Meditation in Motion: A Lesson from Newbury Blueberry – 8/20/25

Earlier this year, I responded to an ad that was placed in our local email listserv. The ad was asking for help picking blueberries in Newbury, VT, in order to meet blueberry demand for local businesses. I talked it over with my wife, as we both had some other projects planned for this summer, but it was quickly a go! My reason for offering our services was that this was already a summer of physical and mental healing for me after leaving my nursing career in the healthcare industry, and blueberry picking seemed like the perfect activity. The duty would be light as we got to pick our own hours, and I saw this as an opportunity to clear my mind while I picked. A sort of meditation in motion, if you will. 

I contacted the owner, Ellen, and my wife and I were in! Two months passed while we waited for the short-lived picking season to begin, which runs from about mid-July to mid- or end of August each year. We drove down a dirt road to get there (about 20 minutes from our house), and we received simple instructions when we arrived for the first time. We got our blueberry picking materials: a metal commercial kitchen hotel pan, an umbrella to place over said hotel pan to protect the blueberries from sunlight, and a smaller tote of sorts, fashionably made from halved gallon milk jugs with a cloth tied through two holes in it. This hung from our necks for portability. And of course we came prepared with our own supplies: sunscreen, sunglasses, water bottles, and flip-flops for taking off to walk barefoot. For those not in the know, this is called grounding, or earthing. If you don’t do this much during the summer, it’s a worthwhile, mentally recharging activity to take your shoes off every now and then and walk barefoot on the grass.

As the blueberry farm is in an expansive field with beautiful mountainous views located behind Ellen and her husband’s house, we were directed to head to certain blueberry rows where the picking was deemed to be the best for that particular day. It was early in the picking season that first time, and I noticed that a lot of the blueberries still had a little bit of a purplish hue as I walked by the bushes. Not quite there, but good enough! The flavor wasn’t too tart at all. And c’mon, it’s expected to do a quality check here and there! My wife and I took different rows so we could each work in our own section. That day, I had almost forgotten that my intention was to take it slow and live in the moment, but instead, my work mode kicked in and I became a picking machine. I found that I had subconsciously challenged myself to see how many pounds of blueberries I could pick on our first day, almost like I had to prove my worthiness to the owner. That first day, I believe I picked 7.2 lbs. within two hours!

Between an amazing trip to Alaska this summer, other plans with our daughter, camping, me focusing on this blog, and other household projects, we were able to help pick blueberries a few more times all told (including with our daughter at one point!), and sometimes it was me by myself. I studied the bushes when I would be there. By this point, the blueberries were plump and perfectly blue! Standing at 6’2”, I could easily reach those juicy blueberries on top of the bushes and use my long arms to reach in a little. Then I found that if I crouched down, many more would be hiding under the leaves. I would start underneath on one side of the bush, then scuttle over to the other side for a bunch more. I would smile and shake my head at the obvious connection to real life this had: blueberry bushes need to be looked at from many angles, and so just as in life, you also need to look at what’s in front of you from many angles to get the complete picture before making any judgments or speaking too soon. A simple activity likes this encourages open-mindedness, my friends, in my humble opinion.

Picking blueberries there was a purposefully humbling experience, and I got exactly what I wanted and needed out of it for that reason. The next time you’re in the Newbury, VT, area during blueberry picking season, please support this lovely local business with amazing views. Ellen doesn’t use any pesticides either at Newbury Blueberry, so you know you’re getting something good! Oh, and she also has shirts, tote bags, and homemade high-quality pottery for sale as well!

Next week I’m going down a spooky road and will discuss a trip my wife and I took to Bennington, VT, in June of this year. We checked out Jennings Music Hall in Bennington, VT, which supposedly was the inspiration for The Haunting of Hill House book and series on Netflix! We also went to the Bennington Monument and a graveyard where the poet Robert Frost is buried!