Compost

This week we began our permaculture adventure. We emptied one raised garden bed of stones and began to layer shredded paper and compost. Our goal is to build up the soil in that bed for a winter vegetable garden. I also started seedlings and today a tiny lettuce, basil, onion and radish sprout emerged. I was thrilled to see the seeds burst forth with life. Amazed, and I don't know why; really. I knew if I put a seed in proper soil with water and proper sun it will grow into a plant. I knew this in my head, but today the totality of my being experienced the thrill. Now, because my hands did the work, because the accomplishment has a direct impact on my life, because I worked in gentle cooperation with earth, I KNOW about seeds. It made me think of what resources I have to be a life affirming presence with earth.

Often as I think about life affirming, I think of the seeds; the bringing forth of life. As a mother that image serves me well. But today, as my hands communed with compost, I began to think of dying to new life. I often do not travel this road of thought. I only think of bringing more life or sustaining the life that is here. I do not think about what naturally passes in order to provide life sustenance to others. This is my image of God, the pouring out of life force so that all life may flourish. God dwells in the compost.

The compost is the retainer of past life and the possibility of new life, there is richness in compost that does not exist in other forms of soil. The compost has eons of memory. The compost knows what to do. I think of the places in my own life that hold memory, yet need to die in order to provide new life: what outdated modes of being, what anxiety can be let go, what anger held for decades can be released, not forgotten. But release so that their life may allow my new life to flourish.