Back To The Land

I can still picture those six magnificent Rhode Island Reds, raised in my youth from hatchlings in the yard of the semi-rural home on the edge of suburbia – how those hens would lay blue eggs on account of eating too much fruit from the nearby mulberry bush. Such a contented clutch they were, sired by that one leghorn rooster. There they were, always scratching and pecking the ground while strutting about in that familiar fuddy-duddy way.

I can also see the bloody aftermath when a loose dog broke into their pen and summarily terminated that entire clucking/crowing community of seven. Life on the Serengeti.

That childhood memory came back in a flash after reading the focus piece by a one-time Brooklyn urbanite who followed her dream about going back to the land (Dreaming About Going Back To The Land? I did It). Her account opens the window to a world largely lost to those (of us) whose only contact with a farm is perhaps that annual visit to the pumpkin patch.

The author plants a flag in the age-old place where death and sex and birth are potent forces that don’t go away just because we believe we’re too modern for those things now. Don’t look away. The term for it is dissociation – how we may remain purposely blind in the supermarket to what that leg of lamb in the cellophane packaging was once attached to or the messy process by which it was detached and turned into groceries.

We may be joined in our discussion by some who have had an up-close-and-personal experience with the animal world as they share what it means to be grounded, truly connected. Animals, we learn, are usually perfectly themselves, not the elaborate psychological mysteries that people seem to become.

There’s no gender confusion in the barnyard.

Please note the following RSVP Policy for Member Monday: RSVP sign-up opens up at 11:00am on Fridays via the City Club weekly Newsletter. Seats are first-come, first-served: the first 14 secure a spot at the table, the last 3 on the couch. Cancellations must be made 24 hours in advance or the standard Social Lunch rate applies.