Brother Zachary

(Originally posted on 7/10/19) It has been over two months since a surprise encounter with Rajendra Singh, but time has done little to dim the inspiration of that meeting. On Thursday, May 2, of this year, Hailey and I arrived in Port Townsend, WA for the Global Earth Repair Conference, a gathering of a few hundred well-intentioned, Mother-Earth loving souls from all over the world, to discuss, share, and hopefully inspire each other in the effort towards healing the earth. That evening, as we were setting up our Ananda farm table in the main hall, an Indian man walked over to introduce himself. The hall was mostly empty, save a couple volunteers doing final preparations for the event set to begin in the morning. "Rajendra Singh," he introduced himself to us. He and a friend were trying to find his accommodations for the night, as he had apparently just arrived, from India. We spoke briefly, and cordially. He asked us what we farmed. And then he parted, with my own inter...

  8-sided Chapel in the making; Jan 13, 2024  These words came to me in morning meditation on Jan. 12, 2024, and was shared with the resident brothers and sisters at the ashram. Willingness and Faith - Two sides of the coin, for a happy, successful life. Willingness is essential. Without willingness to take action, to meet life head on, to pick up the sword and fight, we simply have no chance to be happy, or achieve anything worthwhile. Stuck in a muck of unwillingness is like swimming in a sea of weeds. For every stroke forward we spend just as much energy clearing away the kelp in order to just take another stroke. All too often, we ourselves grow the weeds of bad attitudes, through simple unwillingness to keep swimming, or put out the necessary energy to find a solution. Willingness, however, isn’t merely a kind grim determination; it is positive; it is energetic; it is enthusiastic. Without such qualities, it’s not actually willingness yet, even if you m...

(Originally posted on 4/15/2024) Last night at the farm house, a few of us watched for the first time, the 1960's film, The Reluctant Saint . Despite some initial reluctance, two of the three of us made it through the movie awake. It is about the life of Saint Joseph of Cupertino, a 1600's era Franciscan brother who became renowned for levitating and going into ecstasy during his devotions. While the film was enjoyable, my own experience was greatly benefited when it was pointed out that it was more like a play, than a movie, and therefore I started to view it as more of a theatrical production, and less of a polished film; such are the dramatics of the characters and script. And yet, by the end, it had a distinctly uplifted quality, and a helpful, if not powerful message. The movie portrays a young Joseph (Giuseppe) bumbling through his early life, quite unable to fit or function in this world, and failing in his initial efforts at becoming a novitiate of a monast...

(Originally posted 5/5/24)  Do you have a friend that is really hard to get a gift for? A gift they will actually like and appreciate? I have known a few over the years.  Perhaps this is as innocent as the fact that they simply have superior personal magnetism to attract whatever it is, whenever they wish. But also, there are those who simply accumulate whatever they desire, to a point of excess, and with a consequence of increasing aridity towards anything new - like a child with so many toys that he can’t possibly play with all of them, much less appreciate them beyond a one-time fling.   An immoderate disposition towards life leaves almost no space to receive anything new, or of any special meaning.  This image of the friend whom you can’t find an appropriate present for, came to me in meditation this week. Because in so many ways, this is the game that we all play, with God.  So too does this apply in our own daily, mundane existence, like w...

 (originally posted 10/5/24) Sometimes statements are presented to us by others as ‘facts’, or ‘truth’, which don’t seem to quite resonate as such. Often these are important clues for us individually, as we learn to follow the path of wisdom, born of our own experience in life. Why doesn’t a certain teaching or statement resonate as true for me, even though this other person is so certain of it?  Instances of such variance are often a gracious guide for our own introspection and realization; to not judge or criticize the person who made the statement, but rather to reflect upon the realized variance, with equanimity. In this we find the opportunity to go deeper into the subject, and discover our own truth from within. One such example for myself, has come through an oft repeated refrain, “It’s not what you do, but how you do it.” For many years I’ve observed this statement used in a certain way, and with a particular organizational agenda attached to it.  In...

Babe and friends  (Originally posted on 11/24/24) Recently at the farmhouse cinema, a group of us watched the movie “Babe." The showing corresponded perfectly with the evening of the weather man’s purported “bomb cyclone” arriving in western Washington. As Pooh would say, “It must have been a Windsday.”  Sometimes, movies are simply the right choice, at the right time. Which is gratifying -  to enjoy the evening's entertainment with a calm, joyful expectancy for Ram's special motive in His movie selection.  About a half hour into the movie, the incoming bomb cyclone officially downed the power on South Camano. This brought about an early intermission in our movie-viewing, before we arrived at huddling around the laptop, with about 60% battery remaining. As we became more intimately invested in the story of this wonderful little pig, the storm began to blow through the farmstead of the movie as well. It was not unlike the scene we were enjoying at t...

Master and Disciple, Yogananda and Rajarsi  (Originally posted on 2/22/25) Yogananda is often quoted as saying that ‘ Loyalty is the first law of God .”  What is loyalty, and to where and whom does our loyalty belong?  A dictionary defines loyalty as faithfulness or allegiance to a person, cause, ideal, or institution. For myself, it has been helpful to relate my own idea of loyalty with the people and things to which I am devoted; that which I honor and love, because I know God has put them in my life. From the beginning of life, we learn to apply the principle of loyalty. First, most often, to mother and father, then to siblings, family and friends. As we get older, to teachers, team, town, church, job, and more intimate relationships, as well as to ideas and causes, which give meaning to our lives .   We find that in the need to go deeper in any arena of life, there is a corresponding, fundamental need to practice loyalty to it; how coul...

  St Martin, "Saint of the Broom" (Originally posted 5/24/2025)  On one end of a large school cafeteria, somewhere in the middle of everywhere, there was a young feller finishing his lunch, who became inspired to pick up a broom. He did this, because every day, at the end of lunch, the floor needed to be cleaned. Serving so many meals had an impact on the floor of the feeding hall - such that it actually needed to be cleaned after every mealtime gathering. Recognizing this need, he picked up the broom, and happily, he swept. As he did so, a few others around him began to take notice. 'That looks really nice', they thought. 'How much better to enjoy our meals with a clean floor, than a dirty one.' Lo, before long there was a contingent of sweepers, each picking up their brooms after lunch, joyfully doing the diligence of sweeping the floor clean. Enthusiastically, they made themselves shirts, which they wore when they embarked on their sweeping...

(Originally Posted on 10/19/2025)  What compels you? On one hand, being compelled can mean being forced by some external dynamic into action, even against one’s will - to be coerced, or constrained to do something. And, on the other hand, and in the deeper sense, it means being subject to an irresistible, inner urge to take an action, even if it goes against our own rational understanding at the time. Paul for example, was compelled to preach by the Holy Spirit; and compelled to enter Jerusalem, even as he was shown he would be bound upon doing so.  Right now, and in our country, many hundreds of thousands are compelled to join in the streets for a cause, dubbed the “No Kings” march. For others, an alternate and ongoing cause for compulsion, has been to remove people whom they feel don’t belong here. Both are compelled, in the same time and place, in seeming equal and opposite directions. In our own daily life, compulsion can surface as a kind reactivity to c...

Brother Simplicity (originally posted on 6/16/2025) Yesterday, while on an afternoon jaunt ‘up north’, a few of us farm brothers and sisters encountered a wooden puzzle maker. That is, a man who makes wooden puzzles. Puzzles of Washington state, of the United States, of Africa and Europe; of peace signs, alphabet-turtles, pandas, swans, sail boats and animal arks – all kinds of puzzles, all made out of birch wood. He carves them, and his wife paints them. It turns out, wooden puzzle making has been in their family for nearly 50 years! He made his first when he was 13. It was only recently, that he found his own way back to the family business. His mom and step dad had been running it continuously since 1979 in Northern CA, with many decades spent running a store front on Pier 39 in SF. Now, he and his wife run the business out of their wood-shop on a side street in Edison, WA – a part of the vibrant resurgence of village culture in the town that was largely empty of businesses 20 years...

(Originally posted on 11/01/2025)  As I sat this morning on the porch of my parents’ home in Saint Louis, Missouri, I looked out across the school yard of my childhood. Briefly chanting RamNam, my attention is lifted to the large, deciduous tree tops across the way, dancing in the morning light of the end-of-October sunshine. Such beautiful, sparkling light, after two initial days of PNW clouds, winds, and rain here in the Show-Me-State.  Soon, my eye catches the movement of a person walking with purpose through the playground area. I gradually see that she is carrying a bag, and picking up trash, hither and yon as she goes. I can imagine the big winds overnight have had a special propensity for distributing humanity about.  From there, I next observe her moving through one of the vast black-top areas where the children play kickball and other games (this one, where I spent countless hours with my neighborhood peers playing roller hockey after school and on the week...

  This morning a scene came clearly to mind, of being on board a ship on the water, in a stormy Sea. The water is choppy, the wind is blowing hard, and the feeling is intense. Yet, despite the rough waters, there is a calmness which remains inside of me in this moment. I know where I am going. The direction is in front of me. And this clarity of my ultimate destination provides peace and acceptance of the current state of affairs. Onward we move, through the waves and turmoil of the moment, with faith yet intact. Conversely, I consider being on that same water, without knowing the destination. Being out at sea, without any kind of clarity of where I am going. The skies are getting darker, the wind and waves are picking up, and I don’t even know which direction to point, or for what ultimate destination it is that I travel. The feeling of this situation, though outwardly exactly the same as the former, is entirely different. Because it is entirely different. One is filled with an un...