Home > The Diaries > (0b)

The Diaries

Seventeen months before – Honeysuckle winter and three other letters to friends

Previous | Next

Subject: Honeysuckle winter
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 21:11:23 0500

To all,

Just a brief note before I curl up in bed, early on this rainy Friday night. We've gone through our cool spells quickly this spring redbud winter, followed by dogwood, locust and blackberry all named for the wild plants in bloom when the temperature drops in the spring. Tonight, it's not cold, but with our several days of rain, the house was damp enough for me to start probably my last fire of the season. I still have plenty of aged oak and hickory outside the kitchen door, and will probably move what's left into the sauna over the next few weeks to have plenty of extracured kindling when (and if) I build my first fires next fall.

So tonight will have to be honeysuckle winter. The blustery, wet breezes have that sweetness that sings out "south". I'm too far north for magnolia, gardenia and jasmine so nothing dilutes the fragrance of the white and yellow (and occasionally, in random corners of the farm, pink) blossoms. Still too early for fireflies, but they're probably awakening now. And this is to be our summer of the 17 year cicadas, though their droning never seems as oppressive here in the country as in the cities. Probably because there are plenty of tree frogs, whippoorwills and other night singers to balance their sound and make them feel at home.

We've had rain on and off for the past three days, so I've spent some time every day on my knees, in the new planting of blueberries. With the ground moist and pliable, I can pull the weeds slowly without uprooting the new, small blueberry plants. Each plant becomes its own Zen moment and momentary accomplishment as I pull the large clumps of orchard grass, fescue and white clover (the berry fields still believe they're pasture) and the occasional thistle from a footwide circle around each plant. Then smooth the sawdust around the plants' base, and either crawl (six feet) or stand up and walk to the next plant. Each 400 foot row takes about 90 minutes to weed, and I'm trying to do two a day. That, plus hand mowing between the rows, blowing the grass onto the berries as a living mulch to flavor and buffer the monotony of the sawdust, is making the berry fields look positively ordered.

As a sign of faith (and hope), I bought 9 tomato and 9 bell pepper plants to go into the house garden. They'll get in the ground this weekend. The rest of the garden will be planted in a spring cover crop (buckwheat? annual rye?) though I may add some crookneck squash and Kentucky Wonder pole beans for an easy vegetable dinner every night, with a pan of cornbread and sweet milk. That, plus breakfasts of fresh black raspberries, picked with my right hand while my left holds a quart of hot coffee. A nice way to ease into my next (last) summer on the farm.

Much is happening on my case, but tonight I'll think about the crackle of a last fire, and the smells of rain and honeysuckle when I open the windows for bed. There is much to be thankful for today. Still glowing with pride from attending Meagan's college graduation last Saturday at Mississippi State, to be part of her two rows of cheering relatives, rising in unison whenever she came in sight or turned around. Graduating in the top 15% of her class, ready to take over her own class of preschoolers or first graders, if only Mississippi had not elected a Republican who gutted the education funding. But her competence, her quality, her maturity her very apparent abilities and great and good heart will be the gift that all parents pray for. She'll have her first group of brown and white young ones soon the first of many children that she will not forget, nor they her. And she'll continue to make us make me very proud. My offer to take over as her godfather remains and will always remain. I have two good goddaughters, but I would be honored to have a third named Meagan. Keep smiling, you keeper of the Pup you. Until you have your own to hold.

And to spend time with all my relations or most of them. Grace continues to grace us with her smiles, and all the others grow bigger, stronger, older and wiser. To meet Ben's first real girlfriend, and to see glimpses of my own first love (of 35 years ago) in her stature, and her face. To hear Daniel saying his "I love you"s to his continuing college sweetheart, as she makes plans to return to Israel for part of the summer. To see the video of Eleanor's senior high fashion show, with her gorgeous friends modeling Cactus' creations. To see Elizabeth brighten up as she describes her latest triumphs on the backs of graceful horses. And to witness Kerry balance school, hospital work and motherhood and still be brighteyed and engaged. All those earlier days of sleeping 'til noon now are paying off, as she awaits entry into nursing school this fall.

I am also thankful to have received a long email yesterday from an Eastern Shoshone friend, just checking in on me and letting me know she remains thankful for what I have done (and am still doing) for her people. Her unexpected note last night gave me a chance to reconnect to the Wind River people, and to imagine yet one more Arapaho sun dance, and one more sweat lodge with the elders. Maybe how I'll use my last frequent flyer ticket, before I turn the page.

So much to be proud of, so much to be thankful for, so much that is so good, all around me. Including a roster of distant friends and relations, to whom I can finally say "good night" on this stormy late spring night, in my quiet hollow. Time to fall asleep and be greeted by the pleasures of my dream world. The more harried, fearful and uncertain my waking live becomes, the more soothing and affirming my dreams are. Just more grace from my Higher Power my Mother Earth. My love to you all. Bernie
---

Sunday, June 06, 2004 8:29 PM
Subject: Another fork in the road

To my friends and family, old and new acquaintances:

This is just a quick note to let all of you know that this Wednesday, I go before the federal judge in Nashville in an attempt to withdraw my guilty plea. I am doing this for three reasons: I cannot come up with the $200,000 the feds are demanding to allow me to keep my farm and don't just want to surrender it to them; the prosecutorial misconduct has continued (e.g., erasing my emails, sending agents into 12-STEP meetings I attend, continuing to misrepresent the evidence, etc.) and has elevated to a level that my attorney believes the judge needs to hear about it; and the recent decisions out of California (thanks Valerie, Steph and other activists out there) in similar cases makes the penalties I am facing in my plea agreement outofwhack.

My first attorney will be at the hearing to testify that the feds told him repeatedly that they had my financial records (which I saw them leave with), that they were copying them and that they would return them after my plea so I could complete my 2002 personal and business taxes. Then, after the plea, the feds suddenly said they never had my records. Hopefully, the judge will react to this and the multitude of other nonsense in my favor. If the judge accepts our motion, then the process starts over again (Grand Jury, indictment, etc). The feds have said they will move to charge me with additional crimes if this happens (maybe they found Osama and WMD during the farm raid, I don't know.) At trial, I will still face the risk of losing my farm and risk considerably more prison time. But I will also have the good sense and mercy of a jury, rather than the dishonesty and doubledealing of the feds. And that is an easy trade.

If the judge does not accept our motion, then I believe I will have lost the farm with his decision. This is the reason I am writing all of you tonight. I have stayed close to 12-STEP these past few weeks and continue to pray for acceptance, and trust that whatever happens will be for the best Fortunately, my Higher Power (Mother Nature) is embodied in this farm, and She has taken good care of me lo these many years, so I have to believe she will continue. But I have to focus on letting go, and letting Her work her miracles in the next few days (weeks, months and years).

So, when you get this note, please send out a prayer or a good thought to the Universe that things will turn out as they should. I hesitate to ask you to pray that I still have a roof over my head Thursday night (but if you want to, please do.) At a minimum, please ask for serenity, courage and wisdom (also honor, truth, justice and mercy if you're in a real good place) for me, my attorney and the judge. I will let you all know how things turn out. The hearing is at 2:30 pm on Wednesday. If you're comfortable doing it, I wouldn't mind your sharing this request for spiritual energy with others whose hearts are in the right place at that time. Jill, that goes double for you, since your prayer warriors brought you through something much worse than I'm facing with your recent surgery.

I'm thinking of all of you at this moment. We're expecting rain, and the red and black raspberries are ripe for the picking. Hopefully, I can get back to them soon. Otherwise, your morning bread might go lacking some Tennessee "holler" sweetness this fall. My thanks to all of you for your friendship, love and support. Here's hoping I'm among the last Americans in my situation to walk this tightrope, in the dark. Bernie
---

Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 8:22 AM
Subject: Raspberry and bluebird mornings

Good morning to all:

Another day, another delay.

Yesterday morning, I got up early and decided to do a little farm work before going to court. But not before laying in bed for an hour, praying for acceptance and feeling (literally feeling) the support that all of you have provided (and are providing). Like the feds, I expect that our Higher Powers, convening at the cosmic coffee-shop just beyond the horizon, are beginning to wonder just who this Ellis fellow is anyway, thanks to all of you.

Like every morning, I watched a new and mysterious blue bird preening and singing outside my kitchen window as I brewed my quart of coffee. This new bird isn't anything I have found in my bird books, but it is delicate and everpresent. Maybe it is Hedy's spirit animal (her Navajo nickname, "dooyash", means bluebird and was given to her in love by her grandfather when she was a youngun, running with the sheep and goats in Arizona.) Regardless, it is a bright and natural mystery that greets me every morning.

The red and black raspberries are in full production and I can't begin to keep up with them. Each morning and evening, I am spending several hours scooting backwards through the reds on my seat, picking the justthissideofsoft fruit, filling bucket after bucket with sweetness. Starting today, I will begin picking the blacks in earnest. Since those plants are chest high, I can stop wearing out the backsides of my shorts.

My neighbor, Nevernal Potts, had called Tuesday night to say that he had repaired my tractor to prepare me for cutting my eight hay fields, and had offered to pick me up to drive me on the back roads to his shop to get it. He arrived around 9:00 am, with the air conditioner already blasting in his truck to ward off the dampness that wasn't dew. As we took a farm road up toward the berries, I pointed out a tortoise on the path ahead of us (whose shell was already showing the yellowing of age). As Nevernal maneuvered around the plodding creature, he taught me yet another piece of folk wisdom that I had not learned in the previous four decades out here that tortoises in the roadway are a sign that rain is on the way. As parched as my new garden and berry plantings are, I said I was glad for the sign.

As we drove to the shop, Nevernal and I talked about the case and about my impending court date. He continued to speak with disgust about the feds and about the process in general. He has always been one of my neighbors who has said that my legal difficulties are due to owning a farm that the feds covet and having lived on the edges of the law without showing deference (and paying tribute) to the local criminal syndicate, run by a 400+ pound county judge right out of central casting.

The ride back from the shop was pleasant and cool, on the seat of my 35 year old tractor. Everyone I passed whether they were cutting their grass, weeding their tomatoes, getting their own tractors warmed up for another day of haycutting smiled and waved, though I knew none of them. That is life as I've been allowed to live it so far, and for so long. The half hour drive on Shoals Branch Road and Bootleggers Lane took me by the local swimming hole (the Mill Seat) and up the ridge along Wildcat Hollow, where two old moonshiners had walked me through the woods over 20 years ago, showing me the scenes of their own younger outlaw days and teaching me how to listen, to the woods and to them.

Pulling back on my farm, I noticed a clean red pickup truck parked in the new planting of blueberries, and knew that D_____ (a fellow 12-STEPer) was on the farm to fish for bass and shellcrackers in my big pond, celebrating the day (which marked his two years of continuous sobriety) with his eight year old son. D____ had shared the day before that two years earlier, he had called L_____ (his sponsor) at 2:30 in the a.m., too high to drive and too demoralized to go home. Today, such a short (and long) time later, he was smiling by the edge of the pond, watching his young son squirming as anxiously as the worm he was putting on the hook, more than ready to start fishing with his old man. Such gifts we give ourselves, once we finally let go.

So, with all that preparation and prayer coming now as natural and as often as breathing in and out I headed home to wash up and get ready for another 12-STEP meeting and then for court. To find a message from my attorney on the answering machine, saying that once again yet another hearing had been canceled. Believe me, I was not disappointed. But at the same time, with your prayers and mine, I am learning not to regret the future nor wishing to shut the door on it. I am truly comprehending the word "serenity" and am experiencing peace, in every moment.

Even though the hearing was postponed, my attorney suggested that we meet anyway. I washed up and went to my noon 12-STEP meeting, where another frightened face, a tattooed and leatheryskinned young woman, with sad eyes and a tight grip on her mother to stop shaking, shared that she was at her first 12-STEP meeting, and thus gave us a chance to talk about how it was, what happened, and what it is like now for the rest of us. I shared (something that I don't do often, though much more now than in the months immediately after the raid). The main thing I remember saying was that, at that moment, I was happier and more at peace than I deserved to be. And that she could feel the same way, if she could only let go.

Maybe some of it sunk in, though at the end of the meeting, she didn't take a surrender "chip", offered at every meeting as a sign that the newcomer wants this way of life. Since I was giving out the chips, I was a little disappointed for her. But then I had also told her that it took me seven times sitting in her chair, and seven surrender chips to finally start this way of life in earnest. It takes what it takes. So while she sat silently, itching to leave the meeting and get back to (what?), another woman stood up and picked up a surrender chip, wanting to get and stay sober, after admitting that she had relapsed yet again, her third time since leaving treatment in January. Who knows what her future will bring, but she does seem to want the path that she should be on.

The meeting with the attorney went well. My/our hearing has been rescheduled for June 21 the summer solstice. Good sign, maybe, that a long bright light will finally shine on my situation, though it could also mean many hot days ahead. At least, after these almost two years of waiting and wanting to move forward, my attorney and I are (finally) equally as mad at the feds. He intends to use the hearing to allow me to air all of the misbehavior of the "bad boys with badges", he is sending all of your letters to the judge this week and he is pouring over the recent California cases in an effort to tell the judge that the feds should not have jurisdiction in my case anyway. (If that logic prevails, my likely state sentence would be two years probation and an $8,000 fine.) He will allow me to tell the judge that I have put up with this nonsense struggling with my natural, Irish urge to fight the bastards in an allconsuming effort to keep my farm. This hearing (when it occurs) will still happen with few people in the room, though the Nashville Tennessean (the paper of record for the state) will have a reporter present. And once again, I will keep you posted.

In all likelihood, whatever the judge decides will result in more court time either at a trial or at a sentencing hearing. Regardless, the cosmic bank into which all of you have deposited tender prayers and good thoughts on my account is brimming full. My humble thanks to all of you, as always. And now since I hear my blue bird tapping on the window, reminding me that it's time again to enjoy life and to be of service, to my farm, my friends and myself I will head up on my berry ridge, once again. To pick ripe fruit for all of us, to give thanks, to let go and listen. Last night's soaking rain (thanks to my farm's old turtle) has freshened everything. My tomatoes grew half a foot overnight and I know the berries are just now holding on, waiting until I can get my pail under them, so that they too can let go.

My humble thanks to all of you, for another chance to live this life, one more day at a time. Take good care of yourselves you and yours are all in my prayers. Bernie
---

August 21, 2004

To all:

Yesterday, I finally had my hearing in federal court on the motion to withdraw my guilty plea. I was the only witness and was on the stand for about an hour. We covered most of the points that we wanted to cover, all the while having the prosecutor object every few minutes (appearing to exasperate the judge in the process.) Then she had a chance to crossexamine me. There were three questions that I wish I could answer over again (how much of the farm was used to grow pot, could I be "certain" that the sick people I was providing med pot to were not reselling it, and had I only asked supporters of med pot to write letters of support.) Each of those questions provided openings that I did not take, but my attorney said that he had no problems with my testimony.

I did score a few points in the crossexamination. When the prosecutor asked me if I benefited from the state reweighing the evidence and coming up with the smaller (more accurate) weight, I said (with some heat) "No!!" and followed that up by saying that instead of using the new weight to negotiate a penalty that would have involved no more than four months prison time, the prosecutor had suddenly switched gears and without notifying us had decided to charge me based on the plant count (something that had been off the table for the entire negotiations), resulting in the five year mandatory minimum sentence. So I repeated that I received no benefit whatsoever by learning the new, correct weight of the evidence. That seemed to fluster the prosecutor.

At the end of my direct testimony, my attorney gave me a chance to present most of the "problematic" issues about the case that had troubled me but which I had set aside in order to try to save my farm. That allowed me to discuss how the prosecution had mislead me and the court throughout the process re: the weight/plant count, how the Task Force had intentionally left plants on the farm and had come back at least twice to take more without turning them in to the lab, etc. When I got to the Task Force promising to return my computer within five days and how the prosecution had kept it for 14 months as leverage to have me accept the guilty plea, the prosecutor hit the roof again. (Fortunately, we have that in writing from my first attorney.)

However, before I started into the list of problems with the case, I prefaced my remarks by thanking the Task Force leaders (who were present) for their decision to not arrest me at the time of the raid or thereafter. I told them that I deeply appreciated their allowing me to sleep in my own bed for the past two years and to be able to be of continued service to my community and to other communities during that time. I think that was the best way to frame my concerns because it probably surprised the prosecution and it reminded the judge that indeed I had not been arrested, despite the over-inflated evidence.

At the end, the judge said that he had not yet read the letters of support but that he would be doing so as part of his deliberations. Again, my attorney felt that I did fine on the stand. He said that there are three ways that the judge can go: 1) he can deny my motion to withdraw my guilty plea, hold me to it and give the feds my farm, 2) he can hold me to the guilty plea but allow the farm issue to be decided by a civil trial without the jurors being told of my guilty plea, 3) he can grant my motion to withdraw the guilty plea and then we would go before the grand jury and get a new seat for the start of another roller coaster ride. Fortunately, we learned the day before the hearing that even the DEA's own formulas regarding evidence state that the actual useable portion of the pot they have in evidence would be between 78 pounds not 37 pounds. That would barely have been enough for 23 people and I was already providing to four sick people at the time of the raid. My attorney worked that into his opening statement and I hope it set the stage appropriately.

So, once again, it's time to wait and to keep living one day at a time. On Thursday night and Friday morning, I saw the same sight a single coyote (at sunset and at sunrise), loping calmly across an open pasture, unafraid and beautiful. I took both those sitings as positive signs. And, right before I left for court, I stood in my garden for 15 minutes, naked in the warm rain, and prayed for acceptance, courage, wisdom and strength. Then I picked some young pole beans and two ripe tomatoes and enjoyed a healthy lunch, compliments of the farm.

Both of those acts were ones of giving thanks (and, of course, I always take every chance I can get to get naked in the rain), and helped prepare me for the afternoon. So, if yesterday was the last day of the first part of my life, I hope I lived it well and that what I did and said will put me on the right path. On that score, someone sent me another nice affirmation that I carried with me into court (I'm running out of space on my refrigerator for all of these good thoughts you folks have sent, but keep 'em coming):

"When you have come to the edge
of all the light you know
And are about to step out into
the darkness of the unknown,
Faith is knowing that
one of two things will happen.
There will be something solid
to stand on
or you will be taught to fly."
Anonymous

So that's the news for now. Given our good rain yesterday, I get to spend this afternoon and evening once again on my knees pulling weeds in the blueberries. Much to my surprise, my red raspberries are putting on a fall crop, so dinner will be grazing on fresh, sweet, red surprise gifts. So much to be thankful for, on this new last day of the first part of my life.

Stay happy, and in touch.

Bernie

Previous | Next