March 1st, 2024. It has been one year since we moved to our current house and started RyoMimiFarm. In the first blog I wrote last year, I talked about my desire to quiet the noise, make the most of my slow life, and turn my ears to that which has no sound. At the time, I was imagining what I might learn from facing the natural world and the God who created it. In other words, I was thinking of the sky, soil, insects, animals, seedlings, weeds, vegetables, grains, neighbors, myself, and God. As a matter of fact, I did have many learnings and realizations through these things. However, a certain incident turned my attention completely away from the outside world and to the world inside of me. In July, my period didn’t come. From then on, I became extremely sensitive to that which I hadn’t even considered before, the soundless voice of my own body.

Having a child was something I desired and had been praying for, but I realized that it was still surprising when it actually happened. Could it be?! I wondered, but decided to wait and see. Maybe my period was just late, or there was some other cause. But my body continued to send me wordless signs. (Some of them my husband caught even before I did). Finally, we couldn’t take the wait any longer and got ourselves to a drugstore where I bought a pregnancy test for the first time in my life. Whem I took the test at home, the only sound was the sound of me peeing, no ringing bells or congratulatory words, just the quiet appearance of one line indicating “positive.” It seemed I really was pregnant. In some ways, I was relieved, since by then I was starting to worry, what if I’m not pregnant? My husband, by the way, danced for joy when he heard the result.

After that, my body let me know that I was pregnant in many ways. Sleepiness. Nausea. Tiredness. Back pain. Indigestion. Weird eating habits. Lethargy. For over two painful months, I didn’t have an appetite, was sensitive to smells, and would throw up multiple times a day. I had said I wanted to have a break from a life controlled by busyness. Well, I wound up experiencing a pace of life that was far slower than what I had imagined. When I was working on the farm, I had a chance to go outside every day, interact with nature, and move my body. I felt a sense of purpose and fulfillment. However, when I got morning sickness, I lived between my bed, the sofa, and the toilet and rarely went outside. I couldn’t do housework or cook, and was either sleeping, watching something, reading novels, or just staring off into space. As someone who had worked full time and supported myself since I was twenty-two years old, this way of spending time was unthinkable. Especially when I saw my husband, finishing all of the farm work and then doing all of the housework and cooking as well, in contrast to me just laying around, I felt useless and apologetic.

Yet, despite these feelings, I told myself in my head, it’s not as though you aren’t working. Your body is working really hard right now. It is in the process of forming a new life. If you push yourself too hard, you will deter that work, and if things go badly that life could disappear. That’s how big a job has been entrusted to you. Unfortunately, even when we know something in our heads, humans are stupid and want to feel that they are actively contributing something. We don’t want to be told, “Your most important job is to sit still and do nothing.” It’s difficult to believe that significant work is taking place without our awareness, in places our eyes cannot reach and our ears hear no sound. Our lack of faith makes us want to see and hear and know for ourselves that we are working hard doing something. The first time I went for a check-up and saw the little heart moving on the ultrasound screen and heard the heartbeat, it finally registered to me that there was actually a baby inside of me. I recieved confirmation that the pain of my body and my immobile state were not meaningless.

However, with a month between appointments, my doubts would return. Is it really there? Is it still alive? Is it growing like it should be? I learned that being pregnant meant believing in something you can neither see nor hear, and waiting. But, as you wait, changes occurr and your body quietly speaks to you. The nausea becomes less and you start to put on weight. Your belly begins to grow bigger and something begins to move inside of you. Now that I am in my final month, my belly is so big it looks like I have a beach ball inside it and I feel the baby moving all day long. Even without seeing an ultrasound or hearing a heartbeat, I know without a doubt that something is there. Yet, even then, there is no guarantee that the baby will grow to the end without any problems and be safely born. Here too, I need to wait and believe.

Thinking about such things over the past nine months, I realized that being pregnant has a lot of similarities to organic farming. It‘s not as though seeds germinate as soon as you plant them. In fact, you don’t know for sure whether they will even germinate at all. Even when a seed sprouts, it still has a long process of growth ahead of it. And even if it gets bigger you don’t know until the time comes whether it will bear fruit and even if it bears fruit, whether or not you will be able to harvest it. Just because you give water and fertilizer, apply mulch, and do weeding, doesn’t mean your plants will definitely thrive. Vegetables are influeneced by many factors – weather and temperature, disease and insects, soil and weeds – and there is a limit to what humans can control. We do our best, and then all we can do is pray and wait. Beyond our own efforts, something is happening within the soil where our eyes do not reach and our ears hear no sound. When the time comes, fruit will ripen and the day of harvest will surely come. Farmers work, beliving that to be true.

In the same way, I too believe that beyond my own effort, life is growing within my belly - where my eyes do not reach and my ears hear no sound. I am praying that this child will be born safely, and I am waiting in hope for the new life that will come into the world.