Works and The Spell of Ai are one and the same, and all of it belongs in Strange and Unusual Places. This is where my life has taken me.
The house pictured here appeared in my dreams many years before seeing it. My memory is of walking round the inside, opening drawers and rifling about - just curious. Standing outside was a view of a white clappered house sitting on a slight hill, a walk-in cellar with arched doorway and every detail you see here. This house.
Nothing here is original or even uncommon necessarily; but simply topics rarely spoken of. We all understand them.
The dreamworld is a place we inhabit, and the writer inhabits it a great deal and joyfully.
Having been settled in 1840 there is some history here. Neighbors and members of old families in the region have given me stories about hauntings, hangings, confederate raids, (Jeb Steward hid his horses here), a son lost to a blizzard found only yards from safety, three people buried on the hill (NW paddock beneath three cherry trees) and others still arriving. There are spirits here.
A truck-farm reputed to raise the finest musk melons in the county; and potatoes, lots of potatoes. Some of the land was last plowed with horses, and there is still a pile of harness stowed away some of it salvaged from surplus left after the Civil War. The people here survived the Great Depression, had some prosperous years, lived much hardship, danced to their American music and left behind the musk of human blood, sweat and tears. Works is an American Farm, and unapologetic.
Residing on the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland (The Mason and Dixon Line), the war between the states included members of the same families fighting in opposing armies; brother against brother, murderous rivalries that have lasted through the years. Some here will never forget - or forgive.
Wars and rumors of wars run through the histories, like many places. Every son is born a warrior. Deal with it.
Cultural war has brought me here, my bugout place, my best shot at living in relative peace and quiet. A healing place where the spirits are free to run and do what they can to reconcile themselves.
They are, after all, but Fearsome Deities and have no temporal means but are smoke.
The real enemy is entropy. It resides in the radio waves and pixels; the binary world where these words appear - and nature. Defeat and surrender are two very different things. More smoke.
It’s been said that everything that has ever been and everything that will ever be is here with us now; and so, all spirits walk the earth; some of them fearsome, some benevolent, some comical or quizzical or mischievous. Many of them are here in these stories. To name a thing is to make it so. Works is real, these spirits are real (some of them might be visiting you in your dreamworld) and Ai is real. This is their spell, your spell and my spell. It’s why we’re here. Welcome.
This week at Works:
It is always harvest time here; we are harvesting time. Time for the soil to heal and the grasses to come back, trees to grow and the farm to regenerate. Time for nature to seek a balance. It is slow work and none too easy. To do no harm. To allow the farm to teach me what it wants instead of heedlessly improving what cannot be improved.
Maybe that seems like lunacy. Maybe we should notice that everything comes with consequences.
Well, people need food and a farm needs people. Herbivores need grass and good grass needs healthy soil. Extractive farming depletes soils and interrupts the cycle of life. Interrupting life cycles yields a world such as we have. Good farmers give back what the earth offers. This has always been known and we have ignored it, so sooner or later the consequences will be apparent. Entropy. Easter Island.
We’ll visit with the spirit of The Agrarian in future chapters. We have much to learn. This is a very old spirit and likely our savior, if we heed the lessons. Extinction awaits us if we fail. The terrible reality is nature is objective (neither for nor against) and entropy is very, very real.
These words are not, strictly speaking, mine but belong to the languages we share; harvested and sown in neat rows, broadcast for you to walk these fields and cast your own spells. This is what gives me pleasure.
Country Wit and Wisdom
Farmers will tell you if we can get one good ear on a stalk of corn - that’s a pretty good average.
Round’ here they’ll also tell you “we’ve been at it so long the bullfrogs croak our family name”.