in a state of devotion to self, pride was puffing up. When I would start a painting also, it made me center my thoughts, will and heart to it, and it would become an obsession to finish the piece of art, though children needed me to help, or meals needed to be done, the painting was more important. When writing, the sentences would float in my mind until weary, after days of carrying them in my sleep, I would write them down and gave them form, etc…..Was that  helping me to follow God’s will in my daily life? We all know the examples of great artists who had poor relationships with their fellow men, it seems somehow that these two things go pieced together back to front. As one goes forward the other goes backward.

 Looking also at different homes, how we have homes and our dressing attire is an expression of art, sometimes the more beautiful the houses, the less beautiful  the heart. What does it all mean? Is the lust of the eye making us be blind to the natural beauty? Is some kind a beauty alluring us away from God?

Well, again, trying not to generalize, there are always exceptions to this, and in any rate it is based on my only perspective and observation, yet it reckons to be pondered, is really art helpful in our age? Does it help us to become closer to God? Or is it just a mirror of our vanity? What is really the inspiration? What would have to change in order that we would reach God again in a direct form? What art would look like for the man in the 21^st century  if it is to give glory to God and not to other spirits?

When in some schools I see the art welling up so naturally their curriculum, and see their children so much in self, I can’t  but wonder, is this really the way to better humankind? What are we doing wrong? Are we too inclined to Luciferic ways, to pride? When I see the lack of artistic will in the plain people, and I see their children so much learned in self-denial, I can’t but wonder, is really art in the way? Are they just being over-protective? Is there any inclination to Ahrimanic ways, to Fear?

If I have to choose between art and heart, I choose heart. But yet again maybe I do not have to choose and it is just my ignorance in things.