This morning very early I had a dream about days of January thaw. At least I think I was dreaming, or it might have been that time when one is just awakening. I was remembering that we have not had a January thaw, and maybe one will happen on the last day of the month but so far NO thaw. I then went back some 30+ years ago when I was living in southwest Wisconsin in Vernon County. They grow tobacco in Vernon County, it is not a high grade tobacco, it is one that is used as outside wrapper on what must be really bad cigars, or who knows what. When I lived there in the early 70's, getting a tobacco allotment (there was a tobacco cooperative) was a valued commodity, you could grow on a very small parcel land enough tobacco to pay your taxes and other baseline expenses. I planted and weeded and topped and harvested the tobacco-I did not "strip" it. That is when you take the "cured" dried tobacco off the lathe and put into tobacco boxes for shipment and sale. Stripping of tobacco happened during the January thaw. Those days created more humidity and moisture, which was necessary for safely stripping the tobacco. It was a bad job. Usually the stripping rooms were very small, mostly in some part of a barn or other "out" building. There was a wood stove, chairs and lots of tobacco and boxes, and tobacco dust everywhere, it was thick. Breathing was an optional activity. But it was the last part of a long process that began in April the year before. Like any harvest time, there was a buzz even though this was on those few days of respite in the dead of winter.
It had been years since I thought about the tobacco harvest, the sunlight and the haze of the tobacco dust and the wood stove smoke and residue. The lunches and dinner cooked for the tobacco crew, and the spontaneous activity that would occur when the temperature climbed above 32 degrees. This was not something you could make happen you just had to be ready to do the work when the time was right.
So this morning I was thinking about my life generations ago and then I read the Bowl of Saki - these are daily meditation from Hazrat Inyat Khan, sufi teacher. Todays reading was about the sincerity of the heart. Here is an excerpt:
"When the heart speaks of its joy, of its sorrow, all of it is interesting and appealing The heart does not lie; it must always tell the truth. By love, it becomes sincere; and it is through the sincere heart that true love manifest.
Somehow my heart this morning was open to images and memories of years ago, the people, my love, the actions, the living on the land, the amazing beauty and appreciation of the January thaw. The image of a thaw - and sometimes it is the heart that must thaw, the heart that must speak, and the divine sincerity in being able to listen.
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