next breath

         I left the farm yesterday.  Had to get away.  What did I do?  Went to visit about 9 other farms.  All my friends live or work on farms or gardens.  And they're usually home.  That's one of the great things about farmer friends.  No need to call, they probably won't be near the phone any way.  Just stop in and wander out to the garden.  Put on a hat, take off your shoes, crouch down in the weed pulling position, and the visit begins.  Talk and pull, talk and nibble, laugh and pull, look up at the sky, listen to that bird, stop and turn your face into the breeze.  Visiting farmer friends is such a joy.  We can talk about chicken behavior, food, poop, range, I'm not even sure, for 25 minutes before a confused look comes over some one's face as they realize they want to continue talking about chickens, but maybe we should just stop, for a bit.  So then we start talking about cows.  What they're eating, are they fat or thin, how's that back right quarter doing, who gave who the horn yesterday, what they saw over the fence... then again we look at each other and wonder, how much can one say about a cow?  But there's so much more to say, we know we could talk for hours, just about the cows.  And who else are you going to talk to about the cows?  Its not like we have a long list of people to call and discuss these things with.  Many of my friends will listen, some will even ask an interesting question from time to time.  But to really talk WITH someone about the cows, now that feels good.
     And the soil.  Oh the soil.  Hours of discussion there too.  And what's different about discussing chickens and soil from discussing say, heart disease or nuclear weapons?  There is truth.  Truth that can be learned through observation, intuition, prayer.  Call it what you will.  It will have a different name tomorrow.  The truth is there though.  And when I meet someone else who has discovered, uncovered that truth, caught a glimpse of it and is actively seeking more, then I've met a friend.  Then the human connection happens and another layer is peeled away to expose more beauty, more wholeness.  There are opinions about heart disease.  There are clinical studies and documented 'facts'.  Points to argue and positions to support.  There are ways to feel that maybe certain people understand these things, and that's their job.  There's no truth in it.
     Truth about soil and plants and animals, that is felt in the gut.  In the heart, in your chest.  You know it like you know the sun will come up.  Truth that feels like your next breath.  Some people learn it from books and then go out and drive it deeper with each seed that sprouts, each carrot they munch, each interaction with an 800 lb being.  Some people just walk out into the green, feet bare, hands outstretched, and they know.  Bit by bit, they know.  Absorbing it through their skin, their eyes, their open heart.  They are not accumulating information about the plants and the soil.  They are peeling back layers from their very own being to reveal the truth that has been there all along.  The universal vibration, unable to be proven wrong, even by a large sample size, double-blind, controlled experiment performed in a lab by experts in white coats.  The truth has no opposite.  It can't be proven wrong, because it is not right.
  It just is.