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“It is not the world who is mute, but rather we who are deaf.”  

Thus I wrote, several years back, in my book of Christian Animism.   I meant it – really, I did – but more as a rhetorical flourish than a statement from experience.  Now, the experience is kicking in.

For the past three weeks, we've been involved in a lovely and intriguing process here on the farm.  This particular season of the year brings a short period of weather where the nights fall below freezing and the days warm up in the spring thaw.  This oscillation of temperature, combined with the changing patterns of sunlight, creates  the conditions for sugar-laden sap to flow quickly in the trees. By tapping the trees and collecting this sap, we are able to enjoy the alchemy of maple syrup making.  Here on the prairies we don't have many of the big sugar maples of the eastern woodlands, but we do have Manitoba maples (sometimes called box elder, or even elf maple (!))  These maples are a little less prolific and less sweet in their sap production, but its still worthwhile to make the syrup.  

Visiting the trees every day to gather the sap is a delight in and of itself.  They are offering their lifeblood, not in dangerous quantities, but it still is a good reminder for me to thank them, and ask the Creator to bless them.  Like so many things on the farm, syrup production is derived directly from the life of other persons ... in this case, tree persons.

As part of a small community living off the grid, I often find it enjoyable to try to describe our way of life to others.  When I'm asked about our water situation, I usually quip that “yes, we have running water: I run to the lake and get water.”  

Well, actually that's not exactly true.  I generally walk slowly to and from the lake, pulling a sled filled with water pails behind me.  My “running water” joke is a fun little one-liner, but the reality is that hauling water is, for me, simultaneously a daily routine of survival and a spiritual practice, rolled into one.

A couple of nights ago, not long after Candlemas, I woke up at 4am with our farm animals on my mind.  The fire was out, the wind was howling, and it was freaking cold even under the covers.  Outside, the temperature had dropped to -40 degrees Celsius.  Factor in the wind chill and it was close to -50.  As I tried to get some warmth back into my toes, I began to worry about the animals outside.  Our small herd of cattle, horses, and sheep are all well suited to northern climates, but this type of deep cold is hard on them.  I said a prayer, and envisioned them blanketed by a protective warm layer of light and love.  I added another Spirit-song for the dogs, and all the other wild creatures on and around the farmstead.  I'm glad they are resilient, but I can't help but feel concerned for all the wights abroad on a night such as that.

Reconciliation is a huge task, a deep responsibility, a seven-generation work of covenant renewal.  Reconciliation involves decolonization and reparation.  It calls for a massive act, or series of acts, of confession and (hopefully) forgiveness.  There are no short cuts, and nothing can replace the sheer hard work of re-building broken relationships.  Reconciliation is a key aspect of the Great Work of our time.

As an Anglican priest, I've been involved in reconciliation and justice work during my entire ministry.  I worked as an inner-city chaplain on the streets of Saskatoon.  I acted as a church representative in the alternative dispute resolution hearings for residential school survivors, and offered the words of apology on behalf of the church many times over.  I sat, mute and numb, in the memorial feast for young Colten Boushie as his community grieved at Red Pheasant.   And I know that countless others, in and out of the church, Indigenous folks, settlers, and newcomers, are all doing whatever they can to bring about a new reality of right relationships in our land.  

So the snows have come, with the oats yet to harvest.  A month still before Samhain, but the Wheel seems to be turning early.  My forearms are covered with tiny scratches from the straw, as I pound the oat sheaves into the darkness of their threshing casket.  I had hoped for another few weeks of mellow fall weather before the winter sets in, but often the actual seasons of life don't match the liturgical calendar of feasts and fasts, worship and work, as the moons wax and wane.  

That's ok.  It used to bother me a bit, but after a half-decade now of living off grid on our old-fashioned farm, I have come to enjoy the reflections which are born in the tension between the symbolic and the real.  What does it mean that the snowflakes are falling in Lammas-tide?  Is it a sign that I've taken my ease for too long, putting off until tomorrow what should have been done yesterday?  Is it a gentle reminder that the sabbath eschaton of the dark-half of the year is often prefigured, even pre-echoed, in the waning of the light-half?  That the root-tip of the yin is buried within the full-flower of the yang?  As I harvest our years' worth of oatmeal, sown in the spring with yesteryear's corn-queen, these and many more oracular hints occur to me.

In medieval England, before the reformation, there existed in many parishes a powerful spiritual practice called “beating the bounds”.  Toward the end of the the Easter season, in rogationtide, members of the community would spend a day walking the borders of their parish (a parish is a geographical territory, mapped out by the church but used also for civil boundary measurements).  The parish priest would lead the people, singing hymns, saying prayers, sprinkling holy water, and “beating” the boundary line with walking sticks as they perambulated the area.  The purpose of this somewhat odd annual ritual was twofold:  it was a reminder to the people of what the actual parish boundaries were (maps were a bit iffy in those days), and it drove out any evil spirits which might have accrued over the long winter.

This spring, our own farm community tried it out!