Hope – An Essential Value

Hope during this time is essential. It’s a deeply valuable part of who we are, not only as farmers trying to grow food every year, but as human beings, knowing how incredibly difficult this period of loss and suffering is.

Andrew, during his many late nights out in the field seeding, tilling, mowing, and making beds, started discovering feathers in the midst of the dark hours. It all began with the barn owl fledglings as their flight plumage developed. Their awkward bodies were still trying to master flight and feathers were lost to the ground. Many nights, being exhausted, Andrew found his sight keener and his body quieter to allow for these avian discoveries. His collection is quite beautiful and diverse, including plumes from heron, pheasant, eagle, owl and many a songbird. It has reminded us of Emily Dickinson’s poem, Hope Is the Thing With Feathers. In it, she portrays hope as a bird that lives within our souls, a bird that sings through any circumstances.

The idea that hope is miraculous and almost impossible to defeat seems so vital to embrace these days. We are continually seeing it, intimately and locally with our crew, and globally with the many heartbreaking stories of loss and injustice. Many farms have been burned to nothing in these last few weeks, and we will dig deep for hope that next season, regeneration will come. Maybe the fires, travelling quickly, have not been so hot and detrimental; only time and hope will tell.

Dickinson goes on to share that hope never asks for anything in return, “Yet, never, in extremity, it asked a crumb of me.” It costs nothing for people to maintain hope, but we must make good use of it, as it has “kept so many warm… in the chillest land, and on the strangest sea.” Hope, with kind and compassionate acts of generosity, will be our saving grace as we move forward into the absolute realization that this planet needs action—action and responsibility to preserve it ecologically and action for all people on it, for their health, safety and equal justice.

Thank you to our members for supporting local farms, our delicate food system and the people working phenomenally hard to bring it to your homes every week. Make sure to find us on Instagram @fullcirclefarms.