Four acres of Poppies and Bachelor’s Buttons are tucked in beside the cemetery, in Fennville, Michigan. Four acres of unadulterated goodness springs up from the earth. Twisted roots cling to the soil, drawing up nutrients through the stems, feeding a vibrancy of color that swishes on the spring breeze like a whole company of ballerinas on stage.
This field holds so much aliveness, spread out beside a field of gravestones where the bodies of the dead are buried.
I’m told Mateo Donaldson was a bee keeper on Pleasant Hill Farm before he served a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Like too many others who serve, he returned with severe PTSD and took his own life. For six years his parents have stitched love and grief and flower seeds into the soil, in honor of their son. For six years they have opened this land to the masses to come and be still, to get lost in wonder, to inhale fresh air and sweet fragrance.
Four years ago the world seemed to suddenly take notice of all this color exploding from the ground. Four years ago, in the midst of people fighting for their life on ventilators, gasping for breath in the streets, in the midst of partisan division so toxic it began ripping apart families and tearing up relationships and pitting neighbor against neighbor.
The world took notice of this field and began visiting in droves. Because we needed it.
Here we are again in the midst of an election season, in need of beauty, in need of hope. There is deepening chasms and toxic partisan division and fists wildly swinging for punches. Our muscles are crimping and cramping as we try to stand tall even while whipping winds and whipping words do their best to push and pull and sway us in the direction of their desires.
Here out in this quiet field, with chaos whirring and whistling around us, with buried corpses just on the other side of the driveway, four acres of wonder pushes up from the ground.
It rises despite everything.
It flaunts its radiance like an act of resistance.
Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust.
Ashes and dust, grief and love, nourishing the birth of beautiful new things that no amount of darkness can smother.
Four astonishing acres sprout, blossom and burst into unflinching beauty- a rising spiral of hope, a gift to a divided community borne out of a farmer’s grief, sweat, love and thoughtful generosity all mingled and mangled in the soil.
Everyone from everywhere comes to walk the path around this field. To bend their knees in this sanctuary. There is no litmus test to gain entrance. All our labels are set aside for these few moments as we are collectively filled with the simple sacred wonder of poppies and bachelor buttons.
The earth has a way of grounding us to what is holy, of reminding us who we are and who we can be in the process of becoming better together. It has a way of promising us that many of the the seeds we sew - even in doubt or pain - will survive the storms that rage around us, will rupture through the hard crust of winter and sprout when the earth begins to warm.
These four acres make me believe again that humanity can mature as a species and stretch into a better way of being together. This transformation of grief into glory reminds me that hope indeed springs eternal.
All images @2024 Christy Berghoef. Any copying, usage or reproduction requires owner consent.
comforting...again. thank you friend.
Absolutely beautiful capture and words. ❤️🙏❤️