During the course of my life, people have always caused me a lot of stress and much of it has been entirely unintentional. Apparently this probably has deep roots in the ADHD I’ve had since pre-school; nothing angers/scares or annoys people quite like not understanding why a child isn’t ‘learning’ the way everyone else is. Do they have limited capacity? Are they rebelling? Is it really important for this otherwise-lovely child to learn more than the basics required to meet and serve a husband? Sometimes that’s what adults think about, apparently, and I have vague memories of being a child of 5-7 feeling like my ability to understand what was happening around me was slightly irrelevant so long as I was agreeable to grown-ups. Decades later I have many complex feelings about my earliest development, much of which is likely still repressed—much of which I allow to remain forgotten because not everything we experience is important to our growth, sometimes we need only endure this level that we may cross the threshold to the next one.
I’m very often sad about people, in a broad and general sense because there is so much violent anger or abusive ignorance—I see a taproot that connects us all, I see us as corrupted children born into a damaged world and broken relentlessly so to fit into the molds our short-sided ancestors build so long ago. All lives cannot matter until Black Lives Matter; I really like the message of that and pray for this to be the year we realize what it truly means for life to be important. Humans have caused such brutal devastation on this planet that the healing path we, as various individuals, began to walk will require much care because we must build these paths as we move forward.
For my own weird {not little} brain, I imagine my spiritual path as the very literal path my hubster and I have been building to and around our pond for the past 4 years. According to someone, all land is sacred; when I first arrived here, it would be years before I truly settled in because the social customs were extremely alien to me. Never before had I met so many people who simply lived on the land they claimed, but perhaps I’d simply never noticed this before. I can think of so few people who have sought to live with the land they lived on, seeking balance instead of dominance—rural areas is the land of vast pastures, corn or soy or that other thing, quarries, and garbage. These are the lands that have truly been ‘developed’ by humanity, conquered by our greed or ignorance or insatiable hunger for profit.
This morning I happen to glance at the telly and it says “imagine a hundred year plan” with the Bioneers logo in the top corner. What could happen in a century? What if I was to truly imagine that?
I’d have to begin with this path of ours, which is finally about to touch ends after three years of work ripping up vines and clearing the way for our seeds of: lavender, phlox, creeping thyme, mint, lemon grass, milkweed, pennyroyal, sunflowers, clover, sage… for to provide food for bees, butterflies, bunnies and birds. Years of erosion has clogged the natural spring feed to our pond, so we’ll have to pray for forgiveness to the life in the mud—we’ll have to bring in machinery to dig out the bonus junk to allow the natural spring to return a better quality of life. Once the pond is cleansed, we’ll be able to stock it with fish to kickstart a healthier ecosystem. I have designs for a dock and ‘pond house’ {for storing fishing gear and whatnot} and we’re in the market for a small rowboat.
At the path head, up near the house and almost a quarter mile from the pond, is where more flowers are to be planted—tulips, lilies, daffodils, hyacinth, et cetera—as well as a small structure for human comfort, powered by solar panels. Otherwise known as The Writing Nook, this particular small structure overlooks the upper portion of the path which includes a few bee hives nestled amongst lemon grass.
Further along the path, right before the slope, is a great tree {oak or maple is our guess} we’ve finally reached—he’s got a perfect branch for a swing {though we’re still working on how to create a rig that doesn’t damage the tree} and our creeping thyme might love the baking sunlight around our small gazebo. This tree is a celebrated pillar of our great path; to the right, travel toward a space we haven’t finished designing {it’s too close to the road} and to the left, shortcut to the pond. The primary path is muddy this time of year, the slope is being examined; perhaps we cut wide steps into the mud with flat rocks? Spousums suggests a few pounds of that gravel with cement dust mixed in.
Mentally, I’ve covered a small percent of the land we have out here—there’s a small cluster of tiny houses {powered by solar panels} I’ve envisioned on the other side of some enormous black locust trees. We’ve imagined so much work and development here, most of which shares power with Mother Earth and feeds wildlife—is why I began referring to this place as a Wildlife Sanctuary, though it hasn’t been easy because of local mentality. Perhaps our non-settler ancestors will help us this year, I believe in ghosts, wanna scare away our yucky human neighbors?
Our 100 year plan; groves of fruit trees and greenhouses stocked with hydroponically grown veggies {is more efficient} and neighbors who celebrate this sacred land and our mission to help heal Mother Earth acre by acre. There’s a great slogan in that sentence, I’m sure #80millionStrong
