Journey to Support & Nourishment

As I approach the home of the Great Midwife I notice that this time she lives where my beloved Grandmother lived, a sturdy country house in Wisconsin. I have spent many happy times there. I see the familiar yard edged with flowers and fruit trees, with ample room to play and relax.

Grandma Johnson comes out of the door, dressed in her usual house dress and apron. Her large hug envelopes me. The rose bush next to us tinges the air with its fragrance. She says,” You’re just in time for lunch.” She leads me into the place I know so well. The kitchen is full of familiar foods. She cooks me a grilled cheese sandwich—one of my comfort foods. The melted butter smell gets my mouth to watering, as she places the sandwich in front of me. Then she gives me a bowl of homemade chicken vegetable soup. I feel relaxed and ready to eat. She sits across from me at the table and we pause a moment in silent prayer. We’re thankful for this food and all who brought it to us. We eat in silence except for our murmurs of appreciation.

After we eat we clean up the kitchen together, chatting and catching up. Grandma suggests we go into the living room where she sits down at the piano and plays some old songs for me- “K-K-K-Katie, Beautiful Katie", "The Old Rugged Cross”, "Mares eat oats & does eat oats & little lambs eat ivy". We sing together. When it’s time to go, I sing her a song.
“ Grandma this is for you.
Sacred ancestors hear my song. Make my way sacred, fill me with beauty.
Sacred ancestors hear my song. Make my way sacred fill me with beauty.
Fill me with beauty, that I may bring others beauty. Fill me with beauty, that I may bring others beauty.”

-Terra Rafael

The Unpaved Road

This used to be a dirt road. Boone, like Daniel Boone, the pioneer woodsman. There was a beaver dam across this creek and we would test the winter ice on the resulting pond, creeping towards the non-square, non-regular structure that the beavers had built. Now it is an unobstructed creek in a contained woods. It used to be wild. Now, we can cross wheelchair accessible, wooden foot bridges over the water, where once we used to show our prowess by balancing across it on any fallen tree we happened to find.

The hill where I went tobogganing now has a concrete water reservoir capping it's top. The Home Depot stands where the next hill used to be. Forty years later, I squint to remember the outlines of untamed land that used to be there, before the interstate freeway began to flow by with its unending sound of rubber on concrete.

One day, back when it was wilder, as I walked that unpaved road, a butterfly landed on my finger. I was in college then. Battered by the realities of the sexual revolution. Blue jeans. Braless. Tired from too many psychedelics. Long, untamed hair. Still-- the innocent butterfly landed on my finger. She delicately licked my skin, barely a tickle from her proboscis tongue. She found some kind of nectar in me, some sweet flower of possibility, and she stayed for many precious minutes. We fed each other there, in the quiet, wild world of Boone.

--by Terra Rafael

Eating Meat

Growing up we had meat at least once a day-- sometimes it was in the form of bologna, hotdogs, or the tiny morsels of chicken in some Campbell’s chicken noodle soup—but it was always there.

And I remember once, when I was about 5 years old, when my Grandpa Johnson butchered some chickens in his back yard while we were visiting. The chickens really DO dance around after their head is cut off. They sprayed blood around the weeds and chopping stump, as Grandpa stood with the head in one hand and the hatchet in the other. He was a professional--he once worked as a butcher. It wasn’t scary or disgusting to me. It was fascinating.

Years later, in biology lab at college, we were dissecting various formaldehyde marinated creatures, layer by layer. At lunch, I got a leg of chicken and as I “dissected” it with my knife and fork I saw the familiar structures of muscles, tendons, and ligaments attached to the bone. Maybe it was the unconscious connection to the formaldehyde or the influence of hippiedom, but after that I was a vegetarian for over 12 years. Yet somehow the smell of roasting animal flesh continued to make my mouth water.

Then my brother from Minnesota came to visit us in the land of Boulder. To help overcome our life of deprivation he bought my son & I a TV set (our first ever) and plopped a whole ham in our refrigerator. That ham was as hypnotizing as the TV. Every time I opened the refrigerator, it called to me, glowing with the aura of refrigerator light. I craved it badly. It seemed to be my destiny to eat some of it. Finally I gave in. Mmmm-nothing works like cured pork to break my vegetarian lifestyle. After that, fish and poultry came easily.

Truth be told, I was probably protein depleted by that time—depressed, low-immune system, and sleep problems. Meat may have saved my life. I connected to the earth more and grew stronger. My Scandinavian heritage contributed to a metabolism used to plenty of fish and meat, little grains & veggies. I can’t digest beans well and dairy clogged my sinuses & coated my tongue. A diet based on nuts and seeds didn’t provide what I needed to build my form and keep my chemical systems going.

I don’t apologize for eating meat any more. I do what I can to eat meat that comes from humanely treated animals. I thank them for sacrificing for my well being. May animals be treated with more & more consciousness and kindness. May humans control our numbers and our consumption to share the earth. May our nutrients return to the food chain when we die. May we be worthy of the sacrifice of animal and plant lives by bringing more love, beauty, tolerance, and truth into the world.
-by Terra Rafael