Crystallized grass bows deeply in a dense morning fog. All is silent except for the tip tap of leaves falling to frozen ground. It is the sunrise of the first frost. The earth is exhaling. The time for growing and expansion is over. Whatever projects we had, whatever food we grew, whatever shelter we constructed, we must now trust that it was enough.
Enough. This can be a hard thing in a world of more and better, of continual expansion and infinite efficiency. But nothing can grow and expand forever. All living things must rest. We must cast our seeds, lay our eggs, build our burrows and then surrender to winter–countless beings doing their best and then letting go. How many repetitions of this humble act has brought life through the darkest nights and most unimaginable trials? This is Emeshe, by the way, here to think about letting go.
In the garden we tear out rotting vines and woody stalks. They sit in tangled piles like hairs pulled from a brush. Pale peppers and green tomatoes get saved by the bushel. They sit meekly in cardboard boxes, waiting for someone to take them home. Those fruits that are too small or hidden beneath drooping leaves turn to compost for next year’s crops. In many ways it is easier to destroy than create. What took a full season of nurturing, and doting, and shading, and watering is killed overnight. I tear out a garden bed with 15 hours of labor behind it in 15 minutes. There is a cleanness to it.
This year on the afternoon of October 31, a friend and I chose to sit over a small fire burning pomegranates and pears, releasing the sweetest smoke and talking of our ancestors. We named their names and brought them to mind–those beloved, known and unknown, who went through hell to get us here. The ones who cast their seeds into cold earth and prayed for them to grow. I recalled the great grandfather who I name as the reason I live at Dancing Rabbit; the man whose land and livelihood were stolen by soldiers. The man who lost his village, leaving me with the deep soul yearning to find one again.
Later that evening Critter Collective inaugurated our new kitchen with a haunted circus called The Inferno, a joke alluding to the fire that burned the space down four years ago. Back then the old went up in flames and we mourned it deeply. Now we have dreamed, and lived, and worked to create something new–a building that is quite a bit more sturdy and beautiful than the last one. Now the bones of the structure contain the rubble and charred posts of the old, as well as the sturdy timber framing and carefully sanded planks of the new. What we had may have disappeared in an instant, but there was never any question that we would put in the slow and arduous effort to build anew.
Maybe this strikes at the heart of what our village is all about. Yes, it is harder to build than tear down. Yes, what takes years to craft can be disassembled with one blow, and goodness knows it is easier to find fault than to do it yourself. But Dancing Rabbit is about creation as opposed to destruction. It is about regeneration, and enduring the winter. We do not spend too much energy preaching against the evils of the world, but save it to quietly grow our own world instead. One that is hopeful, and strong, and rides on the backs of seeds and birdsong. This is not the only way, but this is our way. So that when winter comes to an end, which it always does, there are seeds ready to sprout and those who know how to sprout them.
Emeshe has been a member of DR for two years and loves fall with a passion. She is often late to meetings this time of year because she is too distracted picking pretty leaves off the ground or warming her hands on Wallace, her favorite village cat.