Gallery: A Synagogue Farm in the Suburbs

chickens and plantings at synagogue farm

Congregation Sons of Israel in Briarcliff Manor, New York, founded the CSI Community Organic Farm on 1.5 acres at the back of the synagogue’s property. The farm offers communal gardening, a farmer’s market, and donations to the needy. Chickens are raised and their eggs are sold at the farmer’s market. The farm promotes Jewish traditions and values in areas such as ecology, agriculture, nutrition, wellness, spiritual connection, social and environmental justice. Check back for more photos as they grow!

Please share in the comments if you know of a synagogue farm or communal garden.  (Return to the Gateway of Gardens.)

 

Winged Insects as Soul Symbols

Winged Insects as Soul Symbols

Monarch Butterfly release at Rockefeller State Park Preserve, JHD

 

Recently I got to see a “butterfly release” in the park. A woman and her daughter who grow a butterfly friendly garden, had raised Monarchs and were releasing them into their native habitat. From there, the butterflies would live for two weeks, but the third generation would live for eight months and migrate from New York’s Hudson River to a mountain top in Mexico that they had never seen or known. (more…)

Sharing Circle: Water From Underground

Sharing Circle: Water From Underground

Filling Your Well

Some of the ways I fill my well are: Torah study, prayer, meditation, time in nature, exercise, talking to loved ones, going on retreats. For some people it may be gardening, art (doing or appreciating), poetry, literature.

Right now, are you overflowing, or feeling dried up? What are your sources of inspiration? How do you refill your inner wellspring? Do you dip in regularly? (more…)

Sharing Circle: Wind and Spirit

Sharing Circle: Wind and Spirit

Sharing the Spirit

Join the virtual Sharing Circle and comment here to share your experiences with wind, spirit, scent, or any of the other themes in this Gateway.

A few questions to get you started: (more…)

Sharing Circle: Mountains

Sharing Circle: Mountains

Peak Experiences

Have you had an experience of trial, vision, spirituality or exaltation in a mountain environment?

Have you had a “peak” experiences (at any altitude)? What was it like?

Do you have any practice or do anything to nurture peak experiences? If you have one, how do you bring it “down the mountain” into your everyday life?

(more…)