In a balked effort to pull two stubborn buckets apart, I received a sizable blood blister on my left thumb, a caustic inception to a workday of industrious hands. I plant myself near the drying tables in the greenhouse and pull dry bean pods between my forefinger and throbbing thumb, popping out shiny obsidian seeds. Eclipse, Calypso, and Jacob’s Cattle beans very slowly fill my buckets. Most farmers who grow dry beans at scale mechanize the shelling and cleaning process, and I can see why sitting beside this mound of dried plants. However, the voices of the ancestors whistle in on the Keewaydin “home winds” and I form another opinion (and it’s not going to be a popular one). What if instead of taking a step forward with technology, we took a step back to story circles; elders and young people gathered together, shelling beans, listening and conceiving of legends? Are we so above such a tedious task in our modern society, or has it’s disappearance taken something else…the culture from agriculture. 

~Joy