The Dirt On Human Health

Lightning flashes, thunder rolls, the earth is shaken awake and plants miraculously revive with renewed life. Spring has sprung and farming is officially ON in Southwest Michigan, as our fallow fields will soon be seeded with new prospects. When it comes to farming, I am admittedly still a bit green (pun intended), but am doing my best to work my fields, rapt for another season of growth and progress.

Interestingly, I just purchased a Probiotic formula (“Pro” means Positive and “Biotic” means Life) of living microflora from a local health food store. Present in many live foods but destroyed by heat and processing, live probiotic cultures populate the intestinal tract where they play a positive role in digestive system health. 75% of the cells necessary for the immune system to function effectively are connected to the gastrointestinal tract, as proper digestion is essential for the body to absorb and utilize nutrients needed.

What in the world does this have to do getting down in the dirt with a rumbling, Hasqvarna rear roto tiller? Well, when I consulted with the stores wellness expert, she pointed out that the shop’s best formula – Garden of Life’s Primal Defense Ultra Ultimate Probiotic – contains 13 beneficial species, including Homeostatic Soil Organisms (B. subtilis) and S. boulardi. “Because we aren’t down in the soil anymore, because our hands and feet are no longer in the earth, these elements are distinctly missing from our makeup.” Healthy “living” soils make for food with better nutrient content. And by “living” we mean soils that are teeming with microorganisms such as bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and microscopic roundworms called nematodes. Soil health then connects to everything up the food chain, from plant and insect health, all the way up to animal and human health. Health itself, therefore, truly begins in the soils in which our food is grown. The more ecologically we farm, the more direct nutrients we harvest.

A Blue Heron Haven

A magnificent discovery presented itself in the woods across the way today. I find cool stuff in the woods all the time, but this really was a scene splendid in appearance. For weeks, marking the bud of a garden-fresh Michigan Spring, fleets of Great Blue Herons have been gliding over the house and greening fields. You can't mistake their distinctive, regal forms against the sky - the slaty feathers, seven-foot wingspan and lanky, banking bodies, swooping in and making majestic landings out on the front lawn. In native cultures, the high-flying Eagle is honored as the celebrated messenger traveling to and from The Creator. But watch a Blue Heron ascending mightily out of a bog with breakfast in beak, and you'll know that when it comes to lofty dignity, these birds can hold their own.

The find was a Rookery or more specifically a Heronry, a breeding ground for Herons in the wetlands formed  by the Black River. After startling a few up from the pond  that flanks my front drive, ripping out in the early morning with the music up, I tried creeping down a couple times on foot in hopes of capturing a photo or two. After a few unsuccessful attempts, I followed all the raucous flapping to a small island in the woods, the upper limbs of its trees speckled with almost a dozen nests. This was and is a small colony of Great Blue Herons,  common in wetlands over most of North America and Central America, as well as the Caribbean and the Galápagos Islands. Although nests are often reused for many years and herons are socially monogamous within a single breeding season, individuals usually choose new mates and new nests each year. The males arrive at colonies first and settle on or build out bulky stick homes from which they coo and court females.

Busy now branding my place, I had the creative thought that The Blue Heron makes for an excellent symbol and good luck on several levels. A solitary feeder, Herons are often ponderous in their hunting efforts, weighing in the mind with thoroughness and great care, standing in stillness for lengthy stretches. Herons are also symbolic of trusting one's innate wisdom. On the biz side of things, The Higher Haven's initial Summer 2016 soft opening is made up of one-day Sunday retreats, gatherings that offer Yoga, Creative Meditation Instruction and Ceremonial Purification Rituals. Said plan has us currently looking to connect with teachers who'd be happy to make the short jaunt here with their "flock" to co-lead a mounting spiritual journey. The initial offer is a generous one, in hopes of forging strong, professional ties with great yoga teachers and other teachers of movement. If you are one or know one please get in touch to discuss being a part of The Blue Heron Yoga Program. Of course you'd have to bear down and endure a day or overnight in the lovely countryside of southwestern Michigan, only miles and minutes from the lake. If that sounds of interest, we are eager to connect.

Flying back to my lovely birds, I was actually utterly stressed out when I first found the Heronry. Working to get this place rolling over the last year and half since has pushed me beyond at times... and then pushed me a little further. But now, when it's all a little much (as it still often is), I head across the street  to be treated to images of the Pleistocene era or some other ancient epoch. With the shadowy forms of Pterodactyl-like beings floating out over the fields, then returning to their twiggy shelters, bills clenching food or fortifying sticks, I'm reminded of life's abundance, and realize that most of my blowups and proverbial fires are becoming tamer and tamer, usually resolving themselves by day's end. But If I catch myself in doubt, as I still do, I bring to mind the power of the neighborhood Blue Crew, visualizing a place where little is forced or fretted over, and all appears to unfold beautifully, naturally moment by moment.

Sacred Sunday One Day Retreat #1 ~ Spring 2016

Well, I’m happy to report we got it done. We nailed it, finis’d it, slammed it, ripped it, killed it,  “______” , (insert various other terms here signifying performing at the highest level) That is, Higher Haven Sunday #1 is in the can. Did you know “In the can” is a term that originated in filmmaking to describe a completed motion picture, back when film was literally put into a canister? That’s the sort of storytelling tinged with 1930’s slang we like around here, the real old school kind. Ancient even. Primordial.

Back to Sunday, the ancient practices of Yoga, Meditation and Ceremony came together in a colorful fuse of energies that magically created a new Community of tribal members of The Higher Haven. Many thanks to Kalamazoo’s Karina Ayn Mirsky, a Yoga & Meditation Educator, Retreat and Seminar Leader who helped lead the charge. Teaching yoga since 1998 and training yoga teachers since 2004, Karina helps run and guest teaches in a number of training programs across the nation. Her teachings reflect her understanding of yoga as both a modern therapeutic science and an ancient spiritual system, as well as a catalyst for personal transformation. Inspiring thousands of others to live with passion and purpose, she did a wonderful job inspiring the dozen yogis who made the drive with her from Kalamazoo with an original flow that honored the four directions as well as the people present.

Higher Haven Sunday #1 was the start of the Summer 2016 pilot program of one-day gatherings designed to generate a buzz in the surrounding communities and cities, in hopes of firing people up about a local, high-caliber spiritual retreat center. Forget Costa Rica and California. Why not skip the long flight and instead getaway with an hours drive to a special sanctuary in nature where, with a bit of personal effort, one can bestow a sense of rejuvenescence on oneself, all at about a tenth of the cost?  It certainly sounded like a good idea to me, a vision that lead me to take all I am and all I have and confidently (gulp) put in all on RED, betting that this place would fly. That if I built it, they would come. It certainly wasn’t going to help the cause if the first attempt sputtered out and went into a tailspin.

But it didn’t. It roared to life, throttled and bumped its way down the runway, taking flight. From the studio’s functionality to the local organic Vegan lunch to the cohesiveness of the teachings, it all pretty much worked and worked pretty well. Of course perfection remained well outside the perimeter and constructive mistakes were certainly made. Note to self: don’t yack outside and joke around with Chris Ferris of Farm House Deli while setting up the meal during the group’s Shavasana. So there’s growing pains to stomach and learning curves to negotiate.

By far Sunday’s most exciting takeaway – after months of pushing and pulling, forcing and stressing – was the deep realization of how well things work out when you simply do your best to Let Go. As my teacher is fond of reminding me – if you’re willing to risk giving to life what you have to offer, life will always give back in kind. Because at the end of the day, control is really no friend to fulfillment. When you control, you’re sending a message to life, a little (lack of) love note that says, “Trust you I do not”. So I took the risk and put a firm reliance on the integrity and ability of a benevolent Universe and was certainly granted a satisfying return. I hope that Karina, Ashton, Stephanie, Megan, Teresa, Janelle, Dana, Wade and both Suzanne’s felt equal uplift. Given the generous feedback, I trust they did.

Finally having some folks over for an early test flight also helped me come to terms with some of the awful, awful (pivotal term being awful) lot of dark nights and tearful times over the last year and a half, times that had me wondering, “Why am I doing all this shit? Why? When I could be sitting in a Monastery in California or Costa Rica…” ha or maybe Vietnam instead, feeling blissy and free. But truth be told, I feel as though I have a Mission, that Mission being to provide for others what was provided for me in the way of a direction out, out from under the rubble of personal problems and loads of unhappiness by simply following the directs of a good teacher coupled with a little devotion to true spiritual practice. It’s exciting and we’re excited to do it again all Summer and Fall, with Higher Haven Sunday #2 scheduled for June 5th at 11 a.m. Message me for details. Looking forward to having you Over and Out.