Human Flower Project

Saturday, March 15, 2008

The Awakening

Cattle ranchers, church-goers, writers—those who look for signs will see them, especially in early spring. A yearning for fresh collards leads Jill Nokes to revelations in the fields of Granger and on the street in Houston. Thank you, Jill!

Testimony from the yard of Erma Lee, Houston, TX

Photo (detail): Jill Nokes

By Jill Nokes

At the end of February, I came across a recipe for minestrone soup that called for collard greens to be used in place of kale.  Collard or turnip greens are typically not part of my cooking repertoire, as my mother was from New England and we never had that kind of food.  But as I pondered over the selection of the large, coarse, bundled collard leaves in the grocery store, I held in my mind the many memories of driving past “truck” gardens in the country in late winter.  I recalled endless versions of the same dirt plots, bare of everything except a few new onion sets and these tattered clumps of greens, waiting for spring.  Old tin cans and wire cages would be hanging on the fence posts, ready for the tomatoes and purple-hull peas.

Spring in Texas is all about pure potential.  Our short winters have usually brought us enough cold blasts to make people eager for the warm, soft nights of late March and April, and for a while we enjoy being in denial about the inevitable brutal heat and drought that waits on the other side of Easter. 

Texas redbud (Cercis canadensis var. texensis)

March 15, 2008, Austin, TX

Photo: Human Flower Project

I always want to slow down the last days of winter and the earliest signs of spring. I don’t want my redbud to fade in eight days, and I don’t want the temperature to jump up to 85 degrees so soon after being in the comfortable upper 60’s.  But signs of “The Awakening” appear more vividly with each day, even in between the last cold fronts.

I first heard the term “the awakening” from my friend Betsy Ross, who, with her son J.R. Builta, operate a grass-fed organic beef operation in the blackland prairies near Granger, Texas.  After years of struggling to support their farm using conventional herbicide and fertilizer treatments for their land and feedlot finishing for their cattle, they discovered that only if they focussed on restoring the depleted soil biology in their pastures could their herds and planted forage crops thrive. To acquire the knowledge of just what their different pastures were missing, Betsy had to learn to be a keen observer of the signals Mother Nature was sending.  And one of the most important things to watch for were the mystical signs that spring was on its way.

“What I heard from the Oregon Tilth folks a couple of years ago was that the earth begins to awaken slowly and, then one day everything pops up at once,” Betsy explained to me. “It is that ‘awakening’ that appealed to me, as for several years I could pick up a slow rise of upward energy out in the pastures. One can almost feel it beginning throughout 2-3 week period. When one is grazing intensively as we do, ‘catching this wave’ means we can begin grazing aggressively – because we know old winter is about over with and wonderful spring is about to explode and every green plant jumps up out of the ground. We can feed out the last of the hay with confidence, and let the cattle graze the grass a little shorter.”

Betsy’s description revives all kinds of notions of the romantic pastoralists: farmers who get intoxicated by the smell of warm, moist, living earth, the sounds of animals lowing in the evening, and the satisfaction of collaborating with Mother Nature to make things grow.  The best thing about it is that they are actually succeeding in this holistic method of farming, and inspiring others to join them.

The Gathering Area, behind Erma Lee’s house in the Heights, Houston

Photo: Jill Nokes

Inspiration and awakening were also on my mind when I recently met Ms. Erma Lee, resident of Houston, in her amazing garden.  On the way to meet a friend of my daughter’s soon-to-be new mother-in-law, we stopped off in the Heights neighborhood to meet Erma.

Erma’s “Inspirational Art Garden” is completely preposterous. Facing a busy street, the whole thing is made up of glass jars and vases, balls and vessels of all kinds, filled with colored water.  Her special front bed is actually enclosed in store-front glass.  It is ridiculously generous and fragile.  Everything could be destroyed instantly by someone chunking a brick into the yard from a passing car. To Erma, this is not a concern, because God directed her efforts after she had “an awakening.”

Lee explains the biblical messages in “The Inspirational Art Garden” 

Photo: Jill Nokes

As a member of Joel Osteen’s huge Lakewood Church (the 16,000 seat “worship facility” is located in the former Houston Rockets sports area), Erma was taught to make herself ready at any moment for a personal epiphany.  So when it came about three years ago, she went into a whirlwind of activity, changing everything inside and out of her house, and began incorporating messages from biblical scripture into decorative arrangements on view for all to see.  In the rear “gathering area,” she has constructed colorful backdrops using a signature style of figures made from old patio furniture and decorative fans from the Dollar Store.  When giving tours of her place, she explains the meaning behind her decorations with the fervent zeal of a performance artist, and as someone who has been “awakened” to a higher purpose.  For us lucky visitors, whether we are there because we are attracted to all the shiny glass like magpies, or because we yearn to be changed by a holy touch, we all benefit from Erma’s ardent creation.