Have you ever had a path that you seemed certain of? Perhaps it’s your career or marriage or dream house or the number of pets or children you are going to nurture. Maybe it’s a path of friendship? Or affection? Or a co-mingling of several.
I find myself this week where once I thought there was a sure and steady winding path, a marathon path, suddenly and without warning vanished. At least I want to say “suddenly and without warning”. That’s rarely true when it comes to interpersonal relationships. At least, that is what I am discovering. That in the hindsight of perspective there were a myriad of little signs that I chose to ignore. To willfully not see.
There was that night in October last when I was walking at dusk around a small town square, despondent. Suddenly, seated was a dashing young poet set up with a small table and a 1950s typewriter. He would write you a poem on a topic of your choosing for a donation in any amount. So, I did. He asked me for my topic and then a few brief questions for clarity. The topic was the path. Even then, my mind knew what my heart could not yet admit. That something dear and precious to me had run its course. I wasn’t ready to accept that truth. So I hoped this debonair poet would prove my mind wrong and side with my heart. Tell me that my gut was just overreacting. That I was being hypersensitive to the nuances of the path walked.
The poet spoke the truth. Gently.
In a manner that would give me what I needed: a crack in the shield of my defenses against pain. A gentle tap of truth that with time could allow the grace of gratitude to seep into the crack and expand. Over the months, I can see now, that gratitude seeped into more cracks, till the shield finally dissolved and I could take a halting breath, a soft huff, and sorrowfully, but willingly, let go.
“To be grateful to have shared a path at all” was the last line of his poem.
To have experienced that level of camaraderie.
To have the grace of self worth to not cling to someone or something that chooses to go a different direction, through no fault of either party. There was a lovely brief journey along a path.
I am glad of it.
Indeed.
Of course.
As you wish.
The butter and salt and water of all good things.
Well and good then.
So, I have been processing and filling page after page in my journal. Finally, blessedly, I stopped. Stopped striving. Stopped trying to figure it out. Fix it. Keep it going. Supporting it. Instead, I sat down in the dirt and dug out a garden. Three in fact, niches and corners from abandoned patches of earth. One for vegetables and edible flowers, one for corn and beans, and one for the bees. I then took handfuls of seeds and scattered them along the rocky bank of the drainage ditch behind Casita, my new little apartment home. Seeds to spread beauty, seeds to feed the birds and the moths and, yes, even the bunnies and deer. I poured sweat and tears and song into the earth as I dug. My youngest son, planter of bay trees, helped with the brunt of the hacking at one of the flower beds. I talked to the neighborhood children and asked what they wanted to grow…and made certain to include those things. I talked broken Spanglish to the Hispanic neighbors to ask what they wished for and planted those things also. I brought the watermelon seeds harvested from the melon plant last summer… hour after hour… barefoot, in a short sundress, I worked the earth with my hands and simple tools. For myself? I planted bush string beans. Both In a pot and also in the ground.
As a young child, one of my earliest memories was out in my parents’ garden, singing to the bean plant while I picked beans. Brown and white paneled sundress barely covering my backside. The warmth of the earth heating me in such an intimate, comforting way. I was utterly content and happy in that space with the beans and the dirt and my little charmed songs. I plant string beans to honor that four year little girl part of me. To offer to her, who holds a long string bean in her hand, the joyful gladness of growing and harvesting tasty food from our Mother Earth.
This patchwork garden is a curiosity for the neighbors. They are excited to see what grows. Surprised to learn that it is for all of us, not just me and my son. Happy smiles that I planted things they asked for. One youngster asked if the veggies would be ready to eat in three days? I chuckled and replied, more like 60 days… good things take a little time, but it should be fun to watch the cycle of seed to sprout to plant to fruit and back to seed again.
Yesterday, at the laundromat, there was a field of clover that called to me, “You hooo! Over here, please!” Between loads, I walked over and admired the millions of red clover blooms, common vetch, and evening primrose in full bloom over an acre of an abandoned industrial lot. Whispering and talking to the blooms, I stood in awe of the ones closest to me. That swath of clover that had been mown down by the landscapers. Despite the lopping, they persisted and had shot up more flowers… a second set of blooms. Their sisters did not suffer so. They had grown heavy and their flowers expansive and beginning to fade. Not these shorn ones! The leaves of their blooms had been desiccated, half eaten and nibbled by bunnies, yet still they held their stalks erect, a full six inches above their shearing. They were vibrant, deep blood red blossoms. Slender, victorious late bloomers. Defiant and glorious. I picked a small bouquet and wrapped them entwined with Ivy and long grass.
What do the flowers say and what do they sing? I smelled them deeply and thought of happy moments in my childhood laying on my belly playing and singing to the flowers as I built little fairy mounds of the grass clippings from my mother’s recent mowing. I wandered back inside and left the little nosegay on one of the folding tables… a gift for all the toiling women and their children to enjoy there at the washroom… bright, vivid, joy-filled with song and hope.
Erica Sittler is a Witch practicing her craft in Mississippi where she is an active member of the Temple of Witchcraft. Her magick is in the mundane and in bringing honor and attention to those small things that build a sustainable and adventurous life. She is a Temple Mystery School student under the instruction of High Priestess Sellena Dear.