A Day on the Farm
Someone suggested that Sam should write about his life. Okay. But he just couldn’t get started. Every time he began with, ‘I’m a farmer,’ and every time he crumpled up the page and got grumpy. Sam was not enjoying this. After each crumpled page was dutifully placed in the wastebasket, Sam was looking out over the land and pondering, first, why he was grumpy, and second, the land and his life and himself. The next day he would do exactly the same thing. In one sense nothing was happening – the story wasn’t getting down on paper, but in another sense something was happening – he was beginning to understanding why the story wasn’t getting down on paper. At first this made him very angry. It was awful to think of his life and land as simple words on paper: “I am this, I did that, this resulted, and then I did this.’ It drained him pale, left him feeling sick and empty - a great void in his pit. Had he really lived such an empty existence? Everything in Sam rebelled and fired forth, ‘No!’ But was the ‘No!’ true? So the crumpled sheets of paper and the pondering – what else was there to do?
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On this bright June morning the routine changed. As Sam went to ponder he was seized with a dissatisfaction so intense that he was propelled from the porch and out to the meadow. Tears filled his eyes as he stumbled forward. A rage filled him and he dropped to his knees, pulling at the grass with his fists. He heard a horrible sound and realized it was himself, wailing, and he thought for a moment, ‘this must be what ‘wailing’ is.’ Then his raging took over again, and he thought he would explode, or implode. His bulging eyes peered into the grass, as if an answer to his grief would pop out of it. And it did. Sam’s gaze locked on a dewy spider’s web, and he remembered how interested he had once been in those webs, and what those spiders were doing in the field. He remembered how this had led him away from imposing his will on his fields, and towards seeing how he could cooperate with what was going on there already. In an instant the rage and grass pulling stopped. His wet face began to dry and cool as he remembered and looked afresh at the thousands of little cobwebs carpeting the early morning meadow.
Sam heard another strange noise and found it was himself, chuckling. ‘This is better,’ he thought, and proceeded to participate fully in the laughter. “I’m no farmer!” he shouted. “That’s not what I’ve been doing all my life. I’m no farmer!” He struggled to his feet and threw out his arms. “I’m no farmer!” And as the sun broke the low clouds on the horizon and Sam felt its warmth on his face, he began to twirl, slowly at first, with arms out, and then faster and faster. “I’m unraveling myself” he revealed to himself, and every twirl distanced him from the suffocating shroud that drove him out into the meadow. “I’m no farmer.”
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It became effortless for Sam to twirl. His balance became stable and he went on and on like some perpetual motion machine, releasing the silken cord that bound it. he thought of the spiders and how they patterned their silken cords, and how stupidly he had let his almost annihilate him. He chanted, “I’m no farmer; I’m a fool,” and the twirling increased in velocity.
As Sam twirled, thoughts popped up for review. His thoughts. He had great thoughts in the past, thoughts that provided guidance throughout his life. The cobwebs thought, the time where he began to listen to his animals, the “interconnectedness of all things” thought. There weren’t that many, but there were enough to chart his course. Certainly there were. Significant thoughts – the thoughts that gave his life significance. “Yes! By God – I’m not a farmer, or a fool, I’m….?” The twirling subsided, and in the full blown morning Sam was satisfied with that unanswered question. He was all potential, unraveled, new, and from this moment forth he would be as astute as the spider. “Hell, as astute as all living things,” and in consciousness he would cooperate with the pattern that was his life. No more strangling oneself, no more obscuring the beauty that was right before his eyes, no more failing to listen, no - never again.
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“My goodness,” said Sam to the myriad of living things in the meadow, “I’m so grateful.” He heard these words echo, and he was repulsed – “Oh, no, I don’t mean that in some syrupy, sentimental way! A way that saps my strength. No, I won't fall into that web. I’ll not let my words or thoughts be vague. What do I mean, exactly?”
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Sam was back on the porch, pondering, but what a different level of ponder! “For what am I grateful? I feel grateful..but what is it? Ah! I feel great gratitude that I’m not a joke. Ha! That’s why I was so irritated by that phrase, ‘I’m a farmer.’ Bullshit! What bullshit. I’m grateful I’m not a farmer. I’m a human being. I’m grateful that no matter how enshrouded I was, I listened and allowed myself to be guided by significant thoughts. I’m grateful that I was repulsed by the suggestion that I was a farmer. I’m grateful I didn’t mistake that for myself. I’m grateful for the incredible examples of life everywhere, all the time. I’m grateful I can know myself to be a fool, and do foolish things. That’s how we learn. That’s how I have matured.
“Damn! That’s it!” yelled Sam. One of the Clydesdale’s threw up his head and was very attentive. “Yes Horatio, dear dear Horatio, I am maturing. I’m a human being, growing up. That feels really good, and I’m grateful I can grow up and enter into life as a partner, a co-operator. A needed and essential part. Wow.”
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Sam walked over to Horatio and rubbed his face. The giant friend nuzzled and rubbed back appreciatively. Sam kept the horses because he loved them. Until today he had not been able to say that. Now he let himself. He realized he was going to express a lot he had not let himself express in the past. The liberation he felt when shouting “I’m no farmer!” defined the struggle his life had been. God, what a struggle. At every step he had fought his own common sense, his own nature. He knew in his heart he had been wrong to get sucked into agri-business, chemicals, and dependence on banks. He had not listened to his heart – he had been emotionally and intellectually manipulated. So now when Mrs. Clarke’s grade 3 class asked him to write about his life – well, they were going to get more than they bargained for! Well, they asked.
Sam remembered. He started life thinking everything was good, and if that wasn’t immediately apparent then it was up to him to “understand more deeply into the matter,” as he put it. For many years this served him well and he withstood the absurdity of so-called education, while learning on his own, from himself and the world. His grandfather had used this method, and farmed. He was a happy man, the only happy man Sam ever knew, and he left Sam the farm. But grandfather didn’t tell Sam about fearlessness, so in his fifth year, instead of having patience and waiting to understand, Sam succumbed to the pressures of the salesmen and did terrible things.
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“How could I have been so stupid, so blind? Well, I gotta’ give credit where it’s due. Fear and the salesmen are a lot cleverer than I gave them credit for.” Overnight Sam was on a treadmill. Having to implement tactics and strategies that were contrary to every fibre of his being. He had sold his soul. Sam knew it, but today he got it back. With his soul came a few more goodies, like common sense, intuition, and a patience for observing how things work for the good.
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“Sure, little children, I’ll write you my story, one that’s worth writing, and if you don’t heed it you’ll pay mightily. Never sell your heart, little children. You sell all your potential. Oh! And it’s good advice – neither a lender nor a borrower be. Give as is given to you, and if you don’t understand that, don’t make a move ‘til you’ve gone more deeply into the matter.”
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Sam not only presented his story to Mrs. Clarke’s Grade 3 class, he also presented a paper on “Chants, Cycles and Chemicals” to a farmer’s union, and another entitled “Interconnectedness and Technology: A Real Success Story.” He has since written a book – “The Heart and Cultivation.” He is presently collaborating on a study of “Quantity Versus Quality.” The findings are reflecting that a small quantity of quality food is satisfying and sustaining, while large quantities of food that are mass produced, unappreciated and poorly presented are unsatisfying and harmful. Sam’s farm is breeding small animals – little cows that give small amounts of milk, suitable for families and communities, rather than nations. He is a firm advocate of local food sources. Sam is realizing his potential and serving humanity. Ten of the former grade three students work on the farm.