She said, “I wanted to prove to myself that I could.”

In our current culture that so often caters to lowest common denominator thinking, I feel the urge to write about standards of excellence, people who live through demonstrating the highest standard of authenticity.

Emulate the exceptional, and the common denominator increases it’s value: this is true of consciousness and practical choices in everyday life.

Betsy Buford was the mother of four kids around the corner, her third girl my best friend from age 8, my constant comrade in hikes, bikes, runs, music, laughter and spiritual commiseration. Her other three kids, older and younger were super cool too, allowed a maximum freedom within safe boundaries and given a lot of inspiration for inner strength by their parents.

“Beautiful Bets,” as her husband called her, had the largest preserve collection of anybody around, a whole room beneath a huge trap door in the floor leading to a root cellar of food treasures. When I walked over to the safe haven of their simple, music filled home, I’d find her baking a gooseberry pie, canning apricot nectar (recipe link here Sweet Ambrosia Canned Apricot Nectar), roasting hazelnuts, or some such home made goodie from their vast gardens.

But when I met them in suburbia circa third grade, the crunchy home comfort I found was already a significant move into ‘established society’ from their more pure, back-to-lander beginnings. In the rural Tonnasket highlands of Mount Hall, with neighbors closest a mile away, the Buford fam had lived without running water or electricity, raising their own animals, growing food, with the roof over their head built by the righteous dad, and the babies birthed at home and nurtured by the all natural mama. The eldest daughter said to me recently, the secret to their success in the back-to-lander days was that mama Betsy was happy.

Choosing a more physically difficult life, choosing against consumerism, slavery to money, status, temporary pleasures, and gaining a greater happiness–yes! The simple life, the self-sufficient life, the natural life, yes, these lead to greater happiness, and indeed higher consciousness. These are the values I got thoroughly exposed to in the Bufords and sought to emulate early on, in response to vast sickness and degredation in American pop culture, i.e. lowest common denominator thinking.

Being from the 1970s Methow Valley, the home of my heart always, I found in the Buford family connectedness and common identity in the midst of hyper-commercialized 80s culture around us. Being outside status quo thought, I questioned popular assumptions as a matter of duty to an excellent God given brain–again, valuing authenticity over status. And praise be for this second home of mine, where creative expression and open minds were prized, responsibility for your actions expected, do-it-yourself mentality demonstrated, and “gotta be smarter than the machine” spoken intensely.

Betsy took such values to a second level of generosity by founding our suburban town’s first Montessori school. So, many besides her children and myself were recipients of her spiritual affirmations.

I asked Betsy when I was 17 and going off into the world myself, why she isolated in the woods, producing all that sustained them. And she responded, “I wanted to prove to myself that I could.” Now that statement would not be meaningful for just any activity. But what Betsy proved to herself and her children was of value beyond what words can express here, and affected me deeply in conscious manifestation my whole life.

Her example of woman and mother was precisely what my particular soul needed. Here was a concrete affirmation of the strength and prime value of motherhood, of sustaining your children without dependence on corporations or synthetics, of the value a man/father should have for a strong, beautiful woman, and of the grace and supernatural toughness of natural womanhood.

After twenty years of growing and preserving food in a mountain climate, living these years raising children in the glorious Methow, I often ruminate over the canning pot how I owe the inspiration of my pantry to her. Heritage is powerful.

When I write these little essays in Soul & Stomach, I’m thinking so often of Betsy’s example, a beacon of strength, envisioning what we can do out of the box with spiritual prowess and courage. And in this I wanted to take the time to honor her. Whether she had hiked twenty miles through the hills and mists and had come home to share her spiritual experience with us silly kids, or she was working her simple kitchen to it’s max with her latest berry creation, this back-to-lander mama’s multifaceted beauties remain in my mind, brilliant still life images of harmonizing in the world with grit and magic.

Forever Thank You Betsy! Love from my garden, kitchen and soul to yours! Gina @ Soul & Stomach