On Passion

My good friend Stacia posted this question about passion on her Facebook business page the other day,

Tell me! What’s your passion, and how are you bringing it to the world?

And I had to think real hard about which passion I could answer with because I have so.many.passions!

I could have mentioned my passion for equality amid the deep tension that has erupted to the surface in our country recently… Talked about our great divides, my white privilege, and my feelings of inadequacy in battling these divides as we continue to wound and harm and attempt to erase each other…

I could have mentioned my need to continue to fight for women’s rights and children’s rights and LGBTQ rights…

Or my great want for offering a hand up, education, support, calm and care to those who have been, are currently, or will continue to struggle through the variety of life’s challenges.

I might have mentioned my curiosity about and longing for understanding mental instabilities and addiction.

Or my passion for the healing of meditation and energy work and the exploring of our wider, darker, and lighter selves.

But in acknowledging the time and capacity that exists within me and of choosing just one in the moment…I answered with this:

Ah! So many passions! Currently, food access and support of local agriculture is front and center in my personal and professional life 💗 But so many others passions simmering!

Because local ag is almost all consuming these days.

Because for the past year I have lived and breathed farm life in my real life and in my work life.

Because the challenge of food access is real, in our state and in the world…

And because the plight of the small farmer is real because farming is hard and uncertain in so many ways.

Because I love the ground beneath my feet and know first hand of the vast potential that lies within our soil and the resiliency of our spirits.

Because we, as people on this planet (and in richer countries like my own), have become so incredibly removed from our food sources that there are those of us who truly believe that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

Oh, but sometimes I wish I could just turn it all off, like a switch…

(Because the struggle for balance is real.)

Sometimes I just want to pack it all in and hit the road with my family…

Dig my toes into the sand of some distant beach and just not care so deeply about anything except that very moment, consumed by sand and sun and splashing water…

Not be so damn passionate about something that it consumes me entirely…every minute of every day…

From the inspiration to the reading to the implementation to the real learning.

From the mating to the birthing to the cuddling to the milking to the processing to the feeding and watering, feeding and watering.

From the prepping to the planting to the irrigating to the weeding and weeding and weeding to the irrigating to the harvesting to the preserving.

From the planning to the hatching to the raising to the grieving to the healing to the celebrating.

From the hauling to the stacking to the hauling to the stacking over and over again.

And that’s just on our own farm.

That doesn’t even get into the six programs I run as the Program Director for a non-profit whose sole mission is to support local farmers and provide education, information, and food access for our local families in Northern New Mexico as part of my day job.

With its group and individual dynamics and challenges and rewards.

With its individual personalities and passions and needs and wants and opinions.

And so, I’m tired.

I’m so very tired….

And my body aches and my mind wanders…

And I’m learning so much about myself and this wild world we live in…

And I really wouldn’t have it any other way.

Because I’m only 40 and have miles to go before I sleep…

And because that soil beneath my feet that I mentioned a few minutes ago?

It also moves within me.

And the truth is, I can be passionate about all of the above, and work towards all of my other individual passions (and #resist) in small ways (instead of with big splashes) and maybe, just maybe (if I’m really strategic about it all and play my cards just right), I’ll find a minute or two to step away from it all and get my toes in the sand.

And I wish the same for you.

xoxo,
M