Songaia Community
  • Home
  • Our Communities
  • About Us
    • Values
    • Photos
    • Land
  • Connecting with Us
    • Housing & Participation
    • Contact Us & Email Lists
  • The Garden
    • The Garden >
      • Our Permaculture Approach
      • From Garden To Table
      • People
      • Garden Photos
      • Roses
    • Internships
    • Workshops >
      • Cob Workshop Photos
    • Biogaians >
      • Biogaian Calendar
      • Fruit Tree Data
      • Apple Photos
      • Biogaian Meetings
    • The Garden Blog
  • Members
    • Community Calendar
  • Book
  • Links

Goodbye and Hello, by Anita Higgins - Garden Intern 2017 & New Garden Steward

10/18/2017

4 Comments

 
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?

Picture
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.
Picture
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. 
Picture
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?
4 Comments
Nancy
10/18/2017 08:01:14 pm

Anita, I am so grateful for your presence this summer,and to think, you are staying! Blessings on your journey and ours with you. With love and hope.
Nancy

Reply
MistyDawn
10/19/2017 09:39:05 pm

Feeling grateful for your vision. Also, I laughed heartily at "he should probably write a book about it or something."

Reply
Joey Crotty
10/20/2017 04:29:03 pm

LMAO. You are hilarious. Thank you for bringing your profound sense of humor into a conversation with the Sacred, feather friend. You have strong, beautiful words. I believe in the good things coming, and not insignificantly due to you.

Reply
hayra
11/19/2017 10:37:58 pm

late gettin to this end of the ol In Box...
glad I dint miss this.
I noticed Anita saying Garden Steward yesterday and was sooo behind that . Glad to know it's a change to stay.

lookin forward to changes as they unfold.

per all the "people's backsides" seems appropriate, since they were all headin out. (hopefully to return)

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Garden bloggers are community members, volunteers and interns at Songaia.

    Click here to visit our Facebook page. 

    Archives

    October 2022
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2020
    March 2020
    October 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    May 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Address, Email, & Announcement Lists:  Click Here

Site Search: