Review: A Shepherd’s Life

Books come when you need them. For me, The Shepherd’s Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape, by James Rebanks, is such a book. Rebanks is the descendent of an ancient  generational lineage of shepherds in the Lake District of Northern England. He writes about his childhood growing up as the inheritor of the tradition of… Read more »

Time For Activism— and to Sober Up!

Activism has become an outgrowth of my work as a Jungian psychoanalyst and as a biodynamic farmer. Perhaps it is the way that I keep my sanity! Yes, there is the inner work that is so important, both in work with the psyche and with the earth, but there is also the work with the… Read more »

Crystallization Time: January 15-February 15

Crystallization Time: January 15-February 15 We have entered the crystallization period, January 15 to February 15, that time the fallowness of the earth allows most receptivity to the cosmic forces. It is also a time I use intention to be receptive to forces within myself as well as spiritual forces without. In our fast moving… Read more »

Land Use in the Napa Valley and Consciousness

Land Use in the Napa Valley and Consciousness It is the end of a season and of a year, and we in the Napa Valley are hardly in a sleepy, midwinter’s night space! Land use issues are reaching a boiling point, heated up by the drought and water scarcity, and the decreasing amount of land… Read more »

Part Two: Interview with Charlie Toledo: First People’s Sacred Relationship with the Land

Charlie Toledo, Executive Directore Soscol Intertribal Council Guest Blog: Interview of Charlie Toledo, Executive Director of Suscol Intertribal Council, with Lisa Murgatroyd. Charlie will be speaking at the Harms Vineyards and Lavender Fields Open House on June 18, 2011, at 11 am. Part Two: Interview with Charlie Toledo: First People’s Sacred Relationship with the Land… Read more »

The Ride Down

The Ride Down Perhaps one of the most important moments during the Napa County Board of Supervisor’s hearing for a neighbor’s proposed hillside vineyard happened just as the meeting adjourned. Presentations had been given by both parties, piles of copies of opposing hydrology reports thick as War and Peace circulated. Frustrations were expressed. Members of… Read more »