Since accepting the position as incoming Garden Manager, I have been asked many times what my vision for the garden is. Just yesterday Barb asked me if I wouldn’t mind sending her my application or parts of my application so she could get a better sense of it. To be honest, my application doesn’t include much of my vision. It’s more of a long-winded story of how I got to where I am now (or where I was two months ago. That can be accessed here.) I expressed to Barb that I am not entering this position with radical changes planned out. But that’s not to say I lack resolve in my intentions.
Let’s all take a moment to think about Christy. I admire her deeply. That loving, goofy, tenacious, powerhouse of a woman. She expressed to us before she left that she was scared. She wanted to carry what she had learned at Songaia wherever she went. She wanted to continue to live with an attitude of abundance, but felt as if she needed a pillar to stand on after she left this place. How would she continue to do that surrounded by people who live in a culture driven by scarcity? I have no doubt in my mind that Christy will cultivate abundance wherever she goes. But I absolutely understand that fear. How do any of us continue to do this? There is so much fear, and justifiably so. The world is shifting quickly around us. How will we creatively use and respond to these changes? How do we cultivate and radiate abundance?
Let’s all take a moment to think about Christy. I admire her deeply. That loving, goofy, tenacious, powerhouse of a woman. She expressed to us before she left that she was scared. She wanted to carry what she had learned at Songaia wherever she went. She wanted to continue to live with an attitude of abundance, but felt as if she needed a pillar to stand on after she left this place. How would she continue to do that surrounded by people who live in a culture driven by scarcity? I have no doubt in my mind that Christy will cultivate abundance wherever she goes. But I absolutely understand that fear. How do any of us continue to do this? There is so much fear, and justifiably so. The world is shifting quickly around us. How will we creatively use and respond to these changes? How do we cultivate and radiate abundance?
Christy, carrying tools like a boss at 21 Acres. Photo cred goes to MistyDawn.
I am firm in my resolve to pursue the answers to these questions. I intend to take this position as an opportunity to facilitate growth, and not just in that well-loved garden that holds me as I walk through it. What I have come to know in my heart as truth this summer is that to even begin to know how to walk in this crazy shifting world, we need to remember our role on this planet. My dear one, soul-bud, feather-friend, John Joseph Crotty V would call it re-indigenizing ourselves to the planet and to each other. He should probably write a book about it or something. My intention is to facilitate growth in the garden, the community, the incoming interns, myself, and in the greater community, as we all attempt to answer these questions together.
Joey, likely contemplating a perennial coup of some sort. Or thinking about how delicious ground cherries are. Likely both.
I’ll leave you with one shift that I am making. I believe that the language we use is extremely powerful. Brian demonstrates to me time and again that the story you tell about a situation shapes the outcome. I have personally experienced that changing the language inside your own mind can pull you out of dark times. Considering the power of words, I’ve changed the name of the position from Garden Manager to Garden Steward. That garden isn’t mine to manage. To control. We are stewards of it, as we are of this property, from the wetland in the westernmost reaches of Songaia and the forest to the east. Studying ecology has taught me the basis of interbeing. There is no such thing as a closed ecosystem--all have inputs and outputs and affect one another. We are of service to the land, as it is to us, as we are to each other. We are witnessing that all over the world the loss of this understanding is causing incredible suffering. How can we remember our role on this planet? I don’t have a set plan. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have absolute resolve in my intentions.
Patricia, you wouldn’t want me to shower you in praise. Tough beans. I am forever changed because of what you’ve facilitated here. I hope to honor you as I take the reigns, not filling your shoes, but standing on the shoulders of one of the strongest women I know.
Spreading this little ditty on the permaculture principles, created by someone in Rick Valley's PDC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYIBYQY-h1Q
P.S. What’s up with all the photos of people’s backsides?
Spreading this little ditty on the permaculture principles, created by someone in Rick Valley's PDC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYIBYQY-h1Q
P.S. What’s up with all the photos of people’s backsides?
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