Sessions with the Farmer’s Wife:
Conventional Wisdom for Contemporary Life
December 2, 2005: Only 2 degrees this morning. Shortly after noon I went out to shovel snow off the front driveway. It had been snowing for a while and it was beginning to blow more. I had wanted to go to town but thought it not wise. Snow continued all afternoon. – Leona, Personal Journal
Jim, Me & Our Yahoos
I want to discuss this Victory Garden of Life idea further, but let’s do that a little later on. Right now, it’s winter on the farm, which is something I don’t want you to miss out on. In my real-time life, I presently live a pseudo-city routine as a Licensed Professional Counselor in Colorado Springs. My husband Jim is an Administrator of a home health care agency, and our 4 children — Anthony, Marcus, Andrea and Jozlyn – are old enough to motate themselves around life and even get married in March. We officially moved from our family farm in 1997, but have continued to wander back-and-forth there for work and play throughout the years. In order to remind me of the day-by-day activities of farm life, my mother-in-law graciously loaned me her yearly journals that have brief, yet valuable, remarks about each day’s events since as early as 1965. I have a dozen years’ worth of entries – sessions with another true farmer’s wife – in my possession and will include one in the opening of each blog, just as I did today. My purpose in doing so is to add authentic agricultural ambience to these reflections and, as I said, right now – it’s winter on the Iowa farm.
No Fieldwork Today
Winter is a curious season of life. Have you ever really looked at the deciduous trees during the winter months, how about the garden remains or the frozen tundra once known as a bean field? Be honest now, if you didn’t have years of experience with winter turning to spring, would you really expect these brown, barren twigs to ever show signs of life again? If you stepped onto a snow-covered field – especially during a mighty blizzard — with no knowledge of the seasons of farming, could you seriously recommend that a person invest an entire year’s wages on the bet that something will grow there? It’s preposterous.
Winter Season
Winter comes in our personal lives, too. Most often, we interfere with winters. We don’t allow the cold, barren days, weeks and months to even exist. We somehow think every day must be a hot, humid July day that grows the corn tall and full. That must be true success! But it’s not so. When we try to work in cold, hard, frozen ground, we bust our equipment on that solid tundra. We return to The Yard (which is the where the farmer lives and stores all of his farm equipment, supplies and family), frustrated and disappointed because nothing worked like we planned.
Leona’s entry today is a perfect example of this idea. She had a plan. But Winter had a plan that was bigger than hers. She could have frankly said, “I planned to go to town (which is an event where The Farmer’s Wife drives several miles to a populated area in order to gather groceries and “run” all of her errands), and I will indeed go to town!” But she “thought it not wise”; she has lived with Winter long enough to know that Winter is bigger than she is and sometimes it is best to work with the elements and not try to defy them. Wisdom understands and respects the seasons, a skill that promotes mental health and adds strength to living.
Grain of Truth: Embrace winter (or any season of life for that matter) for a season with strength.
Sessions International 