Turning In: Healing Into The End of 2020
Week 4
Hope and looking forward
Planting Seeds for New Growth
What seeds are you planting for growth in the coming year?
What are the conditions you will seek out and create, such that what you plant will thrive?
Will you plant what will thrive in your current environment? Or change your environment to support what you want to grow?
Are you finding balance - planting what you require, as well as what you will share with your community?
The Three Sisters
Using the Three Sisters as an analogy, we consider planting for the coming year in a manner that supports collaborative and mutual growth of what we seek to cultivate. Strong foundations laid down early provide the scaffold for younger, more delicate crops. We plant with intention, mindful of the interactions between the things we wish to thrive.
“Planting the Three Sisters in the order of corn, beans, and squash will ensure that they will grow and mature together and will not grow at the expense of another Sister. Sister Corn should be planted first so that it can grow tall above the other crops. Plant seeds for Sister Bean 2-3 weeks later, or at least when the corn is a few inches tall. When the beans are sending out tendrils to climb the corn will be tall enough to support them. Plant Sister Squash seeds 1 week later after the beans have emerged. You don’t want the large squash leaves to shade out young corn and bean seedlings before they have time to establish.”
Offerings from our group:
Rooting
Considering where our roots came from, our lineage and their hopes planted within our futures. Reevaluating where we will put down our own roots in the new year.
Community
What seeds we sew will grow into what we need to sustain both ourselves, and our communities: we plan our planting with this in mind. What we plant is not always for us to harvest.
Rest
Leaving a field fallow so that it can rest for some cycles allows it to maintain its natural productivity. Crops cannot thrive in over-farmed land. Inviting rest so that growth can thrive and be sustainable.
Growth Conditions
What will create the conditions for new growth? Darkness is a necessary part of growth as a seed is planted underground. There is a natural tendency to move towards light and warmth. Water imparts nourishment, cleansing, flow. Cultivating growth space with these things in mind.
Productivity Anxiety
Rupi Kaur, from the book Home Body
capitalism got inside my head
and made me think my only value
is how much I produce
for people to consume
capitalism got inside my head
and made me think
I am worth
as long as I am working
I learned impatience from it
I learned self-doubt from it
learned to plant seeds in the ground
and expect flowers the next day
but magic
doesn’t work like that
magic doesn’t happen cause i’ve figured out how to
pack more work in one day
magic moves
by the laws of nature
and nature has it’s own clock
magic happens
when we play
when we escape
daydream and imagine
that’s where everything
with the power to fulfill us
is waiting on it’s knees for us
i have this productivity anxiety
that everyone else is working harder than me
and i'm going to be left behind
cause i'm not working fast enough
and i'm wasting my time
I don't sit down to have breakfast
I take it to go
I call my mother when I'm free - otherwise
it takes too long to have a conversation
I put off everything that
won't bring me closer to my dreams
as if the things I'm putting off
are not the dreams themselves
isn't the dream
that I have a mother to call
and a table to eat breakfast at
instead I'm lose in the sick need
to optimize every hour of my day
so I'm improving in some way
advancing my career in some way
because that's what it takes
to be successful
right
I excavate my life
package it up
sell it to the world
and when they ask for more
I dig through bones
trying to write poems
