Casey O’Neill is a farmer and owner of Happy Day Farms in Laytonville, Calif. The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of The Mendocino Voice. If you’d like to write your own column for The Mendocino Voice, send your idea to info@mendovoice.com.
Joy is precious. Hooray for the performers, the musicians, the dancers, the jesters. Hooray for the dedicated efforts to teach the children, to take time to foster their sense of joy. Hooray for the smiles and for those cultivating beauty. Hooray for the artists, for the people pouring life force energy into making us think, reminding us of the infinite, miraculous beauty of life. Hooray for you!
We need joy. It is the antidote to sadness, to feelings of anomie and isolation. Joy is magic, alchemizing the human experience, the sum adding up to far more than its parts. Here’s to the people who create spaces for joy, working to foster spaces for community to revel and share in being human.
Last night was a rare double feature of Laytonville events, and I got to see Blue Luke and Indiana Slim jam out at Harwood Hall, celebrating the tenth anniversary of KPFN, the Puffin, Laytonville’s radio station. Then came artful burlesque at the Garden Club for the Phony Robbins N.A.S.T.Y seminar produced by Bubbles from Earlier. Big shoutout to everyone working to bring joy and art to share, to hold space for gathering and fellowship. Laughter is the antidote to struggle, and I laughed more last night than I have in a long time.
Life is what we make of it. It was not easy to get myself out the door and headed down the hill, breaking free from the tractor beam of bedtime, but I was glad I did when I saw the smiles of my friends. Joy is like the saying “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the single candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
I love living in mutual admiration of the people with whom I get to spend this lifetime. It feels good to look to each other, to look up to each other. We share the burdens of the work, and we reap the bounty of joy that comes with deep knowing. As economic times get harder, we hold each other up, reminding and being reminded of the joy that we share and the beauty in life, and that many hands make light work. Even when money is tight, we are better off when we spend our time together.
I’ve had some days lately when I wasn’t up to my best and highest self, being worn down and sharp and prickly. I found myself making withdrawals from the emotional bank accounts of my relationships. The thing about bank accounts is so long as I’ve made the deposits of emotional support and love, then occasional withdrawals work. It’s when I don’t take the time to share love, to build and foster my relationships that I am reminded of the emotional bank accounts, that emotional currency is the stuff of true humanity.
We each carry a candle through this life, encountering each other on the spectrum from “Look at my candle” to “Wow, your candle is beautiful.” I find the more that I remember to honor the efforts of others, the more that I give love and share in joy, the more that these feelings come back to me. It makes me happy to be in community, to share spaces and experience the fellowship of gathering.
One of my favorite things in the world is to talk farming with other farmers, leaning on the pickup during a chance meeting while running errands, or sitting around the woodstove at the feedstore. The conversations are wide-ranging, insightful and educational, yet they are also hilarious and joyful, and at the same time can be heavy and troubling. We share the burdens of life, the strategies for survival and the lessons of how to thrive. The older I get the more I understand the adage that “change is the only constant,” for as much as I might like, nothing ever stays the same.
We’ve been having conversations on the farm lately about the addiction of work, the ways that routine can calcify into immobility. I remind myself that the work should serve as a backstop for community life, not as an excuse to avoid it. Being in community takes effort, consistency, dedication, but the results are profound, a woven tapestry of shared life experiences that brightens my days and fulfills my soul.
The farm is shining with beauty, crops are orderly, well tended and consistent because of the support of community. Many hands make light work, and we are helped in so many ways that I feel deep gratitude for my place in the world and deep dedication to the work and to the human experience we are building together. As always, much love and great success to you on your journey!
Casey O’Neill owns and runs HappyDay Farms, a small vegetable and cannabis farm north of Laytonville. He is a long time cannabis policy advocate, and was born and raised in the Bell Springs area. The preceding has been an editorial column. The Mendocino Voice has not necessarily fact-checked or copyedited this work, and it should be interpreted as the words of the author, not necessarily reflecting the opinions of The Mendocino Voice.
What a dope
Projection
Well said! 🙏
Love Casey’s approach to life and love. He had to have clawed through some significant compost to get to a wizened perch where all things are just that, to see that he didn’t cause surrounding concerns, he is not in charge and cannot alter anything, only himself and his perch, and to love at every opportunity.