Historical Setting, 629 C.E. Vosges Mts.
While Gaia and Brandell are off at Luxeuil the women’s weaving and stitching projects are nearly completed at the creek cottage. I’m spending these springtime days with Haberd and his little son, Sam, who is just learning the farm routine. Haberd actually needs my help. He and his wife have a huge harvest of winter grains, with the urgency of the winnowing, and cutting and binding the straw, along with the haying, all due at this time when we also need to turn the fields and plant the summer crop — not to mention putting in the garden. At these times I feel I can be more useful as a farm hand than an ancient sage. And being useful to my children and grandchildren is a beautiful kind of completeness. No other accolades are needed. Thank you, God.
Now Hannah comes up for the donkey cart, as she and Ana are taking our eight-year-old granddaughter with them to see Layla and the new baby. Our oldest granddaughter, Ann, is so excited for this chance to see this youngest of our granddaughters. Ana is anxious to see that new family also and to be assured everyone is healthy. If Haberd didn’t need my help here I would gladly go along with them. I’m hoping all those women don’t just pretend away Will’s part in this family. It is so easy to let that awkward stranger seem useless. That would be harmful.
As we fill the loft over the stalls where the only permanent residents are one mule and one donkey, I realize how much more is being asked of Haberd to always be prepared for all of Greg’s visiting horses and mules, and how little help he gets from his strong and able brothers off fulfilling their grand purposes – a soldier, a monk, and a poet. What is the value of a farmer in all of that? No wonder Haberd begs me to remind Greg to thank him for the use of the pastures.
Yes, that reminds me, Dear God thank you for the use of your pastures and your gardens, your bugs and your beasts, your beautiful mornings, and golden evenings, your rains and rainbows, your breath and air and sky and water, flowing, quenching, thirsting, dreaming. May I always notice the ancestors you bring us in spirit joining with us in our times of laughing, loving, weeping, singing, I love you too. Amen.
(Continues, Tuesday, May 28, 2024)
Lazarus Ink 