Wwoofer Wisdom

Wwoofing is wonderful! This summer we've been in touch with a number of people looking to exchange their labour for a place as part of our family and good healthy meals. Some have come and gone and some have yet to arrive, many from quite a distance.

My friend Mark was here for about three weeks in May along with a wwoofer from Ontario via Halifax named Ina. Both really helped us to prepare the garden and to split and stack the massive pile of wood. I can only imagine how much longer it would have taken us to do by ourselves. And apart from the labour they contributed, there were all the other things that come along with these lovely new people: late night scrabble games, laughter, dancing, sharing music.

This weekend we have been joined by two new wwoofers, Karin and Erin. In talking with them, like most new people I meet, I am amazed at the amount of wisdom that flows from their lips. This weekend I have particularly been aware of it--maybe it's the full moon.

Apart from lots of politics, Karin helped me to think about lost loves and what really matters in life. She said very plainly that the hardest thing in life is to find love, harder than money, fame, power. So when you find it you should do anything to keep it. So what does this mean that I should do about my faraway love? What happens when love isn't enough? Maybe all you can do is keep in touch and trust that the stars will guide you into each others' arms again.

And tonight Erin got me thinking deeper about my desire to build a community out here. As we walked down the road in the deepening twilight with Buddy trailing behind, she mused that maybe what we seekers of community (basically most humans; are you one of us?) are really looking for is to return to the community of life. We regret looking at trees, ants and bears, not as our brothers and sisters but as resources or pests. Our death civilization has ripped us from our family and we want to go back, we prodigal sons and daughters. So we talk about building community, reconnecting with our fellow humans. But maybe we really want to go a lot further.

So maybe in the end, after all the sweat and laughter, that's the greatest gift that wwoofers and hosts provide each other: wisdom.