Taro Harvest Festival at a Natural Farm in Hawaii.

Did you see the full moon tonight?

What a big and beautiful moon it was just above the horizon!

I stopped the car and fell in love with it with a sigh while driving home.

The full moon in October, called “Hunter’s Moon,” is the moon that represents the midst of harvest season—autumn, following the last month’s full moon, “Harvest Moon.”

Speaking of harvesting, our agroforestry farm, “Second Nature Farm,” held the “Autumn Taro (Kalo) Harvest Day” yesterday. Our friends and children who planted roots in the spring in a muddy taro patch (paddy field) in the forest dug up the crops from the mud this time.

After getting muddy and sweating, everyone ate a tasty lunch made from the crops of the earth grown with the traditional natural farming method, not plowing profusely, using no extra fertilizer and no pesticides. We also enjoyed a splitting watermelon game while bathed in the power of the Ko’olau Mountains. The fun time passed quickly, and when I looked up at the horizon, I saw a big orange moon last night. It was a day when I again deeply appreciated that we could live in harmony with nature.

I’m not very familiar with SNS (Social Networking Service), but I wanted to share the joyful experience of the harvesting time with you. So, I uploaded the pictures to my FaceBook for the first time in a long time. If you like, please become a friend of mine and take a peek at that. (➡ facebook.com/takaeoj)

Author of this article

日本の新聞社系週刊誌記者、第二電電(現KDDI)広報責任者を経て米国留学。「持続可能な発展」などの政策比較研究を行い2000年カリフォルニア大サンディエゴ校で太平洋国際関係研究修士号取得。ハワイで有機園芸業を行っていたGary E. Johnsonとの結婚を機に2005年ハワイへ移住。翻訳出版とヨガインストラクターを続けながらGaryと共同で、「健康な食の生産、体と心の浄化、自然生態系の保全」を目的(3Pモットー)にした「森林農業+ヨガ・瞑想」プロジェクトをオアフ島ワイマナロで推進している。

After working as a reporter for a weekly newspaper and as a public relations manager at Daini-Denden (now KDDI), she moved to the U.S. to study comparative policies, such as on “sustainable development.” In 2000, she received her M.A. in Pacific International Relations from the University of California, San Diego, and in 2005, she married Gary E. Johnson, an organic gardener in Hawaii. While continuing to work as a translator, publisher, and yoga instructor, she has been working together with Gary on the Agroforestry + Yoga/Meditation project in Waimanalo, Oahu, which aims to “produce healthy food, purify the body and mind, and preserve the natural ecosystem (3P motto).”

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