Blog Archives

Apple Farm Recollections

12/23/2024

We received this letter and photos from Grace Dow and her son Geoff Bremner. We asked her permission to share her tender writing with you. Grace now lives near Minneapolis, MN.

To the Apple Farm Community,
You may be surprised to get these pictures and letter. I am leaving this world soon and going over my treasures which I wish to share with you. I am so very happy and enjoying every minute as I near the last few weeks.

When Helen Luke moved from Los Angeles to retire on a small one cow one horse farm with Jane Bishop and Elsa, they did not expect any more analysands. Helen heard of a dream of mine through my best friend Florence Riley who came to her first. Then Helen invited me to come and I was her second analysand. I can't remember when I started, 1965 or so until 1968.

Sincerely, Grace Dow
December 17, 2024

Left to right in the Farmhouse living room:

Nancy Hector Kurilik
Elanor Macomber Raiche
Janet Witt, Elsa Hope
Jane Bishop with the dog.

Part of Joan Miller's response to Grace:
Thank you so very much for reaching out to Apple Farm with your keepsakes and your letter. I have heard your name mentioned at various times through the years. I keep in regular contact with Nancy Hector Kurilik who lives now in New Mexico with her sister, Joan Hector... Nancy is the last living person out of the four women founders (as we now call them) of Apple Farm.

Apple Farm, this one horse, one cow farm (as you said), has lasted over 60 years as a center for persons seeking the renewing power of symbols in their lives. Isn't it amazing! The Farm is now extending its traditions to a new set of folks, many of whom did not know Helen Luke or any of the founders but they are drawn to Apple Farm. You may be interested to know that the two sons of Janet Witt will be moving to the Witt property across the road to participate in the new life of the Farm.

Thank you for keeping these treasures from the early years of the Farm and for believing they might have meaning now. They do. Three of your photos are new to me. I do indeed have interest in the original copies of the papers. I like seeing Helen's handwriting to you.

Thank you for being a person that mattered to Helen and Jane and others that are part of the founding of Apple Farm and thereby undergird it to this day. I believe that all the hours of inner work, dreamwork and friendship lived here are part of the fabric of what Apple Farm was and is.

As you live deeply and happily into the last weeks, I send along also a bit of poetry that has been appreciated by so many at Apple Farm through the years. I suspect you may already know it. You now have a place in the hearts of those of us currently serving Apple Farm.

With deep thanks,
Joan Yoder Miller
Apple Farm Community

Peace, my heart, let the time for the parting be sweet.
Let it not be a death but completeness.
Let love melt into memory and pain into songs.
Let the ﬂight through the sky end in the folding of the wings over the nest.
Let the last touch of your hands be gentle like the ﬂower of the night.
Stand still, O Beautiful End, for a moment, and say your last words in silence.
I bow to you and hold up my lamp to light you on your way.
--Rabindranath Tagore

Blog entry by Pamela Dintaman December 2024

0 Comments

Apple Farm Christmas Toasts 2024

12/22/2024

0 Comments

This year's Christmas gathering is another of life bubbling forth here at the Farm! The first toast at Christmas was always given by Helen Luke, then the evening opened for others to join in giving toasts. Others who took the lead in this tradition after Helen were Jane Bishop, Nancy Hector Kurilik, Don Raiche and Joan Yoder Miller.

The opening toast for Christmas 2024 was offered by Joan Yoder Miller.

Welcome to Apple Farm on this shortest day and longest night of the year. It is Winter Solstice, it is “O Dayspring” in the O Antiphons of Advent and it is Christmas in the Round House.

For over 60 years, individuals have gathered here because of the story of one luminous night in a stable some 2000 years ago. And while Apple Farm Christmas takes place each year, there has never been a night exactly like this one with exactly these people in the Round House.

Helen Luke spoke of the contribution we each must make to any situation in which we find ourselves.

She said no group or gathering would be interesting unless we each brought our own interest to it. We must not simply demand that something (a group, a play, a job, or even a party) prove itself interesting to us.

So, let’s raise our glasses to one another here in this moment before this evening unfolds.

The Farm Christmas card this year has a lovely stained glass image created by Don Troyer. Many of us see an angel in the image. Board member John Stempien suggested the inside of the card might include the words, FEAR NOT.

Those words grew on me. Fear is so often paired with night, with darkness in which we simply cannot see.

I remember crying in the night in the non-electric home of my Amish grandparents because there were bears in my room--in the morning light it turned out the bears were actually dark coats hanging on hooks on the wall. How do we stop being afraid? Well, at one level or another, we leave more lights on.

The poet Shel Silverstein
wrote about that fearful dark:

The baby bat
Screamed out in fright,
"Turn on the dark,
I'm afraid of the light.”

I'm Reginald Clark, I'm afraid of the dark
So I always insist on the light on,
And my teddy to hug,
And my blanket to rub,
and my thumby to suck or to bite on.
And three bedtime stories,
Two trips to the toilet,
Two prayers, and five hugs from my mommy,
I'm Reginald Clark, I'm afraid of the dark
So please do not close this book on me. 

In seasons when life is hard, when depression looms, when loss is in our face, less daylight makes everything feel harder. And some of us simply need more light than winter brings. I know this is true. Please do not feel bullied by what I am about to say advocating for the Dark.

But here goes. We are everywhere trained to seek Light. You can’t see in the dark, remember? Yet creation stories and wisdom traditions teach us to seek out the Dark, not simply endure it. When we look into the Christmas story, we see that in the night sky, the shepherds were startled by the angels; that night was needed for the magi to follow the star to the birthplace of the child; that Joseph needed his nighttime dreams for guidance. And then there is the biblical Moses who found God in the thick darkness, and there is the darkness of the womb where each of us were formed.

The darkness has gifts of its own and not only as a poor substitute for light. The mystics and poets give it adjectives: dazzling darkness, radiant darkness, luminous darkness, inviting darkness.

In the light there is darkness, 
but don’t take it as darkness; 
In the dark there is light, 
but don’t see it as light. 
Light and dark oppose one another 
like the front and back foot in walking. 
--from  The Sandokai, 8th century Buddhist text

I will give you treasures of darkness
and riches hidden in secret places,
so that you may know that it is I, Maker of All,
who calls you by name.
-- Isaiah 45:3

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
--Wendell Berry

The Darkness has a right and a responsibility to exist on its own and not always simply something to get through on the way to Light. I’m sticking up for the Dark on this longest night. And yes. I like to see bits of light in the dark. But not too many. And not too bright.

To the Dark and to Apple Farm…

--Joan Yoder Miller, December 21, 2024

Apple Farm Board Chair Kathy Stiffney, toasting the Round House:

To you who has sheltered us these many years.
You are solid, inviting, full of the heart and mystery of many souls.
We respect you and love you and we want to take care of you.
As we work to make you perfect, please accept our work as healing care.
We promise to remember what is sacred history. We will work with you.
We will make you whole. To the place we gather. To our Round House.

We are delighted that Pam Bump was present this year. She commented that Helen and Jane and Else would be so happy to see this group gathered! Pam first learned of the Farm from Kay Heustis in 1970 as she returned home from her first year in graduate school at Columbia School of Social Work in New York. "Probably at Kay's request, Helen, Jane and Else invited me to tea at Apple Farm that summer. I was immediately drawn to the spirit of Apple Farm, and the feeling of the numinous present. There was a special kinship with Jane because she had been a teacher in Three Rivers, and I was studying to be a school social worker. In January of 1971 there was a job opening in Three Rivers for a school social worker, and I moved to Three Rivers, and joyfully joined the Apple Farm Community."

Pam wrote after the event: Thank you for your beautiful Solstice Celebration! It was a magical evening! Even walking to the Round House circled in light was luminous. You thought of every detail to make tonight unforgettable! From the exquisitely decorated candle lit tables, to the moving welcome ceremony, toasting each person, to the delicious food and vast array of festive beverages--everything was absolutely wonderful! Thank you for the readings from different traditions, and from "Where the Sidewalk Ends," the selections of poetry at our table, and Lloyd's delightful "Spirits" game! Listening to Carl playing music from The Nutcracker was a joy! Thank you all for nurturing my mind, body and spirit!
--Pam Bump

Blog entry by Pamela Dintaman December 2024

0 Comments

Christmas preparations at Apple Farm

12/22/2024

0 Comments

Creating and sending the annual Apple Farm Christmas card is a way of staying connected,
particularly with friends at a distance. If you're not receiving the Christmas card and would like to,
send your postal address to us at [email protected].

FEAR NOT
is the message we share this year, in this time
(as always) amidst the unknowns
in our lives and in the world.

When the angel
comes to you,
cease your chattering,
surrender your resolve,
and listen for
the mystery.

--poet Nancy Compton Williams

Photo: my Apple Farm card, with Don Troyer's stained glass, that I received this week in Tucson, with the Catalina Mountains in the background. (Pamela Dintaman)

Inspired to share your card from your location?
Send a photo to [email protected].

Blog entry by Pamela Dintaman December 2024

0 Comments

...it is in part by our response to the great stories of the world that we too can begin to find, each of us this individual story expressing the symbolic meaning behind the facts of our fate and behind the motives that determine the day-to-day choices of our lives. -Helen Luke, The Inner Story