On a crisp autumn Saturday morning, we held the 2025 Autumn Equinox Festival at Second Nature Farm. This year, the plants grew faster than usual. The ulu (breadfruit), which typically begins bearing fruit around August, had already started swelling in the spring. We’d just finished the first harvest, yet many fruits were still ripe for picking. Additionally, the popular fruits such as apple bananas, avocados, and papayas seemed to ripen just for this day, allowing all participants to celebrate the farm’s autumn harvest together.
This was the third Autumn Equinox Festival since our farm adopted a membership system. With new members joining, we demonstrated the ulu-cutting technique for the first time in a while. We introduced simple, delicious ulu dishes, such as freshly fried ulu chips and an Indian-style curry featuring ulu and chickpeas. Furthermore, dishes and beverages brought by participants who wanted to share with others adorned the tables inside the pavilion. People were having a delicious and happy time.
One reason our farm hosts these seasonal events is that Gary and Takae wish to let people, who usually rush through their hectic days amidst high-rise buildings, take the time to savor the natural seasonal changes. During Gary’s guided brief walk around the farm, each participant enjoyed their own discoveries: some listened intently to birdsong and the babbling brook, others marveled at the growth of trees planted at the start of the year, and still others were drawn to the tropical flowers, colored a shocking pink only in this season.
Another exciting part of the day was the reunion of old “Gaia friends” who have been too busy with their work to talk with each other. 20 years ago, we held the first screening in Hawaii of the documentary film “Gaia Symphony” (directed by Hitoshi Tatsumura) based on the “Gaia Theory” of Dr. J. E. Lovelock, a British scientist who believes that the earth itself is a large organism and humans are just one species living in it. The film was based on Dr. J. E. Lovelock’s ” Gaia Theory,” which states that “the Earth itself is a large living organism, and humans are just one of the species that live on it. The more they learned about global environmental changes, starting with Hawaii’s garbage problem, the more they felt a strong sense of crisis that if people themselves did not change, the current situation would become very serious.
One person, as the first Japanese crew member aboard the Hōkūleʻa, has undertaken Pacific voyages while working to preserve the marine environment. A person who tirelessly traveled across Japan and Hawaii countless times to build systems to encourage Japanese tourists to cherish Hawaii’s nature, and another who patiently advocated environmental protection to numerous corporate clients. These individuals, who had spent twenty years running through life at breakneck speed, reunited at Second Nature Farm on this day, as if drawn together by a shared spirit, each having reached a pause in their respective work. Absorbing the power of the great outdoors, they passionately discussed, “Let’s make a difference in doing something together again.”
Watching that scene with admiration, Gary and Takae reaffirmed their conviction: the fusion of souls that revere the Earth as a great living organism makes this farm special and will ensure its legacy endures for future generations.
