counting blessings at the end of the growing season

This season is over and after a stunning summer a marvelous autumn has come.
I won’t deny it has been a struggle to be alone in nature and especially being lived in the mega city
for so many years. But I believe one can recognize something beautiful and peaceful only if has gone
through some trouble. I found it is helpful to count your blessings now and then to realise what you
got might be plenty. We all crave something what we don’t have our seam not to have… and then fail
to appreciate what is right there in front of us.  I failed many times just to calm my worries and look
around and love what I already have.

 It is very worrying that maybe planet; nature might not last very long in this state as it is now,
because of our -human, actions and climate change; therefore I am grateful to
have had a chance to be so close to the wild this past 6 month and try and make my own food forest
garden. What we eat is contaminated withchemicals which, we are only finding out now are harming
our health and wellbeing ( I am thinking about research in glyphosate here) . So I count another blessing:
that I was able to eat organic, what I grew (with some exceptions when I gave into my cravings for shop
bought sweets…)
I can account that is not very hard to grow your own food or just some of what you eat, it is satisfying
and gives one pride to cook something you have seen grow.

  I am very proud of myself that I have overcome fear to be in the forest alone at night. It was not that
difficult only took one sleepless night listening to animals move outside and realising that there is not
much that can harm me out there. It is much more likely that people harm one another then animals
harm people.  

 I missed people I missed friendships and just sharing experiences at some points of the past summer.
Although I have to count one more blessing that there were many visitors this year able to come and
experience this place called Eisāgi even if just for the short while and great help from Michael Holland
who also started this project and invested so much energy and hard work in making this place beautiful,
thank you! He had dug the well to clean it and we have clean water now!!! Which was the major job
here this year.

 Sadly, the assumption that I don’t have enough leads to all kinds of things that can kill the spirit and done
so at times this summer—anxiety, resentment, hoarding, overwork, competition, and failure to enjoy life.

 I found this poem by Wendell Berry and hope that in future, when I will find myself drifting in that
direction again, I can return to this poem read how he celebrates nature and human nature and I will be
able to open my eyes and see the truth in its last line:   

The Wild Geese

Horseback on Sunday morning,

harvest over, we taste persimmon

and wild grape, sharp sweet

of summer's end. In time's maze

over fall fields, we name names

that went west from here, names

that rest on graves. We open

a persimmon seed to find the tree

that stands in promise,

pale, in the seed's marrow.

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear,

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye

clear. What we need is here.

There are photos of our garden and forest around: