Creating Whole Communities

I recently spent a day at Knoll Farm, a retreat center and working farm in the hills high above the Mad River Valley. Wonderful place, good people doing really important work providing sustenance and training for land conservation activists and other practical dreamers (http://wholecommunities.org/workshops5.html).

I first heard of this place through a terrific essay by codirector Peter Forbes, in the Buddhist publication "Inquiring Mind" (http://wholecommunities.org/downloads/peter_essays/Land_is_Relationship.pdf).

Inspired by what these folks are doing, here are the words to a song I wrote after the recent Harvest & Courage celebration at the Center for Whole Communities.


Song for Knoll Farm

Here at the end of the season
Here at the edge of the world
Here where our hearts beat fiercely
The smile of a boy, the laugh of a girl

Here where the land holds us gently
Here we have taken our stand
There the geese fly so freely
Come now and give me your hand

CHORUS:
For it is the time
This is the place
We are speaking for the whole human race
The Earth's an ark
Our courage is here
We fill our hearts
We make a start

Now when the days grow darker
Is the end coming soon?
Now our destiny calls us
From the hills, from the trees, from the moon

Now we must hold the planet
Like a child needing to heal
Here in this troubled moment
Our courage is revealed

[CHORUS]

Time to celebrate wholeness
Time to fill our cups
Now when the woods call us homeward
We open our hearts to love

Here at the end of the season
Here at the edge of the land
Still the geese fly so freely
So come now and give me your hand

[CHORUS]