Photos courtesy and Kathrynne and Tony Wolf.
Recently returned from another week-long stay at Sky Meadow, our soulful home-away-from-home deep in the mountains of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Originally a dairy farm and homestead dating back to the mid-19th century, the 114-acre property has served as a spiritual/nature retreat and permaculture farm since the 1980s.
The Sacred Harvest is a work/stay arrangement, whereby visitors are given free accommodation – their choice of bunk-rooms or suites in the century-old Retreat Barn, or in any of the rustic cabins and cottages tucked into the woods – and a delicious feast in exchange for their help in harvesting fruit and vegetables, arranging firewood for the winter and other vital tasks. Days typically begin at the very civilized hour of 10.30 a.m. and the working day is normally between 4-6 hours, allowing ample free time for exploring the many wonders of the Meadow.
This being our third Sacred Harvest event, there’s a real sense of evolving traditions; little customs, preferences, shared understandings, favorite spots and such. A sense of temporary but actual, felt connection with the land and its constructs and rhythms, and a desire to acknowledge and share and work with them.
Day 1
Our first day began with catching up with our friends Brendan and Erin, who caretake the land. Then we commenced selecting apples for cidering; pristine were great, slightly bruised were OK, rotten or otherwise damaged were hucked downhill into a gently fermenting pile behind the sauna. After a few hours we ambled from the pasture to the Back Field, for the delightful task of gathering blackberries.
That afternoon, we grocery shopped in the nearby mountain town of Hardwick – about a 20 minute drive from Sky Meadow. We made the same navigation mistake as last year en route, and thereby ended up driving past the same mysterious Druidic stone circle in the woods.
Customary ploughman’s lunches on the porch (pro-tip – the best place to eat) then I checked out the cozy Library room in the barn high-drive re. possible improvements. I selected a hiking staff, climbed to the Hilltop and chanted, then made my way to the Cave to make a call on the Wind Phone.
The evolving custom is to leave a pebble by the phone to mark one’s presence and the call; there are now eight pebbles there. On the way back down I threw a contemplative stone into the Hobbit Pond.
Long talk with Brendan on the porch, contemplating the future of Sky Meadow, the notion of the land as the event and “playful spirituality”.
We made spaghetti bolognese, then played with the magical Shadowcat during the golden hour and retired fairly early.
Day 2
Woke refreshed, breakfast, more apple gathering/shaking from trees followed by cider-making. Cider from apples you’ve just gathered has a special tang.
In the afternoon we made our now-traditional field trip to the Bread and Puppet Theater, a venerable mainstay of the East Coast counterculture dating back to the 1970s. This was the first time I was able to explore their Papier Mache Cathedral, used for community meetings and indoor performances, as well as the DIY art shrines in the tall pine forest behind the outdoor circus amphitheatre.
Expertly and lovingly prepared by Erin, the communal evening feast had a Middle Eastern theme and featured many Sky Meadow delicacies, including kale, garlic, raspberries and lamb. Apparently this particular lamb had been something of a trouble-maker.
Day 3
Thunder-storm last night, which the land and ponds sorely needed.
We spent the morning cleaning up and starting to reorganize the Sky Meadow library, a comfortably ramshackle, bohemian anteroom off the high-drive (the third level of the Barn). Sweeping, dusting, rearranging furniture and decorations, attempting to wrangle the vastly eclectic books on philosophy, religion, psychology, politics, mythopoetics, language, permaculture, etc. into a more holistic order.
The sun came back out in the early afternoon. Ploughman’s lunch on the porch, as per tradition.
The afternoon was all about harvesting and then cleaning potatoes and carrots. Although we were equipped with trowels, the dark earth was so soft that I simply dug into it with my hands.
That evening we made our customary supplemental grocery run/dinner trip in to Hardwick. Discussion over pizza continued the theme of the “fifth Temple”-style melding of art and spirituality, citing Aquavia Lumina, Burning Man and the Musee Patamecanique. We also talked about Sky Meadow folkways – small practices, customs, symbolic gestures and such. Then we returned to the Meadow for a group movie night (Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock).
Coyotes howling across the valley as we made our way back down to the Pond House.
Day 4
More work in the Library this morning, mostly reorganizing and relabeling shelves. It’s a much more inviting space now. Then we climbed to the Hilltop and re-stained about half the exterior of the Meditation Gazebo, a contemplation space overlooking the neighboring mountains.
Free-time exploration of the woods, including picking and eating blackberries, then coming across the Old Sugar House – originally a maple syrup processing building, later a private retreat building, now an abandoned landmark in the (relatively) deep woods.
The Old Road trails get very overgrown much past there, so we turned around and checked out the Stone lean-to (now decorated with cloth strips hanging across the entrance) and the remnants of the old Sweat Lodge, now basically a scattering of sticks around a fire-pit in a small, pleasant clearing.
On the way back we found a gallery of colorful Goddess paintings on tree slices.
Lunch on the porch followed by fresh cider, then I explored the Green Realm, a particularly charismatic section of woods roughly between the Pond House and the Sauna. Noted that the small stone cairns I’d built for last year’s Metamodern Spirituality Lab event were still standing.
Our afternoon task was firewood-transporting, brightened by an eclectic playlist of Zydeco, alt-folk, Billy Joel, Southern Gothic, etc. Managed to move about 1/2 of one cord (about 800 pieces) with a skeleton crew of 4. Startled a chipmunk by accidentally hucking an apple at it. Hot dogs and cider on the porch followed by an early night.
Day 5
Slept in a bit, followed by supplemental blackberry picking. I tied the remnants of our ceremonial tassels – left over from last year’s Mystery School event – to a wayfaring post near the blackberry bushes. The beginning of a new tradition, perhaps.
Climbed the Hollow Tree, maybe the furthest extreme of the Green Realm before it turns into more prosaic forest – not bad for folk of our advancing years.
Firewood toting to the strains of ’90s music, basically completing the cord we started yesterday, then we transported firewood to replenish the Sauna and the Hearth Circle buildings.
Communal dinner, then I prepped the sauna. The sweat and plunge itself was a transcendent experience; pro tip, while hyperventilating after the plunge, look up to the stars.
Day 6
On our final morning we donated a copy of David James Duncan’s new novel Sun House to the Sky Meadow library, made our fond farewells, then drove the roughly 2.5 hours to Manchester for our flights back to Chicago. Pulling off the freeway in search of a gas station, we stumbled upon the remains of an 1800-vintage iron furnace in the small New Hampshire town of Franconia.
Wildlife count for this trip: a young fox, one frog, turkey buzzard, many hawks and crows, chipmunk eating a large egg up in a tree, crawdads in the pond, at least one hummingbird, two deer, one Great Blue Heron, coyote packs heard howling in the distance. No porcupines this time, and we’re still yet to spot a bear or moose.
There’s always next year.