We did it again — made dinner at the Wild Rice Retreat for over one hundred people with a pile of donated, local food (okay, Maldon sea salt isn’t local but it’s my favorite salt and the pomegranates, obviously not local, were a gift from friends of mine from LA who harvested them from the tree in their front yard…so, LA local) that we collected the day before the dinner. Definitely not a dinner party for the faint of heart but our kitchen crew was solid — creative, good with knives and sauté pans, and rolled with the punches (and on-the-fly menu changes).
It was amazing and I cannot wait to do it again next year. Not because I like a good meal (although Lord knows I do) but because, in a world that delights in ‘divide and conquer’, this gathering celebrates the alchemy of the table — that concept of using food as the conduit to gathering and connection, where our individual perspectives and stories contribute to a collective creation of community, memories, and connection because we’re sharing space, food, and stories.
Like last year, we created the menu on the morning of the dinner. Between Danny’s stack of cookbooks and good old Google, he had the entire menu designed, mapped out, and transferred onto what’s become the signature of the Harvest Dinner — lots of pieces of paper, taped to the fridge — by noon when the majority of the kitchen crew came on duty.
Dozens of eggs from Sarah, oyster mushrooms from Matt, potatoes from John, celery from Peggy and Catherine, raspberry jam from Steve, chickens from Renee, cheese from Fred and Kelly, foraged black trumpet mushrooms from Ellie, and so much more — we knew the provenance of all the ingredients and that’s no small thing. It made the act of prepping and cooking the food into an almost sacred act. Sacred because the ritual of bringing in the harvest, preparing it, and bringing it to the table connect us to what’s real and what matters — love manifested through friends, connection to people and place, laughter, and stories…..lots and lots of stories.
We had an impressive amount of squash to contend with, it was late October after all, and Danny and I looked at each other, shouted ‘hasselback’ and that was that. We had trays of squash, bathed in harissa, maple syrup, and butter ready to roll. Never underestimate the power of keen eyesight, a sharp knife, and a steady hand to take a squash from roasted cubes to elegant slices — it really was quite fancy.
The whole event feels like an experiment in community organizing — a common goal with the understanding that people contribute what and when they can, that there are different roles for people to play, and while the end result may not be what we expected, the shared work created something far better than anyone one of us could have done alone. It takes faith in the process, in the work, and in the people to pull off a dinner like this and it’s really no different than deciding to fight a factory farm or working to keep Lake Superior clean. It’s about showing up, doing what needs to be done, and finding joy amidst the eggshells, squash skins, and dishes….lots and lot of dishes.
Janel set the tables with the tablecloths people brought for the dinner and arranged the centerpieces with succulents from Joanne Scandinavian’s window boxes, oak leaves, cedar boughs, and pears from her orchard. It was stunning….and another example of what individual looks like when it’s knit into the collective.
I intended to share the following words from Martin Shaw at the dinner as a blessing before the meal but a glass of wine and a few doughnuts addled my brain and I totally forgot. So instead, I offer them to you here as a reminder that while things may seem sideways and cock-eyed — remember that love is ever-present, pain is universal, and earning our names and standing for what we hold dear is the point of the story. Always.
“Call out to the whole divine night for what you love. What you stand for. Earn your name. Be kind, and wild, and disciplined, and absolutely generous. It’s the astonishing business of beauty-making, as well as the possibility of victory. Most have glimpsed hells chambers, and the fact is that much real initiatory work is to bear it. To bear the unbearable. To walk though hell. I mean really, that’s what much of it’s about. That’s where most of these elaborate, taxing rituals and three day stories come from. We’re in it. Right now.
....We do not live myths out as some kind of horrible karma. We don’t brush by them and become infected. But they do have a habit of riding alongside when life turns up the volume. They synch up. But that’s as an aid for deeper understanding, not as a kind of prophetic set of ever tightening knots on your liberty. Just thought I’d mention that.
Ok, and while we’re in deep I’m going to say something else. Become a prayer-maker. Why? Because what you face in your life is bigger than you can handle. It is. Go to a place with shadows and privacy, and just start talking. There is some ancient Friend that wants to hear from you. No more dogma than that. Use your simple, holy, words. Then sit. Listen. Go for a walk. Let in.
Then you fight like a lion for what you can affect, and you surrender the rest. Self-help at its worse will pump you into a kind of Herculean mania of self reliance, and will most likely leave you grievously burnt out.
Be around truth. Here’s why. Mystics claim (especially Sufi), that when we are surrounded by lies it creates so much activity and nervousness in our head in some subtle way we can’t properly enter our own bodies. Hence the need for friends where truth is a given, anything can be said, nothing need ever be concealed. We lose touch with our wingspan when we hunch.”
