There is so much cheap, crappy info about love that I ate up when I was younger that I am now trying to unlearn (harder than learning). Anger is an easier emotion for me to speak from. Anger I have towards the misinformation and narrow boxes that have surrounded love is much stronger than any sense of kind and gentle loving.
As always, the land is mirroring how I feel and how I relate to others and the world. I can feel all the fear I’ve wrapped up inside myself, blocking me from any connection.
When it comes to most farm tasks I am afraid that I am doing it wrong. I realize I feel this way a lot, it’s been heightened here because I deeply value the work that goes into the plants and I don’t want to fuck it up (joke is I am really in awe of the sun, air, dirt and water. Not the farming itself). I value the fruit, the trees and the soil so much. I trust that they are all coming from a much more pure and honest place than this white girl who knows the flavor of guava because of starbursts.
There’s a barrier present between the plants and me when I feel this inferiority creep in. I’m in my own insecure world blinded by the meanness I am reflecting inward. My intention is to try to be good. Motivate myself so I can be better – for the carrots. It’s a big mind warp feeling not good enough to be loved. It makes my head want to explode which is most likely why I didn’t even attempt to write about it. (More fear)
My husband has taught me a lot about love. How when you truly do love something you meet it exactly where it is. There are no conditions to it, no point at which you are more worthy of that love. That’s the power of love, it’s readily available in every single moment.
When the barrier of fear is present in the garden I am not able to be present with the plants. I am actively pushing love away.
When it comes to harvesting the food, I think in my head and try to calculate how to know what is ready to be picked. Think really hard Caroline, access knowing and certainty so you don’t fuck up the life force of the onions. So often I am fighting my brain for permission to surrender to the current moment.
The onions want to be present with me, they don’t want to be analyzed and directed. They are actually totally fine without me, if not better. Importance and ego separates me from the very peaceful loving moments that the plants are constantly reaching out from, asking me to join.
The plants on the farm have shown me how little love I am inviting in. Sometimes, when I’ve earned it – I allow myself to soak in the reciprocity that is happening. (Which is so lame!) Why can’t I trust my inherent worth and ability to love? It’s gotta be earned, fought for, and cultivated for me to feel good enough. I place several layers between us when the plants are just trying to hang out like my homies. They want to laugh and hear my troubles. They want to be my friend – not some golden inaccessible piece of God. They want to see the dance moves I busted out last night, they want to hear me sing Taylor Swift. I felt like I needed to stretch to something beyond myself, to be good enough to get to know the gifts from our earth. I mean it in the name of respect, but nothing could be more disrespectful to myself and the experience of being alive that both me and the onions share.
Sometime on Sunday 