Sonoma Flow Farm and the Experience of Flow

This photograph was taken a the foot of our property on Sunday October 24 2021, the day a record-breaking atmospheric river descended upon California's Bay Area.

That atmospheric river fell in tandem with a bombogenesis, or bomb cyclone and brought over eight inches of rain to our side of Sonoma Mountain. Like for much of our county and state, the rain that fell landed on drought stricken soil. For a while it felt like the strangest thing on earth.

But of course, it wasn't. Quite the opposite, in fact. It was the most natural thing that could happen. It was almost too easy to observe how - guided by gravity and the shape of the terrain - the water moved down certain channels of the landscape. With such mass and momentum behind them,

you could only admire the energy and direction of the various streams.

This exercise in observation was a good reminder of what it is that Caroline and I have been trying to do here since moving up from San Francisco in 2018: create flow in our lives.

Essentially, we wanted to see if we could learn new skills which would help us live in a more harmonious way with nature. This would hopefully make us more independent, self-sufficient, and give us a feeling of being true to ourselves.

And so, we renovated the old barn that was already here, and we began landscaping and planting. This has ultimately given us a place to live as well as making our environment more life enhancing trhough flora and fauna, and more productive through the harvesting of fruits and vegetables.

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