July AZH Newsletter

Dear Friends,

It has been a busy summer for Appalachian Zen House. Our newest outreach project is coordinating the garden for the Bald Eagle Area School District’s Summer Lunch program. This program provides free lunches every Monday-Friday to children and youth in the Bald Eagle School District and is a joint effort of the Martha United Methodist Church and local volunteers. AZH built a raised bed garden using donated materials and plants. Every Wednesday morning I lead an activity related to the garden. Activities have included planting the garden, constructing a scarecrow, painting a sign for the garden and for each type of plant, and constructing trellises for pumpkins and watermelons.

We hosted a Fresh Air child from the Bronx, New York, earlier this month. Fresh Air is a non-profit organization that arranges for children from NYC to experience life with a family that lives in the country. Our "daughter" for the week had a blast swimming in the pond, hiking in the woods, chasing fireflies, and immersing herself in the natural world. She definitely plans to come back next year.

The summer camp started on June 22nd . While we've been disappointed by the low turnout—three to four kids each week, the kids who come are having a good time. Activities have included making vegetarian lasagna, picking blueberries, making fruit smoothies, learning about Native American culture, and swimming.

We continue to host weekly meditation and council circle. We recently expanded the time we spend on council circle from 30 minutes to an hour. We feel this change has allowed us to delve deeper into issues that arise. All are welcome to attend meditation, which takes place on Monday evenings from 7 pm-9 pm. Participants are also invited to our potluck dinner at 6 pm. Please email me at appzenhouse@gmail.com if you'd like to attend.

Our friend David reports that he is very happy with the raised bed garden that we set up for him in May. He says his vegetables are doing very well and that the fence has successfully kept out the critters. If you would like to donate money to pay for a raised bed garden for a person in need, please contact us at appzenhouse@gmail.com. We will build the bed, deliver it, and construct it on site. We will deliver the soil and the plants as well and provide gardening advice.

Sunny attended a week long workshop with Joanna Macy in May. Inspired by her work he conducted a Speak Your Peace program at Ahimsa Village that gave us all an introduction to her work. Fifteen people attended this program.

Finally, I have been blessed with the opportunity to assist with teaching a conflict resolution course to inmates at the Centre County Correctional Facility. The course was created by an exceptionally dedicated and courageous woman, Marie Hamilton, from a course designed by the Quakers. Marie’s work in the Pennsylvania prison system over the past 30 years has powerfully demonstrated that when prisoners are treated with respect and when they are taught conflict resolution skills, their lives can be radically transformed. In June I assisted Marie with teaching the course to ten male inmates. The men expressed sincere gratitude to Marie, another volunteer, and me at the conclusion of the course. In August I will be assisting Marie in teaching the course to a group of female inmates. 

Warmly, Kelle Kersten, AZH Director

First Gardens to Gro Raised Bed Garden installed in State College

The Gardens-to-Gro program of the Appalachian Zen House delivers information and components for growing raised-bed gardens to impoverished and homebound people as a rural equivalent to community gardens.  We installed our first raised bed garden in State College.  The garden measures 4' x 8' and is made of locally harvested locust boards.  Thanks to Rosalind McIntosh for donating the garden.

Raised Bed Garden

The Green Shop Grand Opening, Saturday June 19, 2010

We'll see you there!
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Summer Events of the Local Fresh Food Alliance

Associated with Transition Town: Bald Eagle Valley, Appalachian Zen House, Ahimsa Village Community, Deb's Flowers, School of Living. 

Inquiries: phone Kelle, 814 355 0850 or Deb 814 353 1270.

Youth summer camp. Reconnecting youth with the earth, plants, animals and community. 

Tuesdays 9 am to 4 pm, June 22 to August 24, 2010 (10 weeks).   

At Ahimsa Village Community, 1½ miles north of Julian on Alt Rte 220. 

Phone Kelle, 814 355 0850

Opening of The Green Shop, June 19, 2010. 

½ mile south of the glider port on Alt Rte 220. 

A community farm stand selling local home grown and made items. 

Open Fridays and Saturdays 10 am to 3 pm.

Vendors selling fresh produce, plants, flowers, baked goods, and crafts wanted. 

Teen Entrepreneurs welcome. 

Monthly yard sales, on 1^st Saturday of the month selling recycled goods, starting July 3. 

Phone Deb 814 353 1270

Sign painting party for the Green Shop and Demonstration Raised-Bed Gardens, June 6. 

Phone Deb 814 353 1270

Weekly Gardening Demonstrations and Question & Answer Sessions 

Saturdays at the Green Shop, TBA.

Phone Deb 814 353 1270

Raised-Bed Gardens are available for sale and for installation from The Green Shop. 

Your donation of $250 will buy a garden including plants and ongoing gardening support for a low income or physically less able person.

Wild Food Walk with Deb on June 5 at the Woman’s Healing Workshop. 

Phone 814 353 1270

Building a Chicken Tractor (a movable chicken coop using chickens to prepare and fertilize garden areas) —Demonstration Workshop.

In July, date TBA.

Phone Deb 814 353 1270

Wild Flower Arranging, in August, date TBA.

Phone Deb 814 353 1270

Fresh Food Pizzas Cooking Demonstration &
What To Do with Kale, Herbs, and Other Fresh Produce.

In September, date TBA.

Phone Deb 814 353 1270

Canning, Storing and Preserving Garden Produce 

Workshop, October 16

Volunteer work or in exchange for produce or pay 

is available to run the Shop, tend gardens, build raised-bed gardens, and produce items for sale. 

Phone Kelle, 814 355 0850 or Deb 814 353 1270

Community Garden Plots 

Available near Julian Woods Lane.

Phone Kelle 814 355 0850

Join Our Youth Summer Camp!

Please pass this information to anyone who may be interested.
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Making a Lotus Throne

At a recent working bee, Floating Lotus Zendo members, along with the universe, made some high-class cushions to offer newcomers and visitors a grand spot to meditate in Ahimsa’s yurt.

Thank you to Priscilla for the beautiful recycled material and to the Methodist Worry Busters who donated us perfectly matching old carpet, originally designated as mulch.

Thank you too to Kersey for the magnificent gong in the photo. Made of a recycled driving wheel and hub cap, with loving stroke of an off-cut it resounds more beautifully than a singing bowl!

Atop such thrones, it is now even more empowering each morning to chant the Zen Peacemakers’ “Gate of Sweet Nectar” liturgy offering a feast of food, of loving action, to satisfy the hungry hearts of ourselves and all beings. (Listen to Krishna Das' opening song!)

Instructions for making our simple meditation cushions.

• Cut, with 5/8” seams included in these dimensions –two circles of strong fabric (such as upholstery cloth) 14.5” or so in diameter (we used the lid of a large pot as pattern.)
• –a strip of cloth (this can be several pieces joined with triple sewn seams) 44” x 9.5” for knee-challenged sitters, 44” x 8.5”, or for most people 44” x 6.5”.
• Hem the short ends of the strip with 1/2 “ turned back and sew twice. Attach 1” Velcro to these hems, one part on the outside fabric and one on the inside so they close into a flat loop. Do not attempt to sew sticky-backed Velcro onto the fabric as the glue used will gum up your sewing machine!
• Sew the circles inside the flat loop with right sides of fabric together easing the circle to fit at the seam line.
• Turn right side out and almost fill with pillow grade buckwheat hulls using a funnel. We used a 23 lb bag of hulls from Birkett Mills in Penn Yan, NY, $33 delivered, affordable but containing a little dust. The bag filled two normal sized cushions and one each of the larger sizes.
• Carpet works fine for protecting ankles and knees.

It’s just that easy!

Being Touched by Our Grieving Family

Last fall, two members of Appalachian Zen House trained as volunteer facilitators for fortnightly gatherings of families who have suffered a death. One in 20 children will lose a parent before age 18, we were told.

Families we facilitate have lost a mother, a father, pet, child, sibling, grandparent, uncle or aunt. A grandchildren of a solo-parenting grandmother has died. Deaths are by sudden accident, murder, long or short illness, or suicide.

Last meeting before the summer break, the families tied messages to their loved ones onto balloons that floated together up into the evening sky, and took home mosaic memory tiles they had decorated with shiny colored pieces. "I have spent hour after hour tending our garden this spring. My husband loved plants and I am closest to him there." "Pop just held my little girl for hours after I brought her home as a tiny prem baby."

Our facilitators' training was beautifully prepared and documented. It was powerful in touching painful losses in our own lives, and the sustaining resources that helped us to process and heal. We personally felt deeply the catharsis of sharing together our common feelings, remembering, tears, delights, and gratitude for the lives of those now gone and for the related practical activities in the circle.

Each evening, families arrive and we serve them a meal of pizza, salad and soda. Donated tickets to ball games, the skating rink, cinema, etc are distributed. Children then join their age group and parents go to their own circle. A round of sharing names, the nature of loss, and what is happening in our lives follows. Then the groups of children take up age appropriate activities together that are fun, creative, explore their feelings around their loss, prompt imaginative recreations, memories and questions, or they just play together. We finish with a everyone holding hands and families take home pizza bags and more donated gifts.

The relief for the older children is particularly evident at being in a group their own age where the social difficulty of death is held in common instead of feeling a reason for exclusion. The adults support each other in procedural and practical difficulties, children’s responses, anniversaries, and social reactions.

We are deeply grateful to witness the sharing, healing, and gratitude that these meetings facilitate for us all.

If you know a family near State College that may like to participate, please phone Kelle 814 355 0850.

Floating Lotus Zendo participates at a Rural Pennsylvanian United Methodist Church

Some of the questions we were asked at Adult Sunday School were “What do you do to help someone when we would pray to God?” “How do you give suffering people hope in the life hereafter?” “Who gives a Buddhist teacher authority to teach?” “Is teaching meditation the same as teaching Buddhism?” The questions were challenging and significant.

The church atmosphere was lively and joyous with a strong social support network very evident. People smiled straight into our eyes. We were welcomed by people and children from different ethnic groups in an area where very few people of non-European origin reside. Before us a local Republican congressman spoke on the strong presence and practice of Christianity in government in DC.

It was a privilege as Buddhists to be asked to speak with a Christian congregation. The pastor told us that the congregation regularly does 10 minutes contemplation akin to meditation and offers yoga classes. He also expressed awareness of the division from non-Christians that Christian language can sometimes seem to create. He suggested that other Methodist Churches would like to have similar conversations with us.

We offer our appreciation for this very happy meeting.

The Local Fresh Food Alliance Workshop Builds a Demonstration Garden on Alt Rte 220

Under an unsettled sky we built our demonstration raised-bed vegetable garden at Julian Woods Lane on May 22. Rain kindly blessed our efforts with deep watering of the newly planted seedlings immediately after we punched the final staple holding the protective netting in place.

The garden is to encourage visitors to the nearby Green Shop† (opening the last weekend of June) to grow their own gardens even when only  apparently small or unsuitable ground surface is available.

Currently many of us drive 20 or more miles for the nearest food in this rural area. As energy costs rise, and economic instability and unemployment continues, The Local Fresh Food Alliance of gardeners are offering their skills to support a secure supply of nutritious local food for everyone in our community. We are told that 1 in 8 residents of PA and 1 in 5 children in the US has inadequate nutrition (see Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman dialogue.) The Demonstration Garden and The Green Shop are activities of the Alliance. Low-income people will be employed to work in gardening, production, and the Shop.

Our appreciation to Katherine for plants, Chuck, John, and Bob for materials, tools and knowledge, Bob for trucking compost, Robert for preparing the site and printing fliers, Deb for plants and organization, Bill, Will, Mike, Josh, Bill, Ed and Mary for contributing, all the other encouraging friends who stopped by, the life forms our garden replaces, the plants themselves, the tools and materials, those whose knowledge of gardening that we use,…

…and particularly to those who will continue to water and enjoy the garden, green and beautiful! Please pick outside leaves of lettuce etc. to allow the plants to continue growing.

“How to Make and Grow a Raised-Bed Garden” is posted here in printable form. To read this flier, please click on it once, and then again when it opens in your browser. Thank you!

† The Green Shop is a market for the community to buy and sell their produce, plants, flowers, baked goods, crafts, products of Youth Entrepreneurs, and yard sale items. Surplus fresh food will be donated to local food pantries and soup kitchens. Vendors wanted!

One by One - 225 Mattresses

We could have worked out at the gym. But no!

Members of Floating Lotus Zendo sweated it out with fellow Christians to load 225 lively and slightly dusty mattresses for transport from a college residential hall to Interfaith Mission's recycled furniture and appliances warehouse.

The mattresses are now available for low income residents of Centre County like the father who recently and suddenly became a solo parent to his two young sons. The boys will no longer have to sleep on the floor in their strange new situation.

Floating Lotus Zendo is the first Buddhist congregation in the 40-year history of the Interfaith Mission, a group of churches, synagogues, and now a zendo, that provides helping hands and essential services (financial assistance for emergency rental, transportation, utility and heating, and money management services) to ourselves and our neighbors in emergencies.

It was a great morning's work and group of helpers. We were happy and grateful to be able contribute in a small way.

"Speak Your Peace!" Event based on the Work of Joanna Macy

Taking Heart in Tough Times - An interactive workshop.

Are you feeling a spiritual void and frustrated and sad about social injustice, pollution, and lack of integrity?  Sunny Rehler, who has just returned from an intensive training with Joanna Macy, will offer ways to experience moving from despair to empowerment ! There will be  opportunities to speak from the heart, meditate, sing, and participate in litugy. Further background information can be found at www.joannamacy.net

Sunday evening, May 23, 7:00 PM  to 9:30 PM. 

At Ahimsa Village, 4022 S. Eagle Valley Rd., Julian, PA

RSVP to bob@ahimsavillage.org, 814-355-0850 if you plan to join us.

Donations are welcomed.

Opening mid-June our community Green Shop!

Our Local Fresh Food Alliance project is opening in mid-June The Green Shop, a farm stand on Rte 220 Alt near the glider port. It serves as a community outlet for local produce, plants, flowers, crafts, baked goods, products of Teen Entrepreneurs, and as a yard sale. Vendors and customers wanted!

Surplus produce is donated to local food banks, shelters, and soup kitchens.

Voluntary work is available, and for unemployed persons, there is work in exchange for produce or pay.

Next to the Green Shop is our 8' x 4' demonstration raised-bed garden, showing how much produce can be grown in a small closely planted area on top of any surface. The free demonstration workshop building this garden happens this Saturday, May 22, 1 to 3 pm. Please phone Deb 814 353 1270.

These projects are part of Appalachian Zen House's Local Fresh Food Alliance activities.

We are looking for a 2010 Teen Summer Camp Assistant!

Is this for you? Examples of blogs on our 2009 camp here and more.

To enlarge this image click on it. Thank you!

Being a Worry Buster – Neighbors Helping Neighbors

Who said “Hey! Isn’t this just the best thing we’ve done in a while?”

Members of Appalachian Zen House joined a dozen members of Martha and Julian United Methodist Churches for a morning of work for neighbors who had requested assistance - weeding a steep bank and covering it with a mulch with strong whisky aroma, shifting furniture, using donated carpet to mulch a nursery of young trees intended for the ball park, painting shutters, and cleaning up the community garden.

We enjoyed:

• meeting new delightful neighbors (in addition our current door knocking activities  in the local trailer parks, pubs, and other local venues, about our Local Fresh Food Alliance)
• a wonderful church breakfast of eggs, toast, crispy bacon, muffins, fruit and coffee,
• learning about local activities and resources eg where cheap clean compost is available,
• receiving a luminous spring green Worry Busters T-shirt each,
• being donated a strip of carpet to make floor mats for our camp and for meditation,
• promoting face-to-face our teen summer camp, and Local Fresh Food Alliance,
• being able to volunteer to give government-supported free summer lunches to children and teens at a nearby trailer park,
• learning that the only fresh vegetables the kids eat are carrots, cucumbers, and celery,
• meeting the minister who runs four of the local rural churches in series each Sunday.

We didn’t enjoy initially:

• an encounter with poison ivy – but the outcome was less itchy than expected.

Certainly! We will be returning to bust worries with our Methodist neighbors again in the fall.

Launching "The Local Fresh Food Alliance" - Bald Eagle Valley

It is about looking at who we are, our talents, delights, and experience, and matching it with the need at this time and place.

Or as Roshi Bernie Glassman says, "Look in the refrigerator to find how to cook the meal!" (Or perhaps look out the back door if you have come to our "How to Make and Grow Your Own Raised-Bed Vegetable Garden" free demonstration workshop on Saturday May 22, 2010!)

So we take great pleasure in launching for the enjoyment of many --

 

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Appalachian Zen House donates our first garden

An enjoyable morning was spent by members of Floating Lotus Zendo and The Local Fresh Food Alliance as they constructed a raised bed garden at a trailer park in State College and filled it with a truck load of rich black gold (compost) ready for planting.

We are hoping this garden will serve to inspire neighbors and visitors to grow their own fresh delicious free vegetables stored at peak condition and nutrition not in a refrigerator but right outside the back door.

Make and Grow Your Own Raised-Bed Vegetable Garden

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