Happy Belated Beltane! To some, it may seem irrelevant or silly to honor Beltane or May Day (which falls roughly around May 1st). To me, it is essential. It is an observance that acknowledges the elegant dance of fertility on this precious Earth. What is silly is that such an important day could be so overlooked.
Each node on Earth’s dance through the seasons is an opportunity for underscoring the reenactment of what is nourishing and sustaining to life. If our holy-days become riddled with religious or state dogma, we lose touch with what is truly holy and essential…our conscious reflection on the importance of the earth’s fertility.
To celebrate Beltane, my daughter and I drove an hour to pick organic strawberries. It’s sad but true…that an organic strawberry farm was an hour away. But, oh my, I’ll drive that hour any day. These particular strawberries are heavenly.
I told the old farmer that every strawberry season at his farm was a Strawberry Revival — a time when our taste buds could come back to life after enduring grocery store stale strawberries. The old timer laughed and told me his secret. Each year he moves his strawberry plants to an adjacent field. “Otherwise,” he said, “he would get a nematode infestation and he would have to use chemicals.”
Then, he told me he puts a cover crop of clover, wheat, and…he couldn’t remember the third plant as he shook his head and pointed at it saying, “I’m gettin’ old!” He tills that green cover crop into the soil and then adds fish emulsion.
Voila!
The soil is ready to make incredibly sweet and juicy strawberries.
Again, my 8 year old daughter and I express our gratitude for such delicious strawberries. Eventually, he just smiles…waves toward the ground and walks off to mow between rows of garlic.
Good farmers are good designers. Good farmers have a process. Good farmers observe the land and make the best decisions for soil fertility. Good farmers are hard to come by.
After we pick our strawberries, we picnic with friends. Our kids start to run around and play with the farmer’s grandchildren.
The farmer’s wife walks toward the children with a fan of one dollar bills. She gives each of the children $1 and says, in her gentle voice, that it’s for helping to pull down the tarps over the strawberries; to tuck them in for the night. I like how she handles it because the kids merrily lope to the strawberry patch and run down each row, tucking them in. My daughter is proud that she made a dollar.
To honor Beltane, I made a strawberry galette (here is a wild blueberry galette recipe for those interested) – something circular and round like the seasonal cycle. The crust is mainly pumpkin seed flour and the filling is abundantly strawberry.
While enjoying the galette, I thought back to the old farmer and his wife, his daughter, and grandchildren. I thought about what they were stewarding, one row at a time. They had not forgotten about what was essential for community and continuity; farming was their own reverent act of remembering.
Lindsay Kolasa 