Buadh Ghaidhlig Gaelic Grace
Buadh rùn nan speura dhuibh / Grace of the love of the skies be thine
Buadh rùn nan reula dhuibh / Grace of the love of the stars be thine
Buadh rùn nan rèe dhuibh / Grace of the love of the moon be thine
Buadh rùn nan grèine dhuibh / Grace of the love of the sun be thine
Buadh rùn agus crùn nan nèamha dhuibh / Grace of the love
and the crown of heaven be thine
The farm is a crux: a meeting of land and animal and human creature. A system too reliant, too dependent to allow much room for alienation. A part of; the land knows you better than you know yourself. It cuts right to your truth in the gruel, the reward, the risk, and the relentlessness. Right to your truth in the beauty, and the wonder. A unionization. A delicate balance. An opportunity to flourish in tandem.
"I wonder what they might say now? I reach deeply into a buttoned pocket in the breast of my overalls to find a few of last year's bean seeds...The dried beans laying in my earth covered hands seem to softly speak to me...they are now the only stakes fastened deeply to the life I once had...to the loved ones that once held me. Like chains tied tightly around my heart, the memories flood back, almost choking me as I drop each seeded-time-capsule to its plowed terrestrial bed. The beans make me remember...make me think. I wonder about all those beautiful moments they could tell me...When they were in his weathered hands, did they call to him? What did they say? To go back and listen to him, to see him walk the rows of green...to stroll through all the gardens growing life once more...but like all the past & changing seasons, he is gone. As I walk the plowed rows with my son, my heart seems to swell, and I find it very difficult to contain the tears from falling upon the newly uncurled and awakened leaves...Like me, those vines and leaves stretch up toward a light they will never reach. It’s time again...to remember him and all he taught me...It’s time to plant all those seeds & lessons within my growing garden and in the lives of others...I have a small pocket in the breast of my overalls...now it safely conceals a few of this year's beans...and as I hold them in my weathered hands I wonder, what they will say after I am gone?"
—Kris Hubbard
The farm is a crux: at the balancing point of Life and Death. Of failure and victory. All for the nourishment of others.
I have bled on the farm. I have cried. I have rejoiced! I have cursed the heavens! I have learned to stay. I have sunk in soil.
I have marveled, year after year, that I am part of the miracle of growth.