Heart of Nourishment » garden

In the Garden and Goat Yard, Spring 2012

Hale Sofia Schatz — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 02:41:01 +0000

Join us this spring for experiential learning in the gardens and urban goat yard. Spring is kidding time and the new kids will add great joy to our work together. From composting, planting, pruning, to yogurt and cheese making, we will explore all the practical and inspirational applications of creating and sustaining organic urban gardens with the soil, plants, animals, and ourselves. Plan to get yourselves dirty and wear appropriate clothes and shoes/boots. Bring your own gloves. We will end our sessions with tea in the garden, weather permitting.

Dates and Times
Saturdays*, 1-3pm:
April 28, May 12 and June 2, 2012
*In case of rain, we will meet the following day, Sunday, at same time.

Location
Lexington, Mass.

Cost
$200

Registration
To register, please download our PDF registration form, then send it to us by mail or fax.

Address: Heart of Nourishment Programs, P.O. Box 504, Lexington, MA 02420
Fax: 781-861-0909
Email:

Healing and Transformation

Hale Sofia Schatz — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 09:42:09 +0000

After being transplanted, two plum trees in my garden were stressed and subsequently have been going through a healing process with the support of good nutrients and the natural passing of time. I’d like to talk about ways you might begin thinking about supporting your own transformational process through nourishment practices.

Summer in the Garden

Hale Sofia Schatz — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 08:40:23 +0000

Welcome to Halé’s summer garden…

Fruit of the Season

Hale Sofia Schatz — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 23:28:04 +0000

Ah, the harvest. When my children were young, we would go to local farms to pick apples, pears, peaches, cherries, plums, blueberries, and raspberries. While each fruit has its own special qualities, raspberries were always the family favorite.

Each September, we’d pick hundreds of raspberries. Of course, the children would eat more of the sweetly tart fruit than they accumulated in the little pails that hung by strings around their necks. Coming home with our bags of juicy red fruit, I would enter the kitchen as though personally heralding in the new harvest season, ready to make jam out of our bounty.

This year, like other years, I performed my ritual of raspberry jamming. I love the feeling of preparing food for the season when local produce is less available. For many of our mothers, aunts, and grandmothers, this was a natural cycle. As simple as it may seem, making jam aligns me to the deeper rhythms of our ancestors, who didn’t prepare for immediate consumption but for the long winter that lay ahead. I have a deeper appreciation for the sweet-tartness of raspberry jam in January than I do in September. One spoonful and it’s enough to bring summer back in all its glory.

I also know how much time, energy, and love goes into each small jar. I just sent one precious jar from the newest batch to my daughter at college. She told me that she’s eating it in small spoonfuls straight out of the jar, just a little bit every few days. This way, she said, she’s making it last, savoring the fruit of the season.

Creating Space to Receive Nourishment

Hale Sofia Schatz — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 23:26:09 +0000

A large, stately, 75-year-old mulberry tree lives in my garden. Twelve years ago, I planted a rambling rose at its trunk to rise up to levels most roses cannot go. I supported the prickly ramblers so they could climb up the tree’s branches, but over the years it has never produced any flowers. During the time the rose would normally bloom, it was always in the shade of the mulberry’s lush green foliage and abundant berries. I have fond memories of the comical sight of raccoons, squirrels, birds, my children and their friends all climbing the tree’s branches to pluck the luscious red-black fruits. The mulberry was a gathering place for all of us at the beginning of summer.

The last few winters in New England have been more severe than usual, and many of the mulberry tree’s branches are now bare. This spring, it showed signs of dying. Meanwhile, this has been an exceptionally good season for all the roses in my garden. Yet among the dozen or more varieties, the rambling rose has been truly exceptional. For years the rose has quietly climbed the mulberry and this spring it took over the bare branches with hundreds of pearl pink flowers cascading 30 feet above the garden. We enjoyed this incredible display of beauty for more than a month. Family, friends, neighbors, students, clients, bees, insects and birds all gathered to receive this nourishment.

Besides creating space for the rambling rose to grow to its fullness in the sun, the dying mulberry tree has expanded the perimeters of the garden. Its branches used to shade parts of the garden so that it was impossible to grow many light-loving plants. Now the additional sunlight has given me the opportunity to plant dwarf plum trees as well as many other perennials that could not grow there before.

Although this is just another summer in the many seasons of my garden, it feels very significant that the oldest member, the most firmly rooted, is showing signs of letting go.

The bare branches of the mulberry tree now provide the perfect structure for the new growth to come into the light. Although I feel a certain sadness about its passing, as many of you have heard me say, in order to receive nourishment, we need to make space, and making space requires letting go of what is no longer necessary.