October 24

How I love to watch the garden fade. 

I never was one for "putting the garden in" or "putting it to bed." 

I like to see the seeds, the dying leaves. 

I am here to allow these things in myself: the drawn out compost of my urgency and dreams.

Missed yesterday a gathering with an internet crush and a longtime student/old friend. 

Just plain spaced it, in my here-ness. I feel that not as lack, but as abundance. 

In this patch now, instead of eggplant, tulsi, peppers, there are bulbs in the ground, snuggled in bunny poop and mycelium milk shake. 

It is not that I am unwilling to have an impact. 

(Spy the bunny)

Clara plays alongside me, making tiny things for her tiny doll who rides on a dragon (plastic pterodactyl) and helping her doll explore "the rainforest" where the massive plants provide adventure, cover, rest. I gather seed - not all, certainly. A few gifts, to receive to pass on. 

I hardly cut flowers from the garden. They have their own lives. It's very romantic. 

Also a matter of respect. 

I made an arrangement today, in ceremony. 

The big girls bounced around some, and I spent an hour and a half with my daughter's bestie's mom, sitting with tea made from garden leaves, honoring what is already here, making 

the ground for trust to grow. 

I am hearing: Winter is Coming. People say it with different levels of ominous. I didn't watch that show, but I know some of the people think they're signaling to me culturally. I am blissfully unavailable.

Instead, I consider the values of colonial settlers - my ancestors: expect disaster; strip the land; plan for isolation, hoard to prepare. They didn't know the cycles of the land, or the gods. They acted from fear, but not fear of the right things. And they fed their fear with harm, so they could justify it, so it would feel real. They acted out what they feared.

I think of the particular threats that loom: we will make each other sick; we will not be heard; poverty will continue to spread like wildfire, as the poison of wealth further concentrates. We could continue to tread the daily water of loneliness, technology, irrelevance. Getting tireder all the time. 

Zelda said yesterday on the topic of a close friend who is trying out they/them pronouns: I guess that even though this time is Super Depressing... there is a lot of opportunity for self realization. 

As I expressed to this other mom, I have to keep coming back to trust. That is what I most need my children to know about themselves: that they, at the deepest levels, are deserving of trust. And this means that I have to trust myself. I have to trust the world that they live in, to give them what they need.

I want to show them how to trust the urge to share. 

How to trust the impulse to let go. To rest. 

To watch and wait. To witness our own impacts. To love.