Soban Wants Me to Tell You.

There’s a lot going on here right now at the ecovillage. Our two timber-frame duplexes are quivering to completion and the kits for two dome homes agitate with anticipation in the bunker silo where they’re being stored. There are building plans a’foot. There’s construction everywhere. Large piles of dirt shift constantly.

In a few short months, eight homes will be finished and then occupied.

People are coming!

And children ... lots of them!

And upstairs in my house, I’m not safe from change. The contents of my laptop ... reports, letters, drafts of letters, emails, proposals, drafts of proposals, initiatives, inboxes-outboxes, flow-charts, overflow-charts ... flood the table, then expand and swell, pushing and shoving me until I tumble down the stairs and out into the garden.

Thank heavens for the little black dog who’s unwavering in her pull in a greener, slower direction. Soban is in his garden this morning as we pass, the black dog and I. He’s crouching down in his cucumber row, clipping the dangling growing-tips to suspended strings with clothes pegs. He hurries over to me ... “Ann”, he says, “What do you think? ... this ecovillage’e ... who are we?”

Soban is from Korea and he speaks with an accent ... ecovillage has an extra ‘e’ at the end.

“The true residents of an ecovillage’e”, he says, “are the people who grow their food here. An ecovillage is so much more than a place to live. It’s about having food that’s grown with heart and spirit so that it will nourish heart and spirit”.

“I can see,” he continues, “You and the others are working hard and under much stress. Why you work so hard? ... Why you worry so much?”

“We don’t want to worry about money,” I reply, “But we do anyway. The houses cost so much”. “If something were to go wrong, who would pay, if not us?” “Ah,” he says, with a knowing, rueful smile. Along with his wife, who’s a textile designer, Soban operated a successful business for many years. He knows about money and its power.

“But,” he says, “Tell the people... never forget why we are here. I cannot speak good English, so you must speak for me at the next meeting ... tell them to remember ... Food ... happy food grown with heart!”

Soban isn’t finished. “The new people in the houses ... will they grow their food here?”

“They’re families with young children.” I reply, “They want their children to be in a village connected to the land, that’s why they’re coming.”

While Soban is talking, he’s leaning down and picking a Japanese cucumber to give me. I bite right into its crisp, tasty flesh. And he picks Shiso too ... an oriental basil ...and fills my hands with a pungent, fragrant purple and green.

I’m remembering my past city life when I offered hospital patients with mental illness some soil and seeds and they understood without telling, how they could connect again to where sustenance came from. The most ill wanted to grow food.

I tell Soban I’ll relay his message, but I’m thinking ... can I possibly convey it fully, as it deserves? Soban’s manner speaks poetry, even when his words do not.

“Soban, ” I ask, “ Will you dig with me? We can choose a patch between your garden and the community garden ... a circle that can expand ... and we’ll invite the children to come and dig with us.”

“Yes” replies Soban, “We’ll start with planting winter vegetables,”

And we will.