What Grows in Your Shadow
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It is said that the best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow.
Think of that. Your presence amongst loved ones means more than anything else you could set before them. Your presence.
Presence alone is not all-powerful. Repeated presence cultivates awareness—who is around me, and what do they need? Who am I, and what do I need?
Our presence comes to embody care—how can I better listen? How can I help?
There's sweat involved with helping. A little stretch. There's tightrope-walking as we redefine the line between ourselves and others. It's a fluid thing.
Today in the garden, I share how I mulch with a new friend. She reaches down to scoop handfuls of wood chips, nesting them carefully around the native violets in my sanctuary garden. I nod and smile.
"I'm getting the hang of it!" she says, beaming. "It's like tucking them in."
"Yes!" I say. "That's how I think of it."
To know what our friends need, we must practice giving. We get it wrong. We trample their leaves. We even smother them at times.
But if we make no move to care for them, we miss out on the thrill of giving and on the chance to experience ourselves as one.
You know what that unity is like, don't you? That moment when you feel totally at home in your skin in another's company, be it a person, dog, or tree. That moment when their happiness is your happiness, their suffering is your suffering.
There is only being here.
We illuminate one another, and we find companionship in each others' shadows.
And so it is that even our bumbling contributes. Becoming is an iterative process. We are whole together. To find the path, we must walk the path.
And so my armload of spring kale, leeks, and collards are proof of interconnectedness. They've been gifted from the garden of my friend Jane. We all feed each other.
We stand in one anothers' shadows, present together.
Who are you present with? Whose toes do you step on, and what is the bounty you share?
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