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In April, I quit the awesome new job I started at the beginning of the year. I had really wanted the job and I was happy to have it right up until the day I sat down in the office and suddenly everything inside me revolted. In a move that baffled even myself, I resigned on the spot without offering advanced notice. That was weird. But it happened. Then I spent several weeks feeling like Alice, wandering about in the wood, growing my right size again, and finding my way back to the garden.
My own garden is usually started in March, but I was too busy helping other people do their work in March that I neglected doing my own stuff. To make up for lost time, I spent much of May sitting in piles of dirt, alternately feeding and slapping mosquitos, tickling worms, scaring spiders, and wishing the creatures wouldn’t be so easily offended. The best laid plans went completely unmade. Still, I awoke with the birds and followed a Cheshire Cat’s advice; letting my need guide my behavior, I did whatever seemed like the right gardenly thing to do at the time. At the end of each day, I wrote it all down in the month’s goal-tracker.
And the lovely garden unfurls its splendor day by day.
purr, purr, purr
The fairy ring showed up yesterday. Last year it erupted on August 20, only it went unrecognized as a ring because of its size. This year the entire circle is obvious, tethered as it is to the sycamore tree.
The radius is longer than the tape measure, so a girl has to do math and calculations involving pi. 🤓The circumference is just over 84 feet.
There is marjoram and thyme growing nearby, but the ring’s inner sanctum is not to be traversed. A girl who is already prone to exhaustive dancing has to draw the line somewhere. There are principles to be upheld. 🧚🏼
You’ll figure it out.
All the fresh spring growth has me thinking of the garden and remembering this post today.
You reach out with any little part of yourself and rise from the dirt to be what you are. How you make my heart ache with your sense of belonging.
Vanity of vanities! We all have the same breath.
(Solomon was right.)
It so rarely snows here.
And never like this…
Sunrise alights the crystalline glitter world outside the window.
The garden ornaments are shocked speechless
by this miracle morning of magic and mystery.
‘Come along now,’ she beckons.
And so we follow
And that’s how I will always remember that day.
I caught this little guy snoozing on the job in the garden. I mistook him for dead just laying there as he was with his feet kicked back and his head hanging off the edge of the marigold’s bloom. When he heard my phone snap his picture he woke up and buzzed back to work.
Lullabee
…
Don’t sleep lightly
Sleep very tightly
Happy slumbers to you.
–Winnie the Pooh
What started as an urge to try growing corn (again) became an obsession when I learned of the Haudenosaunee tradition of the “Three Sisters” crops. In this centuries-old system, the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash) are planted in concentric circles successionally. The big sister, corn, is planted first and provides support for the second sister, beans, to climb. The bean sister hugs the corn and helps to keep her upright against strong winds. Beans also provide nitrogen in the soil to help her sisters grow. The baby sister, squash, is planted last. Her wide leaves shade the ground and help choke out weeds so her big sisters have enough to eat and drink. The plant sisters are kind to people too, in that they provide a complete and balanced diet of carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, vitamins, and minerals. Other sisters can live in harmony with this mix – sunflowers, melons, amaranth. It’s a beautiful thing.
In past years my failed attempts at growing corn resulted in sad plants that dried up and blew away. This year I was determined things would be different. I did research, I took notes, I drew up plans and I made appeals. Then I drew more pictures and decorated them with washi tape, like so:
I remember asking nicely. I might have begged. For sure I pleaded. I even attempted bartering. All to no avail. Finally, I commanded: Earth be tilled!
And so it was.
With 12 x 12 feet of tilled earth at the ready, I could map out the physical space and layout the mounds. Armed with chopsticks, plastic spoons, and a measuring tape (of the sewing sort) I set to work! Maybe these are not the traditional tools of the trade, but this is what I had on hand to make things happen.
I wound up planting corn, sunflowers, zucchini, crooked neck and straight neck squash, acorn squash, loofa gourds, pumpkin, a watermelon, beans, and peas. Two interloping tomato plants joined the party of their own accord, apparently from seeds tossed out in the compost. My three sisters garden turned into an extended family. Or maybe a commune? I don’t know what to call it anymore, but let me tell you, there’s a lot happening out there. Well here, I’ll just show you:
The day I stood in the garden and unwrapped the husk from the first ear of corn, I cried. Actual tears. It was quite suddenly and unexpectedly overwhelming. There was the quiet murmur of tassels, leaves, silks and stalks rustling in the breeze. There was the soft hum of the bees on the sunflower heads above me – all our faces raised to the sky. There was a caress of leaves. There was a knowing of the circles and cycles, extending away in ever-widening ripples. There was row after golden row of kernels linking one generation to the next. There was something wild and free and profoundly life-force-y let loose in the garden.
And then, as suddenly and unexpectedly, there was just me again, standing there mundanely amid the corn sniffling and wondering what sort of problem I was having now.
So, I went inside and googled it. Yes, I did. That’s when I learned of Hun Hunahpu. Life is weird.
The corn, zucchini, and sunflowers in the picture above were picked this week from the sisters garden. The butternut squash and cucumbers are from the raised beds garden, but that’s a different tale for another day.
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