CHAPTER TWO
CAST OUT OF NATURE
After my heroic first day, I believe life settled down but I have no way of knowing for sure, as my family history has pretty well disappeared. My parents both passed away some twenty years ago and Liesbet, who was five years older than me and who remembered more of our youth, died of a brain tumor more than two years ago. I do know that when I was about two, we had to flee Borneo. At that time, Kelantan or the bottom Dutch part of Borneo became part of Indonesia and the liberation troops came through firing guns. As they marched past, my parents made us lie on the floor with all the furniture and mattresses surrounding us, before taking the first boat out and landing in Malaysia. Malaysia was ruled by the British and for the colonists, life was comfortable. We had a nice house with four servants, and the swimming club was five minutes down the road. Our mother would take us to the pool every afternoon, where we could play with our friends, staying cool in the water, while the ladies could sit and chatter or play Mahjong. Actually, my mother got bored with this frivolous life style and, as she was a trained kindergarten teacher, she started her own school. Young children loved her and she had no problem handling twenty-five children with the help of the maid. For me, it was not always so great. I did not appreciate sharing my mother with so many children. One day I got so upset that I threw a temper tantrum and my mother called the maid over and told her to take me to my bedroom until I behaved myself. This was a horrible experience for me and I still remember the feeling of not being wanted and being banished for saying what I needed. I know that my mother had a job to do, but she could have handled it differently. I wished she had held me and let me know that I was the most important person in her life at that moment. That little episode certainly reinforced my feelings of not being able to trust the world and that it was best not to show my feelings. On the whole, though, I know I had a very loving home life.
Part of the tropical lifestyle was traveling back to the home country. Every three years, we would get a six-month paid vacation. As commercial air travel did not yet exist, we would take a three-week cruise from Singapore past India up through the Suez Canal and on to England via the Mediterranean Sea. This was a wonderful exciting trip, and then we would rent a cottage in Holland, and use it as a base, to travel around Europe and visit family. On one of these trips, when I was seven, my parents had to decide what boarding school my older brother and sister should attend. In British colonial days, it was the custom to send children to boarding school when they turned nine in order to get a proper education and be indoctrinated into the system. They chose Michael Hall School, about thirty miles south of London. This was a co-ed boarding school based on Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf Education and would allow the three of us to be at the same school. At the end of the vacation, my siblings had to start school so my mother and I stayed on in England for an extra six months. I was allowed to join Class One where I made many friends and loved my teacher. It was a wrench for me to go back to Malaysia and go into the local army school. I still remember the day I decided that I had had enough. I was a very dreamy boy and had no idea what the teacher was talking about, which didn’t bother me. Anyway, he called me up to the front of the class and realized I was eating candy, which I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed. He promptly made me spit it out in front of everyone and stand in the corner. When I got home that day, I informed my parents that I wasn’t going back and that I wanted to go to school in England. I made such a fuss each day that they finally relented and put me on a flight to England with some friends. I arrived back at boarding school at Easter time at the grand age of seven but was lucky in that the three of us were all in the same hostel with about twenty other children. Liesbet would come and read me a story before bed every night and tuck me in. I loved school and still have some of the letters that my teacher sent to my parents. This one was written just after my return.
Dear Mrs. Moora,
Walter seemed to settle in at once and seems very happy except that he thinks he is too clever for Class One and tells everyone so. I don’t quite know why he thinks this except he writes easily and well. However he works hard in spite of this and enjoys the lessons. He is a strong character and good boy, who will lead the other children in the right way. I can imagine how you must miss the children, I think it was very brave of you to let Wally come, but I am sure he will be much better off away from that school.
With best wishes,
Joyce Russell.
Another letter that was part of my first class report went as follows. “Wally works well on the whole, though he is fond of play time too. He doesn’t say that he is too clever for the class anymore, as he realizes now that some of the others know more than he does. He is just about right for his age as he knows the letters and will be ready to start reading next term. His writing is very good and his number work about average. His chief friend is David Newbatt as they are together in the hostel and both are choleric and can stand up to each other. They are very good for each other. Wally is friends with all the children, he has been asked out many times. He is so good-natured and such fun that they all love him. Yours sincerely, Joyce Russell.
I have very fond memories of that time but I always felt a little different, as I had a stranger’s accent wherever I went. Even after living in the States for more than thirty years, people still ask me where I come from. With her three children in England, my mother was torn between being with her husband in Malaysia and with us, so when I was nine we all moved to New Zealand so that we could be together as a family. Our first house was in the country, surrounded by fields and bush. As children, we were able to roam the countryside and explore nature. I remember one afternoon in particular, as I was passing through a patch of bush, that somehow the birds sounded different. New Zealand is famous for its many native birds, that are well known for their beautiful song and I had always felt at one with them. But now the birds felt outside of me, as if I wasn’t part of nature anymore. I was a spectator and felt horrible. It was a fleeting moment but I have always remembered having this experience of being cast out of paradise. I have spent much of my life trying to regain oneness with nature and the spiritual world.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
CHAPTER ONE
LETTING GO
By the time I turned seventeen, I knew I wanted to farm and most of my life I have followed my dream. There were times when I had to do other things, but during those times I was never happy. Then, in December of 2006, when I turned fifty-seven, I decided it was time to stop. This decision was not easy because I was ready to keep farming until the bank closed me down. I had been on my Wisconsin farm for nine years and it was my last chance to make a go of it. I really needed to make this farm work because my whole identity was tied up with having a model Biodynamic farm. It was more than just the money. It was part of my being, to show that Biodynamic farming really worked and to demonstrate the richness of the soil farmed this way. My poor wife, Susan was watching me go down; she even put in a large chunk of her retirement money to support me and the farm. I was still enjoying the work well enough, but not the way I used to. Getting up at 4.30 a.m. on a crystal-clear January morning in Wisconsin with the stars wheeling overhead is reward on its own. But the challenge was gone. Sitting on a tractor for eight hours straight, trying to get the corn in before the rain, now seemed more appropriate work for a younger man. I was still too stubborn to quit and so my body decided to just make the point. Every few months my back would go out. I mean really out. It was so painful that I would lie down, and not be able to move. Just peeing into a bottle took ten minutes, ten minutes of excruciating pain. After taking muscle relaxants and pain killers for two days, I would be able to hobble into the Osteopath’s office. Meanwhile my herdsman would get exhausted doing all the milking and other chores. I would have to start working before being properly healed and still in pain, and that is scary. My body was telling me it was time to quit but my mind was not yet willing.
Susan has a good friend who is also psychic and she helped me see the day light so that I could move on with my life She intuited that I had a sense that I would die if I failed at farming. Before moving to Wisconsin in 1998, I had a small farm in upstate New York where we grew vegetables and baked bread. To keep me busy in the winters, I built a wood-fired brick oven that could bake up to three hundred loaves in a day. I specialized in European sour dough breads that were the best in town and I did very well. However, I felt that I should be farming and that I had missed my vocation. Although I was doing well financially and had a wonderful wife and two great teenage kids, I secretly wished I would die. I thought that, in my next incarnation, maybe I could do better and get on with whatever I was meant to do. Martine had picked up this death wish and suggested I reprogram it into the positive. So we came up with three sentences that I had to repeat to myself on a daily basis. “I will be fine if I am not farming. My life’s work will not be wasted if I don’t farm, and I can still live in the country and be associated with farming.” The last sentence made it possible for me to transition into the future. Six months later, I decided to sell my cows and machinery and give up my farm lease.
Susan was ready for a change because we had both been working exhaustively hard all our lives. We started talking about a sabbatical to restore and redirect ourselves. We went into the unknowing and serendipity played with us. We now live in our own house in the Highlands of Ecuador, with the most beautiful view one can imagine. We hope to bridge the chasm between North and South for the good of both…and ourselves. We live just above Vilcabamba, in Southern Ecuador, at about six thousand feet. It was only in the 60s that a road was finally punched through the mountain pass and the valley became accessible to vehicles. Now there are thirty small hostels and hotels but it has retained its charm, with a small square surrounded by local shops, restaurants and the church.
I feel at home here. I can hardly believe it but I often spend hours on the patio, immersed in nature.. For close to forty years, I have been mostly farming and now I want to experience “being ”instead of “doing.” I have set myself an agenda that each morning before breakfast I meditate, then spend time studying Spanish and then turn to writing this book. If there is time left over I hike or spend more time on the patio. As I write, I am realizing that I may reach more people to explore the wonder of Biodynamics with this book than I ever could with a model Biodynamic farm and that is giving me great joy.
A friend suggested that I am comfortable here because I was born on the Equator in Borneo and now I am back, only on the other side of the world at 6,000 feet and with a new language to learn. I think there are additional reasons. We belonged to a Quaker meeting for many years and part of our spiritual practice was to tread lightly on the earth and to live at peace with the rest of the world. Back in the States, it’s hard not to be dragged into consumerism whereas here living without much is a way of life. We recently went back to Wisconsin for a couple of weeks and I went through some of the old catalogues. I wanted to pull out my credit card and order some really nice shirts for $55 that I didn’t need, because I had already bought some really nice $5 shirts back in Ecuador. And then there is The Homeland Security thing….it always sounds as if there is an Agent Orange Alert going on in the States. It’s hard being part of the fear mentality and knowing that many things we do in the States contribute to fear.
As we go through life, we have three congruent paths. Our life’s work or vocation, the group of people we live with or have karma with and our own personal development. These aspects come to the forefront at different times of our lives. Now I feel blessed that I can take time out and work on my own development for a while, before life catches up with me again.
I have had two main themes in my life, both revolving around the care of the earth. One has been healing the earth and producing good food through Biodynamic farming and the other has been to bring non-farmers onto the land. I want to teach you all how you can care for the earth in a spiritual fashion. I want to talk about the spirituality of the earth from a farmer’s perspective. I need some time to sink deeply into the beauty of the earth and rejuvenate myself. With no conscious planning, life brought us here to one of the most beautiful spots on the earth and we feel blessed. Maybe country-wise I am rootless, having farmed on four continents, but I feel grounded in the earth of the world.
LETTING GO
By the time I turned seventeen, I knew I wanted to farm and most of my life I have followed my dream. There were times when I had to do other things, but during those times I was never happy. Then, in December of 2006, when I turned fifty-seven, I decided it was time to stop. This decision was not easy because I was ready to keep farming until the bank closed me down. I had been on my Wisconsin farm for nine years and it was my last chance to make a go of it. I really needed to make this farm work because my whole identity was tied up with having a model Biodynamic farm. It was more than just the money. It was part of my being, to show that Biodynamic farming really worked and to demonstrate the richness of the soil farmed this way. My poor wife, Susan was watching me go down; she even put in a large chunk of her retirement money to support me and the farm. I was still enjoying the work well enough, but not the way I used to. Getting up at 4.30 a.m. on a crystal-clear January morning in Wisconsin with the stars wheeling overhead is reward on its own. But the challenge was gone. Sitting on a tractor for eight hours straight, trying to get the corn in before the rain, now seemed more appropriate work for a younger man. I was still too stubborn to quit and so my body decided to just make the point. Every few months my back would go out. I mean really out. It was so painful that I would lie down, and not be able to move. Just peeing into a bottle took ten minutes, ten minutes of excruciating pain. After taking muscle relaxants and pain killers for two days, I would be able to hobble into the Osteopath’s office. Meanwhile my herdsman would get exhausted doing all the milking and other chores. I would have to start working before being properly healed and still in pain, and that is scary. My body was telling me it was time to quit but my mind was not yet willing.
Susan has a good friend who is also psychic and she helped me see the day light so that I could move on with my life She intuited that I had a sense that I would die if I failed at farming. Before moving to Wisconsin in 1998, I had a small farm in upstate New York where we grew vegetables and baked bread. To keep me busy in the winters, I built a wood-fired brick oven that could bake up to three hundred loaves in a day. I specialized in European sour dough breads that were the best in town and I did very well. However, I felt that I should be farming and that I had missed my vocation. Although I was doing well financially and had a wonderful wife and two great teenage kids, I secretly wished I would die. I thought that, in my next incarnation, maybe I could do better and get on with whatever I was meant to do. Martine had picked up this death wish and suggested I reprogram it into the positive. So we came up with three sentences that I had to repeat to myself on a daily basis. “I will be fine if I am not farming. My life’s work will not be wasted if I don’t farm, and I can still live in the country and be associated with farming.” The last sentence made it possible for me to transition into the future. Six months later, I decided to sell my cows and machinery and give up my farm lease.
Susan was ready for a change because we had both been working exhaustively hard all our lives. We started talking about a sabbatical to restore and redirect ourselves. We went into the unknowing and serendipity played with us. We now live in our own house in the Highlands of Ecuador, with the most beautiful view one can imagine. We hope to bridge the chasm between North and South for the good of both…and ourselves. We live just above Vilcabamba, in Southern Ecuador, at about six thousand feet. It was only in the 60s that a road was finally punched through the mountain pass and the valley became accessible to vehicles. Now there are thirty small hostels and hotels but it has retained its charm, with a small square surrounded by local shops, restaurants and the church.
I feel at home here. I can hardly believe it but I often spend hours on the patio, immersed in nature.. For close to forty years, I have been mostly farming and now I want to experience “being ”instead of “doing.” I have set myself an agenda that each morning before breakfast I meditate, then spend time studying Spanish and then turn to writing this book. If there is time left over I hike or spend more time on the patio. As I write, I am realizing that I may reach more people to explore the wonder of Biodynamics with this book than I ever could with a model Biodynamic farm and that is giving me great joy.
A friend suggested that I am comfortable here because I was born on the Equator in Borneo and now I am back, only on the other side of the world at 6,000 feet and with a new language to learn. I think there are additional reasons. We belonged to a Quaker meeting for many years and part of our spiritual practice was to tread lightly on the earth and to live at peace with the rest of the world. Back in the States, it’s hard not to be dragged into consumerism whereas here living without much is a way of life. We recently went back to Wisconsin for a couple of weeks and I went through some of the old catalogues. I wanted to pull out my credit card and order some really nice shirts for $55 that I didn’t need, because I had already bought some really nice $5 shirts back in Ecuador. And then there is The Homeland Security thing….it always sounds as if there is an Agent Orange Alert going on in the States. It’s hard being part of the fear mentality and knowing that many things we do in the States contribute to fear.
As we go through life, we have three congruent paths. Our life’s work or vocation, the group of people we live with or have karma with and our own personal development. These aspects come to the forefront at different times of our lives. Now I feel blessed that I can take time out and work on my own development for a while, before life catches up with me again.
I have had two main themes in my life, both revolving around the care of the earth. One has been healing the earth and producing good food through Biodynamic farming and the other has been to bring non-farmers onto the land. I want to teach you all how you can care for the earth in a spiritual fashion. I want to talk about the spirituality of the earth from a farmer’s perspective. I need some time to sink deeply into the beauty of the earth and rejuvenate myself. With no conscious planning, life brought us here to one of the most beautiful spots on the earth and we feel blessed. Maybe country-wise I am rootless, having farmed on four continents, but I feel grounded in the earth of the world.
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