On this episode of Spirit of Leadership with Megan Chaskey, we dive into the interconnectedness through the worlds of soil and spirit and the magic that can be found in these connections between people, plants and place. Our guest, Scott Chaskey, farmer/poet, speaker and author, discusses his latest book, Soil and Spirit, based on his travels and encounters inspired by his exploration of the unseen below ground and in the spirit of perception and ways of perceiving. We also hear about the origins of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) movement and how it gained traction in China. The author shares how poetry and mentors have influenced his life and leadership roles. 

Scott Chaskey is a lifelong writer who has built the spirit of community and tilled the soil at Quail Hill Farm for 30 years for the Peconic Land Trust. With a desire to have more time for writing, he decided to “graduate” from the farm and focus on his passion. This led to the creation of Soil and Spirit, a series of interconnected essays, inspired by an epigraph from John Hay that appeared in his previous book, Seedtime: "To what useful end could I use my eyes without acknowledging that they are only one of the earth's inexhaustible ways of seeing?"

Join us for this episode woven with hope, magical connections and the importance of caring for the community.

UPCOMING READINGS BY SCOTT CHASKEY FROM HIS BOOK SOIL & SPRIT:

TRANSCRIPT

Megan Chaskey [00:00:55]:

Welcome to this episode of Spirit of Leadership, and I am so happy to be speaking with you, Scott, and celebrating the publication of your new book, Soil and Spirit, and I look forward to your sharing with our audience some of the things that led up to your writing this book and in the process of writing this book the aspects that relate to leadership and your leadership in the CSA movement and the influences of those who've inspired you in the writing of this book.

Scott Chaskey [00:01:48]:

Thank you. I'm excited about talking about it.

Megan Chaskey [00:01:52]:

So tell us a little bit more about the conception of the book and how it evolved as you were writing it.

Scott Chaskey [00:02:03]:

Yeah, so I've always been writing. It's a lifelong affair for me, but I wanted to have more time to write. And so the timing just seemed to be right to graduate (your words) from Quail Hill Farm, where I pursued community through soil, tilling the soil, and through building community through the members of the farm for 30 years for the Peconic Land Trust. But I wanted to have more time to write. So that led to this book. Actually, the seeds of it came from the book that I wrote before, which was called Seed time. And there was a particular epigraph that I used in the end of that book and feel that that was the beginning of this book. So Seed time ended with this epigraph from the wonderful writer John Hay. "To what useful end could I use my eyes without acknowledging that they are only one of the earth's inexhaustible ways of seeing?" And so that was really the end of Seed time, but the beginning of Soil and Spirit. And I guess I like S's because the titles all have S's. But I conceived of the book quite differently because it's really a series of interconnected essays and I planned on traveling quite a bit. Various chapters were going to be built on my travels, but along came COVID and so there was no more traveling. So the book turns out to be quite different than the way I'd planned it and the proposal that I submitted originally to Milkweed, the publisher. But maybe it's a better book because of that.

Megan Chaskey [00:03:56]:

In what ways would you say that?

Scott Chaskey [00:03:59]:

I was interviewed not long ago. Someone said it was a journey inward and it had to be because I wasn't traveling outward. But at the same time, instead of actual traveling, I went back to travels that I had taken many, many years ago. And it was fascinating to realize that, because I never thought I would write about some of these subjects that turn up in this book in a way that is not separate at all from the original conception of the book, but is totally interwoven. So that actually I've now given a few readings from the books, and I feel it's so interconnected. So I sort of joked when I gave a reading and said that, "well, I really have to read you the whole book." But of course that would take 3 or 4 hours. That's not going to happen.

Megan Chaskey [00:04:54]:

Well, it is going to happen because we're going to make an audio version. Everyone will enjoy hearing the full book. Beautiful voice.

Scott Chaskey [00:05:07]:

Okay. It will happen.

Megan Chaskey [00:05:09]:

Yes, it will happen. So what's interesting is that I had that sense in reading one of your chapters that it was very important to actually go back and read it again right away because of how everything is interconnected. And you'll say a phrase or quote a phrase from somewhere and then take us on a whole series of connections that bring us back to that phrase, that brings more depth of meaning to it by having made that little internal journey in that one chapter. So the same thing is going on in the book. And do you feel that there are certain stories that carry that thread through the book?

Scott Chaskey [00:06:09]:

Yeah, I'm actually really glad that you mentioned just the word "story", because at the beginning of writing this book, I wrote notes to myself over and over again that what I was doing was telling stories. And I suppose a writer does that in one way or another, but more directly, it can be heard more directly by the reader. And so therefore, I really focused on a narrative within each chapter and the chapter that you're talking about, which has to do with a trip across Ireland, which I actually took 50 years ago, but which has been with me for 50 years. And it has to do with riding an old bicycle across Ireland and discovering a branch of white heather among all the purple heather, placing that on my bicycle. And that's a symbol of good fortune and luck in Irish lore. And it was that for me because it led me to a village called Kilkenny, where Seamus Heaney was appearing at an arts festival. And I had no idea that I would be meeting Seamus Heaney, despite the fact that we exchanged letters. And there's a whole story, a longer story to that. But that's part of the interconnection that you're talking about, it's very strong in that particular chapter because it was magical traveling across Ireland.

Megan Chaskey [00:07:41]:

Yes. And the magical part of that is because it has to do with a plant, it has to do with that white heather. And then you bring that attention to plants, their names, their characteristics to that particular moment. And then also tell us the story about what you found in the attic.

Scott Chaskey [00:08:10]:

What I found in the attic?

Megan Chaskey [00:08:12]:

While you were writing that - the letter.

Scott Chaskey [00:08:15]:

Was it the letter from Seamus Heaney?

Megan Chaskey [00:08:18]:

Yes.

Scott Chaskey [00:08:19]:

Yeah. Otherwise, probably that chapter would not exist. So I wrote a letter at the urging of a teacher, Robert Morgan, a wonderful poet, who, when he read my poems, he was a professor at Cornell, and he said, "Have you read Seamus Heaney?" And this was before many people had heard of Seamus Heaney, long before he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which I'm so happy that he won. So well deserved. So I wrote him a letter, and believe it or not, that letter still existed. And I had no idea. I mean, having traveled back and forth across the ocean a number of times and lived in England for ten years, and somehow, in a box, in a random box, this letter that Seamus Heaney wrote back to me in let's call it 1976 still existed in his red pen, and he was teaching at Berkeley at the time. And he wrote back, and the origin of the letter really was because we had come upon the same words, we had written the same line. And I wrote to him in amazement as a young poet, and he wrote back, saying how he loved the language of the poem, which I'm still up in a cloud about.

Megan Chaskey [00:09:42]:

"Both our weights."

Scott Chaskey [00:09:44]:

Yeah, "in both our weights", yes.

Megan Chaskey [00:09:48]:

Beautiful line. So that was amazing, too, that you wrote him that letter and then sent it to his address in Ireland.

Scott Chaskey [00:10:02]:

In Ireland, teaching in California. He sent the letter to me in my dwelling in Massachusetts, but meanwhile, I had enrolled in a program in Ireland, and the letter was forwarded to me in Ireland while he was in California. Yeah, it was an amazing story.

Megan Chaskey [00:10:21]:

Amazing.

Scott Chaskey [00:10:22]:

And it continued, and I suppose that's why I had to write about it, because of actually meeting him there, in Kilkenny in this Art s Week. Yeah, it was an amazing, magical happening.

Megan Chaskey [00:10:35]:

And then you found that letter in the attic while you were writing the book.

Scott Chaskey [00:10:39]:

Right.

Megan Chaskey [00:10:40]:

So there's definitely a lot of magic, that story.

Scott Chaskey [00:10:45]:

Yeah, well, that's the spirit, I guess. So the book is called Soil and Spirit, and there's the spirit part of it. The soil is obviously what I've sifted through my hands and what I've used with shovel and fork and by tractor with tiller and all that for 40 years. So the soil is very obvious. The spirit is unseen, as it should be.

Megan Chaskey [00:11:11]:

And in relation to the spirit of leadership, how do you feel about this connection with Seamus Heaney as a poet and that connection with the land?

Scott Chaskey [00:11:31]:

So, actually, the first poem in Seamus Heaney's first book is called Digging. So there you go. There you've got it. He grew up in a farm, and there you've got that connection. But there are so many other connections in the book, because I go back and speak about the great Northumbrian poet Basil Bunting, who was my teacher at the University in Binghamton. And I never guessed that I'd be able to actually fit a chapter about Bunting into a book, but it fit into this book. So on the spirit of leadership, these were the influences on my life, the very foundational influences on my life, these very strong friendships and mentorships that led to, that influenced me being in a role of a leader later. And I didn't intend to write about this specifically, but it's there. It's in the book.

Megan Chaskey [00:12:31]:

Yeah. Beautiful. And also in each of the stories, because it's about your travels, you also are relating them to people who in those places are leaders, innovative leaders and visionaries, for example, in the chapter about China.

Scott Chaskey [00:12:56]:

Right. Yeah. Each one is a story in itself. But that trip to China was fantastic. And that all came about eventually because of this wonderful woman, Shi-yan, who actually started the Community Supported Agriculture movement in China, coming to work on a CSA farm in the States and then realizing, she said, "why don't we have this in China?" So she did something about it, she went back, started, and by the time that I reached China for this international gathering of CSA farmers and advocates from all over the globe, from 40 different countries, all practicing Community Supported Agriculture, there were now 500 CSAs in China five years after she brought the idea back from this country. Quite phenomenal, because the idea of CSA, well, there's a seed of it in Japan that started in the early sevent ies, and then there was a seed of this community movement in Switzerland in the early eight ies, and that was brought to the United States and now brought to China. Amazing story. And so I had to write about something to do with that. And so there's the chapter in China.

Megan Chaskey [00:14:22]:

Right. And so inspiring her story. And she was also very inspired by you.

Scott Chaskey [00:14:31]:

Well, I hope it was mutual.

Megan Chaskey [00:14:34]:

Yes. Well, I think it mattered a lot to her that you came and saw her in China and saw what was being created there.

Scott Chaskey [00:14:45]:

Yeah, we were all there because of community. And nothing could be stronger than the community of all those people speaking all different languages, practicing the same, really the same, thing traveling there. My first thought was what in the world is Community Supported Agriculture like in China of all places? But in fact it's not so different because it has to do with the community of soil, the biology of the soil, and the community of people looking for nutritious food.

Megan Chaskey [00:15:25]:

Yeah, that's a very beautiful chapter. And give us a sense of what it feels like now that you've completed the book and what it's like for you to have brought these stories into this format.

Scott Chaskey [00:15:49]:

Well, for me it's really about reaching people. It's not obviously my single story. I actually felt that after all these years of working, digging in the soil locally and working to build community locally, that by writing, I can actually reach many more people. And that's what I hope for this book. Already it seems to have wings, good wings. It's taking off. And that's ultimately what it has to do, not so much with a message, but with a sharing, a basic reality which is often lacking in our modern existence. And reality has to do with tending soil, caring for place, caring for community of people. And everyone who reads about that can share in the importance of it. So, yeah, I just hope it reaches many people.

Megan Chaskey [00:16:54]:

It already, as you said, is reaching people. And we have some readings coming up, and we will put the schedule in the show notes. So I look forward to hearing from people who get to hear you read in person. And it's a beautiful thing that you're doing, bringing your voice of hope. And I know a lot of people have mentioned that, that it's a seed of hope that is really touching people's hearts as they read your stories, because people need that sense of what's being cultivated and that it's cultivating hope. So thank you for the work you're doing.

Scott Chaskey [00:17:46]:

Thank you for reading and listening and asking questions.

Megan Chaskey [00:17:52]:

And we'll be back, we'll do another episode. So thank you.

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