HOPE FOR THE FLOWERS EVENTS: GRAILVILLE Meditation Retreat BeginsDecember 27   This year's New Year Retreat will be conducted in the Vipassana tradition by Ann Douglas. She is a psychologist and an artist whose meditation background includes Zen, Advaita and Dzogchen tradition. The weekend retreat will begin Saturday, December 27, at 6:30 p.m. and run through Monday, December 29, at 1:30 p.m. The week-long retreat will be held through Saturday, January 3, at 1:30 p.m.  Anna returns to Grailville for the third time. GARDEN NEEDS VOLUNTEERS (Opportunity for folks near enough to commute)   This past summer a wide variety of volunteers helped tend our garden.  Early in the season there were students from the Master Gardener course, taught in Northern Kentucky and at the Civic Garden Center who came to fulfill some of their class requirements and have remained faithful ever since.  The Saturday morning garden volunteer events have been well attended, with a man celebrating a birthday by planting potatoes with his family, to the parents of Community Supported Agriculture members who run their own CSA, to former garden interns.  Volunteers did most of the big spring planting projects, planting potatoes and sweet potatoes and transplanting tomatoes, and, who, year after year, help plant, mulch, harvest and clean our garlic crop.  Workshop participants studying Deep Ecology planted beets for us, and one woman had been back to help out since then.  A teacher at Cincinnati State brings her class out for compost tours and offers them extra credit for volunteering here. Different people come at different times of the day and week as well.  A mother with a new baby in the CSA comes when the little one is awake and cheerful to spend an hour or two helping out.  Another CSA member who freelances comes most weeks to give a hand one morning.  Other people have come after work to join us from 7 to 9 pm. Volunteers are especially appreciated in the gardens during those in-between seasons, early spring and late fall, when there is so much work still to do, but fewer hands to help.  There are great greenhouse projects then, and heavier soil preparation  work for those who enjoy using a shovel in the crisp air.  Volunteers bring such an enthusiasm to the gardens, that the gardeners would like to say, "Thank you, we can't do what we do without your help.  You can take pride in the lovely gardens and abundant harvests here, too!" For more information, contact volunteer coordinator Bobby Trombly at 683-2340 or the gardeners at 677-3241. INTERNS WANTED FOR GRAILVILLE GARDEN (This is a live-in position position for a woman.)   The garden staff are looking for student interns and "sabbatical" interns for this fall and next season, starting in February.  There are opportunities for women in transition to work and live here from February through November, for a period of three to nine months.  It is a great chance to see the garden process during all the seasons, from starting seedlings in the spring, to preparing the soil for the next season and planting the greenhouse for the winter.  Write Mary Lu Lageman or Susan Rench at Grailville if you want more information. (This is a trial run for the calendar and for all these pages - OUR VERY FIRST posting. World Wide Permaculture Courses and MORE Grail programs.  Stay tuned!)

The Grail “hope for the flowers” Web site Copyright © 1997 Trina Paulus  based on book "Hope For the Flowers" © 1972,  audio production  P  1997.