changing the clock

Today is the first day of daylight savings time for this year. This switch of the clock is a reminder to me of (hu)man's artificial ways of relating to life and nature.
I happily am in the position of waking up with the morning light most of the time. There's a built in response in our bodies that wakes us at daybreak if we're exposed to the light. In my experience I'm happiest if I follow that first natural wake-up call and actually get up.
On Sundays, however, I will allow myself to stay in bed and go for another round of dreams.
When I finally got up this morning, the day was in full swing. We had planned a clothing swap for the morning where we could offer up things we no longer use to others in our village. I scored some magazines which I plan to use for a vision board exercise with my group this summer.
There's an unspoken agreement here at play on Sundays: we claim this day as personal time or family time. Living in community teaches everyone to give space, we know that the busy summer season will soon be here when the village fills up with students, interns and visitors. So for now we enjoy the luxury of quiet times.
Having said that there's still things to do: the Credit Union, our central composting toilet in the garden is my care responsibility this week. So I clean, refill, and replace what's needed. Someone has installed a magazine holder for toilet reading material. A toddler's toilet seat has also been added recently.
Mike is out in the new garden area preparing for his special potato plot- I'll write about that when I learn more.
I hear the dog barking and go out to meet two visitors I'm expecting. These folks called to come and talk about natural houses and hoped to actually go inside one. Yes! This is where that can happen! I take them for a walk to the Healing Sanctuary, our hybrid cob and straw-bale building. I'm watching their eyes light up as they walk through the sculpted space. We discuss the differences between the materials, how the process works and when they can come and learn. We move on to spend the rest of our visiting time in the Art Studio where I live. Made of cob and light clay, this building is full of fun details. My visitors chat for a while and leave with the statement:"I want to live in a house like this". Yes I am very blessed to live here.


As this Sunday settles into a rainy afternoon I will go back to my book "The secret teachings of plants" which also has me thinking about our very limited ways of describing nature - just like the changed clock.