Each day is a new beginning, starting with a slow, foggy wake-up in my brain.  Then my energy picks up as I remember the smiling and serious faces of my co-workers, like flowers in the sunshine.

As I arrive at the garden, a peaceful always sweeps through my being to know the joy and satisfaction that comes with the work of weeding, digging planting harvesting and wreath making.  Always, I am reminded each day, that the Homeless Garden Project is a "we" and "our" garden project and that the sum of its parts is the very best whole and represents a new unity.
--Leigh Liles

Arriving to work at the Natural Bridges Farm is not a dread as it usually is at jobs where I don't believe in the work I'm doing or what it really contributes to the world.  It's only been two weeks but the following is my impression and what I like here.

The grounds have kinda an artsy, funky look to it.  We're out here in the fresh air with the open sky about and you feel untainted earth around you.  There's lots of life buzzing and thriving also.

I like the attitude of helping and sharing.  There's also much tolerance of the difference of backgrounds and personalities.  Here I see, up close, homeless people with their different stories and dispositions, while they are happy to contribute as viable parts of society; feeling good about the work they are doing and why they're doing it.  Here we all practice working together as well.

The directors are enthusiastic about the project and are more than willing to answer questions and share their knowledge about organic gardening.  It's refreshing to have management who cares.

Yeah, it's work, you gotta put your back into it, but here in the crops you see where food comes from and you see the sacrifice that goes into producing it, both from the earth and from working people.  I also see garter snakes, colorful spiders, friendly birds and many insects I've never seen before.  To me, that's what organic gardening is about, sharing with the other live beings, instead of killings millions of them as other types of farms do.

I look around while standing in the field and what I see is the abrupt contrast between boxy, sterile, concrete and steel structures, and rows of flowers and fresh, healthy food, sown with love and for love.  So it's work, but the day flies by because we are where we all belong and there's not such anticipation to get away from it.  It's not dreadful work, it's a joy.

Long live the biosphere, and everybody is somebody. -- Gato

The circle: unbroken energy.  A meeting of wide-ranging personalities merging from all aspects of life; ending a workday in the living fields of Natural Bridges Farm.  The women of the Women's Organic Flower Enterprise are trying to find and arrange rides to the farm.  Energies heighten anticipating what we'll say on this warm, breezy, wonderful Thursday.

Arriving to friendly "hi's" "hello's" and "howdie's" and from-the-heart "how are you doing's?"  An energy of love surrounds us all here at the garden, you know.  I heard someone say, "so forgiving and understanding, it feels so good."  We gather and form this circle for a meal of fresh organic veggies that we grow and cook right here, which we do enjoy.  Conversation start with someone you work beside, but don't get a chance to talk with, except at circle meeting.

This circle is just that, a circle made of chairs, tables, logs, earth and rocks for us to sit on.  We sit this way so whoever is talking can be easily seen, giving each of us unbroken and equal respect.  Darrie will see to this.

From 1:15 TO 2:15, every other Thursday this circle forms.

"OK everyone, let's start circle meeting," a staff member, maybe Chrissi, Patrick, or Darrie might say.  An agenda is called for, so many speak.  Harvest, cleaning tools, what about the event, the gophers, loss of crops, respecting someone's space, what's happening at the office, how about WOFE, CSA??

One by one we try to resolve the ideas on this list.  You can see when looking around this circle, it easily supplies understanding of what we need to do, want to do, what we are able to do for us.  We see what to do to not just survive, but prosper as individuals, working together in harmony, building a non-profit organization that helps the homeless, which is us.

We all come to form this mighty circle with another thought in mind.  For circle, (with a YEA!) also means, it's payday.
--Larry Moore

We started with a great crew this year and they have alloyed into a cohesive group.  Their hard work and ability to be supportive has transformed our "circle" meetings into an effective tool for problem solving.  I continue to be impressed the group's diligence, sensitivity and resourcefulness in areas that range from resolving differences that arise between workers to legal, medical, and mental health issues.

Mental health has always been a difficult subject for our society to deal with.  Even though one in three of us will experience a mental illness in our lifetime, it remains one of the hardest things for us to accept.  This year, we have had several individuals take a brave step to connect with the mental health system and begin to address situations that have been limiting to them in the past.

A lack of housing often tends to be seen by our societal myopia as "the problem" that the homeless suffer from.  Although this approach is simplistic, I am always happy when one of our members finds housing, which in the Santa Cruz low income housing market is akin to getting into Harvard or winning the British Open.  At the moment, we have three people who have a good chance of doing so.

Another situation that many people in the unhoused community suffer from is being estranged from their family.  I see this as a sort of "double homeless," both a symptom and a cause of other profound problems in their lives.  When we can resolve a situation that has separated us from our family and reestablish a familial connection, frequently other positive changes soon come about.  A member of our crew recently reunited with has family after some years of separation, and I think that made me happy as it did him!

--Patrick Williams, horticulture director
August Newsletter

When I came to the garden last September, it was like reaching the beach on Maui after swimming across the Pacific Ocean.  It took nearly 7 years.  Yet I had never left town.  In 1991, I lost my home and my husband of 25 years.  My son was nine, my daughter was four, our savings gone.  I was mentally and spiritually broken and we were homeless-and this lasted three years.

My fears and my faith were at war constantly.  I was afraid of everything and everyone.  I couldn't leave my space for days at a time.  I had forgotten how to live with people.  I was diagnosed severe agoraphobia.  Then I reached the garden and felt the warmth of the sun again in my life.  Working with the earth, (from clearing the rock from the soil to make the flower beds to harvest) and the sincere care and kindness I have received from the women at 127 Washington has healed so many wounds in my soul that a new skin has grown.  I have begun to feel and see the beauty around me in all living and breathing creations.

I can now look forward to a future where I will once again be a productive part of what goes on around me.  A year ago, I wanted to end my life.  I am now 50 and looking forward to the next 50.

Thanks and praises to the most high and the garden.
-- a WOFE gardener

This year we are making some changes that will build on last year's successes and improve our training program.  We have decided to dedicate more of our land to production crops for WOFE as it seems that the major limiting factor to WOFE's further growth is the quantity of flowers needed for their production.

We are already (as of mid-February) planting some flower crops for WOFE so that the women can get off to an earlier start this season and have more time to engage their creative energies.  At the moment, we've got wheat, ammobium, larkspur, and sweet peas, just to mention a few that are poking their heads up out of the ground.

We'll also be increasing wholesale and farmers market crops; this will allow us to concentrate on crops that increase our biodiversity, as well as focus on crops that best suit our land and microclimate.  These will include more fresh flowers, herbs, salad crops, and baby spinach.

Of course we will be continuing with our Community Supported Agriculture program.  We will be offering fewer shares to make room for some of our other projects so please get your share reserved sooner rather than later!  We'll have all of the old favorites including strawberries, corn and flower bouquets and a few new friends including Sprouting Green Garlic, Arugula, Komatsuna (an Asian Green), Leafy Amaranths, Purple Orach for salad mixes, the "Radiant" Golden Beet and perhaps some more edible flowers.  Many of you will be glad to hear that we will no longer torturing you with any more turnips.  All in all you should have a crowded international kitchen if you join with us.

We will be handing out tomato, pepper and eggplant starts to grow in your home gardens where you hopefully get more sun and heat than we do in our little Tierra del Fuego on the north end of Santa Cruz.

We will be adding a small seed production area of endangered heirloom vegetable varieties as a demonstration of how to produce and save seeds.  We will be able to teach these techniques to our trainees and members of the public as well as to the many students that come and visit us throughout the growing season.

We are also very pleased to welcome back a number of trainees that will be continuing on into their second year and in some cases their third year.  I never forget that our project is about and for them and so it will be nice to see so many of our friends continuing on with us.  We hope that you will join with us to make this year better than ever!
-- Patrick Williams
Spring Newsletter