Friendies! (and not capital Friends.. how unusual for me these days!). I'm sitting on the back porch of the building that houses the art studio and library plus a lot of staff apartments. Pendle Hill is just insanely gorgeous, let me tell you. The campus is an arboretum and there are flowers galore. There's also a really fantastic vegetable garden. They keep us super busy here- classes, meetings, Meeting, working at our volunteer service sites, etc. Overall it's been a really wonderful summer so far- very, very challenging in many ways growthful.
I've started to realize how intense my tunnel vision was coming out of school- I was hunkered down, nose to the grindstone and kinda expected that my life would follow a neat little track of rather tough, miserable grindstones. But damn the blinders came off and life is pretty bright these days. I've fallen in love with throwing pottery on the wheel- it's immensely satistfying even though it's quite difficult. I've also really been enjoying the menial tasks that I've been doing- dishes, pulling weeds, tilling the garden, various outdoors chores. It's been pretty suprising actually. I have major ADD though about life right now- oooohhh I could do pottery ooooh I want to grow food and learn about permaculture ooooh I want to do marine biology oooohh I want to garden oooohhh I want to be at home. So I'm working on centering down and reminding myself that I need to pick one or two passions to follow and I can work in the rest as my life chugs along.
Pendle Hill is a really interesting place- it's an intentional community and has a rather eclectic group of people that live, work or visit here. Our group in particular is only about half quaker- we have some catholics, and some other motley religions (kidding). Everyone helps out with chores, we all eat our meals together (YUM the food is fantastic- all organic, local and veggie), and everyone is impossibly nice and gracious. It's just so refreshing to be able to be myself and not worry about how I dress or acting in a particular way to please certain people. It's also incredibly nice to have direct, honest communication and space to process issues and thoughts that arise through living in close community. I thought it was going to be a hippie commune but it's really not- it's a well-oiled, Quaker, beautiful, loving machine of a community and retreat/study center.
So yeah- I have to go write up a lesson that I'm teaching with one of my program buddies at our service site tomorrow. Last week it was on soil structure and the nitrogen cycle and this week...wetlands! The environmental education center we're working at is grossly mismanaged and many of the teachers are fairly unprepared to teach science of any sort, let alone ecological or environmental topics. SO- Liv and I are doing our best to help them however we can.
I miss you guys bunches and I'm sorry to be fairly out of reach/contact- not only am I super super busy but I am spending a lot of time processing, doing pottery and having random philosophical discussions with other program members. Oh and sleeping. That too.
love you all and hope you're all doing fabulously.
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