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.