Pastured goats still like to "browse." They munch on the seed heads of the grass.

Red moon herbs is nestled in a Co-housing Neighborhood in the foothills of Appalachian mountains about 45 minutes outside of Asheville.

I work with Red Moon Herbs and SE Wise Women and I also run a farm that surrounds Red Moon Herbs. For 8 years I’ve been raising cows and chickens and orchards and sometimes pigs.

Recently one of my assistant managers wanted to get goats. Goats are a new animal to me and with every new animal there is a learning curve. The reasons though were many:

• Taking more responsibility for our food, especially meat consumption.
• Having companion animals to a cow that’s alone in a large pasture.
• Something to eat the plentiful spring grass.
• Experimenting with a breed that may bring long-term benefits by allowing us to raise small-scale meat.

Taking Shelter under the Chicken Coop

We bought these goats from a farmer friend nearby and they had been bottled raised. Males, all, they are friendly and endearing. It’s important to remind ourselves and each other that they will be eaten, lest we get too attached.

As I write they are scampering and frolicking over a newly mowed parcel of the pasture, reveling in the freedom from the tall grass that was tripping up their legs, munching on what’s left at the edges.

We’re not sure yet how the meat will taste or if it will be a viable produce-at-home source. And the cow is definitely not excited about these annoying creatures. But everyone at the farm is enjoying them immensely. With their playful natures, they remind us to smile.

Maybe they are bringing more benefits than we thought.

Lee Warren is an herbalist, writer, and manager of Imani Farm, a pasture-based cooperative farm at Earthaven Ecovillage. She is also a co-founder of the Village Terraces CoHousing Neighborhood and the Program Director for the Southeast Women’s Herbal Conference.

Even though I live out in the woods, run a farm, and work in women-honoring and  cooperative settings, I still actively seek out news and entertainment with a wider focus. I’ll listen to NPR or watch movies on Netflix. I love being informed and staying connected to something larger and putting my life into the context of what other beings (human and non-human) are experiencing.

This exposure both humbles me to the richness of what I have and also leaves me feeling perplexed much of the time. I find myself wondering why world and business leaders can’t cooperate better. Or why movie characters don’t know the basics of communication and relationship skills.

Our American culture tends to value logical, factual, and detail-oriented functions but devalues the more intuitive, big-picture, or creative aspects of life. Left-brain functioning has ruled the modern world (education, economics, politics, etc.) with the accompanying focus on the win-lose, past and future, and accomplishment paradigms that come with it. Right-brain thinking has been sorely underutilized and for most of us, we need to work at shutting off the left-brain “doer” in order to get into an artistic space where only the present moment exists. Here we can access deep wisdom and creative juice.

Being successful in the world has been predominated by the left-brain and by men. And yet we’re noticing how now this is beginning to change. More and more leaders from all disciplines are emerging. And they are women. Apparently women and their natural talents are changing the world. While we’ve know this instinctively, the research is now bearing this to be true.

According to Helen Fisher in her book, The First Sex, “Tomorrow belongs to women.” This from the Amazon.com Book Review of her book:

“Women, she says, are contextual thinkers to a far greater degree than men; this “web thinking,” as Fisher dubs it, is an asset in a global marketplace. Women are far more talented than men at achieving win-win outcomes in negotiations. On an organizational level, women are less interested in rank and more interested in relationships and networking, an essential attribute in a world without borders. In the arena of education, women have a natural talent for language and self-expression; as healers, they enjoy an emotional empathy with their charges that can and will redefine doctor-patient relationships. And, she predicts, in the next century women will reinvent love by asserting feminine sexuality and creating peer marriages, true partnerships.”

Win-win outcomes? Interested in relationships? Natural talent for self-expression? Emotional empathy? Reinventing LOVE?

Glad someone’s paying attention. Looks like our unique talents are finally needed and wanted and rewarded.

Here’s to the return of the feminine!!!