Cliick here for a copy of the June 2008 Newsletter: stockade-06-2008

If that does not work, then right click (on a pc) and choose SAVE AS to save it to your computer and then you can read the 16 page newsletter at your leisure.

I know, I know. What does this have to do with water? Well, there is the green roof on top of St. Simon Stock, so I got to thinking of a beautiful note we received after the roof started to become a reality:

Congratulations on seeing all your years of work come to fruition in the sliver of native plantings and soil on the skyline. . . . . I did a bit of research on Saint Simon Stock. I was struck by some lovely poetic-ecological significances in the bit of restoration ecology you have initiated on the convent, and thought I’d share.

Simon was born in Kent,;England in the early 13th century. When he was twelve years old went to live as a hermit in the hollow trunk of a tree - hence the “stock.” After twenty years of prayer in the trunk of that tree, he joined up with an order of monks theretofore unknown in England. Monks of the Order of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.had returned from the Holy Land with the knights of the Crusades. Carmel lies between Galilee and Samaria, and is derived from the Hebrew Karmel, meaning “orchard,” “garden,” or “vine of God.” In the 12th Century, monks took up residence in dedicating their lives to the Virgin Mary. The Virgin, as Chyrysippus of Jeruslam wrote in the 5th century, was regarded as a “cloud of rain that offers drink to the soul….” St. Simon spent the rest of his life establishing Carmelite monasteries around Europe, venerating their blessed “little cloud of rain.”

I can’t help but think that, no matter one’s religious persuasion, there’s some good karma in restoring a bit of earth to Saint Simon’s roof (probably one that’s a bit more watertight than the hollow tree). And let’s hope that the good will and metaphor extend enough to allow a few little clouds of rain to find the roof this fall and give those goldenrod and horse-mint a drink before the winter months.

Forgive a young poet his musings on your roof meadow - I can’t wait to chat further about the good pragmatism of capillaries and stormwater runoff computer models.