Standing in the field, there was silence before the rains came. It was just me and the plant for a moment—everyone else in the distance—and the plant, barley, was hooded and free. It poked in the wind against a six-row neighbor, and begged the question: Why don’t you need more of me? The plant breeders were about to pull up behind, talking all their homozygosity and double haploid smack. But first they’d grab another beer from the station set up for swilling in the field. They are a thirsty lot, these plant breeders, especially on #BarleyDay. I looked back … Read more

Life sets a pace. For all of us, we wake each day to a condition of expansion and simultaneous contraction. Life gives us dichotomous opportunities to push ever outward, and then snaps us back into our selves as our essence tugs around the edges of our experiences. It is in this luscious ferment of each new day that we grow and our lives become full. Sometimes we rise up to our day slack-jawed with internal heat. Other days we crawl towards an imaginary finish line through the motions of what’s before us. Most of the time we realize that … Read more