We glimpsed Rosetta’s beginnings in Indiana, her early move to and marriage in Los Angeles, her family’s move to Hawaii and her own world travels while a career employee with the airlines. Perhaps the most enticing pictures of all were those of Rosetta we were told she sent to her husband when he was in the service.

Many of us take time to visit and check in with Rosetta, who still walks to the Tuesday morning Coffee & Trade Hour at the Village Center from her home in the Forest Garden neighborhood (in good weather). Usually Geni carries groceries home for Rosetta so she’s free to wield her cane as needed. We give thanks for the gift of Rosetta’s graceful carrying of her elder years.

 Rosetta as a young woman in California.

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I didn’t come looking for a new home. Yet suddenly last summer, I discovered that Earthaven had found me. My first visit was the summer before, and my purpose was to spend time with my beloved and esteemed Tantra teacher, Rudy Ballentine. I wanted to dig deeper into the joys and mysteries of a Tantric life-stream.

Another kind of digging showed up that surprised and pleased me. We spent two weeks literally digging in the earth! We were digging out root systems of bushes and saplings that interfere with tilling the garden terraces. It was challenging, sometimes backbreaking, and exhausting.

When I was a redneck sharecropper kid in Alabama doing work similar to this, I was “hatin’ life”—pursuing every daydream and fantasy to get me away from all this. Why, here in my mid-seventies, doing similar kinds of manual labor, was I so in love with life?

Some really important lessons are seeping into my soul, as this land makes its imprint on me, and as I come to love and be loved by this community. I am pleased to discover that even as an elder there’s still some good, hard work left in me. And I am pleased that many of the gifts and resources I have accumulated are valuable in this community. I love the exchange of energy among us—from the youngest child to the most mature elder.

So I didn’t leave San Francisco. I love that city and all my connections there. Rather, I came to Earthaven, where I have been “found” by place and a community that captivated and took me in. Last summer, on a hot afternoon as I worked out on a terrace, a beautiful brown hawk swooped down and landed not ten feet away, did a little dance and swished away. Looking down in a swale, I spotted a copperhead lazing under a plank. It was a moment when earth, sky, creatures of all species were saying “Welcome Home!”

Norm Self retired from the ordained ministry of the United Methodist Church in 1998. He came to Earthaven from in May 2010 intending to spend the summer, and has been a Provisional Member since May 2011.

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