Here is the bakery from the outside. The wood is piled high in the foreground
to be sorted and dried (under the overhang) to fire up the oven twice per week.
They are beautifully re-building this barn, section by section.
Here is the bakery, in wood and cob, and the oven in stone, just beyond.
Here's where the oven meets the bakery.
Above the oven it reads, "I am the bread of life," to remind the
bakers who they serve. The words are written in Breton,
the native language of Bretagne, this formerly Celtic region.
Team Robert and Nico load the sourdough into the oven! They dance through
this routine together over and over, placing upwards of 40 loaves in the oven:
Puff of flour, dump the dough, pass off the basket, score the dough, open the
oven, slide in the dough, close the oven, puff of flour...
This video is for Avery. :)
On the other side of the barn, we see the mill peeking out. Inside the small
room, there are two large electric mills, often running, to grind organic flour from
wheat, rye, spelt, corn, rice, and buckwheat, which is sold at the local food coop.
L'Atelier
The Workshop
Another barn, just across the street from the bakery and mill, is also being
rebuilt from within, piece by piece. The first construction project was their
workshop. On one end of a long room, we find large and small looms,
treadle-powered sewing machines, and tools to card and spin wool.
The center of the atelier is a shoe shop and leatherworking space.
Finally, next to the shoe shop is a woodworking area, complete with just
about any handtool you can think of. In this photo, Robert teaches Nico and
Marion how to make wooden buttons, on Gandhi Day.
Le Jardin The Garden
David harvests spinach, épinard, in a greenhouse.
In the next greenhouse over, Elisabeth and Marion harvest mâche. Baby
potato plants, pommes de terre, are hiding under the white covering behind them.
Heika (a visitor from Germany) and Christiane
prepare leeks, poireaux, for market.
Benoit plants onion seeds, oignons.
Two non-gardeners make pancakes out of abundant batter.
Nos Amis Animaux!
Our Animal Friends!
We love to visit Dewal and Keeta, Joel's horses, and feed them grass or clover.
We had three days where temperatures were below freezing. On the
second day, Joel found a frozen lizard and offered that we could revive it in
a box in our house... :) We were delighted it thawed out alright and released
it back into the wild.
You can have up to 250 chickens without a permit in France.
Here are a handful of the Ark's 249 laying hens.
Here's the back end of the roost. Yanni loves to come here in the
mornings to watch freshly laid eggs roll out from behind the wall.
Two of the six cows. Currently, there is no milk production,
but soon enough a few new calves will be born...
D'autres Endroits Importants
Other Important Places
Here is one of my good friends.
We meet often throughout the week.
The temporary office space (phone and internet) is in the white trailer here.
In front, on the benches under the overhang, we meet for communal prayers.
In this winter photo, you can't tell that the foliage growing up the columns are
rose bushes. We look forward to seeing the plants grow and bloom each day. :)
Lanza del Vasto founded the Ark with a goal to live non-violently in every aspect of life. This vision was hugely influenced by his faith in Jesus and his stay at an ashram with Gandhi in India. Gandhi, who renamed Lanza "Shantidas" meaning "Servant of Peace", is considered the grandfather of the Ark.
Lanza did not go to India in search of "her famous spirituality"1, rather he had, in his own words, "converted and not without difficulty to [his] own religion [Christianity], and [he] had enough with meditating the scriptures and applying the commandments."1 He could tell World War II was on the horizon and desperately found himself searching for
[...]a doctrine of just peace, a peace without internal contridiction and that did not have the germ of it's own destruction, a peace that did not naturally engender war! [...]
A method for defending without offending, to stop evil without adding a new evil that redoubles it, to prevent other's injustices by some way other than committing more... A new way, a human way of resolving human conflicts.
Who practices and teaches that? Only one, Gandhi.
He, the Hindu, the pagan, the father of pariahs, the defendor of the oppressed, the liberator of his people and, in principle, of all people, is who contributes complement to the teaching of Christ on this point, because the gospel without non-violence is like salt that has lost it's flavor...2
Gandhi Day is on January 30, commemorating the day he was assassinated, and it's a reverent day of fasting here at the Ark. We met together in our nicest, whitest clothes at 9:30am for a half hour group meditation in the communal kitchen. Then in silence, we read books by or about Gandhi and mended clothes, to the clicking of two spinning wheels, transforming pillows of sheep's wool into skeins of yarn. Yanni and Moisés joined us for as much as possible, but came and went with Nico as their needs required.
Benoit (left) and Robert (right) spin wool on spinning wheels.
Elisabeth (center) teaches Nico, Moi, and Yan how to card wool.
David reads a book about Gandhi.
Every now and then, someone would read a quote,
from or about Gandhi, outloud to the pensive room.
Christiane, a trained calligrapher (or Kalligraph in Germany,
where she studied), works on the community's newsletter.
In the foreground, Robert spins wool on a spinning wheel.
In the background, the skills are being transmitted to
Marion, who is practicing with a drop spindle.
Moisés learns to spin with Robert.
At one o'clock, we broke the silence and made our way to the atelier (workshop) in a barn across the street. Two years ago, when we visited the Ark for a week, the long, beautiful room didn't yet exist. Elisabeth had given us a tour, and coming to the barn, she showed us the dusty corner where one day a space would be built to house looms, large and small, and equipment to process wool from raw material to yarn to finished products. The vision she shared is now a reality. The room holds all the tools necessary for three different trades: woodworking on one end, a cobbler's workspace in the middle, and weaving in the back. It's one of my favorite places to visit on the farm. Sometimes I step in and let the heavy door click shut behind me, just to listen to the stillness and marvel at all the potential that surrounds me. It's a peaceful and sacred-feeling space.
On Gandhi Day, we brought life to all the workspaces at once...
...Robert taught Nico and Marion how to make wooden buttons...
Robert marks where to drill the holes.
Marion sands a finished button.
...Benoit went back and forth between the woodworking and cobblering tools, fashioning poignées pour un tiroir (drawer handles)...
Benoit, surrounded by shoe molds of every size.
...Elisabeth taught a handful of us how to card wool with a large, swinging apparatus, punctured through with nails all bent in the same direction to pass the wool through as the fibers are aligned...
Heika pulls fluffs of wool from the black bag and
drops them into the space between the swing and base.
...then we learned how to replenish yarn on a shuttle for a loom, and finally, she taught us how to pass the shuttle back and forth across the loom, pushing the correct pedals with our feet to separate the rows of yarn in the proper order.
I got to try my hand at weaving! I even ran into a couple
problems that I felt quite pround to troubleshoot and
solve myself while Elisabeth was teaching someone else. :)
A guiding principle at the Ark is transmission of skills, the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next. At the Ark, Gandhi Day is celebrated by carving out one day in the busy schedule to take a break from regular work and share a taste of these traditional skills to those of us who have never experienced working with our hands in these ways.
1 del Vasto, L. (1982). El Arca tenia por Vela una Viña. (p. 13). Spain: Ediciones Sígueme, S.A. 2 del Vasto, L. (1982). El Arca tenia por Vela una Viña. (p. 16). Spain: Ediciones Sígueme, S.A.
I translated these quotes myself, with some liberal help from Google Translate and Nicolás Melas.
Moisés and Yanni help Elisabeth
ring the bell for morning prayers
9h30 - 10h > Morning prayers, following the daily readings of the Roman Catholic Lectionary
10h30ish > Rappel (literally "remember"): a bell rings to remind us to zoom out and actively enter into God's presence. We take a minute or two to be still and silent wherever we are when it rings.
11h30ish > Rappel
12h30 - 13h > Silent meditation in the common room
13h > Lunch and clean-up, in which everyone participates
14h30 > Communal work resumes
15h45 - 16h > Afternoon prayers following a schedule to pray from a Christian perspective alongside other seekers of God:
Monday - Hinduism
Tuesday - Islam
Wednesday - People who seek God without a named religion
Thursday - Buddhism, and religions of the east
Friday - Unity of the Christian church
16h30ish > Rappel
17h30ish > Rappel
18h > Communal work ends
Saturday
Morning: Farmer's Market in Audierne (one person runs l'Arche's stand, usually Benoit)
9h30 > Morning prayers alongside the Jews on Shabbat, in the format of the 15h45 weekday prayers (see above)
10h - 13h > Communal work
19h > Communal meal (One Saturday per month, dubbed "family weekend", there is no communal meal.)
Sunday
Morning: Catholic Mass, rotating between several churches. I hope to write a post soon about this, with photos of the churches & cathedrals we visit!
Afternoon & Evening: Family time
Additions to the Communal Schedule
Monday
Nico: Baking day
17h - 19h: On-site market selling bread and veggies
Pizza for dinner! Baked in the bread oven.
After dinner: Teaching and roundtable discussion with Benoit, mostly on the political, economic, non-violent, and religious philosophies and theologies of The Ark of Lonza del Vasto.
Tuesday
Before lunch: Well-being check-in and community logistics meeting
After lunch: We gather to practice singing stunningly beautiful songs from l'Arche's rich music culture, or songs for an upcoming festival.
Wednesday
Rachel Sarah: Garden day
After the work day ends: Corporal Movements with Elisabeth (yoga-like exercises and meditation, with each movement symbolizing the human being's relationship with God)
Thursday
Morning: Farmer's Market in Pont l'Abbé (one person runs l'Arche's stand, usually Elisabeth)
Building day - this day is very exciting! All hands are on deck for building projects and a lot is accomplished!
Friday
Nico: Baking day
No communal lunch: we follow the ancient Christian tradition to fast breakfast and lunch each Friday in rememberance of the crucifixion. Dinner is a simple meal of rice and lentils.
17h - 19h: On-site market selling bread and veggies
Moisés & Yanni Schedule
Our family's schedule has never been so regular and predictable. We have enjoyed how tight and reliable the community's rhythms are. The morning routine listed here is our goal, which is getting accomplished more and more often!
Monday through Saturday
5h > (Monday, Friday) Nico begins bakery work; (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday) Nico or Rachel Sarah leaves for personal time to read or write letters or update a blog! :)
6h15 - 7h15 > Boil two kettles of water (one for a bath and the other for tea and dishes), bathe Moisés and Yanni, work through morning chores, make breakfast
7h > Whoever left for personal time returns to join the fray
7h15 > Morning prayers, reading and discussing a few of the daily scriptures we'll hear later in French
7h45 > Breakfast
8h15 > Clean up breakfast and finish morning chores; Nico or Rachel Sarah gets ready to begin communal work at 8h30
On a morning walk down an old, old road.
8h45 > Go outside to walk in the woods or play until 9h30 prayers
Late morning > Homeschool activities or crafts and free play. We do our own Tiempo Quieto ("still time") during the community's 12h30 meditation and then join them for lunch.
Afternoon: Nap and free play, sometimes Moisés joins Papa for work between naptime and dinner
We made snowflakes to decorate our windows, but only because it's fun to
cut out snow flakes. It's actually very rare that there would be snow here.
Here's our advent calendar (some of you might recognize!) strung up over
homemade ornaments we dried in the bread oven. Because of the humidity
here the ornaments re-hydrated, which we only found out because a couple
of them stretched and fell off the line...!
A candle in our house is not something to take note of... unless the flame
has been brought by foot and train all the way from Bethlehem!
David (dah-VEED) put together a Christmas pagent for the
community and asked Nico and I to be Joseph and Mary.
But since our French isn't good enough to read and
memorize a handful of poetic lines, others read for us.
Cast and crew of the pagent - this group is about half the total number of people
present. Left to right: Nico, Me, Elisabeth, Katell, Marion (voice of Mary),
David (voice of Joseph), Hervé, Amos, Benoit
This is the common room and community kitchen where all our meals and many
of our gatherings happen. Yanni sat happily and quietly in Christiane's lap
during the performance! :) After the pagent, we enjoyed cookies and chocolates
and homemade brioche. Yes, Nico made it and now knows the recipe!
Family hike on Christmas morning in the woods behind our house!
Note: this is a forest in winter... not lacking any green!
This Christmas tune has been stuck in our heads ever since... it's catchy!
The bass line is "lum lum lum", but we were singing it before dessert, so
Benoit began singing, "yum yum yum", which was kept up for the entire song.
Sorry, I'm not really sure why it's so blurry.
I made a pumpkin pie for one of our Saturday night communal
dinners, and they asked if I could make another one as a main
course for the Christmas meal. As pumpkin pie is not a normal
thing to find in France, why not main course instead of dessert?
As you can see, it wasn't nearly as popular as the usual dishes.
From top to bottom: mushroom pie (90% gobbled), root veggie pie
(90% gobbled), pumpkin pie (90% present), leek pie (100% gobbled).
On New Year's Eve, we trodded over to a nearby field on the farm's property
to visit some newly born baby lambs! A shepherd who doesn't have land of
his own trades wool to l'Arche to use their fields as part of a rotation.
Two babies with the mama!
Nico and Moses try to herd the sheep to the pile of food we brought.
Flowers in winter!
Our New Year's Eve festivities got out of hand!
Christiane (left) was stacking these blocks a foot or so
high for Yanni to knock down, and when he moved on,
somehow a challenge arose and she and Paul (a visitor)
used every block to build a tower up to the ceiling.
Well, we've been in France more than a whole month now! We're getting a feel for life here and how to fit in.
When we arrived here we were worn out. With only one night's sleep in 48 hours of travel, we were running on pure adrenaline.
As the van pulled into the Ark, Christiane (chris-ti-AHN) and Robert (roe-BEAR), one of the founding couples of the Ark at Guenvez came over quickly to warmly welcome us. "The Americans are here!" Robert laughed, "You are a mystery to us. Everyone says, 'What's the news of the Americans this week?' They think you are a phantom, but now you are here!"
Elisabeth welcomed us into the middle apartment of a "triplex", the same apartment where we stayed 2 years ago when we visited for a week. There we found the two large rolly suitcases we had sent in August, full of all the winter items we thought we wouldn't need for a while. HA! We had no idea in August that we wouldn't meet up with the suitcases again until chilly mid-November.
Reading the community
schedule and rules!
The first two nights we went to bed at 8pm and woke up tired at 9:30am the next morning! We all took turns waking in the middle of the night for an hour or two, but even the kids just shuffled around and eventually went back to sleep. Our bodies were so confused!
We spent Friday through Sunday shifting our bodies' schedules and setting up our little nest. We moved furniture around and unpacked the bags we had mailed to find our favorite clothes again. We hung indoor laundry lines and cleaned out cob webs. Our house began to feel like a home!
And so, we find ourselves in the French countryside, eating food grown in gardens we can see from our window and cheese from cows we visit in the back pasture. We have easy access to three different types of long-fermented sourdough bread, baked fresh twice weekly in a beautiful stone oven where we can visit anytime to see what new process Nico is learning. Water flows to a tap in our apartment directly from the source: a spring on the farm.
A heavy dew falls at night and, through our large back windows, we watch each new morning unfold as the rising sun burns the dew off plants and dries the mist from the air. Our little apartment is super insulated and almost air-tight, with the added benefit of being "insulated" by other apartments on two sides. The aforementioned large south-facing windows give us the gift of free, natural solar heat that we dont have to work for. We have a wood heat stove, but even with nights down to the 40's F we haven't had to fire it up often.
Here's what we will do with any photos you send us! :)
Monday through Saturday, a bell rings at 9:30am and everyone stops what they're doing and meets on a porch behind the main barn. We sit on wooden benches and look out over a field as the sun rises over the tree line, or watch the rain fall in waves over the great expanse of the field. We sit in silence, read scripture, sing, and recite the liturgy together. On our first day joining this worshipful gathering, I didn't know what to expect. After a short silence allowing everyone to arrive and settle in, Benoit began singing, "Allelujah". The other voices joined in and shifted together between unison and harmony. The sights surrounding us and the sounds of their voices were all so beautiful! I found out later that the song was The Magnificat, and they gave me permission to record them singing!
Several members of the community singing the "Cantique de Marie",
which we sing every morning at the 9:30am prayers.
This is the view we have, on a (rare) sunny winter day!
Did I make it all sound pretty good? :)
Of course, there are some other realities to mix in. We don't have a bathroom or hot water in our apartment. (The composting outhouse is very close and well-taken-care of... it really doesn't stink! We use a mixture of bran and sawdust to hide the sights and smells of what lies within. A hot water heater is housed in the barn where the shower lives... whew!)
Sweet people!
One of our most difficult challenges is found in the long-standing community schedule. Monday through Thursday the community meal is at 1pm. At this time I would hope to be in the midst of our naptime routine! But, as I have a tendency to "hermit" away, I have really tried to push myself to figure out how we can fit into this rhythm. I feel like I have to fight the boys to sleep by 2:30pm and then fight them awake at 4pm so we can have a reasonable bedtime at 8pm. They easily and naturally sleep for around 2 hours, so I'd prefer to put them down by 1:30pm so they'd naturally wake up by 4pm without the fights. In addition, the "mother break" I've gotten used to is nearly cut in half! This all makes me very sad.
The sun's got a regular ol' desk job here: rising shortly after 9am and setting around 5pm. Neither Nico nor I have ever lived this far north of the Equator, and it's really different! We can go stargazing at 7am! We just passed the winer solstace, so beginning now, we'll eventually go from needing candlelight at our 8am breakfast to our alarms sounding well after the 4am sunrise, and from candlelit dinners at 6pm to the bedtime routine finishing long before the post-10pm sunset.
It rains a ton here, often while the sun is still shining. I think part of each day is dedicated to precipatation, so much so that Nico likened this climate to a rain forest. Humidity is often quite thick, and to prove it, one night I hung clothes on the line in our house. We had a hearty fire, which, per my previous six years of experience, I assumed would dry the clothes in a few hours. However, in the morning we awoke to still-damp, sour smelling clothing on the lines! Did I mention the house is nearly air-tight? New systems and understandings must be formed! Any suggestions, Johnstons? :)
Since we're surrounded by healthy gardens, we're also surrounded by healthy spiders. They manage to pop up anywhere, dead or alive, and seem to easily grow hand-sized. (Well, Moisés' hand.) My childhood training included developing a mix of fear and disgust of such helpful little creatures, which I've begun overcoming in the past several years when I lived in my basement on Madison Street and as I work in gardens.
The hand-sized fellows come in two categories: wispy house spiders and thick, chunky, muscly-looking ones that you're sure just want to jump on your face. Now, I don't want a house full of the wispy ones, but I can get over them pretty quick. It's the chunky ones that require some serous inner work. When I see one, we usually both groan that each other exist, then we look at each other straight in the eyes, all of our eyes, and attempt a friendly "hello".
I met eight-legged Sir Alaric in the outhouse our first day here. (If you know where his name comes from I will put a slice of raw, stinky cheese in an envelope and mail it to you.)* Every so often I glance at him when I enter the tiny space to remind myself that we're friends and he hunches low, threatening to gnaw off my ears. Now Frida, on the other hand, I didn't meet right away.
Frida lives in the shower, which I haven't yet confirmed, but I'm pretty sure they purchased off the movie set of one of the Saw films. Hand-sized wispy spiders line every corner where two walls meet, or where a wall touches the ceiling. Disclaimer for the community: The shower is not being kept up well at this point because it was always meant to be temporary. In the next few weeks they'll finish building a new, beautiful, red pine shower room that looks as if it's jumped out of a spa magazine.
Long about my third or fourth shower, I walked to the uninsulated barn while the morning was still dark. I noted how beautiful the frost sparkled on the grass in the light of my headlamp, then shivered as I realized I'd be showering in frost conditions. I entered the shower stall cringing, as usual, and Frida and I immediately caught a glimpse of each other and gasped, having to get over each other's existance. She acted as though she was not bothered by me for a little while as she pretended to repair her web, but she eventually grumbled her way to the wall behind the shower curtain.
"She's probably been here every time," I told myself, nonchalantly, "She doesn't want to hang out with me either. All my other showers have been just fine with her hiding there behind that curtain." I went on verbally encouraging myself until I realized that if anyone else was in the barn they could probably hear me talking to myself through the plywood and foamboard walls, and as I was still new here, I should probably quit.
So, I hope I've given good evidence that we're in a pretty even mixture of paradise and challanges. I would like to share one final story to give a joyful picture of the sweet community here.
On December 6th, we had a surprise special guest at lunch. Marion, one of the short-term folks here with a year-long commitment, appeared at the door to the community kitchen in a red suit with white trim, a bushy white beard, and a red bishop's miter. Looking like a cross between Santa and the pope, it was Saint Nicholas! I learned later that day that Santa Claus doesn't exist here as I know of him, and that Saint Nicholas comes on the 6th with little goodies for the children: simple sweets and an orange. Christmas day is reserved for family gift exchange without the additional gifts that have passed through the chimney.
Marion has had past acting experience and had the French-speakers rolling with laughter as she sifted through a large old book, looking for the names of the children in the community to give them each a witty message of encouragement and a light-hearted challenge, specific to each person. Saint Nicholas spoke in some kind of accented-French to each child, beginning with the oldest. My boys watched every other person get a comedic speech and a goody bag until their turn, and they were delighted to be included in the festivities. Yanni, the youngest and therefore the last one, didn't really know what was going on, but was squealling and bouncing with joy and anticipation until it was finally his turn, which filled all the rest of us with laughter and joy.
We know it is hard for our families (and Malakai and Philo Wettig) to not be able to see Yanni at this stage of life, but you can all be sure that he's being thoroughly enjoyed here, as a little squishy mascot should be. :)
_______________________________________________
Here's our house layout. Click on the photo to see it larger.
Looking down from our loft bed towards Moisés' bed and the play area.
Breakfast! Looking toward the kitchen.
I'm accidently in this photo! :)
Our loft with Yanni's crib and shelving underneath,
and Moisés' bed to the side.
Here's our front door. The small window to the left of the door
is our kitchen. The other windows look into the two other apartments.
Here's the door to the community kitchen with three bedrooms off of it.
The path to the right takes you to our front door.
Looking away from the apartments, you see the composting toilet and the
barn which houses the washing machine and a refrigerator for leftovers.
Here's the south-side of the apartment building,
with nice large windows to soak in the sun!
Brussel sprouts, or choux de Bruxelles,
are very popular at the farmer's market.
French people love leeks, or poireaux... we had leek pie for Christmas!
And I think I'll get the recipe, it was delicious! Ha!
We visited some friends of the Ark who have children about
Moisés' and Yanni's ages. They have a fancy modern house.
This net hangs over the kitchen.
Joel is travelling around France in a tiny house built on a wagon,
pulled by two horses. He's overwintering at the Ark.
Moisés and Nico are invited to ride or drive the horses on Saturday afternoons!
